<p>3.8 at University of Texas, Vanderbilt or Notre Dame</p>
<p>3.5 at Northwestern, Amherst or Brown</p>
<p>this is in terms of pre-med grades because I'm still confused over the whole correlation between grades and school prestige when applying to med schools.</p>
<p>If you get a 3.8 from wherever and a 30 MCAT score... I'd say its better than a 3.5 and a 30 MCAT score. From whatever I've heard, it's better to go for the higher gpa, and then let the MCAT score take care of the possible problems of med school adcoms suspecting "grade inflation."</p>
<p>does school reputation really matter that much? because if it were up to me I'd go to UT for pre-med and then to Stanford or sumthn.</p>
<p>when you're applying for your residency and stuff, undergrad school reputation doesn't matter at all. All that really matters is where you went to med school, and for primary care docs, the prestige of the med school isn't too big of a deal either. Medicine is a lot different than, say, business or law, in that prestige isn't huge (unless you're going for academic or research-based medicine). </p>
<p>When applying to med school, I'm sure the name of your undergrad school matters to a certain extent, but if you get a high MCAT, no med school is going to question your abilities. If I were you, I would go to UT also, get the high gpa and apply to a top-tier med school. That's just my take... there are some people on this board who might suggest otherwise, but remember...they're wrong. lol =P</p>
<p>Don't forget, UT (particularly Austin) is a pretty prestigious degree anyway.</p>
<p>My mantra is always to go to the place where you feel like you will learn the best, but it sounds like the kids here are too cynical to believe me.</p>
<p>son of liberty, yea i'm not that big into research, my main position is to defenitly be a dermatologist so I probably won't have to worry about prestige. and yea, bdm, because of what people have been telling me how prestige doesn't matter, I'll probably pick UT and Notre Dame over and Ivy League school anyday, just because of less snobbery and more interaction and I feel I could prepare way better at a "lower-tier" place</p>
<p>Whoa whoa whoa - ditto, dermatology is one of the most competitive residencies out there, if not THE most competitive residency. It will most certainly require a great deal of research and prestige if you want to become a dermatologist.</p>
<p>oh ok never mind. that's what my friend told me at least and I believed her since her mom is an admissions officer at Emory and she herself is really into the whole "college app freak-out" thing so she told me a bunch of stuff. some of it was helpful, some, well wasnt lol...</p>
<p>neway, do you know exactly how competitive it is? and I still don't get this whole research thing. what would I have to do? sorry about all the questions...hehe...</p>
<p>I'm not sure if you have to do research but dermatology is very comeptitive. It's one of the more "cushy" MD jobs (relatively few hours for good pay).</p>
<p>anyone know of other "cushy" MD's? </p>
<p>wow, im such a slacker...</p>
<p>I think Radiology is sometimes considered more "cushy." Not 100% sure though...</p>
<p>Ditto, why do you want to be a doctor?</p>
<p>idk, i used to want it for money but slowly i realised that it's a great job because you get to help people a lot and in my opinion if you're an honest doctor i think you hold one of the few honest positions out there still these days in terms of bettering humanity and everything. also, it might just be me, but business and law seem so uninteresting compared to it in terms of having to sit at desks all day and stuff. sorry, i just hate the thought of cubicles..</p>