<p>Let's assume that a student is interested in getting into a good med school and eventually practicing medicine as an MD (no research). That's the average student anyway. This student is faced with a choice between two different paths:</p>
<p>Path 1 - Attend a prestigious, "namebrand" premed school at full cost, thereby virtually assuring him/her (unless (s)he completely screws up) a spot at a lesser known med school and giving him/her a shot at the top med schools. Subsequent to this, assume the student does end up going to a prestigious med school at full cost. By the end of all this, the student has incurred the usual ubsurd amount of debt, but has acquired an excellent residency at the hospital and in the specialty of his/her choice. </p>
<p>Path 2 - Virtually the opposing outcome to Path 1. The student willingly attends the lesser school (let's assume NYU since this same student was also accepted to certain prestigious schools) with a great scholarship (President's in this case) and paying a lot less than he/she would have in Path 1. In fact, the amount is managed completely by a portion of what his/her parents have saved up, whereas they would have had to take out loans for the prestigious school. But the catch of course is that the student ends up having only a slim (almost nonexistent) chance at a top med school and receives a lesser education than what he/she may have received at the prestigious schools. This student, however, works hard and ends up receiving admission to his/her state school at a low cost (in my case, it would be UMDNJ) and looks forward to an intense four years of studying to secure a residency of his/her choice. Let's assume the student does not gain admission to the more prestigious residencies, but receives a specialty in a lesser specialty. Of course, this path also results in a lesser debt for the student, though he/she had to work harder to get a residency he/she did not initially want and does not have a plaque from a prestigious institution to proudly display in his/her office. </p>
<p>Assuming that the aforementioned schools could be substituted based on preference and geographical location, here's the question: Which path would you take and why?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The prestige of your undergrad has a negligible effect on where you go for med school.</p></li>
<li><p>The prestige of your med school has a small effect on what residency you get into.</p></li>
<li><p>You are not necessarily going to end up with more debt by going to a private or a prestigious college/med school because they usually have more money to give out as grants.</p></li>
<li><p>Going to a prestigious college does not "virtually assure you a spot at a less known med school." The attrition rate in premed is greater than 50% everywhere so most of the freshmen who start out premed never make it into med school. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>In light of these corrections, I will give you the age old answer, "Go to the school that is the best fit." This may be a prestigious private school. This may be your state school. But this should be the school at which you will be the happiest. I keep telling people this but for some reason HSers refuse to believe that the name of the school you go to will have negligible effect on your admissions into med school.</p>
<p>Well, I'll give you this: you have some interesting/provocative insight and some of the same stuff that is dead-in-the-ground wrong. I will assault your points in order for convenience:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A simple glance over mdapplicants.com disproves your first theory. Prestige does matter in med school admissions unless one has a perfect GPA and a near 40 MCAT at a state school (this is all hypothetical and an example, just to clarify). A student will never get into UPenn from Rutgers or JHU from NYU.</p></li>
<li><p>Wrong again. Consider ROAD. Getting into those residencies is obviously no walk in the park. If someone has to choose a student for one of those residencies and is faced between candidate A who went to a prestigious med school and did well versus candidate B who went to a state med school and fared exactly the same, who is going to get the residency? It's a very simple hypothetical that easily contradicts your assertion. </p></li>
<li><p>Correct me if I'm wrong on this (b/c I'm not 100% sure) but that would only apply to people in dire need of financial aid. My family (and those of many students considering a career in medicine) falls in the dreaded income bracket that makes too much to qualify for aid and not enough to make it through college w/o taking out loans (due to insufficient savings/investments; another common mistake among American families), so merit-based aid is my best option. As bad luck would have it, most prestigious institutions barely aid those in need, let alone families with pockets fat enough to get by. </p></li>
<li><p>I'll quote my own parenthetical reference: "(unless (s)he completely screws up)". Of course some lesser known med schools will refuse admission to qualified applicants from prestigious institutions. This sometimes occurs b/c those schools realize the applicant will not attend their institution anyway (this is an example, "not always the case", it seems I have to spoonfeed the meaning behind everything I say...). However, for the most part, students attending prestigious institutions are very likely to get into at least one lesser known med school. The attrition rate you cited was the national average, riddled with med school wannabees from all across the country. Needless to say, that same statistic for each of the prestigious institutions we are referring to differs vastly. Let's not get into the whole crap about filtering applicants and all that hubbub on this thread though. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Overall, I have to agree with afruff's assessment: you seem awfully hypocritical seeing as you attend Cornell. Let's face the facts, most people would attend the prestigious university were they not in the habit of placing financial considerations ahead of such differences between educations.</p>
<p>I don't really understand how he is hypocritical. Despite what you may think, prestigious universities are sometimes the best fit for a certain student.</p>
<ol>
<li>Your first mistake is trying to draw conclusions from mdapplicants. It's a great novelty but is not verifiable nor is it very representative of the applicant pool. But to humor you:</li>
</ol>
<p>So why are top schools well represented in med school? They have the brightest students. Switch the students of Harvard with the students of DeAnza community college, suddenly DeAnza has a 80% acceptance rate to med school while Harvard has a 20% acceptance rate. If you're bright enough to score 1500 on the SAT's, you're likely to do well wherever you go.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, if two candidates have exactly the same grades, the same USMLE scores, the same caliber of recs, and the same research qualifications, the school they go to might make a difference. Otherwise, it plays less of a role than any of the aforementioned criteria.</p></li>
<li><p>While the Ivies do not give merit aid, many other top schools do. Even if you'll have to carry an extra $20,000 in loans, so what? If you're loan-adverse, then medicine is not the right career path.</p></li>
<li><p>You say going to a prestigious school assures you placement into med school. I go to a prestigious school. 1000 premeds start. 200 apply to med school. 150 make it into med school. Hardly much assurance.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I said to go to the school you love. I gave up in-state tuition at Berkeley, took on $30,000 in loans, and traveled across the country from CA for the school I love. How am I being hypocritical?</p>
<p>Don't say such idiotic things. You're making a great number of fallacious assumptions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A student will never get into UPenn from Rutgers or JHU from NYU.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I graduated from NYU in May - in fact, I had the same scholarship you apparently have. So I know what I'm talking about when speaking about NYU.</p>
<p>Among my fellow pre-meds who graduated in my class this year: one headed to Harvard (also received interviews at Yale and a few other Ivies), one headed to Duke, and one headed to Columbia and waitlisted at JHU. These are students I went to class with and know by name, so rest assured that this isn't "heard through the grapevine." Why the heck would you think that NYU students couldn't get into Harvard/Duke/JHU-caliber medical schools?</p>
<p>
[quote]
If someone has to choose a student for one of those residencies and is faced between candidate A who went to a prestigious med school and did well versus candidate B who went to a state med school and fared exactly the same, who is going to get the residency? It's a very simple hypothetical that easily contradicts your assertion.
<p>your "path 1" makes many foolish assumptions as well as your "path 2". You really need to read up a lot more on this whole process...you aren't even in college yet so you should have plenty of time.</p>
<p>NOTHING IS ASSURED IN MED SCHOOL ADMISSIONS...honestly, it's the most ****ed up process I've ever seen with tons of "why that guy" moments. If you combine the attrition rate from freshman year to application, plus an acceptance rate of only about 40% nationwide (meaning that nearly 60% of applicants get rejected by every single school they apply to), assurance is the most retarded word one can use. Many extremely qualified candidates get rejected - sometimes from multiple years.</p>
<p>In the case of residencies, there are plenty of surveys out there of residency directors that continually show that grades in third year clerkships during medical school, along with comment's in the Dean's letter and letters of recommendation from heads of departments (especially in the field you're most interested in) are the most important factors, followed by USMLE scores and other LOR's. No one has the same comments in the Dean's letters.</p>
<p>As far as the ROAD is concerned - there are easy residencies to get into in every specialty. You may have to move to Alaska or North Dakota to do so, but if you really want to be an Orthopedic Surgeon, it can happen.</p>
<p>Prestigious medical school is pretty much a redundancy. Simply put, there's very little difference in the types of education and experiences present at the #1 school and the #125th school. All I have to cite is the 93% pass rate on the USMLE Step 1 for US Second years, and the the 93% Match rate (with 84% getting one of their top 3 choices) for US 4th years.</p>
<p>I keep hearing this "everything is up to chance" stuff yet veteran posters here all think BA/MD programs are bad even if you're 100% sure of becoming a doctor.</p>
<p>If money was not a major factor, going to a prestigious college would give you the best chance of success for your particular goals. It may also help open other doors for you should you decide on another career. Since money is a factor (as it is for most of us), and there are no guarantees, you should go the school you'll be happiest at regardless of what may happen later on.</p>
<p>I'm not as anti-BA/MD as some of the other posters. I think it's a great deal for the student but I personally don't think the school offering the program gets much in return. The biggest disadvantage is that it locks the student into a particular career choice (after going to college, you will realize that just about everyone changes their majors at least once). As for all these HSers who are "100% sure" they want to be a neurosurgeon or cardiovascular surgeon from Johns Hopkins, bwahhahahahahahahahahaha.</p>
<p>But, in my opinion, it's much easier to score 1400 on the SAT than score a 30 on the MCAT and much easier to maintain a 3.8 in HS than a 3.6 in college, so if you have great HS stats already, take advantage of that by applying to BA/MD programs because you may not be able to duplicate your success in college.</p>
<p>A classic unexperienced, immature view in which somehow going to a top rated undergrad institution "virtually assures" someone a spot at a "lesser known" medical school. Dump this view, and take a look at how higher education in this country really works. A simple-minded position like that is below you.</p>
<p>What about going to a state/party school (like SDSU) where grading is easier and it's not as cutthroat? </p>
<p>Would medical schools accept a SDSU student instead of a Berkeley student because the SDSU student has the higher GPA, even though the Berkeley student's lower GPA was a result of grade deflation? i.e. would going to an easier school and getting a higher GPA be of more benefit?</p>
<p>Go to the school you'd be most comfortable at. I would be absolutely miserable at SDSU. It's not worth 4 years of misery to boost my GPA by a couple of points.</p>
<p>My dad was recently in the Cleveland Clinic undergoing aortic valve replacement. During his stay I had the opportunity to meet and talk to the Chief Resident and other residents in the Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Dept. </p>
<p>Understand that this is the NUMBER ONE heart hospital in the US for the last 13 years so this residency is quite prestigious. Among the residents was a grad of SDSU who went on to JHU Med School and ended up with the best residency out there in his field. </p>
<p>Despite what many Ivy lovers want to believe, undergrad matriculation has little or no bearing on Med School acceptance and certainly not on residency match.</p>
<p>I was on the admissions commitee of one of the aforementioned medical schools, and currently work at another one. Top medical schools draw disproportionately from top undergraduate colleges since the top students from those schools apply there. It only makes sense that they would be well represented. Additionally, there may be less students of similar caliber applying from other schools-the applicant pool is not as deep. On the other hand, top medical schools do not need to fill their class with Ivy Leaguers to boost their prestige so they can afford to take the best wherever they may be. In fact, top medical schools are looking for wide representation at many different colleges whether they be little known schools in the deep South or religious colleges or large state schools with a heterogenous student body with a wide range in academic capabilities. A top student from such a school, provided he/she has a strong record and MCAT scores, may actually stand out from the crowd and be interviewed. There will not be many other applicants (sometimes none) from their school. In contrast, we might receive 30 applications each from places like Penn and Princeton but decide to interview only a third of them. Those odds are certainly better than the general applicant pool but the advantage does not apply to the individual applicant with similar credentials who went to school elsewhere and stands out. </p>
<p>In contrast to your first points, I think going to a higher ranked college may make more of a difference when applying to a lower ranked medical school. In order to boost prestige (as well as to get the best available students), they may take an Ivy-leaguer or top 10 LAC student with say a 3.3 GPA over a strong student from a state school with say a 3.7 average. They also may decide to take a certain number from particular Ivy League Schools in order to cultivate a positive relationship. For example, I saw that in a recent year, 11 out of 100 or so incoming students at Boston University graduated from Brown.</p>