<p>alright i know this seems like a question that has been answered before but i couldnt find any answers, even in the faq.</p>
<p>For getting into med school, what would the difference between JHU and U of Rochester be?</p>
<p>from what ive read and heard, i think it would be easier to get a high GPA at Rochester. Do med schools realize this and adjust accordingly or is the admissions process somewhat unfair?</p>
<p>while hopkins and rochester are my two main choices at this point, hopefully the answer to this question can be extrapolated for other similar colleges.</p>
<p>Med schools know which schools are the top, middle and bottom. Meaning they look at your school and usually the ppl in the top schools get called to interviews first. So if you go to a not so top school, you need to make a real effort with your grades and abilities so that you stand out and are on a level playing field with the ppl from the top schools.</p>
<p>Am I incorrect with my statement? I seem to be incorrect about med school admissions a lot, but from previous forum posts, I deduced this theory. I mean ivy students and top tier schools (JHU, Standford, Washington Univ. in St. Louis) have a prestige advantage as opposed to lower tier schools like Sunys and Cunys. So in order for you to be on a level playing field w/ students from well-renown schools, you need to stand out in your current institution if it isn't a name institution. Am I wrong again?</p>
<p>Certainly I think it's very difficult to deduce exactly how the process works, but to suggest that medical schools fill their interview slots with top-school candidates and only later go to second-tier school candidates is clearly bogus.</p>
<p>To suggest that prestige might matter some is, I think, possible -- but we have no way of quantifying how much. Certainly I think it's more the advising and resources than the actual name-factor.</p>
<p>Again sorry for the misinformation bluedevilmike. I would be foolish to correct you b/c you lived through the whole med school process, while I am just starting it. Sorry for my erroneous statements.</p>
<p>The advantage of attending a top school isn't in the name but rather the increased research opportunities, smaller classes, better academic environments, ease of getting internships, etc. However, these advantages can be negated if the state-school person is proactive. So I don't think the situation of a state-schooler is that dire.</p>
<p>The only instance where I can remember a school explicitly giving you an advantage for going to a top school is UMich in handing out automatic interviews.</p>
<p>So if a student from Stony Brook has a lab from freshman yr. and does some clinical shadowing in their med school, he virtually is in the same league as a student from Cornell who does something similar. This is in terms of Ec's. I know academically if they have the same GPA, the Cornell student would be favored, right?</p>
<p>I bet that even with similar GPAs, the Cornell student would be more likely to have a higher MCAT. So, THAT would be the reason why the Cornell applicant with similar stats/ECs would be favored, not particularly the name of the university (correct me if i'm wrong)</p>
<p>Well, certainly I think private schools also tend to have better advising. Elite schools also have better networking -- WUSTL's director of admissions is a Duke grad, for example, and has been known to wax on for hours about how wonderful Duke is -- as well as an established track record.</p>
<p>That is, admissions committees can see how previous Duke students have done in their school and get a feel for how successful they're going to be. They know roughly -- obviously with error built into their calculations -- what a 3.5 GPA from Duke means. My class has six Duke students, and the class above me has another six Duke students -- my school knows what to expect from a Duke education. They often have no idea how to evaluate a candidate from Nowhere State. So a certain GPA from a state school might mean just as much as that GPA from Duke, or it might even be more impressive -- but medical schools don't know how to translate that into a common language.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't think we have the data to completely rule out the possibility that medical schools do pay attention to prestige. We simply don't have enough information to rule it in, either.</p>
<p>As said before. It's clearly bogus to suggest that medical schools first fill up their interview slots with top-school applicants and give the leftovers to everyone else.</p>
<p>There might well be no advantage at all. But we have no way of proving it.</p>
<p>ok i meant the difference between a very good private school and a pretty good private school, not a random state school. not to offend anyone, but if you guys couldnt come up with a consensus on the state school vs. prestigious school debate, i dont think anyone can help me with my question. I guess i will trust that med schools do their best to make it fair.</p>
<p>I have worked on a medical school admissions committee. If you come from a school that is not known to the committee, MCAT scores will be weighted more heavily as that is the only objective means for comparing the student with other students coming from a school that is well known to the medical school. If BDM's medical school has about six students per year from Duke, the admissions committee knows the curriculum, pre-medical advisor's rating system, and perhaps even some of the profs that write recommendations fairly well. There is safety in familiarity. Likewise, most universities that have medical schools, draw dispropotionately from their undergrad alumni. There are many reasons for this, and some may be personal reasons that prompt students to stay in the area. On the other hand, since the curriculum, advisors, profs are so well known by the committee, and given the convenience of picking up the phone and calling someone for further clarification of a students application,selecting one of their own is much easier and "safer" decision than choosing someone from a school where they have never taken a student before. On the other hand, most top schools do seek diversity of all types, including representation from colleges that may not be well-known. The student will have to be near the top of their class have in-range MCATs as a prerequsitie, with other intangibles and extra-curriculars carrying the rest. We would not discount a top student from a relatively unknown school as we realized that talent can show up in many different places. On the other hand, a top student at Harvard or Duke with a below average MCAT (for our institution) might still get interviewed if everything else was compelling. It probably would not happen for the student from the school with the weaker academic reputation.</p>
<p>"Prestige" from the perspective of the admissions committee. So LACs like Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Haverford, Middlebury, etc. may not be that well known among the general public but would be rated similarly as ivies and other top 20 universities.</p>
<p>I personally would not worry too much about going to a school with grade deflation if it has a top reputation. Usually there will be a number of students applying from these schools and they will be ranked within the school. Likewise, it is known that certain fields tend to have tougher grading e.g., engineering. Do what you do best in and most enjoy. In general GPA and MCAT scores need to be above a certain threshold for a given medical school in order to be competitive for admission, and to be considered for an interview. Once those are met, other factors (references, extracurriculars, demographics, essay) in the application are then taken into consideration.</p>
<p>As a medical student, I interviewed applicants and voted on my med school's admissions committee. I think you guys have to realize that the people who compose med school adcoms are savvy enough to look beyond "prestige" and "general name recognition". These are academics and physicians at the top of their game and are not fooled too easily. In terms of "name", if you go to a "top 50" college or university, you'll get the "oh... I've heard of that" but the next question will be "so what did you do there?". If you go to a school that's not top 50, you'll get a question like, "Where is that?" and the next question will be, "so what did you do there?".</p>
<p>As an example, there was one applicant I remember discussing who went to Harvard and got a glowing recommendation from a faculty researcher there. The director of admissions told the committee that this professor is notorious for inflation and hyperbole for average students and even for students that he did not know well. So "name" didn't help where I was... and probably wouldn't help at many med schools as well... but could this help if the applicant was being evaluated at a med school not familiar with Harvard applicants? Probably, but even so, the "name" benefit between school "ranked" #1 to #50 is much smaller than you think and such considerations should not trump more important issues of fit and financial aide.</p>
<p>It depends on how you define grade deflation. By some ways of thinking about it, Berkeley is substantially grade inflated relative to, say, Harvard.</p>