Advantages of attending a top 10 medical school?

[mmmcdowe]

Moving to SSD. Best of luck OP.

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[Medstart108]

Hey everyone! I am a long time lurker and sdn has helped me out so much during this application year! Thanks to all those who post such insightful information. I have a question about the advantages of attending a top medical school (top 10). I was looking through the older sdn threads but I wanted more information.

My current situation: Originally, I was set on attending my state medical school-UVA. I love the school! I was fortunate enough to get waitlisted at 2 "top schools"- Columbia and Penn. Long story short, Columbia has been my dream school for a long time but I haven't gotten in (fingers crossed!).

But I just got off the waitlist at Penn! I am so happy and honored. After Penn's financial aid, the cost of UVA and Penn is pretty much the same. At Penn, I didn't fall in love like I did with Columbia or UVA. Also, my family lives in VA and Philadelphia is a little scary (no offense to any Philly natives lol). But at the same time, Penn is a great school and I didn't exactly hate it.

I have made a ton of pro/con lists. And I slightly favor UVA. But my main problem is I don't know how much of an advantage going to a top 10 school will give me in the future. I am potentially interested in academic medicine. Would going to Penn over UVa give me an advantage for residency placement/future careers? What are the advantages of attending a top tier school?

Well UVA is good school anyways, but I do agree that Penn is a good school.

In the end its your decision. I don't think the difference in getting into a top 10 school is anything important at most if you are into prestige it will make people say wow if you go.

Personally it wouldn't be a question, i'm into the whole prestige thing and considering the price is the same I would have gone. So many people pay more just to choose the top 10 school. Doesn't mean you have to, but i'm just saying.

 

[yehhhboiii]

Can someone explain to me how you can "fall in love" with a school from being there for a few hours on one day without knowing anything about things that actually matter? Anyway, go Penn op.

 

[Sophocles]

I just applied to every instate school. Not my fault that there are top schools there.

Right...great point....

 

[yehhhboiii]

Right...great point....

 

[deleted547339]

The thing is, 99% of the folks who are shouting about how little ranking matters have, or will have, applied to several of these allegedly "top" schools. If it matters so little, why do they apply there to start with?

Eh, sweeping generalization much? I had absolutely no interest in going to a 'top tier' med school whatsoever. I applied to a grand total of 3 med schools and only filled out 2 secondaries, all 3 in-state MD schools. When it came time to apply to residency, I applied to and went on several interviews at 'top tier' residencies.

Everyone is different and has different priorities, saying that people that don't go to a top school simply because they couldn't get in and they are vocalizing their inferiority complex by saying that rank doesn't matter is pretty narrow-minded.

When I was applying for med school, I took the MCAT without any prep and scored well-enough for state school. I knew that in concert with my GPA in probably the toughest major at my university, I should be able to get into at least one of my state schools. That was more than enough for me. Could I have studied, retaken the MCAT and gone to a more prestigious OOS school? Almost definitely. Could I have even gotten in somewhere better without retaking the MCAT? Probably, but I wanted to be close to home and keep my debt burden low. My state schools fit that bill. I was single and had a good group of friends so I stayed at the school where I did undergrad. I was able to make it through school with <100k in debt. When applying for residency, I was in a drastically different life situation. I had gotten married and, since I was no longer paying tuition, staying in-state no longer mattered. That opened up the world, but it didn't suddenly make me prestige-obsessed. I applied to Harvard, Hopkins, Stanford, etc for residency because they are all great training programs, but declined interviews at Stanford and Hopkins because my wife and I had absolutely no interest in living in California or Baltimore.

Just because YOU feel the need to go to a program that other people oh and ah over doesn't mean we all do.

 

[Sophocles]

Eh, sweeping generalization much? I had absolutely no interest in going to a 'top tier' med school whatsoever. I applied to a grand total of 3 med schools and only filled out 2 secondaries, all 3 in-state MD schools. When it came time to apply to residency, I applied to and went on several interviews at 'top tier' residencies.

Everyone is different and has different priorities, saying that people that don't go to a top school simply because they couldn't get in and they are vocalizing their inferiority complex by saying that rank doesn't matter is pretty narrow-minded.

When I was applying for med school, I took the MCAT without any prep and scored well-enough for state school. I knew that in concert with my GPA in probably the toughest major at my university, I should be able to get into at least one of my state schools. That was more than enough for me. Could I have studied, retaken the MCAT and gone to a more prestigious OOS school? Almost definitely. Could I have even gotten in somewhere better without retaking the MCAT? Probably, but I wanted to be close to home and keep my debt burden low. My state schools fit that bill. I was single and had a good group of friends so I stayed at the school where I did undergrad. I was able to make it through school with <100k in debt. When applying for residency, I was in a drastically different life situation. I had gotten married and, since I was no longer paying tuition, staying in-state no longer mattered. That opened up the world, but it didn't suddenly make me prestige-obsessed. I applied to Harvard, Hopkins, Stanford, etc for residency because they are all great training programs, but declined interviews at Stanford and Hopkins because my wife and I had absolutely no interest in living in California or Baltimore.

Just because YOU feel the need to go to a program that other people oh and ah over doesn't mean we all do.

A sweeping generalization is exactly what it is. I have no clue why you got all upset about it and then go on a tantrum about how awesome you are; you are accusing him of exhibiting the attitude that you are portraying.

I don't think you would exactly fit the bill of what a normal applicant is and therefore the generalization doesn't apply to you: how many applicants apply to only three schools and fill out secondaries to two schools, and how many applicants don't prepare for the MCAT? If anything this would be considered arrogant. RogueUnicorn never said anything about them not being able to get into top medical schools in that quote, he simply stated that people still apply although they say that ranking doesn't matter to them; bit of an oxymoron don't you think? Your attitude is above and beyond any type of pretentious self-entitled people that I have encountered and I think that you should worry less about what people think.

If you truly happy with the path you took and the decisions you made then you shouldn't have to justify them to anyone and you surely shouldn't speculate as to the route that you could've taken.

Btw, I'm also married and have a child and I understand about keeping the debt low, but it would be more expensive for me to go to a state school than a private one. The logic that top schools are more expensive is relative to your circumstances and should not be over generalized, something that you seem to be against.

I think it would be more constructive if you were to write about your experiences from a positive perspective, so that we, that are going to be in your shoes, can learn from them.

**Sorry for any spelling errors

 

[yehhhboiii]

A sweeping generalization is exactly what it is. I have no clue why you got all upset about it and then go on a tantrum about how awesome you are; you are accusing him of exhibiting the attitude that you are portraying.

I don't think you would exactly fit the bill of what a normal applicant is and therefore the generalization doesn't apply to you: how many applicants apply to only three schools and fill out secondaries to two schools, and how many applicants don't prepare for the MCAT? If anything this would be considered arrogant. RogueUnicorn never said anything about them not being able to get into top medical schools in that quote, he simply stated that people still apply although they say that ranking doesn't matter to them; bit of an oxymoron don't you think? Your attitude is above and beyond any type of pretentious self-entitled people that I have encountered and I think that you should worry less about what people think.

If you truly happy with the path you took and the decisions you made then you shouldn't have to justify them to anyone and you surely shouldn't speculate as to the route that you could've taken.

Btw, I'm also married and have a child and I understand about keeping the debt low, but it would be more expensive for me to go to a state school than a private one. The logic that top schools are more expensive is relative to your circumstances and should not be over generalized, something that you seem to be against.

I think it would be more constructive if you were to write about your experiences from a positive perspective, so that we, that are going to be in your shoes, can learn from them.

**Sorry for any spelling errors

oh hey aren't you the guy who was totally wrong about how long it takes to get from mount Sinai to cornell by bus and you were saying something about how you lived in new york for five years so you knew what you were talking about and you tried to put me down by taking a pretentious tone except that you got your information by misreading a website while I was born in new york city and spent my life here with over seven years being on the upper east side and actually spent a significant amount of time at both institutions and have actually made the trip before

 

[deleted547339]

A sweeping generalization is exactly what it is. I have no clue why you got all upset about it and then go on a tantrum about how awesome you are; you are accusing him of exhibiting the attitude that you are portraying.

I don't think you would exactly fit the bill of what a normal applicant is and therefore the generalization doesn't apply to you: how many applicants apply to only three schools and fill out secondaries to two schools, and how many applicants don't prepare for the MCAT? If anything this would be considered arrogant. RogueUnicorn never said anything about them not being able to get into top medical schools in that quote, he simply stated that people still apply although they say that ranking doesn't matter to them; bit of an oxymoron don't you think? Your attitude is above and beyond any type of pretentious self-entitled people that I have encountered and I think that you should worry less about what people think.

If you truly happy with the path you took and the decisions you made then you shouldn't have to justify them to anyone and you surely shouldn't speculate as to the route that you could've taken.

Btw, I'm also married and have a child and I understand about keeping the debt low, but it would be more expensive for me to go to a state school than a private one. The logic that top schools are more expensive is relative to your circumstances and should not be over generalized, something that you seem to be against.

I think it would be more constructive if you were to write about your experiences from a positive perspective, so that we, that are going to be in your shoes, can learn from them.

**Sorry for any spelling errors

I am not justifying my path to anyone, instead simply stating that not everyone wants the same path and it's wrong to suggest that nearly everyone wants the same thing. Also, I think what I said was far from a tantrum - I'm not upset in the least, just think what the other poster said was narrowminded and wanted to explain the other side. I wasn't trying to brag by saying I did well enough on the MCAT without studying. If anything, it was dumb of me to do so. I didn't decided on going to med school until too pretty late and, since it was so late, I just decided to take it without having time to study so I could see where I stood and decide what to do from there.

Sorry if you viewed my post as negative, it wasn't the intention and I suspect if we weren't online, you wouldn't have gotten that impression.

My intention WAS to be positive. If you do well in med school, your options are open. I realize that my anecdotal evidence is no better than others anecdotal evidence, but I think you really have anything you want in front of you if you go to a US MD school. My med school was an unranked state school and I could have gone anywhere. We matched people into top programs. But the smartest girl in my class when to a very average IM residency because of location. The smartest guy in my class went to a great residency in an extremely tough field, but not "the best" because he wanted a very specific location to be close to home.

My point is simply this: people want different things. If you make a sweeping generalization saying that "there are two types of med students, those that got into a top med school and those that wanted to go to a top med school" you are just plainly wrong. Is going to Hopkins over podunk-u going to have some positive effect? Sure. But can you match a great program in a tough field from podunk-u? Absolutely. Further, there is extreme selection bias. It is not surprising that the people that want to go to Harvard for med school are going to want to go to Harvard, Hopkins, Penn, UCSF, etc for residency.

Sorry if I offended you, it was not my intention.

 

[deleted547339]

oh hey aren't you the guy who was totally wrong about how long it takes to get from mount Sinai to cornell by bus and you were saying something about how you lived in new york for five years so you knew what you were talking about and you tried to put me down by taking a pretentious tone except that you got your information by misreading a website while I was born in new york city and spent my life here with over seven years being on the upper east side and actually spent a significant amount of time at both institutions and have actually made the trip before

longest sentence every typed on SDN? lol.

 

[Sophocles]

longest sentence every typed on SDN? lol.

Yeah, he was trying to be funny but when you have to try that hard it's not that funny. I, and a couple other people that live in NYC, had to correct his incredible exaggeration about how long it takes to from point A to point B. Then due to his childish attitude, as you can see from his previous post, I decided to quit arguing because he started to take it personal; I guess to him that means that he won??

Oh, did I mention that he PM'd me and tried to insult me with a ridiculously pompous and immature message?

Yeahboii, you have serious insecurity issues, always trying to put people down. Stay classy San Diego. You're better than this.

 

[yehhhboiii]

me: it takes an hour to get from mount Sinai to Cornell by bus.
you plus one other clueless kid: it takes ten minutes
website you cited: it takes 48 minutes to get from mount sinai to cornell
me: more time spent traveling in new york city than you and the other kid put together
you: bad at spelling usernames

 

[deleted547339]

Yeah, he was trying to be funny but when you have to try that hard it's not that funny. I, and a couple other people that live in NYC, had to correct his incredible exaggeration about how long it takes to from point A to point B. Then due to his childish attitude, as you can see from his previous post, I decided to quit arguing because he started to take it personal; I guess to him that means that he won??

Oh, did I mention that he PM'd me and tried to insult me with a ridiculously pompous and immature message?

Yeahboii, you have serious insecurity issues, always trying to put people down. Stay classy San Diego. You're better than this.

me: it takes an hour to get from mount Sinai to Cornell by bus.
you plus one other clueless kid: it takes ten minutes
website you cited: it takes 48 minutes to get from mount sinai to cornell
me: more time spent traveling in new york city than you and the other kid put together

Simmer down now, class.

 

[Geebeejay]

I totally agree, and I think this needs to be mentioned often so that people don't get the wrong idea. However, medical school reputation plays a role.

Look at the neurosurgery residents at Mass Gen:
http://residents.neurosurgery.mgh.harvard.edu/CurrentResidents.html

Out of 17 residents, 15 went to a top tier medical school.

Look at the Brigham. Out of 16 residents, 13 went to a top tier medical school.
http://www.brighamandwomens.org/Dep...sidencyprogram/NSUCurrentResidents.aspx?sub=0

At, UCSF 16 out of 18 went to a top medical school.
http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/about_us_residents.html

Same results for Columbia NY-Presb.

Why are the same schools represented in these rankings? There are other applicants from non-top tier medical schools w/ research, good step 1, ect. But clearly, there is some institutional bias.

I think NSGY isn't a good field to represent here. Obviously the top schools with top hospitals will have top neurosurgery departments (this is why the hospitals are ranked so high in the first place) and therefore neurosurgeon attendings (don't be confused - hospitals are ranked high because of their attendings not because of their med students or residents or fellows) who will write your reference letters when you are applying to residencies. So medical school with good residency in a specialty = good residency in the same specialty. Also I think Ivy league programs like Harvard are inherently incestuous and are known to eat there young and show favoritism to other top research schools. I'd be interested to see statistics from top programs that are not located at "top 10 schools"

For Boston Children's pediatric program, I count about 21 out of 42 interns come from top 20ish schools (please recheck my count - I definitely do not know off the top of my head which schools are actually top 20). This is one of the top Peds programs. http://www.childrenshospital.org/bcrp/Site2214/mainpageS2214P2sublevel27.html

For Hennepin's EM program, I count approx 6 out of 33 come from top20ish schools (again feel free to recount) http://www.hcmc.org/education/ResidencyPrograms/em-residency/CurrentResidents/index.htm?. From what I understand, this is a top EM residency.
Compare this to Harvard's EM program, where approx 90% of the residents come from "top programs". This is supposedly not as strong as an EM program as Harvard's (though Harvard is allegedly a top academic EM program). I definitely would not say that harvard is BETTER than hennepin...both are good for different reasons, and I've heard and read that Hennepin's is actually higher regarded.

Anyone have more examples?

My theory is that the only programs that care about whether or not you went to a top school are......wait for it.......the ones at the top schools. And while these schools may also have top residency program affiliations, they also might not, and there may be non-top-schools that have comparable or "better" residency programs. Outside of academia, most people don't worry about arbitrary numbers assigned to schools by people/journalists who may or may not share the same ideals as you do and who may or may not actually be idiots.

 

[SSCCSS]

Hey everyone! I am a long time lurker and sdn has helped me out so much during this application year! Thanks to all those who post such insightful information. I have a question about the advantages of attending a top medical school (top 10). I was looking through the older sdn threads but I wanted more information.

My current situation: Originally, I was set on attending my state medical school-UVA. I love the school! I was fortunate enough to get waitlisted at 2 "top schools"- Columbia and Penn. Long story short, Columbia has been my dream school for a long time but I haven't gotten in (fingers crossed!).

But I just got off the waitlist at Penn! I am so happy and honored. After Penn's financial aid, the cost of UVA and Penn is pretty much the same. At Penn, I didn't fall in love like I did with Columbia or UVA. Also, my family lives in VA and Philadelphia is a little scary (no offense to any Philly natives lol). But at the same time, Penn is a great school and I didn't exactly hate it.

I have made a ton of pro/con lists. And I slightly favor UVA. But my main problem is I don't know how much of an advantage going to a top 10 school will give me in the future. I am potentially interested in academic medicine. Would going to Penn over UVa give me an advantage for residency placement/future careers? What are the advantages of attending a top tier school?

This thread has turned comical. OP, if you were talking Penn vs. New Mexico, I would suggest there is absolutely an advantage in attending Penn. But you're talking about UVa. National brand, strong rankings...a great medical school.

A student from Harvard or WashU with lesser Step scores and clinical evaluations will be at a disadvantage compared to a student from UVa or UNC or Baylor with better scores and equivalent letters, research, etc. The biggest question you should ask is how PDs generally regard UVa - look at their specific rankings.

Go where you'll be happiest because that will likely be the place you perform the best. And this is critical because, despite the prestige-biased sentiments rampant on SDN, the reality is how you perform is FAR more important than where you went to school. As someone else posted, the particular school a candidate attended is pretty low on the priority scale of PDs relative to other factors over which you have far more control.

Also, what separates Top 10 versus Top 20 versus Top 25 versus Top 30? Schools in any of those groups represent elite medical schools generally filled with very bright students capable of matching into any residency if they perform well.

Congrats on your acceptances. Best of luck with your decision.

 

[OhHey]

i didn't read anything about your family, personal situation, etc. (all of which are important).. but if you in the least bit want to go into academic medicine or do research, go to Penn. Not that you can't get those opportunities from UVA.. but for better or for worse, our society does place a high value on name and reputation. Penn also has more prestigious labs and projects for you to get involved with.

 

[mvenus929]

+1
The caliber of the medical school you attend is clearly a factor in residency placement. Of course things like Step 1 score, clinical grades, LOR, interview, research, ect matter. But medical school reputation does play a small role. If the question is does Penn give a slight edge over UVA for most top academic residencies? The answer is yes.

This thread has turned comical. OP, if you were talking Penn vs. New Mexico, I would suggest there is absolutely an advantage in attending Penn. But you're talking about UVa. National brand, strong rankings...a great medical school.

Thank you SSCCSS, that's exactly what I was thinking. UVA is a top 25(ish... I can't remember their exact ranking this year, but we were 26 a couple years ago and 22 last year) school. It's still a top tier program, and doors certainly would not close for you if you went to UVA. We match people into top residencies every year, in a wide variety of specialties. Do students at Penn have an advantage? Maybe, but if so, I don't think it's a significant advantage. Is it worth being further from your family in a town that you aren't terribly fond of? I wouldn't think so, but ultimately it's your choice.

Can someone explain to me how you can "fall in love" with a school from being there for a few hours on one day without knowing anything about things that actually matter?

Gut feelings matter quite a bit... it's what pretty much determines rank lists for a lot of people (other factors like family and whatnot also play a role, but at the end of the day, you rank programs you can see yourself going to). When I first got invited to interview at UVA, I though I'd hate it. When I came for the interview, I liked all the people I interacted with, the town was beautiful, and the stress level of the students just didn't seem over the top. I interviewed at another school and got the feeling that the students were stressed all the time and never did anything outside of school. Yeah, they were welcoming, and the students that talked to us about the school were nice and everything, so I can't explain how I got a different feeling at the schools... I just did.

And UVA has basically lived up to my expectations of it.

 

[PinkPistol]

Thank you to everyone who responded and gave me such great advice. In the end, I decided to withdraw fron UVA. It's a great school, but I am happy with my decision. I will be attending Penn unless I get off the Columbia WL. Thanks everyone. If anyone is in a similar position, feel free to PM regarding my decision.

 

[darkjedi]

Thank you to everyone who responded and gave me such great advice. In the end, I decided to withdraw fron UVA. It's a great school, but I am happy with my decision. I will be attending Penn unless I get off the Columbia WL. Thanks everyone. If anyone is in a similar position, feel free to PM regarding my decision.

Congrats on your decision, though Penn > Columbia anyway