Rate your undergrad's medical school placement.

[Officer Farva]

I figured this thread might be useful for high schoolers, postbacs looking for a good school, or younger premeds looking to transfer. Feel free to include, or exclude, your college's name for the sake of online privacy.

I will go.

School: Top 20 non-Ivy

Placement used to be decent a few years ago, but in the past few years we mainly have sent our students to the Caribbean/DO and maybe low-tier/new MD programs if they are lucky. Science majors struggle to get above a 3.5, although our MCAT average is 33-34 last time I checked; we have plenty of people who score above a 35. We are a large premed factory. Research is famously hard to come by, forcing many of our younger students to do research at neighboring institutions before a PI at our university would take us in. Advising is not good, many premeds applying have one or two of three critical things missing from their application: research, clinical activities, or non-clinical volunteering.

Our premed office used to help students find internships when I was a freshman, but they stopped by the time I graduated, it is only going downhill.

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[deleted407021]

My public UG's premed dept. boasted a "99% acceptance rate", but they're stupid, so idk if that's in any way true.

 

[Guccitwotimes]

How/where can you find this information out?

 

[Guccitwotimes]

My public UG's premed dept. boasted a "99% acceptance rate", but they're stupid, so idk if that's in any way true.

Probably an artificially inflated statistic. If you're at a large school that's doubtful at best. I'd really like to see what my undergrad's acceptance to med school statistics are because my school also had horrendous premed advice. Their advice for premed courses and requirements was "take whatever you want and you can start halfway through the o-chem sequence without general chem knowledge". What a serious load of crap.

 

[frosted_flake]

How/where can you find this information out?

Go to your local evil pre-med advisor... they will shell out some random stats for you!
The one at my school is meaner than a snake. I do not plan on getting a committee letter because of him!

 

[Officer Farva]

How/where can you find this information out?

Don't rely on any self-published statistics. Get word of mouth info. Also, not to be a creep, you can learn a lot through looking at recent grads on linkedin to see where they ended up lol

 

[musicalfeet]

My actual undergrad: Top 25 Public

Pretty easy to give away...one of the biggest exporters of premeds in the nation. I wasn't premed there though, so I can only go on rumors and stuff. It seems like the people I knew that were premed were either struggling really hard with barely any support, or they were superstars that worked in cool labs and had various publications and then attended a top 10 or something for med school. Sounds like the type of institution to really help you shine if you're one of the best, but will let you drown if you're middle of the pack/bottom of the pack. Overall though, I didn't hear very good things about it...especially how tough the classes were as weeders, yet still failed to prepare a lot of students well enough for the MCAT. I have no idea about actual numbers though!

My post-bac: Private liberal arts undergrad with an affiliated post-bac

For the Post-Bac program: Amazing support and wonderful environment. I think they've had a 100% success rate so far in getting all of its students into MD/DO, with 1-2 student attrition being the maximum (note, there was no attrition for my year). That being said, the type of schools the students get into varies year to year. My year had a lot of students going into some really good med schools, and I think I was the only one that considered DO (hell...I think I was the only one afraid I wasn't going to get into school....because I suck and I was at the bottom). It's hard to separate whether or not the success of the students come from the school (I'm sure it does though!) or whether it's because they accept students into the program that were likely to get into school in the first place. Since it's not a big institution, students (post-bac only though I think) have to get research/volunteering opps outside of campus, but advising sends us lists of places they usually have students at. No one really has any issues getting opportunities.

For the undergrad affiliated with the post-bac: We take all the same classes, so the teaching is pretty equal and good all around. From what I've heard, the students who make it all 4 years through as a pre-med tend to do really well in the app process (80-90%?). I don't know much about the advising, but most of the undergrads that took classes with me and wanted to go into med/vet/dent school all managed to do so quite successfully...(but that's anecdotal).

 

[Officer Farva]

My public UG's premed dept. boasted a "99% acceptance rate", but they're stupid, so idk if that's in any way true.

Mine also has 99% acceptance, if you include all of our Caribbean placement. We are making those guys so much money from my school!

 

[wagonwheel23]

Top 20 LAC. 100% acceptance to MD with > 3.5 GPA and 32 or greater MCAT. No one is ever restricted from applying.

People frequently land in top programs. A few students go DO route if their GPA is sub 3.5.

 

[Guccitwotimes]

Don't rely on any self-published statistics. Get word of mouth info. Also, not to be a creep, you can learn a lot through looking at recent grads on linkedin to see where they ended up lol

I've been out of my undergrad for ages. Is there any way to find out such info online and I tried googling my school's name and placement but all it gives me is information about its own medical school

 

[frosted_flake]

Mine also has 99% acceptance, if you include all of our Caribbean placement. We are making those guys so much money from my school!

An advisor at my previous UG school encouraged applying to Carib schools and when I objected he said "don't listen to that crap they tell you on SDN, caribbean medical school are an excellent option for getting an MD."

Notice I said my previous UG school

 

[cardzkp]

What good is this thread if we don't state what school we went to. Also Mr. Farva, you're very concerned with school rankings, as I see every other comment has the words "Top 20" or the like in it. You know, small LAC and low-tier MD's are humans too.

 

[md-2020]

Best school in the universe. 101% acceptance rate for applicants with >528 MCAT. Average school wide GPA 4.01.

10/10, would recommend.

 

[Officer Farva]

I've been out of my undergrad for ages. Is there any way to find out such info online and I tried googling my school's name and placement but all it gives me is information about its own medical school

I am so weird. Type site:linkedin.com into google. Enter your undergrad's name after it. Enter "20xx-20xx" for graduation year. Enter the name of a common premed degree, like bio/chem. Maybe include "medicine" in their too for the name of the medical school your students are at. Enter "-top" in there since linkedin will sometimes give you the top 25 profiles that match those characteristics, you don't want that.

That is how you search linkedin without looking like a weirdo by appearing as a visitor on someone's page.

 

[Officer Farva]

An advisor at my previous UG school encouraged applying to Carib schools and when I objected he said "don't listen to that crap they tell you on SDN, caribbean medical school are an excellent option for getting an MD."

Notice I said my previous UG school

Lol you were very smart to switch, I was not smart

 

[deleted407021]

I am so weird. Type site:linkedin.com into google. Enter your undergrad's name after it. Enter "20xx-20xx" for graduation year. Enter the name of a common premed degree, like bio/chem. Maybe include "medicine" in their too for the name of the medical school your students are at. Enter "-top" in there since linkedin will sometimes give you the top 25 profiles that match those characteristics, you don't want that.

That is how you search linkedin without looking like a weirdo by appearing as a visitor on someone's page.

deez hax

 

[Guccitwotimes]

I am so weird. Type site:linkedin.com into google. Enter your undergrad's name after it. Enter "20xx-20xx" for graduation year. Enter the name of a common premed degree, like bio/chem. Maybe include "medicine" in their too for the name of the medical school your students are at. Enter "-top" in there since linkedin will sometimes give you the top 25 profiles that match those characteristics, you don't want that.

That is how you search linkedin without looking like a weirdo by appearing as a visitor on someone's page.

You're not weird. You're just ****ing resourceful, which is incredibly useful as a premed, in med school, and beyond.

 

[darkjedi]

Postbac: Bryn Mawr - Really the only reason I think I'm in med school is because of Bryn Mawr. The ex-dean of the program was incredibly well known across med school adcoms and was able to set up something like 20+ linkage programs. They have something like a 98% success rate into getting kids into med school. I would say around half go on to top 20 programs as well. My med school class alone has around 14 Bryn Mawr postbac grads.

 

[redferrari]

Decent public state university in Texas. Hint, it's a Big XII school. From my experience, those who deserve to get in do. Those who don't, don't. By this, I mean those with the numbers and credentials historically do well, getting much MD love, although TX is an outlier. Those who shouldn't have applied usually get left in the dust though, so our overall success rate might be lower than you'd expect.

Advisors are pretty good about being honest about your chances and are willing to help you achieve your goals.

 

[Dr.TonySoprano]

Decent public state university. From my experience, those who deserve to get in do. Those who don't, don't.

very specific, great!

 

[Dr.TonySoprano]

University of Miami:

Pretty thorough pre-medical committee willing to answer any questions and help you prepare your portfolio for medical school.
I don't know how many applied, but for the 2014-2015 cycle: 122 matriculated into an MD program and 31 of those went on to attend Miller School of Medicine.

 

[Officer Farva]

What good is this thread if we don't state what school we went to. Also Mr. Farva, you're very concerned with school rankings, as I see every other comment has the words "Top 20" or the like in it. You know, small LAC and low-tier MD's are humans too.

I may look elitist, but I promise I am quite the opposite! In fact, I would bet you that everyone on this thread's school has better placement than mine.

 

[redferrari]

very specific, great!

Hahaha I added to it. Hope that's better. Just thought I'd put it bluntly.

 

[md-2020]

Mine also has 99% acceptance

101% acceptance rate

I may look elitist, but I promise I am quite the opposite! In fact, I would bet you that everyone on this thread's school has better placement than mine.

Damn right 101% > 99%

 

[Lawpy]

Damn right 101% > 99%

That 2% makes all the difference

 

[Officer Farva]

Damn right 101% > 99%

We would have surpassed that number, but Hollywood Upstairs Medical College dropped a few of our students before the white coat ceremony when they falsified parental income information and could not pay tuition!

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Emory University (Top 21...)

The Good:
The people who are successful here do insanely well. Those who make it to the end with >3.6 stand about a 90% shot at acceptance to an allopathic school. The people that reach the 3.7/34 mark routinely get accepted to very respected top 20ish med schools. Research is plentiful with decent legwork, and you can get credit for up 2 semesters of it (ie 2 As in your major straight into the transcript). There is an enormous wealth of on campus shadowing that is easy to get since we have access to all several thousand Emory affiliated healthcare doctors emails.

The Bad:
About 40% of the entire school starts off premed, but 3/4 of those people will never make it to any med school. The science classes are brutally hard, some like general chemistry will approach 50% attrition by either withdrawals or failing. As you could imagine, its a gunner's paradise full of cheating, stealing work, and misleading classmates. The administration is also very rigid and horror stories abound of people being accidentally stripped of their financial aid and the like. Strict Major and gen ed requirements limit exposure to anything outside Pre-med and your major, making it pretty tough to double major or take classes out of interest. And the premed advising office is helpless and routinely wrong.

TL;DR: You do good you win big, mess up and you're toast

 

[Dr. Janitor]

Seems to me this thread makes little to no sense....getting into med school is more of an individual effort rather than the stamp at the top of someone's undergrad degree. If you work hard and make your own opportunities doors will open even if you went the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Want To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Also, how does the ambiguity behind "Top 20 Non-Ivy School" help anyone in their decision making? Not being sarcastic...just asking.

 

[Optimist Prime]

University of Arkansas:
If you are a resident of Arkansas you have a really good chance at attending UAMS considering they take over 50% of IS students that apply. On top of this a ton of Texas residents go to the UofA since they get instate tuition, and they usually do fairly well at their in state schools. However, I couldn't find any percentages on how many students apply and how many get accepted.

 

[Officer Farva]

Seems to me this thread makes little to no sense....getting into med school is more of an individual effort rather than the stamp at the top of someone's undergrad degree. If you work hard and make your own opportunities doors will open even if you went the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Want To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Also, how does the ambiguity behind "Top 20 Non-Ivy School" help anyone in their decision making? Not being sarcastic...just asking.

I'm just genuinely curious if people were happy with how their undergrads prepared them for applying for medical school. My older postbac friends from my undergrad who went through the application process have told me how great their program was for getting them in through specialized advising and linkages that are not available to the rest of the students.

My school very much has a sink-or-swim mentality with the premeds, with all of us expected to figure it out on our own. I understand medical school spots are very limited, but it would be nice if my semi-prestigious undergrad made the effort to help us. I mean, we have terrific graduate school placement outside of medicine, many people I know attend top5-10 PhD programs. We get our grads great jobs. However, our premeds are left out to dry and apply to the Carribean.

It would be nice if my "good" school had equal or better medical placement than the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Want To Do Other Stuff Good Too lol

 

[Officer Farva]

Also, rumor has it that postbacs at my school have access to better and more individualized advising than other premeds. They get more one on one time with advisors, and get the good ones who are not googling questions as I ask them. Not to mention, they have linkages that we as students never had access to.

 

[jazian]

Washu is one of the better premed schools I feel like in terms of attrition/toughness/support. They prepare you really well through the intro classes, not too much competition, and the weedout rate is not terrible, but classes are very hard. Premed advising is plentiful and you can schedule an appointment anytime you like. Also pretty good stats if you can get a good gpa.

https://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/FirstTimeApplicantsAcceptance Rates.pdf

 

[justadream]

Any school that boasts of a premed acceptance rate that is 90% or higher is likely just lying and/or misrepresenting the data (e.g., providing it with caveats in fine print like "if you have >3.8 GPA, 35 MCAT").

 

[Megarooski]

My school does a lot to help students looking to go into professional schools, especially pre-med students. They actually compile the data from all applicants that get committee letters (which is the vast majority) and publish it yearly. Here is the most recent one from the 2013/2014 cycle: http://opsa.tamu.edu/OPSA/media/library/Documents/PDFs/Med-2014-report.pdf We had a 52% acceptance rate overall that year, including former students. They break down the data in a lot of different ways, which is pretty cool. It's really informative. There are even 2 charts on the last two pages that show what MCAT and sGPA range each applicant was in and whether they were accepted or rejected.

Our Office of Professional School Advising also hosts many workshops throughout the year to prepare students for applying. They really emphasize applying early, and they have interview workshops in which they make sure you know exactly how to dress and how to prepare for the interview questions. Our acceptance rate isn't stellar, but they don't count Caribbean acceptances, and they don't actively try to persuade people not to apply that really shouldn't be. For example, 6 people with an sGPA below 3.0 AND an MCAT below 18 applied in 2013/2014, and they have no business wasting their money like that. If you go in for an appointment, they will be honest with you about what your chances are, what you need to improve, etc., but otherwise, they won't say anything to you one way or another since workshops give the same information to all applicants.

 

[Officer Farva]

Washu is one of the better premed schools I feel like in terms of attrition/toughness/support. They prepare you really well through the intro classes, not too much competition, and the weedout rate is not terrible, but classes are very hard. Premed advising is plentiful and you can schedule an appointment anytime you like. Also pretty good stats if you can get a good gpa.

https://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/FirstTimeApplicantsAcceptance Rates.pdf

My school said the same thing. But they include stuff like Caribbean with acceptance info, and may exclude people with low stats from the data.

 

[Dr. Death]

My school, crappy, public, open enrollment (everyone who applies is admitted), grade inflating. People who use SDN ~85% acceptance. People who don't ~25% acceptance

 

[darkjedi]

Seems to me this thread makes little to no sense....getting into med school is more of an individual effort rather than the stamp at the top of someone's undergrad degree. If you work hard and make your own opportunities doors will open even if you went the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Want To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Also, how does the ambiguity behind "Top 20 Non-Ivy School" help anyone in their decision making? Not being sarcastic...just asking.

You'd think that, but having a well run pre-med department really makes a world of difference. It's not even necessarily the tier of school you are at, as some of the smaller LACs can do a much better job than big universities. A lot of it is individual effort, but having good feedback on your application, resources to connect with health care mentors, and having a respected advisor to write your committee letter is not to be understated.

 

[Officer Farva]

You'd think that, but having a well run pre-med department really makes a world of difference. It's not even necessarily the tier of school you are at, as some of the smaller LACs can do a much better job than big universities. A lot of it is individual effort, but having good feedback on your application, resources to connect with health care mentors, and having a respected advisor to write your committee letter is not to be understated.

Totally agree as a recent college graduate. Also, a little grade inflation wouldn't hurt! Our students lead the country in low GPAs, high MCATs.

 

[hopefulERdoc251]

My small liberal arts UG boasted a "90-95% acceptance rate" and after going through my app cycle and looking back, I believe it. We had probably 300 to start Chem 1 "premed", that went to 180 after Chem 2, down to 100 before Orgo. After orgo, probably 30ish, and after all was said and done, around 15ish that applied either that year or the year after. As far as I know, I would say 13-14 of the 15 got into some school whether it was MD/DO. Many of these had multiple acceptances too! No Caribbean.

We do not prevent people from applying from our school either.

 

[wagonwheel23]

The pre-med office at my small LAC is amazing (unnamed because I would like to remain slightly anonymous). I am 5+ years out and received personalized attention on my application which included multiple essay revisions, overall strategy, school list, and more. I also had mock interviews with the pre-med adviser and a faculty member.

This personalized attention ensures you aren't submitting an abysmal application, which is a huge part of why I think our graduates are successful in their application process.

 

[justadream]

Out of the top schools, IMO:

Above avg premed schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown

Avg: Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke

Bad premed schools: MIT, Caltech, UChicago, Hopkins, Princeton, Cornell, WashU

This is just based on my what I've heard about general rigor and grading.

 

[IlDestriero]

My small liberal arts UG boasted a "90-95% acceptance rate" and after going through my app cycle and looking back, I believe it. We had probably 300 to start Chem 1 "premed", that went to 180 after Chem 2, down to 100 before Orgo. After orgo, probably 30ish, and after all was said and done, around 15ish that applied either that year or the year after. As far as I know, I would say 13-14 of the 15 got into some school whether it was MD/DO. Many of these had multiple acceptances too! No Caribbean.

We do not prevent people from applying from our school either.

That's how my university worked, an elite private school that you've heard of. Self selection as a result of no grade inflation and serious competition for As with classes full of high achievers and/or the MCAT ended most dreams pretty quickly. The few that survived were very successful.
Though our premed advisor was a dunce, worthy of a long time out sucking her thumb in the corner staring at the wall for her ****ty advising.
(Example- told my good friend and I to forget about medical school and set our sites on dental school... Ahhh? No. Result-> he went to a top 3 and I went to a top 20, both of us got scholarship $$$, then I got a free ride courtesy of my Uncle Sam. )
Her advice may have discouraged the weak and self doubting, but those that actually applied were quite successful. I know one our friends went on to podiatry school and another went to optometry school. I wonder if they really could have gotten into medical school? This was before the days of SDN.
I looked up a couple more old classmates who were premed. Urologist, ophthalmologist, general surgeon, anesthesia, CEO (!). We did ok.

 

[Ho0v-man]

No name school with no research, barely any clubs, and no premed committee. No affiliated med school. I didn't even know a premed committee was a thing until I started applying. One of my interviewers actually spent a few minutes asking me about my undergrad because he'd never heard of it and didn't know why anyone would go there.

Oddly enough, all of the premeds I had classes with still had God complexes even though it was pretty clear (to me anyway) they didn't stand a chance except for maybe Caribbean.

The only accepted people I know of besides myself are this one guy who went to KYCOM, and one of the teachers who got into some school in South America with a 24 mcat. As soon as he did, he told off everyone in administration, cursed out a class of students, and quit.

The school in South America closed down a few weeks later and now he works at the local community college. Refuses to apply DO bc its beneath him.

Looking back, it's a miracle I got in anywhere bc my school was no help.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Officer Farva]

Out of the top schools, IMO:

Above avg premed schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown

Avg: Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke

Bad premed schools: MIT, Caltech, UChicago, Hopkins, Princeton, Cornell, WashU

This is just based on my what I've heard about general rigor and grading.

Also, based on what I heard from other students on the interview trail: Bad premed schools include basically all the UC's, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Emory.

 

[Lost in Translation]

This thread is dumb but here are your bread crumbs.

NYU grad

One of my colleagues attends UPenn. 2 matriculated to NJMS. Another went to SGU. I'm likely attending UCinci, though waiting to hear back from Duke.

The pre-professional office has been nothing but spectacular, in contrast to other posters' experience at their alma maters.

 

[eteshoe]

I went to one of those "bad" premed schools (known for engineering and grade deflation). So few people applied to med school that I would say that the placement rate was like 90%. The kids I knew that went to med school were mostly the 3.9+ engineering double majors. Made me almost reconsider my choices since I wasn't one of those kids.

 

[EarpBars]

I'm curious if anyone is familiar with how Harvey Mudd and Carnegie Mellon premed fare. I imagine most of their students are probably in engineering and tech so I'm guessing they don't have many students apply each year. @LizzyM @gonnif @Goro @mimelim @gyngyn do you have any experience with these two schools?

 

[Mansamusa]

I went to one of the bad schools, and I think we do great. Our advisor is really good. She has a lot of connections with people at med schools admissions offices and goes to many conferences each year to network and learn more about med school admissions. Interviewers have told me that her committee letters are the best-written and most detailed they've seen

I wish we had higher placement to top med schools, but we send someone to every top school each year. Even though my gpa could have been higher somewhere else, we do well.

 

[Turkishking]

I figured this thread might be useful for high schoolers, postbacs looking for a good school, or younger premeds looking to transfer. Feel free to include, or exclude, your college's name for the sake of online privacy.

I will go.

School: Top 20 non-Ivy

Placement used to be decent a few years ago, but in the past few years we mainly have sent our students to the Caribbean/DO and maybe low-tier/new MD programs if they are lucky. Science majors struggle to get above a 3.5, although our MCAT average is 33-34 last time I checked; we have plenty of people who score above a 35. We are a large premed factory. Research is famously hard to come by, forcing many of our younger students to do research at neighboring institutions before a PI at our university would take us in. Advising is not good, many premeds applying have one or two of three critical things missing from their application: research, clinical activities, or non-clinical volunteering.

Our premed office used to help students find internships when I was a freshman, but they stopped by the time I graduated, it is only going downhill.

At my current institution it's very low.

 

[poloboy]

My undergraduate institution's prehealth committee won't write a committee letter for us unless we scored in or above the 88th percentile on the MCAT with a c/sGPA of 3.6 or above.