<p>how would you compare the difficulty and unpredictability of it? Would it be just like trying to get into a “top” medical school? Or would it be even harder than that.</p>
<p>I don’t really know the answer to that.</p>
<p>If undergrad school really doesnt matter, then how come Hopkins Med had 3x more HY undergrads as the rest of the ives/duke/etc? </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bin/m/l/MCAT11b.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bin/m/l/MCAT11b.pdf</a></p>
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<p>This student would not be best-served by attending JHU SOM. That program is geared toward academic medicine and those who aspire to it. </p>
<p>Someone who just wants to hang out a shingle would get more out of attending a medical school where the students get more hands-on experience.</p>
<p>okay so does it look better to apply from san diego state/arizona state or from UCLA/Berkley(having done associates at a community college)? Money is the real issue here, but which would be the best route to take?</p>
<p>bumping this thread…</p>
<p>If prestige of undergrad does not matter in med school admissions, why are there significantly more applicants to top 15 schools than to state/other schools? Does prestige of undergrad matter when looking for your first job? There must be a reason why so many kids apply to the top schools and for those that get in, there must be a reason why their parents would pay around 55k/year for their kid to go to that school rather than pay much less for a state school. If what you guys say is true, why go to a top college in the first place?</p>
<p>^^osprey, if you think critically, you should be able to answer your own questions.</p>
<p>random thoughts (and by no means exhaustive of the possible answers)</p>
<p>1) The UG experience is different at elite schools</p>
<p>2) The lifelong connections formed with children of national and international movers and shakers</p>
<p>3) Prestige/pedigree is important in some fields (traditionally politics, banking, Wall Street, publishing)</p>
<p>4) For some at elite UGs, their future employability is just not on their radar screen. The UG degree (and the educational experience it represents) is seen as an end in itself, not a simply a means to an end. That has value to many students/parents, and no value to many other students/parents.</p>
<p>5) IMO, UG prestige at a tip top school does help some in med school admissions. It’s hard to discern how much from other factors involved, but I think it’s probably less than what “top school advocates” think, and more than what “less than top school advocates” think. 
Top med schools are chock full of elite UG graduates. My kid’s med school included.</p>
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<p>Of course, what is impossible to separate is the value of the mcat on those matriculants (vs. undergrad reputation). “Elite UG’s” are “chock full” of of strong test takers, by definition. Even the bottom quartile of students at “elite UGs” easily matches/dwarfs the top quartile of most non-elite schools (depending on your definition of 'elite"). If the mcat is ~50% of admissions and “elite schools” have cornered the market on top test takers…</p>
<p>That being said, professional/grad schools tend to be prestige hounds, so attending an “elite” UG is always a plus. How big a plus, of course, is the question.</p>
<p>Everybody should follow thier own goal instead of listenning and discussing forever. Just go to UG that you want to go, Ivy, Elite, state, unknown. You decide, you should not be asking strangers to decide. Put down your criteria, create spreadsheet, see clearly what is your high priority and what you can live without. This is the only right way. This was my D’s way and it worked out just fine. It worked so well that she has asked me to create the same for choosing Med. Schools. She gave me her criteria, from the most important down. We still have to see how this will work, but at least it has worked as far as acceptance rate.</p>
<p>if you look at the overall acceptance %tages for top schools (links were posted by bluedevilmike and someone else in another thread), the med school acceptance percentages for top colleges were like ~70%. I don’t think I can say the same for state schools. Sure there are exceptions but overall, but do you guys generally agree that more med school admits come from top UGs? here are some numbers I have in front of me right now; again, links were posted somewhere else on this forum.</p>
<p>Overall %tage of med school admits from undergraduate college (includes only those who used the committee process):</p>
<p>WUSL: 71% (2004-2008)
Cornell: 67% (2010)
Emory: 56% (2010)
Duke: 71% (2009)
UMich: 51% (2009)
JHU: 63% (2008)</p>
<p>If you look at the USNWR rankings of UGs, you can see a very direct relationship between acceptance rate and ranking of the UG. The current 2010 rankings cannot be exactly applied to the years for the above data but the rankings have been fairly similar throughout the years so the current rankings can still be used even though the data and the rankings are not from the same year.</p>
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<p>Have you taken Stats? Think about this point, critically.</p>
<p>I see your point. but what about state school applicants vs. those from top colleges who utilize the committee? Are u trying to imply that in this case, UG prestige matters?</p>
<p>Go to the school where you’re the most comfortable, where you’ll really challenge your potential, and where you believe you’ll both succeed and be happy. </p>
<p>For me that was a state school. A relatively no-name state school (although we did make it to the Elite Eight in 09). I didn’t do great on the MCAT (30). I had a decently good academic run (3.8). I was quite involved on campus and had a nice collection of very meaningful extracurriculars (both clinical and not). Guess what? I start med school Monday. I interviewed at three pretty prestigious medical schools in addition to the one I’ll be attending. Worked out just fine.</p>
<p>Bottom line: if you’re a great student, you’ll do great things regardless of where you go. No one here can tell you where to go! You need to make that decision for yourself.</p>
<p>(PS: bluebayou’s trying to get you to the conclusion that the stats you found are basically worthless without knowing the context and methodology behind it–which you don’t know completely)</p>
<p>thanks for the assist, Kristin, but it it much more basic than that. A % requires two numbers, a numerator and a denominator. If the denominator is whatever the school wants it to be…GIGO. (basic AP Stats)</p>
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<p>It’s not totally direct. For example, you can see that MIT, Stanford, and Emory all tend to underperform relative to their USN ranking. LACs (which have different rankings) do very well. But generally speaking there’s a correlation, yes.</p>
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<p>This is true in the abstract but usually inapplicable. In general, committees don’t screen. A lot of schools claim that OTHER schools screen, but so far we’ve only ever found two that do.</p>
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<p>The main problem with Osprey’s line of thought is that he’s ignoring selection effects.</p>
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<p>This is my understanding …</p>
<p>The name of the undergrad college doesn’t matter in the sense that if you took a student from Harvard and put him in a less prestigious school, he’d do similarly in terms of med school admissions.</p>
<p>What it does NOT mean is that every student from every school is equal. A top student is still a top student regardless of the college he/she chooses. There are more top students at top schools, so it’s not surprising at all that they have higher med school admissions percentages. This trend has to do with the prestige of the school in the sense that prestigious schools tend to attract more top students, but not in the sense that the prestige actually helps in the med school admissions process.</p>