<p>I am a rising junior at Rutgers University, but I was recently accepted as a transfer to Penn. Does a pre-med student's undergraduate college factor heavily into the med school application? Basically, is it worth it for me to pay $45k/year to go to Penn so that I come out with a Penn degree, or am I better off paying $18k/year at Rutgers and saving my money for a top-flight med school? Would my med school application look that much stronger with a Penn degree as opposed to a Rutgers degree?</p>
<p>At some medical schools, it might help your application. However, I don't know that anyone can really tell you for sure which schools those are or how much it'll help.</p>
<p>i actually want to hear more from this since i have been considering to transfer too.</p>
<p>A few scattered thoughts on this...</p>
<p>1) I just graduated from Penn this spring. A friend of mine who applied to med school this year with me was a transfer from BU to Penn. He had taken all of his prereqs at BU, had a very high GPA and a superb MCAT. He was accepted to two schools and waitlisted at two more, so he did well especially since he did not apply broadly. He was offered many fewer interviewers than some of the rest of us with similar applications, however, even considering that he did not apply broadly, and he speculated that the fact that he took his prereqs at a less prestigious school hurt his chances, regardless of where his degree came from.</p>
<p>2) I have heard the argument of 'go to a cheap undergrad so you can save your money for a top grad school' innumerable times, and by and large think it a load of crap for a couple reasons. Firstly, unless you're getting a merit scholarship to med school, which very, very few people do, oftentimes the 'top-flight' schools will be the cheapest relative to other private schools to which you are accepted, as they have the most money to fling around (this was the case with me). Secondly, in my travels on the interview trail this past year, I noticed that, at the top med schools, the interviewees and current students came disproportionately from a small pool of elite undergrad schools. This is not to say that there were not students from lesser-known or less-prestigious schools, but the student body was disproportionately ivy/ivy-like/small liberal arts college-educated. This could be due to a preference, or to the simple fact that the best high school students go to the best undergrads and in turn to the best grad schools, or that students at top undergrads are more 'brand-sensitive' than other students. What's true I am not sure, but this has been my observation.</p>
<p>3) Why do you want to go to a 'top-flight' med school, which I generally assume means a highly ranked research school according to USNEWS? There are only a few reasons to aggressively pursue these schools (number one being the desire for a career in research); your board scores and letters are much more important for residency placement.</p>
<p>4) Are you unhappy at Rutgers? If not, I see no reason why you should transfer if your sole plan is to improve your med school chances, especially since you're clearly doing well there.</p>
<p>5) Would you be getting financial aid from Penn? If so, calculate how much different the cost will actually be once aid packages are considered.</p>
<p>Depends. I'm completely, 100% biased when I say go to Penn. Friends have wound up at HMS, P&S, UMMS, and other S's that are quite preStigiouS. At the end of the day, however, an M.D. is an M.D. (or a D.O. is a D.O.). If you're having the time of your life at Rutgers, and thriving academically I'd assume, why be a Quaker? At the very least, you'll be with your friends AND save money for the S's.</p>
<p>I'd like to go to a top-flight med school mainly for the name prestige that would come with getting a degree from said school, which would ultimately (at least I think it should) make it easier to attain a residency and job later in life. </p>
<p>I am not unhappy at Rutgers, it's kinda just there. Nothing special, nothing terrible; simply mediocre. The sad thing is that I am not getting any sort of financial aid whatsoever from Rutgers...not a penny. I had the SAT scores to get a full scholarship, but I got screwed over by my class rank since I went to an elite magnet school. Kinda sucks that I have to pay full in-state tuition.</p>
<p>I haven't received my financial aid package from Penn yet. I am also awaiting notification of which/how many credits Penn will accept from my first two years at Rutgers. I am very opposed to the idea of retaking courses and taking an extra year to complete my undergraduate degree, so if not enough of my credits transfer successfully, I am almost guaranteed to remain at Rutgers. But I suppose I'll wait and see...</p>
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<p>First off, what a bad idea to choose top-flight med school, mainly for name prestige. That gives the impression that you want to be an elitist and brag about how you went to so and so just to sound superior, or even just so you can throw it into your arguments like "oh, trust me, i'm from ___, therefore making me smarter". I mean, if you're into research, then by all means, that's a reasonable factor since that might win some favor in some research opportunities/fellowships.</p>
<p>The second this about making it easy to attain a residency is also a bad idea to base off of medical schools. Your residency depends on your grades, and on your USMLE exams that all med school students take end of 2nd year, and then USMLE Step II 4th year. Do well on that and you can better narrow your residencies. Simply the name prestige isn't going to impress anyone if you score 185 vs. someone who went to a state medical school and scored 240. USMLE is the standardized factor that they can equally measure potential residents to, much like how MCAT will be the standardized factor since gpa is so relative.</p>
<p>If you are not unhappy at Rutgers, there's no reason to transfer. Transferring is a huge inconvenience. You'll have to make new friends and adjust to a different level of competition. Despite all the grade inflation, I still think elite private schools are harder than state schools (if you look at GPA/MCAT correlations).</p>
<p>I'm not going to a top-flight medical school just so I can brag and say "Oh I went to so-and-so for med school." If that were the case, I would have applied that same logic in selecting my undergraduate college, when I chose to go to Rutgers (with no financial aid whatsoever) rather than UNC Chapel Hill. My belief (and it may be incorrect, so let me know if it is wrong) is that when you end up looking for a residency and job, future employers almost certainly look at what school you came from. It will not entirely determine whether or not you land a job/residency, but it certainly factors into the decision. It's like if a law firm were looking at two candidates with similar credentials, but one went to law school at Yale while the other went to a state university, which one do you think the employer will hire?? You're lying to yourself if you say that name-brand has no impact whatsoever in getting jobs/residencies.</p>
<p>I'm not lying when I say that your USMLE scores will largely impact your residency, not name-brand. That's where it equalizes different curriculums.</p>
<p>I think the law school analogy might not work for you, since to my knowledge, they don't serve something like residencies and rotations that are largely based off of exams they take after 2nd year and 4th year. Score well on the USMLE and you'll get a good chance to get into competitive residencies such as surgery. Just going to a name-brand doesn't do ***** when it comes to residencies, kind of like saying how it's silly to think only ivy undergrads get into ivy med schools because of their undergrad "name-brand"...USMLE step I and II exams largely decide those.</p>
<p>After you serve your residency, you'll get a good idea of where you'll work at in terms of specialty and also area. Go ahead and go to your local hospital or your current physician and see where they went to school and try to gauge the importance of ivy med schools. Big name med schools are good for research since you'll have a lot more resources at schools with large endowments (nicer facilities, more connections, etc.), but in medical school to go into clinical, USMLE exams will paint a picture of where you can go for residencies.</p>
<p>Here's the NJMS match list for 2007 previously posted by Hydrogen3k. When I compared it with other med schools in our tristate area, I do not see any significant differences.</p>
<p>Take a look at NJMS students who are able to get into top residencies like grads from any other med school. This substantiates what Astor is saying; that USMLE scores weigh more than the med school name.</p>
<p>I do believe that eventually any opportunity in life boils down to who YOU are as an applicant not just the name of the school. </p>
<p>med.h3k</a> - NJMS Match 2007 </p>
<p>Check out post #459; UPenn match list </p>
<p>2007</a> Match Lists - Page 10 - Student Doctor Network Forums</p>
<p>astor -- there's nothing wrong with wanting to go to a school based on it's name brand. that being said, the OP is still an undergrad and there is no guarantee that he/she will get into a top medical program. regardless, it's unwise to underestimate the power of an ivy league degree.</p>
<p>I think my concern with transferring is that if you are doing really well academically at your undergraduate school and might not like it socially over there, is it worth going to an ivy brand school or just any real big name school. You will have to re-adapt to different teaching styles, maybe going from a curve to point or vise versa system, and just starting over socially. I really dont know the answer, but i am curious on your decision.</p>
<p>I think there is nothing wrong with going to top flight med school for the sake of name as long as you also consider whether its a good fit with your learning style and fits your social liking. Plus there is no guarantee on how well you will do USMLE so better to snatch some sort of brand name in case you do mediocre right? Anyways like i said, if you have the luxury to choose which medical school to attend, find one that fits you best.</p>
<p>To MolSysBio: there is something wrong when he's following a misconception. He clearly stated in his post that he's going mainly for the brand name which leads to a better residency. If you read my post, you'd understand that to be magical thinking. Residency depends mostly on USMLE scores and performance, not name brand. I didn't check out the other post that agreed with me, but apparently it shows data that even shows non-ivy-leauge-top-brand-names make it into competitive residencies.</p>
<p>It's ok if you go with a school based on name, if the reason you want to go isn't based off of ignorance.</p>
<p>although i'm not exactly sure how the residency match process works (what it takes into account etc.), but i'm sure name brand plays a part, just as in undergrad and grad admissions. even if name brand doesn't lead to a better residency, it'll inevitably lead to good things down the line.</p>