<p>At least at my school the PhD program definitely has a more diverse UG representation than the MD program. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that’s the general trend.</p>
<p>Of course the Ivy / Elite are way way overrepresented in Med. School. But the key is NOT the name of the UG, but rather caliber of kids. Many who came to Med. School from regular public state UG would have been accepted to Ivy / Elite (and maybe some of them did) but choose to attend state public instead. Personally, I have several examples of this kind that are kids of MDs. Another question, why MDs are sending their own to state public UGs. Answer: they know that what kid does in UG is much more impiortant for the Med. School than the name of the UG. They also want to lower the cost of education, knowing first hand how hard to pay off the loans. In this respect, many who opt for MSTP for financial reasons overlook the fact that they are giving up 4 years of the MD salary. So, keep in mind that going to MSTP better be justified by heavy duty noon-financial reasons, because it is NOT free by any means…of course, pre-meds are not that proficient with the economic concepts. And which one is the number one economic concept? There is no such thing as a free luch.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP,</p>
<p>I think your post is straying from the more recent topic which is to what extent does over-representation vary by degree program. For example I know MBA and I think law programs are even more skewed than MD, which seem to be more skewed than MD/PhD or PhD. Or compare this stuff to consulting, where people flat out say school brand name is critical because the clients judge the consulting firms for it. Whether or not top schools make top kids or if they are worth the money is actually kind of irrelevant for the turn this discussion has taken.</p>
<p>Think of it this way, your friend asks you which of two restaurants you’d recommend: One you’ve never heard of or one you’ve gone to on a consistent basis and had great meals/service from. Which one do you recommend? You’ll recommend the one you trust. The top schools are more “trustworthy” even if the only reason is on the front end with their admissions. Maybe with rising costs the tides will shift, but for now, if you randomly choose 100 Harvard kids and compare them to 100 random University of Arkansas kids, the 100 Harvard kids are going to be a stronger bunch and you’re right, that probably was the case before any of them even set foot on either campus, but the gap is unlikely to get closer over their next 4 years.</p>
<p>I think with PhD granting programs, you get better information at the admissions stage so you don’t need to rely on trusting the school as much. Now it’s more like one restaurant where you’ve been once and had one thing on the menu you liked vs one where you’ve been to a lot and you’ve tasted and enjoyed nearly everything on the menu. I’m speculating but would it really surprise anyone that UG research is a better predictor of success in a PhD program than anything on an pre-meds resume and success as a physician or volunteering for a lawyer vs being a lawyer?</p>
<p>Unless you think I’m wrong that there is varying degrees of UG proportionality among various degree programs in which case then yes, this discussion is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Am I right to point out IWWB that you are refering to MD/PhD when you write and that there’s more variability when the applicant is applying just to MD programs? I also want to point to something I am seeing much more frequently with a direct goal towards a substantially higher gpa: the liberal arts major. I’m pretty sure none of my physicians majored in music or film (plus many others), but I see that much more often these days. So it’s not just the difference between MD/PhD vs MD program, or publics vs private or name or no name or small LAC vs mid-tier or large, it’s also what the student’s major is that should be factored into an acceptance.</p>
<p>Not sure I understand your first question lima. I am saying that the students in MD/PhD programs come from a wider range of schools (particularly with regard to the prevalence of lower ranked schools) than students in MD programs. I believe that the representation of lower ranked schools is even higher in PhD programs, and lower in MBA and JD programs or a consulting firms’ employees. I am not making any comments about LAC vs Uni or public vs. private specifically. There might be an implicit relationship between USNWR ranking and those things, but I’m not actively trying to address that topic. With regard to my particular university, I am speaking with a pretty high degree of certainty since I generally know where people are from and have seen the admissions data first hand. With regard to the nationwide landscape, I am inferring based on my school and my experiences during interviews (with the caveat that I interviewed in 09-10 and things may have changed even in the last 3.5 years, and with the very small size of MD/PhD programs - particularly in comparison to everything else - 3.5 years is enough for things to potentially change to a noticeable extent).</p>
<p>With regard to major - I don’t necessarily agree that it’s something that needs to be factored. Schools do not offer a major that involves diagnosing and treating disease, and to my knowledge, there is no data to support that students with a particular UG major make better doctors than other, nor do I believe such data would ever exist. There might be some data to support correlations between majors and medical school acceptance, but I want to talk about success as a physician a much harder topic to assess, but the more important one ultimately. In contrast, while I don’t know if the data exists, I do believe one would find that research success pre graduate school is associated with research success in the future.</p>
<p>Simply cannot compare the admission to the restaurant recommendations. First, recommendations is NOT a commitment at all, admission is a commitment. Even now that I am looking into various Residency programs, I have discovered (and got surprised) that some most prestigious and extremely selective programs somehow accept graduates from lowry ranked (not ranked) Medical Schools. Even at this level, it looks like the applicant profile overrides the prestige of the place that he/she is coming from (despite of the fact that my D. and I heard complete opposite from the very very credible sources, the sources that you do not question). While we knew about this for UG, we heard opposite about Med. Schools (although few MDs mentioned that one huge factor that might break the application is a Step 1 score)</p>