So it’s getting close to that May 1 decision deadline. I’m a high school senior whose definitely set on premed and becoming a physician and I’ve got my options narrowed down to Vandy and USC (the fake one in South Carolina not California hahahahah). Anyways so Vandy I’m a Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholar so full-tuition and money isn’t really a problem. At USC I’m on a full ride so financial stuff I’m set on. I’m on the Stamps Scholarship at USC which will be very good for leadership and making connections with people in the biochemistry field and just acting as a leader in my community which is important to Med school admissions, but Vandy is Vandy. Any thoughts?
It will be more difficult to get a top GPA at Vandy than at USoCarolina.
If you’re CERTAIN that you want to go to med school, take that into consideration.
A couple years ago, a premed posted here who was a NMF student a UT-Dallas with straight A’s decided to transfer to Vandy because he thought a more prestigious school would look better to med schools. After he transfered he soon had a GPA that wasn’t med school worthy since his classmates were all very strong students and A’s were limited.
My nephew was a premed at Vandy, the same time my son was premed at a state flagship. Both had similar high school stats. Nephew soon didn’t have a med school worthy GPA. My son graduated from his undergrad with a 4.0 BCPM GPA and a 3.9 cum GPA.
These are just two examples, I know, but something to keep in mind if you REALLY want to go to med school.
Med schools won’t care whether you went to South Carolina or Vandy. They will care about your GPA and MCAT.
For premed you want to be the top 20-25% of the entering class, so you can excel and get high grades. Prestige is not important.
Niece got into MIT and almost had a mental breakdown, as result, she can’t go to med school anywhere.
^^That is great!, if OP keeps up with that trend, she might be picked by the Vandy med school without going through the application process. I know at UChicago they pick 2 student each class to have that honor.
^^
I don’t think Vandy does that. If I remember correctly, Vandy med shows no/little bias towards its undergrads.
@plumazul While I understand what you’re saying, I don’t agree. You’re a briliant student, but if I remember correctly, you didn’t go to a tippy top undergrad. Did you go to UM-CP? You did fabulously there and had a fabulous med school app season.
Vandy can be a premed grind…even for tippy top students.
There may be a slight Vandy bias…
https://as.vanderbilt.edu/hpao/documents/2016_HPAO_Annual_Report.pdf
While Vandy accepts about 28 of their own applicants each year, they have nearly 200 of their students apply. Looks like they accept about 14% of their own applicants.
That is a huge advantage, consider they only have around 90 students per class. Of course, not every acceptance will matriculate and the number of acceptance varies greatly each year. Vandy, nevertheless has bias to their own. You still need the stats to get in though.
Contrary to people bashing U Chicago has no bias to their own, around 10% of their medical school students are from UChicago. That makes me believe more or less private U med schools have bias to their own UG graduates.
I think privates may have a bias towards their cream. and why shouldn’t they? They all want to seat the best class they can. If they have some superstars in their undergrad, why not try to keep them in the family?
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Vandy, nevertheless has bias to their own. You still need the stats to get in though.
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Exactly! They picked off 14% of their own applicants. I imagine that those 28 accepted Vandy students had exceptional stats and maybe also provided some ethnic or regional diversity that the SOM wanted.