<p>Fair enough, capture rather than reporting.</p>
<p>Regardless, the general trend in cases like this is that people love to share good news and will eagerly run to input their data. Reluctance follows rejection. So I think Berkeley’s numbers are probably inflated.</p>
<p>Probably by quite a bit.</p>
<p>
A few years ago at UCSB if a student scored above a 3 on an AP test in high school they could not take that class again for grade credit at the university. I don’t know if this is still true, or is/was true at other UC campuses.</p>
<p>DD never used the Berkeley advising after her saga or conflicting advice early junior year; we moved to the SDN/CC advising dept.</p>
<p>I don’t think Cal has her stats, I don’t think most kids engaged in the med school application process would bother taking the time to figure out how to report their news.</p>
<p>Kluge:</p>
<p>I don’t believe the UC campuses prohibit anyone from retaking the course that one has received AP/IB credit. (Obviously, a prospective Chem major might think long and hard about using a 3 on an AP course to advance into Organic.) What does happen is that a person who “retakes” will lose the AP unit credit for graduation purposes.</p>
<p>bdm:</p>
<p>yeah, I get that rejects may repair to their cave to lick their wounds. But the broader point is that Career Services at the Big Uni focuses on jobs, jobs and more jobs, not grad/professional schools. Thus, folks interested in the next level of academics have no need to ever step foot into the offices of Career Services. Thus, both the denominator and numerators are self-reported.</p>
<p>Whether or not students should visit – or Career Services should offer a broader program - is another matter.</p>
<p>And yes, UC advising stinks relative to private schools. But that is one big advantage of a private and why one pays 2x the price. (IMO, poor advising is also a likely reason for UC’s relatively low showing in the Rhodes competitions.)</p>
<p>deleting duplicate post…</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I think the policy was that you could take the class if you had previously taken it AP, but you would not receive grade point credit for it - pass/fail, in other words. They had a chart for what grade on which AP test would allow you to skip which UC courses, and which grade required you to skip which courses. IIRC, my son’s 5 on AP CalcAB required him to skip the first quarter of UC calculus, but he had the option of skipping the second or taking it (or something like that.) They may not be doing that anymore, though; my info is a few years out of date.</p>
<p>The real question – for which there is no answer –* is how many premed Frosh make it to med school? **Does it really matter if a college has a 90% acceptance rate of the 100 senior med applicants (out of a Frosh class of 5,000)? Since a typical matriculating Frosh class is 20-30% premed, what happened to the other 900 students? *</p>
<p>I don’t know if the bolded question is really fair UNLESS a school has some kind of minimal threshold that a student must meet in order to consider himself a pre-med student. A school with a wide range of ACT/SAT scores can’t prevent an ACT 23 from saying that he is a pre-med student as a freshman. And, when that student quickly learns that he doesn’t have what it takes to get the top grades in science and math classes, he quickly changes his major. It’s not really fair to the school for it to get dinged in some way because some kids with stats that aren’t really “med school material” starts out as pre-med.</p>
<p>Now, if a school were to have some kind of minimal req’t (such as requiring a minimum ACT 28 and 3.5 GPA) in order to be “pre-med” as a frosh, then considering those that don’t make it might be more meaningful.</p>
<p>I do think it’s fair to look at the numbers of students who make it thru all the pre-med req’ts and are still pre-med by say junior/senior year and then take the MCAT… and how many of THEM get into med school.</p>
<p>A few points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I think the mid 50% acceptance number for Cal is about right since the number for UCSD, which is based on AMCAS data, is about 45%.
The real problem with Cal(probably other UC’s as well) is not so much its so-so acceptance number; rather, it’s the above average stats for those who were accepted.</p></li>
<li><p>BCMP grade distribution for Cal averages 30-35% A+/A/A-, for UCD/UCI, it’s 20-25%. So basically have gun, will travel. And if you’re not a gunner, it probably doesn’t matter where you go.</p></li>
<li><p>Cal allows and encourages retake for those with AP credit. UCSD disallows retake. If you’ve AP’ed out calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics, it’s going to be a pain to major in something fun like music at UCSD.</p></li>
<li><p>Of all UC’s, UCSD is probably the best place for premed. It offers abundant research, clinical volunteering, shadowing, and non-clinical volunteering opportunities, all on campus. You’ll likely be able to build a stronger overall app there.</p></li>
<li><p>UC financial aid sucks compared to HYPS. Even with full financial aid, you still have to carry $5k loan and $3k workstudy. The only way out is to get Regents Scholarship.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>sunfish:</p>
<p>UCSD’s policy states that “Students who receive AP or IB credit may not take an equivalent course for credit.” Italics added.</p>
<p>Thus, the simple solution is to waive the AP credit and take the equivalent course in LaJolla. Alternatively, don’t submit AP scores. The point is that UCSD cannot force a student to use the AP credit unless, of course, those AP/IB credits are used for transfer admission.</p>
<p>I must say that I am not a big fan of the UC schools as undergraduate institutions. The UC’s, especially UCB, UCLA and UCSD are hyper competitive and full of intense gunners. They are large impersonal institutions. Some students do however thrive in such environment and those that do have their pick of graduate schools. Those that do not thrive get weeded out.
A lot of my friends went through the UC’s to get to medical school and the consensus is that 80% or more of the students who are considering medicine as an entering freshman do not make it into medical school for a large number of reasons including finding other interests and not making the necessary grades.
One should also note that generally it is easiest to get into the public medical school of one’s own state. The problem with California is that there are only 5 public schools (not counting UCR) for a state with a population of 37 million and two are top notch and one is pretty close and the other two are very good and all are very difficult to get into.
If I were coming out of California I would try to attend one of the better LAC’s like a Pomona, Whitman, Amherst, Smith, Haverford, etc or one of the Ivy’s or National schools like Rice, Duke etc. Rice might be a very good choice as their financial aid is quite good and you might be able to find a way to get state residency and have an easier time getting into medical school in Texas where the public schools are less expensive and less competitive than the California Publics.</p>
<p>*If I were coming out of California I would try to attend one of the better LAC’s like a Pomona, Whitman, Amherst, Smith, Haverford, etc or one of the Ivy’s or National schools like Rice, Duke etc. Rice might be a very good choice as their financial aid is quite good and you might be able to find a way to get state residency and have an easier time getting into medical school in Texas where the public schools are less expensive and less competitive than the California Publics. *</p>
<p>I think one issue is that many who live in Calif have higher EFCs than what they can afford…so attending a pricey private may be out of the question (unless maybe HYPS with their super aid). </p>
<p>Many in Calif have highish incomes but also very high mortgages because of housing prices…some people are paying more than 50% of their incomes towards their mortgages! Many students attend UCs (or Cal States) because costs can be rather low…especially if you can commute to the school. </p>
<p>Even a residential student with a $50k EFC can “reduce” their EFC by almost half by attending a UC and can cut it by 2/3 by attending a Cal State.</p>
<p>I’d be startled if big privates didn’t have some kind of cost-of-living adjustment. But in any case, moms is right that cost matters. But I think in the early stages, there’s no sense assuming that publics will actually be any cheaper. Especially for the OP, where I’m quite certain they’ll actually be considerably more expensive.</p>
<p>I agree that a student shouldn’t just assume that a public will be cheaper. Best to send out apps in all directions and see how things shake out.</p>
<p>As for cost of living adjustments…my family in Calif (6 siblings + cousins) sure haven’t found that “big privates” do any kind of “cost of living adjustment” (at least none that has helped them in any way). The aid “gurus” on CC say that big mortgages are a choice and that’s how colleges view them. </p>
<p>My relatives are either “full pay” at privates and publics or accepting scholarships at other schools.</p>
<p>While colleges do not have COL adjustments, a few rich ones do cap home equity used in their EFC calc. OTOH, for the vast majority of students (i.e., those with incomes less than ~$120k), top privates can offer a competitive price. For those same students, most of the Ivies et al will be less out of pocket than the UC at instate rates.</p>
<p>
California has about 12% of the nation’s population, and 6% of its medical schools. (Texas has 2/3 California’s population but the same number of medical schools; New York has half California’s population and 50% more medical schools.) It would be surprising if California’s public universities didn’t have a lower med school placement rate than public U’s from other states. That’s just the way the numbers work out.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the “number” of med schools matter as much as the number of “seats”…</p>
<p>how do those compare?</p>
<p>*Fair enough, capture rather than reporting.</p>
<p>Regardless, the general trend in cases like this is that people love to share good news and will eagerly run to input their data. Reluctance follows rejection. So I think Berkeley’s numbers are probably inflated.</p>
<p>Probably by quite a bit. *</p>
<p>this is probably true for all schools then, right? Mostly only happy people are providing data?</p>
<p>
No, private schools usually have complete or nearly-complete capture. This has to do with committee letters of recommendation. So when Williams tells you it’s at 90%+, that’s a real number. When Berkeley tells you it’s at 55%, that’s probably way too optimistic.</p>
<p>BDM…</p>
<p>Clarify to a newbie like me…</p>
<p>Do mostly only privates do the committee recs? Don’t publics do them, too?</p>
<p>I’m not sure that I understand.</p>
<p>1.) If your school offers a committee recommendation, medical schools require that you include one (exceptions will probably be made if you’re, say, 10 years out).</p>
<p>2.) Some publics do offer them (… UCLA? not sure), while some privates (Stanford) do not.</p>
<p>3.) Some privates screen them (Hopkins is the only one I know of).</p>
<p>4.) Mostly, however, private schools offer them to all who request them, and publics mostly do not offer them at all. This is a general trend, not a universal rule.</p>
<p>5.) Any school which offers a committee letter thus knows every single school to which every single one of its applicants sent a secondary (now primary? not sure). Therefore any school which offers a committee letter can only be too pessimistic in its reporting, not too optimistic.</p>
<p>6.) Meanwhile, however, at any school which does not offer a committee letter, reporting is vulnerable to self-selection bias, which is almost certain to make the numbers too optimistic.</p>