<p>I admit that I used a bit of hyperbole when I said that HMS could wipe the floor with UCSF. After all, go back to the context of that old thread, and you will see why I had gotten incensed. </p>
<p>However, I do believe that HMS is a better medical school than both UCSF and Stanford.</p>
<p>my opinion doesnt carry that much weight as i am new to the whole medicinal topic, but compared to the prestige of harvard medical school, i was sort of shocked to know that the same course that they teach in harvard medical school is taught at my undergraduate university. in fact we have the same professor and use the same text book, the only difference is we take 5 weeks of material in about 12 weeks. The course material is very easy, it is even possible to do well withouth doing much of the reading or required homework.</p>
<p>But there is much more involved in a school than simply the "wow" factor, although I'm sure it matters at least a little bit. The key factors, though, are:</p>
<p>First, does the school have access to a medical school and/or hospital? Don't take that for granted. Tufts is a wonderful undergraduate institution, but its hospital is in another part of Boston entirely. This is crucial for any kind of clinical volunteering experience. Duke and Penn have their medical schools and hospitals on campus; Columbia and Berkeley do not. This matters a great deal.</p>
<p>Second, how good is the advising there? The medical school process is complicated and a good advising team makes all the difference - you can either focus on deadlines and going insane keeping track of everything, or you can focus simply on doing the best you can do. It's a crucial difference-maker.</p>
<p>Third, how well prepared will you be for medical school? I don't mean getting into medical school, I mean how well will you be prepared when you get there? After all, you will still need to do well to get a good residency, in which you'll need to do well to get a good job, etc. If you - for some reason - attend a school that wows people without actually pushing you through challenging coursework, it will be your loss. Of course, good coursework will help prepare you for the MCAT as well.</p>
<p>Fourth, how much access to you have to world-class faculty? When you want to do research, or an indepedent study, are those options that are easily available to you? This also shows up in letters of recommendation: do the faculty really know you because they've been teaching small classes?</p>
<p>It is not an easy decision in the least, but I would also recommend, plainly, that you not make any crucial decisions based purely on medical school admissions. You are young and will have many chances to explore your future in the coming years. Make sure, above all, to get a good education. The rest will follow.</p>
<p>in defence of columbia....i dont think its a big deal having to take a shuttle a few dozen blocks uptown to get to the med school....and i dont know how important the proximity of the med school is at all....i'v had no reason to go there in the past three yrs though i know ppl who are in research labs and stuff up there.</p>
<p>Shraf may well be right that getting to Columbia's hospital isn't all that much of a hassle, but I think I might have obscured my main point, so I'll try to rephrase:</p>
<p>You need to have the ability to spend time volunteering in a clinical setting.</p>
<p>It's how you prove to medical schools that you're actually interested in the reality of dealing with sick people rather than the ideas that you see advertised on NBC's Thursday nights. It's crucial, and any of the more selective medical schools will tell you the same thing.</p>
<p>One of the major benefits that an undergraduate institution can offer you is that access. There are other ways to get it, but this is a good one.</p>
<p>A research project at a hospital is also a great way to get exposure to the academic medicine that many of the most prestigious medical schools devote their resources to.</p>
<p>oh, if we are talking about clinical exposure in general u dont have to be near the college's med school....there are alot of hospitals.....In columbia's case for example St. Luke's Hospital is right across the street and provides many great opportunities...so i dont think that should really be a consideration, i'm sure at almost any college you will find a near-by hospital that you can volunteer at.</p>
<p>i guess it would be top 30 school???</p>
<p>I stand corrected. I've always worked through my school's medical school and hadn't known it was easy to get hospital access through another institution. Thanks, Shraf.</p>
<p>JOHNS HOPKINS... great for medicine. I came into this school as an engineer and now I am also pre-med, because my school inspired me to do so!</p>
<p>I currently live 10 minutes away from a top 3 med school so i've met quite a few students, and i can only name one who went to a 'top 10' undergrad university. the others (at least 10 off the top of my head) went to <gasp> lower tier state schools. the lesson here? just get good grades wherever you go, rock the MCAT, and you'll be fine.</gasp></p>
<p>agreed</p>
<p>and you'll have more money saved to pay off the outrageous med tuition</p>
<p>(or a smaller debt heading into the outrageously-priced med school)</p>
<p>Clearly the top med-schools will have more undergrads come from the big state schools than the top 10 undergrad universities for the simple reason that the vast majority of all undergrads come from the big state schools. For example, the Arizona State University system has about 48,000 undergrads. That's more than the entire top 10 schools in the US news universities ranking (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Penn, MIT, Caltech, Duke, Dartmouth and Columbia) all combined. Furthermore, keep in mind that Arizona State is just one of 3 university systems just in the state of Arizona, the other two being the University of Arizona (another 28k undergrads) and Northern Arizona University (another 13k undergrads). And of course, Arizona is just one state, and is actually one of the less populous states. </p>
<p>So just from a sheer numbers standpoint, you would naturally expect the vast majority of undergrads at any med-school to come from the big state schools.</p>
<p>I just want to say that clinical volunteering really does not have great weight. Medical schools want a diverse class. Every premed thinks that volunteering at a hospital is what gets them into medical school. Do what you love doing. I love Habitat for Humanity, science tutoring, working in my lab, but I don't want to help jockey papers in a hospital where anytime I want to jump in and get my hands dirty, some HEPA-spewing professional stops me. Take my advice, I might not be in medical school yet, but neither of my two cousins who went to medical schools volunteered in a hospital. For your information, they went to UVA med and Michigan med, both phenomenal medical schools. They got in because they were leaders, dedicated to their passions, and got great grades. This school debate is silly. Go where you want to go and do well. You can do well anywhere if you study hard enough (at least you should if you are thinking medicine is for you, which medicine is not right for everyone).</p>
<p>Of course it's possible to get in and do well without this, just as it's possible to get into great medical schools without research experience, or with below-their-median MCAT scores (after all, half their kids do).</p>
<p>Still, if your ultimate goal is to take care of patients, it makes sense to try to spend time in a hospital or a clinical setting. It teaches you what to expect. It helps convince medical schools that you're not just "hypothetically" interested in a medical career. Above all, it helps you learn whether you're really interested or not. (Yes, HIPAA is annoying, if I understood VolStomper right, but it's a 15 minute online orientation session about patient confidentiality. Really not the worst thing in the world.)</p>
<p>82% of UVa's admissions and 85% of UMich's admissions do clinically-related work before they enter medical school (MSAR). It's certainly possible to do it without, but it does help with admissions.</p>
<p>More importantly, your role as a premedical student is not just to be admitted to medical school but actually to prepare for it. Doesn't it make sense that you'd want experience with patients?</p>
<p>hey guys, if found out that doctors have a suicide rate EIGHT times the national average and ONE HUNDRED times more on drug addiction.</p>
<p>it creates a feeling of uneasiness, since i want to be a doctor myself...</p>