Selectivity of Medical Schools

<p>There is a selectivity list for colleges in the US News college ranking. I could not find a similar one for the medical schools.</p>

<p>USN used to simply calculate it based on MCAT score and GPA. They stopped bothering because you can do it on your own pretty easily.</p>

<p>Selectivity – I mean the medical schools students would rather matriculate. They are not always correlated d by MCAT and GPA.</p>

<p>Considering most applicants get into 0 med schools, I'd say most applicants just want to get into A med school, any med school.</p>

<p>The top 25 schools are fairly equal in selectivity as they tend to deal with the same applicant pool. Most research-oriented applicants will just go to whatever top 25 school'll take them since it's rare to get into more than 1-2 of the top med schools. The next tier is composed of schools that are sorta good at a lot of things and in desirable locations but are not name-brands in the research world. These are your George Washington, Boston University, NYU, Tufts, Georgetown (schools ranked b/w 30-50). These schools get way more applications than Harvard or Hopkins so they tend be picky in who they give interviews to. You really need good Ec's, recs, demonstrated interest, etc. (not necessarily stellar GPA/MCAT) to get an interview at these places. They are also expensive so they are often for students who didn't get into their state schols or their top choices (which tend to be one of the prestigous top 25 research schools). The last tier is composed of your Drexel's, NYMC's, and Rosalind Franklin's of the world. They do the job of training physicians but tend to be dead last in research and have huge classes. They are essentially for borderline applicants (3.6/30) who are barely scraping into allopathic med schools.</p>

<p>If you look at the list, you will see that most applicants have very few choices for out of state schools to apply to. This is because, if you cut out all of the state schools, you are essentially left with only a few private schools (the schools I mentioned above, from Harvard to BU to Drexel). Personally, I (and probably many others) would rank schools like this:</p>

<ol>
<li>Top 25 research med school</li>
<li>State school</li>
<li>Expensive mid-tier out of state private schools</li>
<li>Expensive low-tier out of state private schools</li>
</ol>

<p>If you are a stellar applicant (3.8+, 35+), you would apply to #2 (state schools), #1 (research schools), and a few #3's. If you are a REALLY superstar applicant, you can get away with applying to just state schools and research schools. But the definition of superstar has been changing each year. Right now, superstar=URM with 3.8+, 35+ or a Rhodes Scholar-type applicant.</p>

<p>If you are a good applicant (3.7, 32), you will apply to your state school and a lot of schools in category #3. Those with good EC's and a lot of $$$ will tend to take a shot at a few research schools but it's rare for a non-URM with those kinds of stats to get into a top 25 school.</p>

<p>If you are a borderline applicant (3.5-3.6, 29-30), you will apply to your state schools and a lot of schools from #3 and #4.</p>

<p>Keep in mind, there are only 10-25 schools in each category and most applicants apply to 15-25 schools so you really don't have very much choice in where you apply. And since most med school applicants get into 0-2 schools, you don't have very much choice in where you attend either.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Selectivity – I mean the medical schools students would rather matriculate.

[/quote]
Then you're using the word incorrectly. You're looking for a revealed preference ranking. No such thing exists that I've ever seen.</p>