Prestige

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
1

<p>Hi All!
As a successful applicant to HPME, Rutgers-BA/MD, and many of the Ivies, I want to share my thoughts, and wish for you to share yours, on the importance of attending a prestigious medical program.
Basically, in a line, prestige does not mean much, if at all, in medical school. Yes, apart from the top five or ten medical schools, the level of prestige does not matter; I doubt that it makes much of a difference at those school's either. For the most part, many are misguided in attending a program as they think of "prestige" to be of utmost importance. This, in a clever way, is the under workings of commercialization and the idiocy of brand loyalty. Medical schools basically teach the same stuff and the cadavers look pretty much alike. Your becoming a successful surgeon, or whatever, depends more on how you do the USMLE board exams and your grades (which help you get into residency). Yes, coming from Harvard may give a slight (if at alll) advantage - emphasis on slight. Also, on rankings released by those profit guided magazines, they mean nothing. The only thing important they tell you is the amount of NIH research grants received by the medical school, which, unless you want to do a MD/PhD is useless information.
Why am I talking about this. Well, most people, these days, are infatuated with the name of colleges. I find it most ridiculous when people wear the gear of schools that they haven't even been accepted to -- yes, it shows spirit, but come on. But, go to Northwestern, Brown, etc. more on whether or not you think it is worth it - not that you've heard it is prestigious and what not. Take into consideration that the ends of going to med. school A and med. school B are the same. But, if you enjoy being about $200,000 (trust me, you will and probably more) in order to wear a institution's branded sweat shirt, by all means do. </p>

<p>Now, please tell me your thoughts.
This discussion was also inspired by a friend how recently graduated from Yale Medical School</p>

2

<p>i agree 100%, but my mom don't. I like to save on my undergraduate premed.
It's a lot of money to go to private, but let see how it goes in couple of months. Medical school costs at least $55k per year including room and board.</p>

3

<p>what about the rankings for primary care...?</p>

4

<p>excellent post! :)</p>

5

<p>hydrogen is completely right</p>

<p>once your in the medical field...DO or Carribean don't mean squat and are hardly as bad as they are made to seem</p>

6

<p>Hmm....very interesting post.</p>

<p>I think you are right for the most part. But I vaguely remember looking at the Residency matching of Brown's Medical School and BU's Med School back in October. If I remember correctly, it seemed as though Brown's students got "better"/more difficult to get residencies than those at BU's. Brown's students were getting things like radiology, dermatology, anasthesiology, etc. at places like Stanford, Yale, Harvard, etc. Whereas BU's students were getting mostly primary care only at really obscure places. Would getting it at a place like SYH etc. mean that there are more connections, which in turns means better salary, etc? Or does it not matter? I distinctly remember noting that Brown's were getting what would be considered "better" residencies in terms of specialty. However, I think med school does not matter if you only want to do primary care. Of course, there are many more experienced people on these forums that I would like to hear thoughts from.</p>

<p>P.S. I heard living conditions for those Carribean med programs are horrid? True/False?</p>

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<p>That, for the most part, is the result of the students attending, not the school ability to produce successful applicants. Even if you want to go into surgery, the medical school does not matter in as much as your board scores and citizen status.</p>