I will be visiting the colleges that I was accepted into fairly soon. What are the questions that I should definitely ask regarding a college’s pre-med opportunities that would provide me with the most accurate picture?
The most important thing to ask is if they provide a committee letter for med school applications, and if so will they write a letter for everyone who asks or do they have criteria they use to decide who to recommend
Our D20 just went on her first college visit and while she is probably not pre-med, she does have her sights set on a health career so future admittance to professional school is important.
We learned about research opportunities: how many students are participating, how and when those are arranged (at this school, an LAC, sometimes a professor and student hit it off and make arrangements to work together as early as scholarship weekend of the student’s HS senior year), and where they are presented.
We asked about how D20 should consider arranging her HS schedule over the next two years to be most prepared, not to test out, but to have good exposure to as much material as possible.
They were not willing to answer but my husband and I asked about the typical “weed-out” classes. In the future, I will ask a student rather than a paid representative of the university.
We learned what non-biology and non-chemistry majors pre-med students have pursued in the last few years.
We got a run down of the 10 pre-health professions students who graduated last year and where they are now.
Prior to our visit, we knew which biology professor we were visiting with and our daughter learned as much as she could about that particular woman so that they were able to have a nice discussion about her reasearch and the two classes she teaches.
As we begin this search, I look forward to other tips that are offered here by other posters.
@mikemac, we did learn that this particular school does not have a formal committee and that concerned me slightly. The biology professor told us that students from their institution are directed to get three letters from any professors or professionals who know the student well. Is this something that is of more concern that “slightly?”
@mikemac, I know that one of the schools which I have in mind (UVA) does not have a committee to write such letters (as stated on their pre-health advising website):
“Please note: Some health professional programs request an advisor or pre-health committee letter if your institution offers one. UVA does not have such a committee, thus individual faculty letters of recommendation serve in that capacity.”
Is this a disadvantage to medical school applicants from this university? What is the importance of getting a committee letter rather than recommendations from individual professors?
The committee letters will essentially rate candidates from higher to lower. If you are free to get individual letter, you can get a letter from an individual you believe will give you a favorable review. So you have more latitude there.
At schools with a pre-med committee, the committee’s endorsement or lack thereof tells the applicant whether s/he has a good chance of getting admitted to a medical school.
For those who fall “below the line”, it presumably makes the chance close to nil if an unendorsed pre-med applies to medical schools. But it also lets the pre-med know early that his/her chances are not very good to begin with, and that going through the expensive and stressful process of applying to medical schools would likely be a waste of time and money. So if you are the kind of person who would want to cut his/her losses early, being pre-screened by a pre-med committee may actually be a good thing. But if you would want to try anyway despite very long odds of success, you may prefer a school without a pre-med committee.
But note that colleges that advertise very high rates of medical school admission probably set the bar for endorsement by the pre-med committee very high, so that even those with a fair (but not great) chance of admission are weeded out before applying.
in addition:
What do they consider the pre-med classes that must be taken?
How far away is the nearest Hospital/etc that she could volunteer at?
Is she going to be a Bio/Chem major? If not, how are courses scheduled? For example, my dd is a non-bio pre-med major and couldn’t get into a bio course she wanted because the spring semester is only for bio majors.
Do they have an example curriculum for pre-meds in a particular major?
When she picks a school and is told to sign up for classes, sign up immediately because Bio/chem fill up fast
If school does not provide committee letter(many don’t), med schools typically will want three rec letters with two rec letters being from science profs, one non science prof.(profs means teachers one took a class with, not just a personal friend).
@Whitimane No, I guess I thought most people already knew about these and I posted a brief note more as a reminder to be sure to ask.
Many schools, especially large publics, do not provide this letter and it is no problem for applicants. Some schools that do supply the letter do so simply to sum up the student’s record, recs from profs, etc.
Where to be concerned is when they are evaluative. I can get any college in the country an 80+% med school admit rate by screening candidates and only recommending a set that sums up to give me that admit rate. How do I know how to do that? I’d table https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf as a baseline.
The reason I think it is vital to understand the policy before you spend $200K as a student at that school is that schools that screen have to set the bar somewhere. If you are a kid with a 30-40% change of getting admitted it isn’t as great as you’d like but it isn’t 0% either. Which it will become if the committee won’t recommend you.
There is no disadvantage to coming from a school without committee letters. In fact, unless you are going to be in the top tier (however the school decides it) it’s better to not have the committee letter. It’s not like being outside the top tier is bad, but why point t out if you don’t have to.
On the other hand, If the school does do them and you don’t have one, that’s a big red flag.