<p>Does anyone know the % of Williams students get into a medical school? Also, if you're a current student, could you tell me if there are many internship and research opportunities at Williams? B/c I want to go to a med. school afterwards, and I just wonder if Williams is good for pre-med.</p>
<p>Thank you!!</p>
<p>Check out the Health Professions Office website [url=<a href="http://www.williams.edu/resources/hp/%5Dhere%5B/url">http://www.williams.edu/resources/hp/]here[/url</a>].</p>
<p>thanks, but it doesn't tell the % students getting into med. school.....</p>
<p>The statistic I've seen is that in excess of 90% of the Williams students who apply to med school are accepted -- whether they be English or biology majors.</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admission/after.php%5DHere%5B/url">http://www.williams.edu/admission/after.php]Here[/url</a>] is the source of onemoremom's statistic: "Williams students applying to medical schools have a better-than-90 percent acceptance rate. Those applying to law, business, and science Ph.D. programs are accepted at rates higher than 99 percent."</p>
<p>THANK YOU!
wow, the rate is really high!!!! Just hope for the best for my RD!! So I assume Williams offer a lot of internship chances? (or research) since grad. schools really value on those experiences.</p>
<p>Williams prides itself on its research opportunities, including a lot of summer positions. Many students co-publish with faculty.</p>
<p>As told to me by a Williams student 100% got into med school last year, but this was only 8 people. Williams will only write recommendations to those that they believe will get in grade and score wise and if you want a recommendation you have to follow their protocal (these classes, so much volunteer work etc) One girl was told se wasnt ready for med school and that if she wanted a recommendation, she had to go get a masters and come back in a year or two</p>
<p>One should be VERY careful when looking at Med School acceptance rates. Many schools do not allow you to apply (see above: won't write rec's unless you meet their criteria). Other schools have no such requirement so anybody who has met the prerequisites (which isn't hard to do) can apply regardless of their chance of getting in. A much better question would be how many Pre-med students get into med school from each institution? If ther are 50 pre-med students at Williams (or any school) and only the top 8 are allowed to apply, then 8/50 who wanted to get in did, not 8/8.</p>
<p>Again, a much better assessment in the pre-med program would be to look at the total, not the final number of students who wanted to apply.</p>
<p>Good point. So, does anyone have any idea what those numbers are for Williams? The Admission Office gives the > 90% figure at every info session and in all the admissions publications but I've never seen the other figures.</p>
<p>And are there more stories about what happened to actual Williams students, like the one who was told to go get a Masters? Do you know of students who have done that and then gotten into medical school with Williams's support?</p>
<p>I'm really interested in this topic because I naively never questioned the > 90% figure and have often told students what a great place Williams is for pre-med. I still think that but it seems some caveats may be in order.</p>
<p>I also wonder how many students come to Williams planning to go to medical school and then do poorly in chemistry or other required pre-med subjects and get discouraged and change their minds
(as opposed to students who are doing well in pre-med subjects but find another interest and drop their pre-med plans). I know both paths are common phenomena at most colleges but I'm wondering about details at Williams.</p>
<p>Many schools have pre-med committees that review med school candidates and only write recommendations for those who pass a series of benchmarks. Williams is NOT that way. There is no pre-med committee, and if you really really want to apply noone is going to stop you. The pre-med advisor sits down with each potential applicant to talk about their chances, but I don't think he would ever not let somebody apply who felt they were ready to apply. That said, he may have been quite bleak in talking about someone's chances, which may have discouraged them from applying that year. </p>
<p>Applying to med school is a long, arduous process and Williams does as well as anywhere getting you ready for that. Also, the pre-med office will help alumni as much as current students, so many people do choose to take a some time to work or get another degree before med school.</p>
<p>Charley Stevenson (the pre-med advisor) is the right person to ask these questions if you want an official answer on stuff like this.</p>
<p>If you really want to look at percentages, you have to look beyond one simple percentage.</p>
<p>Med school acceptances for a college like Williams will include a few brand new graduating seniors and a larger number of alumni applying (either for the first or second time) a year or two after graduation. It is increasingly rare for people to go directly from college to med school -- a good development that allows students some taste of the real world before diving into med school.</p>
<p>Even if you break the numbers down, you have to be very careful about wild year to year fluctuations at small schools like Williams. When dealing with single digit numbers, you could easily have a 100% success rate one year and a 50% rate the next year, both of which provide a completely inaccurate picture.</p>
<p>If you complete the pre-med requirements at a school like Wiliams with a 3.5 or higher GPA, do well on the MCAT, and have suitable work experience (either in college or after), you will be able to get accepted into a med school.</p>
<p>The same is true for any top LAC.</p>
<hr>
<p>BTW, the issue is not whether the med advisor will let someone apply. The issue is whether the med advisor will prepare an official application/recommendation package. Applications bypassing the official recommendation channels raise a big red flag.</p>
<p>You can get into med school several years after graduation as mentioned, but that is not the norm. I don't have specific data, but I teach med students and by far most are admitted to med school out of college. The acceptance rate for second time applicants and those out of college is clearly less than first time applicants. Only borderline cases can get in after graduate work. If you're not really that competitive out of college, a graduate degree won't help. If, however you are on the bubble, it may help, but that isn't many people.</p>
<p>It is unlike vet school, where each time you apply you are awarded more "points" toward acceptance, so more vets are accepted later than at first attempt. </p>
<p>Given all of that, the med school admit committees know the degree of rigor at different colleges and a 3.4 with full course load, out of class job or research at Williams means more than a 3.6 with minimal requirements met at a less academic institution</p>
<p>I agree with intersteddad; a simple statistic won't answer the question. You can get into med school from anywhere if you work like a dog, take as many course as you can and score well at school and on the MCAT.</p>
<p>This last year I have worked with med students from (undergrad) Northwestern, Princeton, Penn, WUSTL, Harvard, but also Baylor U,U of Tex, Tx A&M, U of Houston, Pan American U (Kingsville, Tx) all of which are less well thought of. These students did well during med school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You can get into med school several years after graduation as mentioned, but that is not the norm. I don't have specific data, but I teach med students and by far most are admitted to med school out of college.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The median age of matriculating first-year medical students in the US is 24 years old. This would suggest to me that more than half of them did not start med school immediately following college. </p>
<p>IMO, comparing "med school acceptance rates" (whatever that means) is meaningless for high school seniors. Four years from now, you won't automatically get into med school because you graduated from Williams or Swarthmore or Yale. You'll get into med school because you are a good applicant. Williams, Swarthmore, or Yale have high med school placement rates because their students are good applicants, not because med schools have a table listing the percentages from each college they are supposed to admit.</p>
<p>If you still want to look at percentages, try to really dig through each colleges health advising website to find a specific statement such as this one from Swarthmore's website:</p>
<p>
[quote]
"In 2005, Swarthmore's acceptance rate for the 7 graduating seniors was 100% and the 36 alumni/ae applicants was 86% for an overall acceptance rate of 88%."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I know that Amherst provides a great deal of statistical data on admissions right out of college, first try alums, second try alums, etc.</p>
<p>If Williams does not publish details, you will have to contact the premed advisor and ask for information. It will hep to be specific. You could ask for the average GPA (overall and in BCPM), and the average MCAT for accepted Williams students. Ask for the overall Williams student GPA. At elite schools like this, a "med school ready" gpa is usually about the average gpa for students overall. Given their academic preparation going in, Williams students probably do quite well on the MCAT's. </p>
<p>For comparison, Amherst publishes a detailed guide that suggests gpa's of 3.2 or better and MCAT's above, I think, 28, implies good likelihood of success. Williams is likely to be similar.</p>
<p>As ID suggests, the stats at top LAC's are probably quite similar. The general answer for Williams, or any other top college is :"If you go to Williams and do well, you have an excellent chance at getting into medical school". For some reason, Williams tends not to have that many people going. In a large review of reports from alumni they had more MBAs and JDs. They also reported that their students attended higher ranked law and business schools than medical schools. You could search for this or ask for it.</p>
<p>People used to go directly to med school as the norm. Nowadays it is very common to take a couple of years. I believe that both Harvard and Brown report that most of their applicants are alumni, not seniors, when they apply. both have extremely high sucess rates. </p>
<p>I could not agree more that your college makes little difference. The medical school admissions results reflect the quality of the students. If you are a good enough student to get into Williams, then you have a good chance at getting into medical school, where ever you end up in college. You should choose a college where you, as an individual, would do well. If Williams fits you, then by all means go there with no concerns about damaging your shot at med school. If you want urban or D1 sports, obviously Williams is not the right place.</p>
<p>As bex56 notes, applying to medical school is time consuming, emotionally intense, and quite expensive. A premed advisor would be shirking responsibility not to tell a student the truth about his/her prospects. Sometimes "get more experience, research, masters degree, then apply" is not discouragement or obstructionism, just good advice.</p>
<p>"Given all of that, the med school admit committees know the degree of rigor at different colleges and a 3.4 with full course load, out of class job or research at Williams means more than a 3.6 with minimal requirements met at a less academic institution."</p>
<p>Aardvark, this statement is very important for current or prospective Williams students. Do you think this is also true to law schools or other graduate schools?</p>
<p>You might want to take a look at this website:
<a href="http://www.mdapplicants.com/selectschool.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.mdapplicants.com/selectschool.php</a></p>
<p>I don't think the data is comprehensive, but it's interesting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As told to me by a Williams student 100% got into med school last year, but this was only 8 people. Williams will only write recommendations to those that they believe will get in grade and score wise and if you want a recommendation you have to follow their protocal (these classes, so much volunteer work etc) One girl was told se wasnt ready for med school and that if she wanted a recommendation, she had to go get a masters and come back in a year or two
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I never heard this about Williams, and until I get some real verification, I won't believe it. As far as I know, ANY pre-med is allowed to apply.</p>
<p>This is really interesting. Thank you for all of the information. I think it will help others.</p>
<p>When people ask me about whether Williams is a good place to prepare for medical school, they usually seem to have two concerns:</p>
<p>1) How will medical school admissions people view having prepared not at a university but at a liberal arts college (and at this particular liberal arts college)?</p>
<p>2) Does a small school without graduate departments have the resources that are perceived as necessary for a strong pre-med education (research opportunities, enough specialist professors, a research orientation, state-of-the-art equipment, and so forth). The lack of an associated teaching hospital and the research opportunities it might offer are often mentioned. </p>
<p>I've always responded with the > 90% statistic and talked about research opportunities at Williams and the fact that there are lots of research projects going on but no graduate students to hog the plum assignments. I don't leave it there, but that's the center of my answer. </p>
<p>I think I need to learn more before I answer quite so cavalierly.</p>
<p>Intersteddad; where did you find the median age of 24? That has not been my experience. Using the web site noted above by jrpar I searched and note the following; acceptances to med schools for age <21 is 33 people. For >21 and <25 is 2250 people, and > 25 is 482 people. That doesn't seem to be a median of 24. I looked through the first 20-25 at Baylor (where I am) and only 2 were older than 23 (25 and 28), most were 21 or 22. I'm not sure how good the data is from this website, but that's what it shows.</p>
<p>Another point; you don't need a science degree to get into med school and actually the pre-req's to get in are fairly simple. Most people take a lot more science than they need to get in. (you'll get plenty in med school). Many are looking for well-rounded students and they will usually tell you that. I don't think a LAC or a degree in Liberal Arts hurts you as long as your grades are good and you've shown that you can do the science</p>