All US medical schools accredited by LCME are equally good. A prestigious brand name ALONE will not get you top residencies. PLME, HPME or GAP BSMD programs are NOT a ticket to getting top residencies. Once you are a board certified MD, no one cares which medical school you attended. Visit a medical conference and see it for yourself. Only non-medical practitioners in this forum are worried about rankings/prestige factor.
My daughter is going to be a rising junior this Fall. She wants to apply for BSMD and would like some advice on her stats and kind of colleges she should look into.
Stats:
Research:
Computational Biology: since 8 months and still working on this (total 3 years at the time of application))
Research in Neurology Lab - starting in few weeks and will probably have 2 year by the time the application process begins
Local hospital - 200 hrs till now
School stuff:
GPA: 4.0 UW/4.52 W, no ranking
SATs: Chem - taking next month
will graduate with 10 - 11 APs (AP Biology, AP chemistry, AP Spanish, Ap Psychology, APUSH, AP Physics C- Mechanics, AP Calc BC, AP Comp, AP Stats, Linear Algebra )
Extracurricular:
NHS - Member
Philharmonic Orchestra
National Spanish Honors Society - Cabinet Leader
Planning to look for some shadowing and internships this year.
Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
@grt2010 - yes patients donât care about medicine school but going to prestigious medical school does help with finding first job (or finding research opportunities), just like going to Wharton and Harvard for business or Yale for law. probably less than 1% of applicants are active on CC.
Not sure if they offer to BSMD candidates.
@srk2017 Youâve made the point often about how a prestigious school helps with the first job. I admit that I have little experience in this field since I am not a medical practitioner, but I have taken your warnings into account and spoken with practicing doctors. I havenât found anyone who had difficulty getting a first job. Have you? Do you know people who were unable to find a good first job after residency? It really doesnât seem to be a problem around here.
@gallentjill - I am not a medical practitioner but married to one who trained at top 10 med school and recruits physicians. My point is prestige does help in every field and every time someone say it doesnât matter I repeat my point. As I said before more and more new doctors are preferring for jobs rather than going into private practice so itâs a job hunting like any other field.
@gallentjill
The so called prestige is a relative term. For people who donât know the industry well, ground realities and dynamics of the field, it is easy to peg prestige to certain ranking number of a faulty web site. That is a simplistic approach, good for them if it suits their personal egos. But people on the field know the realities. As @WayOutWestMom pointed out some time ago, certain relatively not so known names, like UAB for example, are considered way superior in certain areas of medicine and only folks exposed to those areas know itâs significance. As I myself mentioned earlier, both the NJ medical schools are excellent and produce successive batches of eminent physicians year after year (I know few of the recent ones and where all they went and what all accomplished, but someone naive may be totally unawares following some site which always places both the schools tied at the bottom of the pile).
Speaking of prestige in any field in general, if one does well on an interview and proves his mettle on the job, he has similar chances of success as someone else having a degree from a fancy place. One of my ex colleagues was mentioning last year about his low to mid 20 odd year old son who stopped his studies after high school (meaning not having any degree, let alone from a fancy place) to take up a career in our industry and is already making more money than his dad. (with 25 years or so experience)
The advantage I see in joining top medical school is getting edge on others to get in top speciality residency programs.
Numbers show the evidence and this can be related to the fact that top schools select the cream with better exposure and networking. exceptions are always there.
@trustybsms - you understood what I am trying to convey 
Exceptions are always there and some folks here always point those here to advocate their point of view . Everyone has to prove their mettle on the job and as I said prestige helps with getting interview and may be wonât get grilled in the interview. Few years back someone with English major was recruited as a business analyst at the company i worked since founder graduated from same school (UCB) but was let go after a year. One of top Google executives graduated from Chico state (in CA) which is primarily known as a party school. It doesnât mean every kid should go there instead of UCB or Stanford.
From past pattern, does anyone know by when Rice/Baylor sends out final results ? Do they send out Rice/Baylor and Baylor/Baylor results on same date ?
With respect to the med schools examples I have given, I am not talking about exceptions. I know multiple folks from there matching to top residencies and fellowships consistently. (Thought I made it clear, anyway). Those schools are not supposedly good according to some who donât know the realities and vow by some sites religiously. I also know folks attending supposedly top med schools, burning out and settling down in the fields they never imagined they would go to when they started at those places.
@rk2017 I know tou didnt mention my name but itâs obvuous you are referring to me. I never questioned merits of any medical schools and I am not stuck on some ranking site. I said here and jn a private message that everyone needs some yardstick to measure. You yourself brought up so many ranking sites. I agree peopleâs success comes thru different ways and people measure success different ways (money vs reputation is one example).
Again kids especially ORMs who worked so hard to.aheive admission schools they thought are the prestigious or very hard to get should be presenred with balanced views rather than fearmongering. There are kids who are getting burned out change their priorities in every school. I always advised premeds kids to look at grade deflation and research and volunteering opportunities over ranking. I advised sevwral students to avoid UCB and UCLA and go to lower ranked schools for premed.
I shouldnât be typing my responses on cell phone at gym and commit so many typos 
some folks have audacity to take every disagreement as disrespect and insult to others. They donât even have courage to address the problem head on with poster and use someone else solder to fire a gun, This is a public forum and if you donât have stomach to take criticism merely because someone is disagree with you, sorry to say you are on wrong side. We are going to agree at times and disagree at others. Even messages are completely misunderstood and treated as offensive (yes @rk2017 referring to posts 5837, 5843 and 5845) and didnât even bother to clarify.
We all have examples of good and bad experiences, does it mean only one of them is right? As a human we learn from experiences and make choices accordingly.
Unless you go to a medical school of the caliber of Harvard Medical School or Stanford Medical School, you arenât guaranteed a good residency. And just to be frank- none of the programs (not even Pitt GAP and Northwestern HPME) are anywhere close to this top tier.
Iâve talked to current ortho residents and what they told me is this- unless you go to a top 10 school, MD school name is fairly insignificant- itâs way less important than Step 1, AOA, and clinical rotations.
Just look at BUâs 2019 match list and NJMSâs match list. One is ranked in the 30âs by USNEWS, the other is ranked in the 70âs. The overall quality of the matches is roughly the same- this implies that the USNEWS rankings methodologies is complete baloney for predicting residency placement.
@GreenPoison - Agreed. No one is advising using USNWR ranking to determine match outcomes. USNWR has so many rankings for medial school, research and primary care rankings besides for each speciality. They seems to rely more on NIH funding to determine research ranking and lot of folks donât agree with them.
In fact there is another more reliable ranking system for that but I wonât be sharing that here. Also, I believe two thirds of matching is regional. Unless they are aiming for high demand specialities or research and teaching at prestigious schools, medical students prefers to stay in the same region.
Again need opinionâŠ
Matching to speciality is fine. Does it matter for a physician if he does speciality Residency program from a top program vs unranked program. I assume some of them like nuerosurgery you spend same time of your life what you spend in premed and medical school.
here is another anomaly of USLME outcome
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/politics/justice-department-health-human-services-doctors-charged-opioids/index.html
@trustybsms certainly not knowledgeable enough to address specialty residency among medical schools. However to
means equal quality, I canât fathom somehow same duration is equal to same quality.
Any advice on my post earlier please?