<p>Alright so my ultimate goal is Harvard Medical School. I understand Medical School admission is fiercely competitive as it stands, but if you shoot for the moon and miss you'll at least snag a star, right?</p>
<p>Currently, I just finished my freshman year at a UCI (which I only went to to ease my parent's financial burden), but I've heard, students from within the system (at an Ivy or private school), have a better chance of getting in. I've got a decent GPA (3.7-3.9 range, will work hard to raise!), research at a lab, work for the campus newspaper and am the chair of community outreach for a very renowned club (as in nationally acclaimed). Which of the two paths below would boost my chances of getting to HMS?</p>
<p>Choice I.
Attempt to Transfer to an Ivy League/ Stanford and be forced to rebuild relationships with Professors (for recs and ECS), maybe redo classes that don't transfer, and find a new lab to research at while boosting admission chances (through the prestige of the school I've transferred to) and appearing ambitous on a resume </p>
<p>Choice II.
Graduate a year early, and use what would have been my Senior year to earn a Masters at USC or UCLA (they're close) to make me stand out even more</p>
<p>I would go with choice 2 masters beats ivy i would say.</p>
<p>Choice #1 will boost your chances more but even then I would say only marginally. It is extremely hard to get into a school like HMS whether you come from Ivy League undergrad or not. It is not worth transferring solely for a minuscule chance at a prestigious med school. You are much better off staying at UCI and aiming for a top UC med school.</p>
<p>In my opinion, you’re setting yourself up for huge disappointment. It’s difficult to appreciate how truly great the competition is for top medical schools. It doesn’t matter how qualified you are, it’s going to be very difficult to get in.</p>
<p>While ambition is good, you need to be realistic. I would forget about hms. Keep doing really well and make your goal to be, more broadly, admission to a good medical school.</p>
<p>Oh, and just stay at UCI. It’s a good school with a lot of research available to undergrads, which is all you really need. If you do well enough there, you’re not going to be at a serious disadvantage to anyone.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t aim for any single medical school.</p>
<p>Why would you forget about hms? With all due respect, that seems a little strange. The worst thing that is going to happen is that I will be rejected, but I’ll never know if I don’t apply.</p>
<p>Your goal - raise your GPA, Transfer will not help. If you are asking for honest opinion, here is mine. You do not have to take advice from anybody, though.</p>
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<p>You don’t need to forget about HMS but identifying this early with such a reach school (even for cream of top applicants) may be a huge disappointment, especially when everything you are doing is toward admission to that one school. HMS admissions are somewhat unpredictable…I have seen people with awesome numbers and very mediocre numbers as well…I have seen people with unbelievable ECs and very average ECs also…so, you just hope for the best.</p>
<p>Stay where you are. Do a MA if you want to but don’t expect it to be the ■■■■ factor in your application. If you are trying to do that, go full PhD.</p>
<p>What makes you think that you’d be even accepted as a transfer? Nothing really stands out, considering that the transfer pool is more competitive than regular admissions pool.</p>
<p>There is little to gain for you to transfer from a decent school where you have done well. CA medical schools are among the most competitive for out of staters. Stanford and UCSF are in the top 5-10 in many specialties.
The further you progress, the less relevant the medical school name becomes. There are strong departments and weak ones.
Duke had an outstanding Surgery Department, which overwhelmed the Anesthesiology Department, which was placed on probation. In Radiology, a top program is Washington University in St. Louis. Penn is reknowned for the Children’s Hospital. For a while, UTMB was top five in ENT.
The ultimate goal is to enter the specialty of your choice and be board certified. Those in the specialty know which are the top programs. They may not be impressed with the Harvard brand, which can mean Mass General, Beth Israel, or Brigham and Women’s. The pedegree may help if you want to stay in academia. But the pedegree is important in the particular specialty or subspecialty. Otherwise, patients don’t really care where you trained. They just want you to be good, and decent.
Good luck to you.</p>
<p>The idea of “standout” is overrated. Very high GPA, decent MCAT and reasonable amount and quality of EC’s - that’s all you need.</p>