The Best Ivy for Med School Admission

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Norcalguy, I recommend that you actually read what he said before you criticize it.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But, that doesn't mean you should be taking every single science course at a local state school during the summers if you're a Stanford student.

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</p>

<p>Uh, when did he ever say any such thing? His specific quote is "Consider taking some of
your pre-med classes elsewhere if you are hitting a wall here.", and he furthermore states that doing so "...can allow you to take classes that
are taught especially well at Stanford. " But he never states that everybody should always take all of their science courses over the summer at some other school.</p>

<p>
[quote]
No, you don't have to do research...but 90% of your competition will have done research.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And he recommends research also. Not just once, but several times. So what's your beef? </p>

<p>" Don’t be afraid to stop out
at Stanford, particularly for meaningful activities, research,
MCAT preparation, or travel."</p>

<p>"To get into the nation’s very best medical
schools, you should do some type of research..."</p>

<p>"CONSIDER STOPPING OUT ONE MORE TERMS AS AN UNDERGRADUATE. This can restore your vigor,
and improve your extra-curricular activities at the same time. There are also many ways to continue academic
work even though you have “stopped out.” Work on a honors thesis, directed, research, readings, outreach projects,
internships..."</p>

<p>His point is that you don't need to do lab research. Research comes in many flavors of which lab research is only one. For example, participating in a field research project that examines the care provided to psychiatric patients (as I know one girl who later went on to Columbia Med did) doesn't involve any lab-work but surely counts as research. More importantly, if you are going to do research, make sure you do research that you actually happen to like, or in other words, don't just pursue lab research just for the sake of lab research. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Yes, you don't HAVE TO take all of your premed prereq's before applying but if you end up applying with just 2 science courses on your record, then med school adcoms won't have much to go on.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I hardly find this to be controversial in the least. Sure, you don't give the adcoms much to go on, but, hey, that's a lot better than giving them a lot of bad evidence to go on. The truth of the matter is that, for the purposes of admissions, it's better to not take a difficult class at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Sad but true. I think we can all agree that any bad grades are going to be used against you. </p>

<p>But his takehome point is even more bounded than that. He is simply saying that one should not feel compelled to cram all of your premed courses in before you apply. Sure, if you can do them all comfortably before applications go out, then just do that. But if you can't - for example, if you started late in the premed process - you shouldn't feel the need to cram them all the requirements in before you apply and hence risk doing poorly in them. You do have extra time after you apply to complete everything.</p>

22

<p>
[quote]
I am repeatedly disappointed that sakky, normally a staunch devotee of providing concrete data and well-supported evidence, insists on citing such a anecdotal source from an individual who clearly represents an outlier in the admissions process.

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</p>

<p>My first response to that is simple - exactly how much evidence have others here provided? Seems to me that the vast majority of people here provide no evidence whatsoever and are speaking simply by conjecture. At least I am providing some evidence, even if you do think it's outlier evidence. Why aren't you hassling all the people who have provided no evidence whatsoever?</p>

<p>Secondly, if you want hard data, all I have to do is simply point you to the numerous threads I have participated in regarding the MIT premed process, in which the threads are heavily data-driven, and clearly shows that MIT premeds clearly get no break from the med-school adcoms, yet they clearly should be getting such a break if med-school adcoms were compensating for curriculum difficulty. Given MIT's fearsomely and famously harsh reputation, you would think that adcoms would have caught on by now. The evidence clearly shows that they have not. </p>

<p>What that means is that if the adcoms can't (or don't want to) even catch on to even that rather trivial problem, honestly, what do you think the odds are that they will have caught on to some of the other problems out there?</p>

23

<p>


</p>

<p>As has been discussed on the various MIT-related threads, there are a number of confounding variables that could explain the situation other than 'adcoms are too ignorant to take difficulty into account.' Perhaps MIT suffers from particularly poor advising, this could make a huge difference. Perhaps students have difficulty gaining the support from faculty needed for strong letters and meaningful research experience; the bias against premeds among researchers in the hard sciences, where MIT is strongest, can be very pronounced. Maybe, as BDM once suggested, med schools over time have learned that graduates from MIT tend not to be the type of people who make the best med students or physicians, and only the truly irresistible applicants are accepted. Point is, one shouldn't use a single school's obvious problem as being representative of the entire system. The major-based data available directly on the AAMC's website clearly shows that major, and the subsequent differences in course difficulty across majors, does not matter in med school admission, for good or ill.</p>

24

<p>
[quote]
Simple, because no one else is providing advice that could be dangerous if untrue, or at least lead to a diminished college experience.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh? I would argue just the opposite - that much of the casual advice here is indeed extremely dangerous. Like for example, the perennial advice that it is perfectly fine to get relatively low grades at difficult classes at difficult schools because adcoms will "know" about the difficulty and adjust accordingly (i.e that it's not a problem to major in engineering at MIT because adcoms will "know" how difficult it is). The empirical evidence indicates that this is just not so. </p>

<p>What makes it worse is exactly what I said - that the casual advice is not only dangerous, but is also provided without evidence. At least I provide some empirical evidence. Others provide none. So if you want to hassle people for not providing evidence, go hassle them. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As has been discussed on the various MIT-related threads, there are a number of confounding variables that could explain the situation other than 'adcoms are too ignorant to take difficulty into account.' Perhaps MIT suffers from particularly poor advising, this could make a huge difference. Perhaps students have difficulty gaining the support from faculty needed for strong letters and meaningful research experience; the bias against premeds among researchers in the hard sciences, where MIT is strongest, can be very pronounced.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Everything that you just said only serves to reinforce my point even further. For example, let's say that MIT suffers from particularly poor advice, or the school has a bias towards basic research or can't get proper rec's, etc. etc. But think about what that ought to mean. It ought to mean that med school adcoms should know that MIT students have these peculiar difficulties, and hence they should adjust accordingly. For example, the adcom can be thinking "Well, here's a MIT premed who doesn't really have such great rec's, but we know that MIT has a history of not producing great rec's, and therefore if this student had just gone to another school, he probably would have gotten great rec's. So we will make the proper adjustments."</p>

<p>But this unfortunately doesn't happen. Nor is MIT the only example. Caltech is an example. Basically, schools that are not for great rigor seem to be the ones that have unusual problems (relative to their peer schools) in getting people into med school. Hence, it's not a matter of isolated cases; this is a pattern.</p>

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[quote]
Maybe, as BDM once suggested, med schools over time have learned that graduates from MIT tend not to be the type of people who make the best med students or physicians, and only the truly irresistible applicants are accepted.

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</p>

<p>If you want to invoke BDM, then I should also point out that BDM seems to agree with me that taking unusually difficult classes at an unusually difficult school is probably a bad idea, which is a restatement of one of my sad-but-true maxims: that for the purposes of med-school admissions, it's better to not take a class at all than to take it and get a bad grade, or put another way, med-school admissions rewards risk-aversion. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Point is, one shouldn't use a single school's obvious problem as being representative of the entire system. The major-based data available directly on the AAMC's website clearly shows that major, and the subsequent differences in course difficulty across majors, does not matter in med school admission, for good or ill

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</p>

<p>Right - exactly - so you agree with me. </p>

<p>But now you have to ask yourself why it doesn't matter. After all, it should matter if adcoms were really paying attention, right? I think it's trivially obvious to all of us that some majors and some schools are more difficult than others. But adcoms don't seem to care about that. </p>

<p>Hence, my point is simple: if adcoms don't seem to care about what is ostensibly a quite basic and trivial point, then do you really think they care about other details of your application? For example, do you really think adcoms care much about the distinction between lab research and field research? Yet that was precisely McCullough's point - that research has many flavors and you shouldn't feel pressured to do only lab research (and in particular, that good field research is far more valuable than mediocre lab research). Furthermore, do you think that adcoms really care whether you took your premed courses at some easier junior college as opposed to the school that you actually matriculated at? Like we agreed upon, adcoms don't seem to distinguish between varying difficulties in majors or in schools anyway, so why would they care if you take a bunch of courses at a JC? We can go down the list and I think that most of McCullough's points are quite logical extensions of the way that the admissions process really works.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
that BDM seems to agree with me that taking unusually difficult classes at an unusually difficult school is probably a bad idea

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</p>

<p>Within extremes, yeah. Several courses in grad-level quantum mechanics at MIT is a bad idea, for example. But that's no reason to go running from Stanford's organic chemistry or intro physics.</p>

<p>The article you link to goes way overboard when it endorses (even as a possibility) taking premed requirements at easier schools over the summer. Avoiding your school's worst courses doesn't mean you have to run to the other extreme either. Look, I'm not a fan of premeds going to MIT. But that doesn't mean you should avoid Penn's science courses in favor of UC Merced's, either.</p>

<p>Similarly, avoiding several upper-level quantum courses doesn't mean you should avoid moderate-level biology courses -- genetics, cell bio, etc. are all tough courses, but you should probably take them anyway. If you sit around all day taking Geography of the Western States and racking up A's, you're going to get rejected -- the same way that taking quantum and getting D's would have gotten you rejected.</p>

<p>So my advice is shoot for the 80th or 90th percentile in terms of course difficulty. Take everything at your home school during the school year. Avoid impossibly-difficult courses, but avoid ridiculously-easy ones, too.</p>

26

<p>
[quote]
Within extremes, yeah. Several courses in grad-level quantum mechanics at MIT is a bad idea, for example. But that's no reason to go running from Stanford's organic chemistry or intro physics.</p>

<p>The article you link to goes way overboard when it endorses (even as a possibility) taking premed requirements at easier schools over the summer.

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</p>

<p>Why is that overboard? Seems like an eminently reasonable argument to me. After all, those students who are actually at that easier school already get the "benefit" of those easier courses. So why is it so outrageous for Stanford students to receive that same benefit? What's the difference? </p>

<p>
[quote]
But that doesn't mean you should avoid Penn's science courses in favor of UC Merced's, either.

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</p>

<p>Again, why not? To follow your analogy, UCMerced students get the "benefit" of easier courses. So why is it so outrageous for Penn students to avail themselves of the same benefit? To say otherwise is to say that UCMerced students enjoy an 'unfair advantage'. </p>

<p>To be clear, he never says that all students should always do this. He simply says that those students who would not have done well at their current school (in this case Penn) would be better off by taking their premed courses at an easier school. Obviously, if you stay at your own school and do well there, that's clearly the best option. But not everybody can do that. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Similarly, avoiding several upper-level quantum courses doesn't mean you should avoid moderate-level biology courses -- genetics, cell bio, etc. are all tough courses, but you should probably take them anyway. If you sit around all day taking Geography of the Western States and racking up A's, you're going to get rejected -- the same way that taking quantum and getting D's would have gotten you rejected.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I disagree with this also. Sure, getting A's in gut courses won't really help your cause, but it certainly won't hurt it, in contrast to a D in quantum which truly will hurt. After all, at the end of the day, you will still need to present some premed coursework grades and your MCAT score, and provided that you perform decently there, I hardly see how med-school adcoms will punish you for having lots of A's in gut courses. Heck, they probably won't even know what those gut courses are. See below. </p>

<p>
[quote]
So my advice is shoot for the 80th or 90th percentile in terms of course difficulty. Take everything at your home school during the school year. Avoid impossibly-difficult courses, but avoid ridiculously-easy ones, too.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, I think what you said (or at least did not object to) is that you should take ridiculously-easy courses that sound difficult. </p>

<p>Which gets to another point: very few gut courses are easily identifiable as such. For example, I know of quite a few gut courses back in my old undergrad school. But a casual glance at the course titles reveals little. We had our version of "Physics for Poets", but it wasn't called that - it actually had some harsh-sounding name. Furthermore, many of the difficult courses actually had somewhat benign names. For example, it's funny that you should use the example of "Geography of the Western States", because we had a geography class called "The Southern Border" which may sound like a gut course but turned out to not exactly be the world's easiest class (granted, it's not clearly not as hard as, say, chemical engineering, but it wasn't a cakewalk either). </p>

<p>To really know what the gut courses are, you generally have to actually know the school fairly deeply - and let's be honest, most adcoms don't know very much about that.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think what you said (or at least did not object to) is that you should take ridiculously-easy courses that sound difficult.

[/quote]
Right. My only objection is that this makes me sad. I don't think it would not work.</p>

<hr>

<p>The idea is that the UC Merced kid doesn't have the option of taking Organic anywhere but Merced; when he takes Organic at Merced, he's not perceived to be "running away." When a Penn kid takes Organic at Merced, it looks like a copout.</p>

28

<p>
[quote]
The idea is that the UC Merced kid doesn't have the option of taking Organic anywhere but Merced; when he takes Organic at Merced, he's not perceived to be "running away." When a Penn kid takes Organic at Merced, it looks like a copout.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Which is a point that McCullough notes:</p>

<p>The only caveat to this is that it might look
strange if you did poorly in all of your science classes
at Stanford and then did well at an ‘easier’ school.
However, if you do fairly well at Stanford, it will not
appear strange that you took some basic coursework
elsewhere to save academic time and/or money.</p>

<p>Look, it seems to me that y'all have misinterpreted the guy's basic point. He has never once denied that if you can take the conventional path (i.e. take all your courses are your school, take difficult courses, and still get top grades), then sure, you should just go ahead and do that. </p>

<p>His point is that there are students who do not succeed using the conventional path, and hence it's important to understand what your other options are. For example, those students who try to take their premed courses at their school and do poorly are not stuck with no options. They have the option to take those courses at an easier school. Some students may not be able to stay in their current school the entire way through and hence may have to take courses at another school (in his case, he had to temporarily leave Stanford because he simply couldn't afford to stay, and so he presumably had to drop out to make some money). </p>

<p>All he's simply saying is that premeds have lots of options. He is not saying that everybody should use those options. He is just making people aware that the options are there. </p>

<p>I find the counterargument to be the extremely dangerous one - to peddle the notion that these options don't even exist. It's one thing to advise people that they shouldn't use those options if they don't have to. That's a perfectly reasonable stance. But to deny that these options even exist at all - that's dangerous. All he is doing is making people aware that these options exist.</p>

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<p>
[quote=]
Right - exactly - so you agree with me.</p>

<p>But now you have to ask yourself why it doesn't matter. After all, it should matter if adcoms were really paying attention, right? I think it's trivially obvious to all of us that some majors and some schools are more difficult than others. But adcoms don't seem to care about that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The AAMC data cut both ways; this should be obvious. Major X comprises Y percentage of both the applicant an matriculant pools, whether it be English or Biochem; therefore the easy majors do not get an unjustified boost and the hard ones are not unfairly penalized.</p>

<p>
[quote=]
For example, let's say that MIT suffers from particularly poor advice, or the school has a bias towards basic research or can't get proper rec's, etc. etc. But think about what that ought to mean. It ought to mean that med school adcoms should know that MIT students have these peculiar difficulties, and hence they should adjust accordingly. For example, the adcom can be thinking "Well, here's a MIT premed who doesn't really have such great rec's, but we know that MIT has a history of not producing great rec's, and therefore if this student had just gone to another school, he probably would have gotten great rec's. So we will make the proper adjustments."

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</p>

<p>I think to a point it is unreasonable to expect med school admissions committees to adjust for such subjective factors. How are they to judge that a student got a lukewarm LOR due to the culture of the school or due to a uninspiring relationship with the professor? Maybe the MIT student was too bogged down in coursework to participate in numerous EC's and maintain solid grades; or maybe they were just lazy or socially introverted; it's impossible to say. I fully agree with you that it is a poor decision to attend a place like MIT or Caltech with the intent to go to medical school, but I think they represent extreme cases and that you go too far in extrapolating the reasoning out to include all coursework.</p>

<p>I also am suspicious of the supposition that students who take many of their requirements away from their home institution emerge unscathed from the process. There was an article recently about how Stanford students taking their premed requirements at places like UC Merced had become almost epidemic (the article was discussed rather heatedly on this forum I recall). As has also been discussed recently, Stanford's acceptance rate into med school is around ~75%, a rather uninspiring number compared to peer institutions, especially considerding Stanford's rep for grade inflation and their use of the quarter system, which increases gpa-padding opportunities. At Penn on the other hand, students are explicitly discouraged by the premed advisors from taking courses away from their home institution unless absolutely necessary, and Penn boasts a substantially higher acceptance rate despite a nearly identical student body and much more grade deflation (having attended Penn, I find suggestions that anything other than the Chem department is grade deflated to be suspect, but the LSAT/GPA comparison list that surfaces periodically on the forum, and I think to be a pretty decent measure of grade deflation, strongly begs to differ).</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think to a point it is unreasonable to expect med school admissions committees to adjust for such subjective factors. How are they to judge that a student got a lukewarm LOR due to the culture of the school or due to a uninspiring relationship with the professor?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But if the process is fair , then the adcoms should be making these adjustments, at least from a statistical standpoint, right? For example, if MIT becomes well known for producing poor LOR's (as you contended), then not only is it fair, but also quite simple, for adcoms to make the proper adjustment.</p>

<p>Let me put it to you this way. Insurance companies have known for decades that, statistically speaking, smoking tends to damage your health. Hence, if you tell them that you are a smoker, they will respond by jacking up your premiums (or maybe not even offering coverage at all). Now, obviously, some smokers suffer no ill health effects whatsoever, and some nonsmokers will suffer from terrible health. Maybe a certain individual smoker will live in perfect health until he's 100. Maybe a certain individual nonsmoker will die from a heart attack at age 25. You never know what is going on in any individual case. But statistically speaking, the effects of smoking are undeniable, and so it is simple for insurance companies to make the adjustment. I don't think I am asking for adcoms to be doing something very difficult.</p>

<p>But the point is, they don't do it. So if they're not discerning when it comes to this case, why do we assume that they will care all that much if you choose to take your premed courses in a school different from the one you matriculated at? </p>

<p>
[quote]
The AAMC data cut both ways; this should be obvious. Major X comprises Y percentage of both the applicant an matriculant pools, whether it be English or Biochem; therefore the easy majors do not get an unjustified boost and the hard ones are not unfairly penalized.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But they are unfairly penalized, right? After all, that's why the general consensus here is that engineering is probably not the best path for a premed. Why is that, if engineering is not unfairly penalized? It must mean that engineering is unfairly penalized. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I also am suspicious of the supposition that students who take many of their requirements away from their home institution emerge unscathed from the process.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I have never said that they emerge unscathed from the process. In fact, neither does McCullough. His specific words are:</p>

<p>Take home point: Consider taking some of
your pre-med classes elsewhere **if you are hitting a wall here.* *</p>

<p>That's the key - if you are hitting a wall. Look, I have always agreed that if you can take all of your premed courses in your home school and do well in them - i.e. you never hit the wall - then you should just go right ahead. But my and McCullough's point is that not everybody can do that. For those who can't, they have to choose between staying in their home college and getting bad grades, or taking those classes elsewhere and potentially getting good grades. </p>

<p>Bottom line, I agree that if you take your courses at some easier school, you will emerge 'scathed' (if that's a word). But you will probably be even more scathed if you take those courses at your home college and do poorly. The question then is, which option is less bad? For many people, the former is probably the least bad choice. </p>

<p>Surely we can all think of people who took the premed courses at their home college and did poorly. I can certainly think of numerous such 'ruined' premeds. If they had known that they had the option to take those courses at some other easier school, they would have probably been better off for they might still have been competitive for med school admissions, as opposed to what actually happened which clearly made them uncompetitive. </p>

<p>But what you guys seem to be advocating is that everybody needs to take their premed courses at their home college, and if you do poorly in them, oh well, that's too bad for you. That's pretty cold. I think it's better to advise them that there is another coursework path, which although not preferred, is still available to them. That's better than giving these people nothing at all.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
To reinforce the point, this is why it has now become a general consensus among posters at CC that is is a rather poor strategy to attend difficult schools like MIT or Caltech if you want to go to med-school,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wow, I did not know that CC posters were held in such high regard as far as strategy recommendations to ivy med schools were concerned. I guess now all those prep coaches who charge up to $ 25,000 to guarantee a student a spot at one of the ivies, will go out of business. </p>

<p>Let's get the word out..</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
Wow, I did not know that CC posters were held in such high regard as far as strategy recommendations to ivy med schools were concerned. I guess now all those prep coaches who charge up to $ 25,000 to guarantee a student a spot at one of the ivies, will go out of business.</p>

<p>Let's get the word out..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, no, the Ivies are very good places to be premeds, generally because of the high levels of grade inflation and the wealth of premed resources available at those schools. Basically, the Ivies are 'on your side', and that's what you want out of a school. That's a lot better than a school that is actively trying to fight you. Putting together a successful med-school application is hard enough, and it's even harder when your own school doesn't really want to support you. </p>

<p>The bottom line is this. Anybody who can get into MIT or Caltech is also probably good enough to get into at least one of the Ivies, and if they want to be premeds, they are probably off doing so. If that requires a $25k coach to do so, then maybe they should do that.</p>

33

<p>First of all, the Ivys are no longer considered just the "ivy league" from an academic standpoint. Note Stanford and probably Johns Hopkins etc.</p>

<p>When I did Stanford in the 70s, 100% of the premeds got into top med schools. No longer true. In fact for the schools I have been on adcom, it makes no real diff if you are Ivy or not.</p>

34

<p>Emory isn't an Ivy, but they have the highest percentage of pre med students getting into med school.</p>

35

<p>^no they don't. there are numerous colleges that report 100% admit rate to med school (you can't argue emory's non 100% number against 100% regardless of how those schools got 100%). you could also search CC where someone in the past posted a chart with emory's placement into med school based on GPA and MCAT.</p>

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<p>1.) Percentage getting in is not the best way to measure this.
2.) That's blatantly and extremely false. Emory is in the 50s or low 60s. Decent, but far below the "top" rates of 90ish.</p>

37

<p>bluedevilmike is correct. Just think about it: School X has 1 premed, who gets admitted into med school. Well, that is 100 %....</p>