<p>In 2010, 23% of Cambridge students got a first class honours (not honors, I guess) degree.</p>
<p>At Harvard, the percentage of summa cum laude and magna cum laude combined is capped at 20%.</p>
<p>So a ‘low first’ (which in itself is a term reminiscent of ‘lower Ivy’) would seem to be similar to a borderline GPA for magna cum laude.</p>
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<p>Exactly- that sounds about right to me. And nobody at a top medical school admissions department is going to be blown away by someone who is borderline-magna cum laude. It’s not bad, but hardly great.</p>
<p>You also have to bear in mind that there are far more Firsts in the sciences than in the humanities. (The sciences tend to have more Firsts and more Thirds, whereas arts and humanities are clustered in the Second range.) So your estimate of the 77th percentile is probably a bit generous.</p>
<p>^^^
Well for the traditional applicant, they are applying between junior and senior year…so they’re not summa cum anything at that point.</p>
<p>The advice on this thread seems right to me, but if I were faculty at an American medical school I would be shaking my head in shame reading it. It is pretty much 100% wrong that an American student who wants to be an American doctor someday would be advised essentially not to consider taking a Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge because that could jeopardize his future. Medical schools are always claiming that they want students who are more adventurous, not careerists who are afraid to deviate from the normal path, but if the schools maintain policies like those discussed here they fully deserve what they get.</p>
<p>Obviously, I am not going to cry big tears for the OP’s kid who might be “forced” to go to Stanford rather than Cambridge because of this. But the gravamen of the advice is that East Podunk State would be a better choice than Cambridge if you think maybe you might want to be an American doctor someday.</p>
<p>No JHS, we’re not debating East Podunk U vs. Cambridge. And if this kid were a Brit, figuring out how to apply to a US med school would be a worthy exercise.</p>
<p>But a kid already accepted to a top US U, who is an American, wants to attend a US Med school and practice in the US? Seems like a no-brainer to me.</p>
<p>Nobody is claiming (except for you) that studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge will jeopardize his future. That’s extreme. Many of us are pointing out that there are a couple of advantages to a top US university in med school admissions- there will be an entire office of people who are experienced getting their grads ready for a US med school to name just one. </p>
<p>I know lots of doctors and med students who have done fellowships, Master’s degrees, Rhodes/Fulbright exchanges, etc. overseas and it hasn’t hurt their medical education at all. No jeopardy. But I’m not convinced that there’s significant value FOR THIS KID in doing an undergrad in the UK. Especially since he’s already gotten an acceptance he’s excited about in the US.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the OP’s S should contact a few US med schools across a range and ask if for an opinion and advice before making a final decision.Of course, nobody is going to make a binding decision now, but he could at least find out if any of a group of 10-12 med schools has ever admitted an Oxbridge student.</p>
<p>I think it is incorrect to equate the lowest first-class honors degree recipient in Cambridge or Oxford with a student who has a 3.7 at Harvard. In most cases, I think you would find that the Cambridge/Oxford student is substantially better educated. (There are exceptions, of course.) I say this despite the fact that some of the Oxbridge colleges equate a US 3.7 average to a First. I think they are mistaken in doing so. Also, I don’t think the percentile analysis holds up, because it involves comparisons of different student groups, differently selected, with different time allocations as students.</p>
<p>I know that one example (Stephen Hawking) proves nothing. But I think it’s incorrect to believe that a person who just eked out a first is unimpressive (in general). Personally, I have not met anyone who had an Oxbridge first and was unimpressive. Actually, I’ve met a few people who had upper second-class degrees and were quite impressive intellectually.</p>
<p>Of course students can go on Rhodes/Fulbright, or other exchanges and complete US medical degrees. But normally, those are post-graduate experiences, and the person has a US degree that meets med school requirements first.</p>
<p>Many math students in the US don’t take organic chemistry, biology, genetics, physiology, . . . and so the point that a Cambridge math student is not ready for a US medical school seems to me to be beside the point. </p>
<p>In general, I agree with JHS that the problem is with the US medical schools, not with the Cambridge/Oxford degree. The one reservation I have about this is that in the US, volunteer positions in medicine are available to undergrads, as are shadowing opportunities, and I am not sure whether that’s available to BA students in medicine in the UK.</p>
<p>As far as the advice it is better to attend “podunk U” rather than Cambridge actually does have merit. There are 124 US MD schools. And they are ALL good med schools.</p>
<p>med schools don’t really care what you major in or where you attend. They care about what you did where you were at. They rank your CGPA and your BPCM gpa and your MCAT score…irrelevant of where you attended. And were the REQUIRED pre-med courses taken and that resulting GPA. The software program used to screen that info on the very first round before ANYONE looks at your app will screen all those not having the minimum or as we say a “Lizzy M” score will be rejected outright.</p>
<p>However almost all applying have been self-screened and screened by their respective undergrad pre-med admission committees before EVER opening an AMCAS account. There are 65+ pages of instructions on how to just fill out the AMCAS application.</p>
<p>So the tens of thousands of apps that are being sent to ONE school will be screened on just the numbers alone. If the required coursework, 1 year of general chem, another year of organic chem, biochemistry (all sequential coursework), 1 year of physics, 1 year of writing intensive coursework, new humanities coursework for the NEW Mcat, math, cellular bio, genetics…more sequential coursework. All coursework is entered in exactly as it appears on the transcript and then AMCAS verifies that the coursework is as it appears on the official transcript and puts it in the correct classification in order to obtain their value of the BPCM GPA.</p>
<p>All this and AMCAS will NOT do this for a foreign undergrad degree. I am sure some med school somewhere has admitted a Cambridge student however they still had to do all the required coursework as WOWM cited earlier with a minimun of work done here in the US. </p>
<p>This does not even address the issue of the coursework needed to prep for the MCAT. With a new MCAT being designed to be even more broad-based and that is why additional coursework for pre-med has been extended this year.</p>
<p>Not only are there med schools that give preference to in-state students there are schools that will ONLY consider in-state residences. No exceptions. Foreign undergrad will not satisfy that requirement. If the student wants to spend 3 years in the UK come back here and spend 2-3 more years completing the requirements necessary to apply then that is a different story.</p>
<p>But the OP mentioned that her son had completed some coursework which would help but does not lead me to believe he wants to invest several more years after Cambridge in order to apply to US med schools.</p>
<p>It just doesn’t make any sense. Med school adcomms are not interested in prestige of the universities but rather what has the student done to demonstrate his committment to medicine. So yes, if the student will do better at “podunk u” than elite u, than podunk it is.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Is there any disagreement that it would be substantially simpler to apply to medical school from a US university, rather than from Cambridge or Oxford?</p>
<p>I know nothing about med school admissions. My only input is that if your son decides to go to the US school undergrad, he can take a year abroad at Cambridge.</p>
<p>RE: post #46</p>
<p>No need to contact admission offices—that information is clearly stated on each school’s admission website. Also in the MSAR (Medical School Admission Requirements) published annually by AMCAS. </p>
<p>Admission requirements are notoriously inflexible because admission to medical school is so extremely competitive. Each med school in the US receives thousands more applications from fully qualified applicants that it can possible accept. (16,000 applicants for 200 seats really isn’t unusual.) There is no benefit to a med school to allow exceptions. (Think of how many lawsuits that would engender!)</p>
<p>The only allopathic medical school I know of (and I’ve researched this for another student who was thinking of attending a UK undergrad) that will consider applicants directly from a UK university is UVA. And UVA hasn’t accepted a UK grad in many, many years.</p>
<p>There are 3 or 4 US osteopathic medical schools which will consider applicants with foreign transcripts, but it’s on an individual case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>Just wanted to acknowledge that “practise” is indeed the verb in the UK, and not the noun. I have always stuck with American spellings–though not always accurately, even then! </p>
<p>“Practise” does appear to be used incorrectly in one spot of the Cambridge Medicine web site, although it is used correctly elsewhere.</p>
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<p>I do too…but for different reasons. They are just different systems. Many Oxbridge students would have difficulty filling the core requirements of a Harvard degree. If they had to take courses in areas outside their interest and those grades counted, they would not get a first. On the flip side, there are plenty of H students with a 3.7 who have not earned straight As in their major and I suspect if they went to Oxbridge they’d get a 2.1 at best. </p>
<p>I went to an Ivy which is not HYP. One of the most impressive candidates I ever interviewed (as an alum interviewer) was rejected by my alma mater. That wasn’t surprising in the least. While she interviewed extraordinarily well, she had less than perfect grades outside her area of interest and good but not great scores. Her ECs weren’t especially strong. She went on to Oxford because it was far more prestigious than any of the US colleges where she was admitted. The interview meant a lot for Oxford (she did PP&E, not science); it meant very little for my alma mater. She had high scores of multiple AP tests in areas relevant to EP&E. They mattered more at Oxford. </p>
<p>I have an adult kid who has at least 50 friends who went to Oxbridge. As far as I know, only one failed to get a first. The “gang” practically held a funeral for him when he got his results. He IS very impressive intellectually. Ironically, his 2.1 stopped him from getting into a top graduate program in the UK --so he ended up in the US for graduate school. He attends one of the top rated programs in his field–because US programs were willing to look past a single number–2.1–and look at other things too. In his case, his fluency in a number of foreign languages–which is very important for research in his field–was a huge plus for US programs–and mattered not in the least to Oxbridge.</p>
<p>The two systems are just different. They play to the strengths of different kinds of people. It’s sort of like the SAT and ACT. Most people get roughly about the same score on each if you use one of those “converters,” but there are definitely outliers, people who can be wildly successful in one system and much less success with a different system. </p>
<p>And, frankly, someone’s UG GPA may not correlate at all well with their grad or professional school success…or for that matter, how genuinely “intellectual” they are. </p>
<p>I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’ve never heard of a “low first.” I have heard of a “starred first.” I also know people who got “vivaed.” But otherwise…as far as I know, a first is a first.</p>
<p>jonri–I agree that there is no such designation as a “low first.” I was only trying to use some terminology to distinguish a student who just made it to the high side of the 1 vs. 2.1 cut line from a student who had a clear-cut first. </p>
<p>The issue of not paying attention to areas outside of one’s interest can crop up even within an Oxbridge subject area. That is the usual explanation for Stephen Hawking’s viva: he spent very little time on the areas of physics that he did not find compelling. In that regard, he’s somewhat like the young Werner Heisenberg, who was tripped up on elementary questions on optics during his undergrad exams–though in Heisenberg’s case, he later found it scientifically profitable to turn his attention to issues of wavelength and spatial resolution. I don’t think there was anything similar in Hawking’s case (with the possible exception of thermodynamics).</p>
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<p>Then you’ve never really dealt with applications for postgrad funding in the UK. The forms require us to state if the person has a low middle or high first (not quite in those words).</p>
<p>Interesting! I’ve never heard that before. And, I freely admit that I’ve never deal with applications for postgrad funding for Oxbridge students in the UK. I’ve never really dealt with postgrad funding at all. I don’t work for an academic institution and never have.</p>
<p>OK, all you insufferable Anglophiles! What is a “vivaed first,” and why are you looking down your noses at it? </p>
<p>I know what a first is, and I think I know what a viva is, but I have trouble figuring out how to mash the two together to make sense here. Is a vivaed first a first awarded on the basis of an oral exam, when the written exams would not have justified it?</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with a vivaed first . . . There are two categories, at least in Oxford. One is the viva for a student who is borderline between a first and a second. The viva is decisive in that case. The other is a “congratulatory viva” for the student who has the highest marks. I am not sure whether there are questions at a congratulatory viva or not. I have not actively heard of congratulatory vivas in Cambridge, but I suppose they exist. Also, I don’t know whether all subjects give starred firsts, or only some.</p>
<p>As I recall, Cayley was listed as “incomparabilis” in mathematics, having achieved extremely high scores on the exams. There is also a Cambridge legend that the person who comes second in the mathematics tripos generally has a more distinguished career than the person who comes first. Cayley would be an obvious counter-example to that, but there are a few instances where it seems to be correct. The thought is that the person who comes in second still has something to prove.</p>
<p>Sorry about being insufferable! I am feeling stupider than usual (which keepittoyourself will probably contradict by pointing out that I have generally been stupid), having just failed to qualify for an audition on the Jeopardy! online test, for the first time since I started taking the online tests.</p>
<p>Apparently score is kept within the firsts in Oxbridge. I did not actually know that, except for knowing about a few of the academic prizes and designations.</p>
<p>There are also vivas for students at the second/third borderline, and there are probably vivas for students at the 2.1/2.2 borderline. The students sometimes initially mistake these for a 1/2.1 viva.</p>
<p>OT:</p>
<p>For Quantmech and others familiar with the British university grading policies:</p>
<p>So…what would be a US equivalent of a Third?</p>
<p>:D</p>