Undergraduate Studies

[HMSdreamer]

I have watched several of my high school friends go to their ivy league universities in hopes of becoming doctors. Two of these graduated high school with 4.00GPAs. Now can anyone predict their outcome? They began their journey through college with C averages. Now how is it that valedictorians diminish their GPAs beyond repair with their full effort in place? I can tell you that ivy league universities were not created to spit out doctor babies. No, they are established to create "out of the box" thinkers that have no intentions of going to grad school. You can not expect someone to stay above the curve at a normal pace with ECs and so forth.

Now I have told this to countless pre-med students and they scoff at me until they too fall victim to the elite university game. Go to a school that doesn't grade on the curve and has smaller class sizes. You will get to know your professor and have more time for ECs and everything else. I can promise the prestige behind your school is not going to matter as long as you have a high GPA. Comparatively if you have a 4.00 GPA and a kid from Harvard has a 4.00 GPA (doubt it), you will probably have better ECs. Community college is a great start and not one medical school is going to give a **** as long as you do fine with upper level class work in a university. Getting into medical school doesn't have to be as hard as everyone tries making it.

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[allantois]

I agree. And if you look at the list of biggest feeder schools to medical schools, Ivies are nowhere to be found there.

 

[Tawantinsuyu]

It does say that this is for selection into specific programs, but there are ivies all over this?
http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf

 

[NoDakDok]

I have watched several of my high school friends go to their ivy league universities in hopes of becoming doctors. Two of these graduated high school with 4.00GPAs. Now can anyone predict their outcome? They began their journey through college with C averages. Now how is it that valedictorians diminish their GPAs beyond repair with their full effort in place? I can tell you that ivy league universities were not created to spit out doctor babies. No, they are established to create "out of the box" thinkers that have no intentions of going to grad school. You can not expect someone to stay above the curve at a normal pace with ECs and so forth.

Now I have told this to countless pre-med students and they scoff at me until they too fall victim to the elite university game. Go to a school that doesn't grade on the curve and has smaller class sizes. You will get to know your professor and have more time for ECs and everything else. I can promise the prestige behind your school is not going to matter as long as you have a high GPA. Comparatively if you have a 4.00 GPA and a kid from Harvard has a 4.00 GPA (doubt it), you will probably have better ECs. Community college is a great start and not one medical school is going to give a **** as long as you do fine with upper level class work in a university. Getting into medical school doesn't have to be as hard as everyone tries making it.

I'm not going to name names, but many top schools have extreme grade inflation rather than deflation, and a C is well below average at most undergraduate institutions. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that going to a top school isn't necessarily a disadvantage due to higher competition. You certainly don't need to attend an elite program for undergrad in order to get into medical school. In fact, the higher medical school acceptance rates (e.g. in the 80-90% acceptance rate range compared to sub-50% national average) I have seen all belong to small liberal arts colleges most people have never heard off. This is unrelated of course, and is generally due to feeding in-state schools, a small applicant pool, and a variety of other things that can only be found at these types of programs.

I agree. And if you look at the list of biggest feeder schools to medical schools, Ivies are nowhere to be found there.

That is because the metric you are using has more to do with the size of the school than it does competitiveness of its applicants. That is why you see large, well-known state school dominating that list. Also, there are actually many (large) Ivy's among that list, so it's not even true.

Same would be true for if you did "% of Applicants who receive at least 1 acceptance." It would be extremely skewed toward small, liberal arts colleges with absurd acceptance rates.

Edit: To fairly compare schools' prestiges as it relates for medical school acceptance is essentially impossible to do, statistically. This is due to the innate differences between each school's demographic. Basically, it is important to attend whatever school is best for you as an individual. Go wherever you will perform at your best.

 

[DermViser]

I have watched several of my high school friends go to their ivy league universities in hopes of becoming doctors. Two of these graduated high school with 4.00GPAs. Now can anyone predict their outcome? They began their journey through college with C averages. Now how is it that valedictorians diminish their GPAs beyond repair with their full effort in place? I can tell you that ivy league universities were not created to spit out doctor babies. No, they are established to create "out of the box" thinkers that have no intentions of going to grad school. You can not expect someone to stay above the curve at a normal pace with ECs and so forth.

Now I have told this to countless pre-med students and they scoff at me until they too fall victim to the elite university game. Go to a school that doesn't grade on the curve and has smaller class sizes. You will get to know your professor and have more time for ECs and everything else. I can promise the prestige behind your school is not going to matter as long as you have a high GPA. Comparatively if you have a 4.00 GPA and a kid from Harvard has a 4.00 GPA (doubt it), you will probably have better ECs. Community college is a great start and not one medical school is going to give a **** as long as you do fine with upper level class work in a university. Getting into medical school doesn't have to be as hard as everyone tries making it.

Is your name HMSdreamer supposed to be ironic here given your post? Go to WashU, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and see the schools that feed in there.

 

[NoDakDok]

Go to WashU, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and see the schools that feed in there.

This metric would more indicate self-selection than it would undergraduate institutional bias in admissions. But yes, if you attend interviews or medical school at a "top tier" school you will primarily see individuals who attended "top tier" undergrads.

 

[ithd]

a kid from Harvard has a 4.00 GPA (doubt it)

The most awarded grade there is a straight A, with the average being an A-

 

[allantois]

It does say that this is for selection into specific programs, but there are ivies all over this?
http://www.inpathways.net/top50feeder.pdf

I'm not sure how to interpret that table, I made my conclusions based on data reported by AAMC:
https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html

Let's get some facts from there:
For White applicants, an Ivy school (Cornell) only shows up at #19
For Asians, at #8 (Cornell)
For Hispanics at #26 (Cornell)
For Mexican Americans at #23 (Harvard)
For African Americans at # 5 (Cornell)

Also for white applicants none of Ivies except for Cornell are in the Top 50 of feeder institutions. (I didn't check for other racial groups but the results are probably similar).

 

[RWynd123]

I think that a lot of strong students self select to go to top undergrads, and therefore it isn't necessarily the name of the undergrad institution that makes a difference, but the individual students that attend the institution. There are also a lot of top students that don't go to ivies, and they do just fine getting into top med schools it seems.

 

[Avicenna]

When selecting a college, I had the option of going to a moderately prestigious school paying tuition, or get full ride and additional pay to go to my state school.

I chose state school (one of the largest schools in America) and outshine everyone. I struggled thoroughly through high school, but now have a 4.0 GPA - even after having taken all the weed out classes; consistently getting highest marks in every single class. It kind of builds up your confidence - a lot. I swear I've built up something of a superiority complex, after a period of serious self confidence issues in high school. I'm positive I'd be doing terribly in the more elite colleges, but am content not thinking about that.

 

[Shirafune]

Check out Table 1.
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/267622/data/mcatstudentselectionguide.pdf

Public medical schools will not care if you go to a prestigious university. Private medical schools, on the other hand, do. However, both place a huge importance on GPA. The competitiveness of someone with a mediocre GPA at a top university compared to someone with a great GPA at a large state school, for example, is not clear.

But given the fact that so many Adcoms have said that a poor GPA cannot be rescued by pretty much anything, I would rather go to a state school and thrive than go to a highly competitive Ivy at the risk of failure. An individual's intelligence will hopefully come through in his/her MCAT score anyways.

 

[Aerus]

Also know that many people who were stellar students in high school didn't have to try. High school isn't exactly the most difficult 4 years you will go through and many people have just enough talent to do well in it, but not enough to slack off in college and pull off decent grades.

A C average at a school like Harvard means you are truly at the bottom of the class. That person wouldn't do well at MANY universities in the United States outside of the top 20. Being valedictorian of your high school does not guarantee that you will do well in a college setting, regardless of how much easier it might be than Harvard. I know a few high school valedictorians at my school who aren't doing well either and I don't go to a school like Harvard. As I said, college is a WHOLE different ballgame that requires a different approach.