<p>*Quote:
Almost 25% of admitted class each year is from Stanford.
*</p>
<p>Wow…but I agree. There aren’t as many top private schools in the west…in fact, few. Where did you see those numbers?</p>
<p>The class size was supposed to be 80 in 2012 and you can see 19 from post 58 link.</p>
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<p>Approximately a third of UCSF – a public – hails from Stanford and Cal each and every year.</p>
<p>Fact: The OPs question was answered to a very minimal degree.
Fact: This thread spiraled out of control with a lot of nonsense.
Opinion: prestige should not matter for a Canadian applicant since you are looking to apply to US schools which have very limited spots for out-of-country applicants. Assuming you are a senior, go the place you like the most that has the best support for your future educational and career goals and where you feel the most comfortable. Prestige is a minimal factor in the process, but you will get nowhere if you can’t keep up your grades and MCAT scores.</p>
<p>From bluebayou’s post #63, it is not a stretch to believe that:</p>
<p>If your goal is to get into a tippy top med school on the west coast,
You need to do very good at schools like Cal, Stanford, etc., or
extremely good at a school which is not one of the above.</p>
<p>I think you could interpret this as either “the school’s prestige matters” or “the school’s prestige does not matter much.” This is because you could do extremely well at a non-top school and achieve the same result.</p>
<p>A more relevant question only YOU can answer is that: do you have a better chance to be among the very good students at a school like Cal or Stanford, etc., or have a better chance to be among the EXTREMELY good students at a non-tippy-top college? For a record, DS chose a former school.</p>
<p>Approximately a third of UCSF – a public – hails from Stanford and Cal each and every year.</p>
<p>So, 2/3 are coming from 2 schools?</p>
<p>*Opinion: prestige should not matter for a Canadian applicant *</p>
<p>the OP has a green card. That makes a difference.</p>
<p>It might have been BDM who said that a student might get a small nudge coming from the top 8-10 schools, but for the rest, there isn’t one (except maybe for Cal grads at Stanford med…lol).</p>
<p>His point was that there was no point for prospective undergrads to choose School Ranked 40 over School Ranked 60 (or whatever) because he/she expected to get a nudge.</p>
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<p>Sry, my bad. Delete the words ‘each and’, which are confusing, unless I insert a so-called Oxford comma, after ‘Cal’… :)</p>
<p>btw: I think the private/public distinction is more about state residency. Take the state of South Carolina, for example. It’s med school gives BIG bonus points for residency or ties to the state; rarely are OOS’ers accepted. However, there are really no highly ranked colleges in SC from which to draw. Thus, when So Carolina accepts instate students to their public med school, prestige appears not to matter in the aggregate. However, that doesn’t mean that prestige does not matter, just that it is trumped by state residency requirements.</p>
<p>Ditto U-Dub’s selection process. (Yes that it participates in the NW consortium, but the point is still valid).</p>
<p>So it seems to me, that the correct analysis is to look at public med school acceptances in a state that also contains highly ranked undergrad colleges/unis.</p>
<p>Alternatively, how do the Rice premeds, who are Texas residents, fare in Texas med acceptances, for example?</p>
<p>Can we all (myself included) agree that even the best doctor from the best med school in the world couldn’t bring this dead horse we’ve thoroughly beaten back to life?</p>
<p>^^^
True, but it’s still an interesting topic, especially the stats about 1/3 of UCSF’s med students coming from 2 Calif schools. </p>
<p>*btw: I think the private/public distinction is more about state residency. Take the state of South Carolina, for example. It’s med school gives BIG bonus points for residency or ties to the state; rarely are OOS’ers accepted. *</p>
<p>For sure! There are some state SOMs that really only accept instate students unless they’re MD/PhD. </p>
<p>I think the state that is the EASIEST to get accepted to its med school is Mississippi. If you’re instate and a good student, you’re pretty much assured a seat.</p>
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<p>There are dozens of threads on cc whose life has been long gone, including the attempt to bring a corpse back to life. Why should this thread be any different. :D</p>
<p>Med schools really vary in their selection emphasis. One I am rather familiar with notes:</p>
<p>1) MCAT and GPA are needed to make it thru the screening to get an interview
2) Two huge nationally ranked state schools are the biggest suppliers of our accepted students
3) Once you get past the academic screening and get an interview, the whole situation shifts, and it is about a) are you familiar with medicine (shadowing) and committed to it, and b) are you a person your interviewer could see taking care of their mother. Personality is crucial, and being invested in helping others is essential.
4) extra credit for “distance travelled” such as overcoming personal hardship/disadvantaged background, and for being a collaborative team player</p>
<p>No advantage whatsoever to very high prestige universities.</p>
<p>Just one data point!</p>
<p>Texaspg, the Wofford student was on a freaking other planet. She torched everyone in the class. She was #1 and everyone else fought for a far second in the class. She went on to Johns Hopkins and continued to outpace her colleagues there, became chief resident, fellow and have NIH funding. I am honored to have sat next to her for the first 2 years and watched greatness.</p>
<p>We get carried away with the prestige thing and we are completely misguided when it comes to premed and medschool. A doctor is the product of their residency and somewhat their medical school. The insurance companies do not reimburse more for prestige. </p>
<p>Also, I am not surprised that a large portion of the UCSF medical school’s student body are from universities within driving distance. It is a familiar environment.</p>
<p>The only thing that really makes me proud is the fact that TheBombingRange #64 is right. My question is being answered very minimally. All I care is will there be bias toward me if I come from a school thats not all so great or say I have a good GPA from this not so good school and a good MCAT will I still be seen as a good applicant. :D</p>
<p>Thanks for the shoutout there lol. My advice? See where you get in and repost with a new thread when you are looking at your options and maybe people will have a better opinion/attitude then. Until then you are still just an applicant and prospective student.</p>
<p>
You may be getting conflicting answers, but to say that people are answering your question minimally is pretty ridiculous. People have very much answered your questions, we just haven’t quite come to a consensus on what the right answer is because the most precise answer will vary not only by the school but even within the individual committee members at a given school.</p>
<p>frugaldoctor - I am now even more impressed!</p>
<p>OP - Where are you planning to go to college?</p>
<p>Also, I am not surprised that a large portion of the UCSF medical school’s student body are from universities within driving distance. It is a familiar environment.</p>
<p>That’s cuz the rest of the country is thinking, “hmmm, UCSF? Where’d that come from? How come I didn’t apply there for undergrad?” </p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>MD/PhD programs tend to care 0% about what school you went to and 100% about GPA, MCAT, and research. Currently at a top 10 MD/PhD…believe me, its rarely even in the conversation.</p>
<p>I would definitely agree that they care much less than medical schools, but it’s definitely not zero. Every applicant is introduced to the our committee (top 20 program) as having a 3.XX GPA from Y university. If it was 0, they wouldn’t mention the UG school. We don’t have a specific category when evaluating applicants for prestige, but the information is there, so people definitely use it in some way. The UG institutions of the students are included in the MSTP grant, departmental T32s, and the students’ individual F30/31s. My PI is on a grant committee for K awards and he’s always said that my academic pedigree will be factored into the F grant - a statement I assume he’s basing off of his experience with K grants. It’s hard to believe that if the grants could take into account our UG institutions that an MSTP program would completely ignore it.</p>
<p>Again, it’s very far down on the scale, and GPA, MCAT, and Research are far, far, far more important, and maybe I’m just a stickler because I would always advocate fit over prestige anyway as actually being successful is always going to be more important, but it’s simply misleading to imply that the adcoms are essentially blinding themselves to the names. They know what schools people are coming from and they get incorporated into their decisions in some way.</p>