<p>I'm at the top of my class in my school, and not to sound arrogant, but I know I'm smart. I have the opportunity to go to some pretty prestigious universities. However, I'm terrified of going to a school with a difficult curriculum and my gpa falling so low that I am unable to go to medical school. I know that college is meant to be hard and require lots of studying, but if the classes are too hard I know it won't matter how much I study, I'll still do badly. I live in miami and am certain that I can at least get into UM but should I consider going to FIU, FSU, or USF to keep my grades competitive?</p>
<p>Note that more selective schools tend to have more grade inflation:
[National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com)</p>
<p>There’s no doubt the classes are easier at some colleges than others (I have kids in both types). You have to decide what you’re willing to do and what interests you more. The kiddo of mine who selected the more difficult U also has the higher GPA (he works for it more too) and he loves the challenge. He loves it where he is. He’d have been bored (and less educated - similar classes, but far less in depth for many of them) at a school with less challenging classes. He’s also potentially pre-med, so it was a consideration he had to make too. So far, he has no regrets. If you want “easier” go with a less selective place. Since his other love is research, he wanted to be well prepped for that (and to have opportunities early on).</p>
<p>ps He also has time for “fun” stuff and a work study job. He’s not studying 24/7, but his classes certainly aren’t a pushover - esp compared to his brother’s classes.</p>
<p>A while back, when my D was interested in premed, I was able to compile a list of schools that sent a large fraction of their graduates to study medicine within 5 years. I think I got that data from the USNews and World Report paid edition, but my subscription lapsed and I am no longer sure of the source. </p>
<p>Anyway, University of Miami was right up there with 24%. That would suggest to me that it’s a great undergraduate school to go premed.</p>
<p>What U Miami’s stats are showing is that if you are a resident of FLA, you have no competition from students out of state for your in-state medical school, so admission rates tend to look high. That’s the luck of being a FLA resident. The UC system would show lousy rates of admission to medical school, comparatively speaking because they have a great many highly competitive students who are pre-med, serious weeder classes, and very few seats in-state relative to the number of pre-meds. </p>
<p>In short, statistics that show a school sends a lot of kids to medical school doesn’t mean what you think it means. </p>
<p>Re your question, find a school where you are among the top 25% of the admitted student body academically - GPA and test scores (and especially test scores since that’s a better objective indicator of how you will compare academically to other incoming students.) You want to be among the top 25% of the class. If you are admitted to a reach in which you are in the bottom 25% of the class the test scores, you are setting yourself up, not for failure, but for a change of professional goals early on. If that’s a ‘lesser college’ in your eyes, well then, yes, that’s a good idea if you are serious about being pre-med.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t it mean that within 5 years, 24% of their graduates are studying medicine? I’m not talking about med school admissions rates, which I know are biased to only count those who get recommended. I’m talking about outcomes for all students. </p>
<p>Emory sends 28%
Duke sends 18%
Wake Forest sends 5%
NC State sends 1%</p>
<p>If my thinking is wrong, what do all of these numbers mean?</p>
<p>It means that U Miami has a lot of Florida in-state students attending the school and they have very little competition when it comes to applying to their in-state medical school. Yes, 24% are attending medical school. But if you are a resident of any other state besides Florida attending U Miami, you will not get the benefit of applying as an in-state to Florida’s medical schools. That 24% applies only to state residents. Your chances of admission to medical school are very dependent upon what state you are applying from.</p>
<p>Without going through each school, you would need to analyze what states those students come from, whether their state medical schools admit any students from out of state (often the answer is no - southern medical schools are particularly 'protectionist, by the way), and how competitive those students were relative to other students from the same state. I’m guessing, without seeing the data, that Duke and Emory students, irrespective of what state they come from, are pretty good students and get into their state schools at a high rate. I’m also guessing the NC State students are out of luck because they are competing with Duke, Wake Forest and UNC students for a very limited number of seats in North Carolina medical schools - the California situation though probably not as bad. CA pre-meds, irrespective of where they go to school, are highly likely to have to attend med school out of state because there are so few seats in-state: That’s not a reflection on the UCs pre-med preparation. But you would be foolish not to attend a UC just because you saw that the admission rate to California medical schools was so low. (The reverse of the Florida situation, in fact.)</p>
<p>OP should take a look at how U Miami compares to other schools in Florida in terms of feeding graduates into medical school.</p>
<p>M’s Mom, </p>
<p>You have an interesting perspective. I learned something.</p>
<p>So your saying that even though the University of Miami student body is only 50% in-state, the “24%” who are in medical school are dominated by the in-state graduates. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how to confirm or dispute what you are saying, but it seems statistically suspect. For example, in order for fraction of OOS graduates who head to med school to be less than 10%, the percentage of in-state graduates who head to med school must be more than 38%. That seems too high. </p>
<p>If it was skewed such that 30% of the in-state went to med school, then 18% of OOS students must head to med school also in order to end up with 24% of the total, and that’s high enough to conclude that UM is a great place to be a premed. What’s wrong with my thinking?</p>
<p>
That number seems improbably high to me. Sure, when you start college, it seems like every 4th person you meet is “pre-med” but I find it a stretch that there is a college where they actually are sending every 4th grad to med school!</p>
<p>I looked online and Miami doesn’t seem to have accepted/denied charts like many other schools do where one can verify the numbers, but here’s a rough way of seeing how improbable that number is. There are 1.5 million bachelor degrees awarded each year in the US, and about 19,000 students accepted into med school. That means nationally 1 out of every 80 students ends up enrolling in med school. What are they doing at Miami that makes the number 1 out of 4 instead?</p>
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There may be some schools where there are simply a lot more premeds than elsewhere. The figure you really want to know is how many graduates who applied to med schools actually got into one.</p>
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<p>Must be something eh?</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins was 31%. Does that also seem high? Hopkins is known as a premed factory.</p>
<p>OP: GPA is just one part of a med school admissions packet. A more important aspect is undergraduate research (and the reputation of that Professor who writes your letter of rec) and the absolutely most important is your MCAT score.</p>
<p>When you look at colleges, you need to evaluate that college’s likely effect upon you in all three components in order: MCAT, Research, GPA.</p>
<p>My gut tells me that if you are not competitive for a 3.7+ GPA (especially in math/science classes) at U of Miami, you wouldn’t be competitive for med school admissions with your MCAT score or quality of research either.</p>
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Yes that seems too high even though JHU is known, as you say, as a popular place for premed. </p>
<p>Fortunately JHU makes more stats available online than UMiami so I found out that 223 students from JHU graduating with a bachelors were accepted to med school (source: [JHU</a> Pre-Professional Advising](<a href=“Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs”>Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs)) And JHU awarded 1,357 bachelor degrees (excluding nursing) according to their document at <a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/aflsqxv[/url]”>http://■■■■■■■.com/aflsqxv</a></p>
<p>Doing the math, 223/1,357 = 16.4% or about half the figure you report. Still it is a surprisingly large number compared to the national average of about 1.5%</p>
<p>And if JHU is 16% then it gives me even more doubt that UMiami is 25%</p>
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Emory, it turns out, also makes stats available online.</p>
<p>They awarded 2,191 undergrad degrees in 2011-12 (source: [Facts</a> & Figures | Emory University | Atlanta, GA](<a href=“Facts and Figures”>Facts and Figures)) I’d bet the number was about the same in 2011, just a year earlier. </p>
<p>They had 185 applicants accepted to med school in 2011 (source: <a href=“http://career.emory.edu/images/prehealth_documents/2011%20Matrix[/url]”>http://career.emory.edu/images/prehealth_documents/2011%20Matrix</a>)</p>
<p>185/2,191 = 8.4%</p>
<p>^^^ Just musing, but I wonder if the difference in percentages is that one is looking at med school specifically and the other might be including anything medical (nursing, etc).</p>
<p>I fully agree with the poster who said you should be looking for a school where you are in the Top 25% (or higher) stats-wise. It certainly won’t guarantee success, but it should mean you are fully capable of keeping up.</p>
<p>The statistics I quote were what students do within 5 years of graduation. So if 16.4% have an acceptance to medical school upon graduation, it’s entirely possible that another 15% get acceptance to medical school sometime within 5 years after graduation. A lot of people don’t apply right away for whatever reason. I’m not sure the numbers I got from US News are really that far off. </p>
<p>Also, if I recall, it particularly said “studying medicine” or “graduate study in medicine”, which I believe included PA programs but not nursing programs. I mention this because schools with PA programs had very high numbers, but it was obviously from that. </p>
<p>It would be great if someone with an up to date paid subscription would check.</p>
<p>The best recommendation for someone interested in medical school, aside from the usual ‘go to a school where you’ll get top grades’, ‘don’t take on debt’ and ‘get rigorous science prep for the MCAT’ is: Pay attention to your state of residence. People consistently underestimate the importance of that until they are actually applying. If you are from a state that has a large number of medical school seats relative to the number of in-state applicants, and your state doesn’t accept any or many oos students, you are in much better shape than if you are from a state with the reverse situation. (You can check the stats in any books that lists the medical schools and their admissions requirements. You’ll notice that some state medical schools admit students with surprisingly low MCAT scores and GPAs - then you’ll notice that they only admit in-state students and that competition is much less stiff than elsewhere in the country.)</p>
<p>If you are lucky enough to come from a ‘good’ state that preserves it’s seats for residents, make sure you don’t mess up your residency. Pay state taxes, keep your drivers’ license, and vote in your state. You can not become a resident of another state if you are merely attending school there, even if you do vote there or change your drivers’ license. For the purposes of in-state medical schools, you usually have to have lived and worked there for a given amount of time or have parents who are living there.</p>
<p>Once you get a sense of how this works, you begin to see why some schools might show a surprisingly high percent of pre-med admits: It’s not because they are ‘great pre-med schools’ (although they may be). It could simply be that there is less competition relative to the seats available.</p>
<p>That’s all fine, but since UMiami is 50% OOS, that alone doesn’t explain the 24% from UMiami. Either that number is wrong, or a lot of OOS students from UMiami still manage to get into some medical school within 5 years of graduation. I’m starting to believe that the number might not be wrong.</p>
<p>I’m with mikemac, classicrockerdad. At S’s small liberal arts college, 80% of the pre-meds got into medical school his senior year, but all that means is that of the 20 kids who applied, 18 got in eventually. When he started in freshman year, there were 100 kids who were potentially pre-med. How you are going to calculate the acceptance rate here? To say that the school has an 80% acceptance rate to medical school seems a bit ingenuous, I think.</p>