<p>im a high school senior and i was wondering when i should start/ should have started looking t whiich med schools i wanted to apply for. </p>
<p>what kinds or criteria are you looking at to determine which med school is thr one you want to go to?</p>
<p>March of junior year of college. No such list makes sense until you have a GPA and MCAT score.</p>
<p>bluedevilmike and All,</p>
<p>I think that I understand your point. However, CRAZYYY’s planning could be helpful too for the following reasons:</p>
<p>1) Would a medical school accept Calculus credit from the AP course taken at high school? This will decide if CRAZYYY wants to use the AP credit or take it anyway as a freshman.
2) Seven year program vs. premed - medical school. For example, I found out that students from NW’s seven year program had an average SAT close to 2300. I told my boy who is a high school Junior that he should not even try if his SAT is not close to 2250.</p>
<p>I especially appreciate any advice about the 2nd point. Would it be better for a student to try to get into a top tier medical school with the possibility of being the bottom 20% or try to go to a 2nd/3rd tier school with the possibility of being the top 20%? At the lower tier medical school, he may have better chances of doing research with a professor, getting better recommendation letters, fatter scholarship, and better opportunity to work with a Doctor.</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Even if a few medical schools did accept AP credit, with such low acceptance rates, there’s no way to predict whether you’ll get into any specific medical schoo. Hence, you should be basing your planning on things that will open you to the greatest number of medical schools, not planning for a specific medical school.</p></li>
<li><p>Research opportunities at almost every medical school are plentiful. There’s little time to do research during the school year anyway and generally not a lot of competition for lab spots.</p></li>
<li><p>Merit scholarships are very rare in medical school.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are in the bottom 20% at one medical school, you are not going to be in the top 20% at another medical school. The difference in the quality of students b/w a mid-tier and a top tier med school is essentially 3.7/33 vs. 3.8/36.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The point remains: it’s useless to be picking specific medical schools until you are ready to apply.</p>
<p>norcalguy,</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation. </p>
<p>1) & 4) make sense.
2) & 3) - I should change the “medical school” to “premed” in my original question as follows: </p>
<p>“Would it be better for a student to try to get into a top tier premed school with the possibility of being the bottom 20% or try to go to a mid-tier premed in-state school with the possibility of being the top 20%? At the in-state premed school, he may have better chances of doing research with a professor, getting better recommendation letters, fatter scholarship, and better opportunity to work with a Doctor. Thus, he would actually have a good chance to compete for medical school”</p>
<p>I do understand that a student would work harder in a more competitive environment. However, the risk of losing on both ends (high tuition cost and not being able to enter the medical school) is real.</p>
<p>Would you please comment?</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>well it is kinda hard to say what are the top schools for pre-med, but they usually have a med school and are considered a top school overall. i have gotten the impression that your undergrad is extremely important, it is more important what you make of it and what you get on the mcat</p>