<p>The best pre-med college is the one that’ll allow you to perform the best academically! Go to MIT and get a C in Organic and you are out of the race! Go to St. John’s Univ and get a B+ you can gain admission. Good GPA and solid MCAT scores are the best premed " school"! I do not know why the posters are listing these pressure cooker schools as if they will somehow prepare you better for medical school or allow you to gain entrance at a much higher rate! Yes it’s true an equal GPA from a top school may have a slight advantage however if the MCAT scores are solid the student will gain admission to virtually the same medical school whether from MIT undergrad, a flagship state school, or a top 200 university. That’s been shown time and time again, year after year.</p>
<p>This is very true. I’ve spent a lot of time during the last 2 years looking over posts on that “other” premed website. Without a stellar GPA, your hopes can be sunk. </p>
<p>I would only go to a top school for undergrad if I had a very strong math and science foundation, and my test scores were well-within the upper quartiles. Time and time again I would see posts from kids who were lucky to get into an elite school (stats in the middle quartiles) and they don’t end up with med-school-ready GPAs because their classmates are stronger than they are. </p>
<p>Nearly all colleges treat the pre-med pre-reqs as “weeder courses.” They limit the number of As awarded. Doing this serves two functions: It weeds out the weaker premed students, and it weeds out the weeker STEM students. </p>
<p>Having just gone thru the med school app process with my younger son, high GPA, strong MCAT, good ECs, good LORs, and a good personality are what gets you in.</p>
<p>First you have to snag an interview…and med schools only interview about 10% of their applicants, so first your stats have to look good on paper (the LizzyM method works well as long as you take into acct that OOS publics are unlikelies). </p>
<p>If you’re lucky to get interviewed, then you have to “shine” because the interview weighs a LOT. SOMs want “people persons”. they want to weed out those who seem to only want to be doctors because of the money or parent-pressure/expectations. </p>
<p>Many interviews are “stats blind” which means that the interviewers do NOT know your stats or anything. The fact that you’re being interviewed means that the school has already determined that you’re stats-qualified. The interview is to determine if you’re a good fit for the school and for the medical profession. It’s also known as the “crazy test.” lol</p>
<p>While my son took a risky route, (he only completed 6 applications (ugh! lol), he did get 3 interviews and got accepted to all 3, including his top pick. I don’t recommend that anyone follow his example! :/</p>
<p>Keep in mind that about half of all med school applicants don’t get any US MD acceptances. A successful app process means that you’ve gotten ONE US MD acceptance. That’s how hard the process is.</p>