<p>What criteria one needs to possess to gain admittance into a prestigious MD/PhD program? Does or did your undergrad play any role whatsoever (in terms of its name/prestige factor) in helping to attain admittance? I do not mean to sound obsessed with the name, but the institution from where one attains their PhD plays a significant role in terms of where and how easily they can find a job, especially at the very beginning. Besides research, GPA, and MCAT, what else helped you gain admittance? What are the main criteria being looked at because it seems to me that the more prestigious institutions accept very minute #'s of MD/PhD students, which leads me to believe that they are seeking specific criteria? So does the expression hold true that "it is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond" in terms of where you are in the realm of your undergrad institution? From what I gather few ivy league undergrads attain admittance into MD/PhD programs because I really have not met many or any for that matter? Can anyone please comment and/or give me some stats on the matter? Thanks.</p>
<p>Research, research, research.</p>
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From what I gather few ivy league undergrads attain admittance into MD/PhD programs because I really have not met many or any for that matter
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<p>Oh really? Well, since you want to talk about prestigious MD/PhD programs, let me put it to you this way. From what I can tell, a highly disproportionate percentage of the students in the Harvard MD/PhD program did undergrad at (unsurprisingly) Harvard itself. Considering Harvard's rather infamously 'incestuous' nature, I wouldn't expect it to be otherwise. I also don't think anybody would dispute that Harvard, if nothing else, is prestigious.</p>