Does attending an undergraduate university with a medical school help?

[tweek125]

I've never really met or heard of anyone who's attended medical school through the same university where they completed their undergraduate degree, and was wondering if it helped at all in getting into said school. I looked at a couple of colleges that have med schools, but the numbers varied on how many students matriculating each year had been from the undergraduate institution.

Just a little background info on why I'm posting- I'm going to ECU now so I'm hoping that might give me an edge when I apply to Brody in the future. The only people I've known to go to Brody were from UNC, which is a little discouraging as UNC's undergrad gets a lot more prestige than ECU.

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[student1799]

Most med schools don't care whether you went to their undergrad or not. But East Carolina might be a bit of a special case. I'm not from there or anything, but I read their page in the MSAR when I was applying, and they seemed to be super-obsessed with admitting people from the local area who intend to practice nearby. So if you are such a person, it would be smart to play up your local ties, including ECU undergrad.

 

[Ischemic]

Nope

 

[Narmerguy]

I think a few medical schools may show a little bias but for the vast majority of schools, the medical school is close to a separate entity from the undergraduate school so there's not many channels of connection to exploit. I will say that if you get involved with research at the medical school while you're an undergrad that you may make a few good contacts that could help you out...

 

[Tesseract]

Isn't Brown really into loyalty admissions? Maybe I'm mixing up schools...

 

[LossForWords]

I'm at UofL and the most represented undergrad in my med school is UofL. Keep in mind though that I have no idea how many UofL people applied and were accepted, so the 20 or so people might be a relatively low percentage.

 

[Barcu]

I think it matters a bit, and it varies between state schools and private ones.

Overall, med schools want to admit people who are qualified and who are likely to accept an admission offer from their school. I think that going to an ug at that school shows you would be willing to go to that school.

For state schools, they want to accept in-state applicants who will stay in-state. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that a large group of students will come from that university's UG campus.

I have even heard that private schools are similar. I was reading a thread about Johns Hopkins UG and med school. Hopkins UG sends more to the school than any other school. Why this is may be a mixture of factors, however, going to that school of UG may signify something to schools.

Despite all this, however, is the fact that you can go to ANY med school from ANY undergraduate institution. Get good grades, rock the MCAT, and any med school is open to you. It doesn't make a lot of sense to choose an UG institution based on your med school preference.

 

[indya]

It doesn't directly matter. However, if a medical school is affiliated with your college, you may be able to get research, shadowing, volunteering activities, &c. more easily.

 

[student1799]

For state schools, they want to accept in-state applicants who will stay in-state. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that a large group of students will come from that university's UG campus.

Totally agree, which I think would explain the large number of UoL undergrads at Louisville. But I think you could go to another school in the same state and still be looked at favorably as well. In other words, the med school probably doesn't--and can't--favor its own UG THAT much.

And I'd say that the bigger the state and the bigger the city the med school is in, the less the school cares about admitting "locals." (Thanks, NY, I love you too...)

I was reading a thread about Johns Hopkins UG and med school. Hopkins UG sends more to the school than any other school. Why this is may be a mixture of factors, however, going to that school of UG may signify something to schools.

I'm a little dubious about this idea when it comes to private schools. I can't speak to Hopkins specifically, but I've even heard rumors that some schools (Columbia comes to mind) are actually prejudiced AGAINST students from their UG institution.

I looked at detailed admissions stats for a whole bunch of private schools when I applied, and virtually all of them had 90%+ OOS students. So if they favor "locals" at all, it can't amount to very much.

The only exception I remember was the private schools in NYC (NYU, Mount Sinai, etc.), which had about 20% of their students coming from NYS. But since NY has a huge population, that may just reflect the fact that they get a lot of local applications. In any case, those "locals" need some pretty impressive stats to get into such schools--which means they probably didn't need an "edge" to begin with.

 

[mspeedwagon]

It depends. Brown has a PLME program (basically a BS/MD program). As such, there are a ton of Brown undergrads at Brown med.

However, if you do not count the BS/MD kids, then NO, Brown is not super-friendly to its own undergrads.

Brown is a special case though. They have so few AMCAS slots to start with and then they give preferential interviews to RI residents (and, extrapolating, acceptances). That basically if you are not from RI or an URM with high stats, it's not worthwhile applying.

Isn't Brown really into loyalty admissions? Maybe I'm mixing up schools...

 

[Barcu]

Totally agree, which I think would explain the large number of UoL undergrads at Louisville. But I think you could go to another school in the same state and still be looked at favorably as well. In other words, the med school probably doesn't--and can't--favor its own UG THAT much.

And I'd say that the bigger the state and the bigger the city the med school is in, the less the school cares about admitting "locals." (Thanks, NY, I love you too...)

I'm a little dubious about this idea when it comes to private schools. I can't speak to Hopkins specifically, but I've even heard rumors that some schools (Columbia comes to mind) are actually prejudiced AGAINST students from their UG institution.

I've actually heard that going to a school's undergrad can hurt your chances at the med school too. It seems to work both ways.

My advice would be to not worry about it. Get good grades, get a good MCAT score, and you can go where you want.

I'm not sure why you are asking the question. If it is because you are thinking about going to an undergrad institution based on what med school you want to go to, I would tell you not to worry about that. Again, you can pretty much get into any med school from any undergrad.

 

[Frazier]

yes it does often

 

[Narmerguy]

Totally agree, which I think would explain the large number of UoL undergrads at Louisville. But I think you could go to another school in the same state and still be looked at favorably as well. In other words, the med school probably doesn't--and can't--favor its own UG THAT much.

And I'd say that the bigger the state and the bigger the city the med school is in, the less the school cares about admitting "locals." (Thanks, NY, I love you too...)

I'm a little dubious about this idea when it comes to private schools. I can't speak to Hopkins specifically, but I've even heard rumors that some schools (Columbia comes to mind) are actually prejudiced AGAINST students from their UG institution.

I looked at detailed admissions stats for a whole bunch of private schools when I applied, and virtually all of them had 90%+ OOS students. So if they favor "locals" at all, it can't amount to very much.

The only exception I remember was the private schools in NYC (NYU, Mount Sinai, etc.), which had about 20% of their students coming from NYS. But since NY has a huge population, that may just reflect the fact that they get a lot of local applications. In any case, those "locals" need some pretty impressive stats to get into such schools--which means they probably didn't need an "edge" to begin with.

I had actually even heard that hopkins was fairly unsympathetic towards their UGs to the point where some felt as if it was a disadvantage.

 

[mitchlucker]

At the SUNY schools (Stony Brook, Buffalo), yes. There is some bias towards helping out students from the undergrad program. Now I'm not sure exactly how that works, I assume it has something to do with the #s formula (but could very well be wrong). I've heard this from people who are on admissions from these schools, people who attend these schools and people, advisers for these schools so unless all these people have no idea what they're talking about, attending these schools does help you out a little bit. Not saying you'll get in with a 3.2 and 25 but I'm saying somewhere along the line it will help you out (however large or small that help may be).

 

[Bojangles85]

I've never really met or heard of anyone who's attended medical school through the same university where they completed their undergraduate degree, and was wondering if it helped at all in getting into said school. I looked at a couple of colleges that have med schools, but the numbers varied on how many students matriculating each year had been from the undergraduate institution.

Just a little background info on why I'm posting- I'm going to ECU now so I'm hoping that might give me an edge when I apply to Brody in the future. The only people I've known to go to Brody were from UNC, which is a little discouraging as UNC's undergrad gets a lot more prestige than ECU.

Brody wants Primary care/rural doctors/underrepresented minorities,women. They want that more than anything else. I know a lot of ECU undergrads who went/go to Brody

 

[drizzt3117]

Penn alumni are 10 times more likely to be accepted than the rest of their applicant pool.

Also, UW actively gives a slight boost to ppl who did ug here.

 

[njkMD]

Creighton University (where I go) has a serious preference for undergrads to all of its professional schools

 

[MacVA]

I would have to say that yes, medical schools that are also undergraduate institiutions do tend to give their "own" students slight preferential treatment. Off the top of my head, two of the main reasons could be:

1. (If a State School) Student is more likely to stay here and practice they went to college here. Also, said student probably went to high school in the state.

2. The medical school knows the undergraduate school's professors and knows the challenging courses. It is much easier for medical schools to evaluate its own students.

Also, UVA seems to show a preference to its undergraduates. Roughly 50% of the IS crowd come from that University.

At UK (University of Kentucky), almost 40% of the class did their undergraduate work at UK.

As a poster alluded to earlier, I believe the number for Louisville graduates attending UofL med is closer to 25% as well.

 

[SusGob711]

I'm an undergrad at the University of Toledo in Ohio and I find that statistically our medical school accepts a lot of UT undergrads. This might be because they have more applicants from UT students but I've found that to be true of most med schools. You'd have to get a well-researched adcom member to attest to this trend...

 

[mvenus929]

I looked at detailed admissions stats for a whole bunch of private schools when I applied, and virtually all of them had 90%+ OOS students. So if they favor "locals" at all, it can't amount to very much.

The only exception I remember was the private schools in NYC (NYU, Mount Sinai, etc.), which had about 20% of their students coming from NYS. But since NY has a huge population, that may just reflect the fact that they get a lot of local applications. In any case, those "locals" need some pretty impressive stats to get into such schools--which means they probably didn't need an "edge" to begin with.

Just because you're from out-of-state doesn't mean that you aren't considered a 'local' in the terms the OP is talking. I went to high school in SC, and our valedictorian went to UVA for his undergrad. If he had kept his SC residency (which I'm pretty sure he did, since I'm pretty sure he wants to be a politician there), and applied (and was accepted) to UVA med school, stats would show another UVA grad going to UVA med, even though he's an OOS student.

This is even more true for the private schools... if someone from down South goes to Yale for undergrad, then gets into Yale med, they'll be a local from what you can see. I'm pretty sure undergrads like NYU and Columbia take a fair few students from out of state...

 

[amakhosidlo]

Penn alumni are 10 times more likely to be accepted than the rest of their applicant pool.

Also, UW actively gives a slight boost to ppl who did ug here.

Yeah, ~35% of this year's class are UW grads

 

[student1799]

Just because you're from out-of-state doesn't mean that you aren't considered a 'local' in the terms the OP is talking.

The OP's post was about a state school, so for them "local" really does mean local (residency trumps everything else). But you do make a valid point that for private schools, UG alumni aren't necessarily going to come from the area.

However, I don't agree that all private med schools favor their UG alums. I'm from NYC and I'm pretty sure that NYU and Columbia don't care if you went to their UG or not. And the med school connected with my UG (an Ivy) definitely doesn't care.