<p>I am a currently a high school senior heading to Michigan State University. I will be part of the Honors College; I will also be going to Lyman Briggs College there, which, as one of my friends said, "makes your GPA look like [expletive] because it's so hard." Earlier this evening, I said that I would like to go to Harvard Medical School in passing to a different friend. She then asked if I would want to transfer after sophomore year at MSU.</p>
<p>That got me thinking. Could that actually be possible for me?</p>
<p>I have a high GPA with several AP/Honors courses, but my ACT was only a 29. I never took the SAT's because they weren't necessary for admission to schools in Michigan. I know the SAT's are necessary as a transfer student, but how bad would that look taking them in May before college?</p>
<p>Another thing: Even if I were to get impressive SAT's (SAT's I and II), I understand that transfer applicants have even a worse chance getting in. Is there a way I could impress the admissions officers in my extracurricular activities? Say, in research? (The Honors College at MSU is really good for that.)</p>
<p>So, two questions: Should I take these standardized tests, or just not bother at all? If I do stand a chance after taking the tests, what could I do to really impress them?</p>
<p>With a 29 on the ACT it is unlikely your score would jump close to a 35/36 or 2300/2400 SAT. Plus you would need close to a 4.0 GPA, excellent recs, and, mnost importantly, a great reason why you need Harvard’s resources over MSU’s. </p>
<p>What program or courses is MSU lacking? You will have to answer that question on the transfer app. Chances are so minimal, you should concentrate on doing well at MSU and then applying to H for grad school. If it is Harvard med school you want, transferring to H College won’t give you any huge advantage.</p>
<p>I can only assume you’re aware that one cannot transfer from undergrad to medical school, so then you must think that attending Harvard for undergrad will help your admissions chances to HMS. It really won’t. Plus, whatever your GPA will be at MSU, it’ll probably be lower at Harvard. </p>
<p>I concur with the above posters in suggesting you kick butt at MSU and apply to Harvard Medical School.</p>
<p>Emma: Applying as a transfer student to any college is very different than applying as a freshman applicant. As a transfer student, your SAT scores are less important (your scores still have to be within a college’s range, in Harvard’s case that would be a 31- to 36 ACT). What seems to matter most in transfer applications are your college GPA, recommendations from your college professors, and the reasons why you want to transfer. In any case Dwight is correct. You cannot attend Harvard Medical school without an undergraduate degree and cannot transfer to HMS directly from MSU. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>There are lots of good medical schools. Stay at MSU and do well. And don’t get stuck on Harvard for medical school. In fact, don’t get stuck on medical school, period. Lots of students your age think they want to be doctors. Think about why you have that goal, and be open to other goals and opportunities in the first years of college.</p>
<p>I’d add to that, don’t get stuck on the idea of fancy, famous medical school. If you want to be a leading researcher and professor, then maybe going to Harvard or Stanford helps you accomplish that, although it still matters more where you do your residency and fellowship(s) than where you go to medical school. If you want to be a regular doctor–an internist or a dermatologist or a pediatrician or an OB/GYN who sees patients for a living–then it absolutely does not matter whether you go to a fancy medical school. </p>
<p>Medical school is fundamentally different from many kinds of graduate school. In medical school, the goal really isn’t to break new ground and learn how to push the boundaries of the field. The goals are to master an enormous volume of technical and scientific information, and to acquire a particular set of clinical skills. The bottom line is, the liver is the liver, and it works the same way whether you study it at Johns Hopkins or Wayne State.</p>
<p>Moreover, medical school is tremendously expensive, and there isn’t a lot of financial aid for it. Plenty of people will lend you money for it, but you have to pay that back. With interest. Even before you start earning much money. No disrespect toward Harvard Medical School intended, but IMO, it really makes sense to attend the best medical school you can get into where you pay in-state tuition.</p>
<p>My FIL, a retired radiologist and partner for a radiology corporation found that docs from lg schools like UMich and Indiana were better equipped for the practical, day-to-day hands on work than the Harvard, Yale, JHU applicants whose instructors tended to keep their students further from the grunt work. He taught at various med schools which confirmed this conclusion too.</p>
<p>His thought: if you want to go into academia or research, go for H, Y, JHU and the like. If you want to practice medicine at a high level, look elsewhere.</p>