<p>Hi CC,
Penn has been my dream school for as long as I can remember. Would my chances be significantly diminished if I, say, attend Penn as an undergraduate student and then apply to Penn's Medical school?</p>
<p>Not significantly, although maybe somewhat. It would also be slightly bad – SLIGHTLY – for the rest of your career, too. It’s good to have the diversity if you can get it.</p>
<p>It could be kind of boring.</p>
<p>^^ I second that.</p>
<p>It would be great. That’s what I did, and loved it. Philadelphia is a great city for undergraduate and medical school, and is also close to AC, the Shore, DC, NYC, etc.</p>
<p>There are certain advantages to this from an academic standpoint. I was able to work in the same neuroscience lab for 6 years, albeit on a somewhat limited basis during medical school. Penn Med also (slightly) favors Penn undergrads, although they will likely never say this outright.</p>
<p>If you CAN, do it.</p>
<p>No, I disagree with the above. Conventional wisdom is right in this case. It’s the same reason why you’re not supposed to do undergrad, grad school, and your postdoc all in the same location. Or why your PhD is supposed to be in a (slightly) different field from your eventual work.</p>
<p>It’s slightly bad for your career to keep racking up the same institution over and over again. The networking, the diversity of learning, and the personal growth are all helped by experiencing as many different places as possible.</p>
<p>For a PhD or certain other graduate degrees I might agree. There ‘networking’ is likely more important.
For medical school, there really is no significant relationship between the schools, and it really would likely matter more where you do your residency, and then mostly if you are planning on pursuing an academic medicine career. For private practice…really none of this matters much…</p>
<p>Agreed that it doesn’t matter much, where with a PhD it would matter a lot. But it’s qualitatively the same phenomenon at work. Get as much exposure as you can to as many different institutions as possible.</p>
<p>i wouldn’t suggest it. being at the same school for 8 years sounds uneventful…</p>
<p>Thank you for all of the responses, but CDK, what was your GPA like in Penn undergrad? And what was your major? I’ve heard around that Medical schools like to see diversity in their students so having Bio or Bio-Chem as an undergrad major can be detrimental</p>
<p>so, if i go to an undergrad school with a early acceptance into their med school, i should still try to apply for other schools? I’m planning on texas tech with the early acceptance program, and i don’t think baylor or johns hopkins will accept ttu T_T</p>
<p>You should plan for the contingency of not being accepted to early acceptance and thus still maintain a high gradepoint and good ECs.</p>