Anything wrong with applying to every medical school in the US

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londongal

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I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
 
londongal said:
I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
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Yup. In addition to the main AMCAS application, pretty much every school has its own secondary application, and you usually have to spend ~$50-100 for each secondary application.

Realistically, there's no reason for you to apply to every school in the country. You should pick some schools that you have competitive stats for and that you genuinely want to go to, maybe throw in a couple of reach schools and a few schools with average stats below yours. That way you're not wasting secondary application fees on reach schools you have no realistic chance of going to and you won't waste money attending interviews at schools you really have no interest in attending.
 
Yes. There are ~150 allopathic schools.

AMCAS charges $30 for each school you apply to and $160 for the first one. The primary fees for applying to all 150 schools would total ~$4700

Now, nearly all of these schools will send you a secondary application, even the ones who would not accept you in a thousand years. Let's assume that 100 schools returned a secondary to you to fill out. The average secondary application fee is around $100. Then, it would cost you $10,000 in secondary application fees. Also, most secondary applications have many blanks to fill in and usually demand answers to several essay questions. Again, you have to answer these essay questions even if your GPA and/or MCAT is too low for the school to do anything but throw your application into the trash.

Anyways, it tooks me several days to do each of my secondaries, and if you had 100 to do, it would not be an easy task to fill them all out.

Since you're asking this question, I have to assume that your GPA/MCAT combo is not good. I can say that applying super broadly to all 150 schools is probably not going to help, unfortunately. Most medical schools get more than 5000 applications per year, and they simply reject most of them without doing anything but checking the GPA/MCAT and a few other factors to see if you have enough "points" to be considered.

If you want to go to medical school, you're probably going to have to do something else to be considered. D.O. schools consider applicants with somewhat lower stats, or you could do a program such as a post-bacc or an SMP in order to raise your stats enough to be considered.
 
londongal said:
I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
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Theoretically, yes, but after about 30 or so schools, if you're still not getting in, you're not going to get in... also, there are a lot of schools out there that most likely won't even look at your app if your OOS (e.g. wright state, east tennessee, marshall, west virginia, nevada, etc...), and others won't look at your OOS app because of cutoffs (assuming you have pretty low stats since you're even considering this).

Also, I don't even want to imagine what it would be like to fill out all those secondaries. Simply thinking of that makes me shudder...
 
Like others said, you could do it, but it's a waste of time and money. Some schools will not accept OOS's, period. No ifs ands or buts about it. They will, however, cash your check after placing your rejection in the mail. Part of the game is picking the right schools to apply to.
 
Applying that broadly basically says you don't care about getting into any one school, which is not what med schools want to hear in their interviews.

And thats under the assumption you could get an interview at all given what everyone else said.
 
Cost is cost. But how about all those secondaries?
 
Ponger said:
Applying that broadly basically says you don't care about getting into any one school, which is not what med schools want to hear in their interviews.

And thats under the assumption you could get an interview at all given what everyone else said.
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Medical schools won't know where you've applied. And while they want you to be interested in their school, they know you're applying to multiple schools (unless you're doing early decision of course).

But OP, it would be a big waste of time and money to apply to all 130 schools. As someone else pointed out, the fee AMCAS charges is just the beginning. Secondary fees are about $50-125 per school, so that can add up very fast. Plus you have to write a bunch of essays and keep track of all of the applications.

Buy a copy of MSAR and read through it. It will give you an idea of how your GPA/MCAT match up to each school and also how state residency affects your chances. For example, good luck getting into the University of Massachusetts or Medical College of Georgia if you're not a state resident of their respective states.
 
I would guess that it is impossible to apply to every allopathic school (rather, you'd be able to apply to almost all of them). There are some that will prevent you from even selecting them on the primary AMCAS application, such as UMass' MD-only program in the event that you are not a Massachusetts resident.
 
ok thanks guys. I now see why that is not smart! I will apply to a lot though. At the end of the day as long as I get into a school that is in the US, and is not in a state that has cold weather, I will be fine. My gpa will be very close to a 3.4, and I will have an upward trend, about a 3.65 in the sciences. Lots of volunteer work. Haven't taken the mcat yet, i'm planning on applying in 2011. I'm from Los Angeles

I'm taking the pre-reqs at a community college
 
londongal said:
ok thanks guys. I now see why that is not smart! I will apply to a lot though. At the end of the day as long as I get into a school that is in the US, and is not in a state that has cold weather, I will be fine. My gpa will be very close to a 3.4, and I will have an upward trend, about a 3.65 in the sciences. Lots of volunteer work. Haven't taken the mcat yet, i'm planning on applying in 2011. I'm from Los Angeles

I'm taking the pre-reqs at a community college
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Are you currently attending a 4 year college or university? If so, and you are taking your pre-reqs at a community college, go immediately to an emergency room, because you just shot yourself in the foot and need immediate attention.

If you are currently a community college student and plan to transfer to a 4 year college or university to obtain your BA degree, that is a different situation. But you really should take some science classes at the 4 year school and do very well, otherwise many ad coms are going to have their doubts about you.
 
searun said:
Are you currently attending a 4 year college or university? If so, and you are taking your pre-reqs at a community college, go immediately to an emergency room, because you just shot yourself in the foot and need immediate attention.

If you are currently a community college student and plan to transfer to a 4 year college or university to obtain your BA degree, that is a different situation. But you really should take some science classes at the 4 year school and do very well, otherwise many ad coms are going to have their doubts about you.
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I want to re-emphasize this. Taking science classes at a community college when enrolled at a 4-year university is the reddest of red flags.
 
MassTransport said:
I want to re-emphasize this. Taking science classes at a community college when enrolled at a 4-year university is the reddest of red flags.
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i think i've seen your avatar before as a painting in an american history exhibit... am I right? if not, do you have any idea what it's of, or where it's from?
 
GeraldMonroe said:
Yes. There are ~150 allopathic schools.

AMCAS charges $30 for each school you apply to and $160 for the first one. The primary fees for applying to all 150 schools would total ~$4700

Now, nearly all of these schools will send you a secondary application, even the ones who would not accept you in a thousand years. Let's assume that 100 schools returned a secondary to you to fill out. The average secondary application fee is around $100. Then, it would cost you $10,000 in secondary application fees. Also, most secondary applications have many blanks to fill in and usually demand answers to several essay questions. Again, you have to answer these essay questions even if your GPA and/or MCAT is too low for the school to do anything but throw your application into the trash.

Anyways, it tooks me several days to do each of my secondaries, and if you had 100 to do, it would not be an easy task to fill them all out.

Since you're asking this question, I have to assume that your GPA/MCAT combo is not good. I can say that applying super broadly to all 150 schools is probably not going to help, unfortunately. Most medical schools get more than 5000 applications per year, and they simply reject most of them without doing anything but checking the GPA/MCAT and a few other factors to see if you have enough "points" to be considered.

If you want to go to medical school, you're probably going to have to do something else to be considered. D.O. schools consider applicants with somewhat lower stats, or you could do a program such as a post-bacc or an SMP in order to raise your stats enough to be considered.
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I agree that overall it is not the best idea to apply to every school, but there are advantages. If we assume that you have only 1% chance of getting into any single school (that's very conservative, as it is usually 3% or more), then if you apply to 20 schools, you have 18.2% chance of getting in anywhere. Note here that at about 3% acceptance rate, if you apply to 20 schools, you get the national average of about 43%.

Ok, so if now you apply to 40 schools (at 1%), the success rate jumps to 33.1%. At 70 schools, it is at 50.5%. Those making fun of drmonk should realize that he might not even have gotten an interview if he had applied to fewer schools.

Finally, if you apply to all 130 schools, your success rate will be 72.9%.

Bottom line: If you are considering Caribbean, you'd be much better off spending 15K and trying to get into a US allo school.

A few disclaimers: higher number of applications may mean that the average quality of each application drops exponentially with each additional application. This is not taken into account in the formula. You absolutely must be sure that you can keep up the quality of all your applications otherwise the process is worthless. Furthermore, you may be better off spending the extra money beefing up your resume rather than applying to 130 schools. Applying to over 50-60 schools should be a last resort.

And if you have an obvious handicap on your application (like 2.5 GPA AND 20 MCAT, no volunteer experience at all, etc), then again you can't bet on increasing your success rate by much if you apply to more schools. This is why it is better to apply smartly first, and apply broadly second. Good luck.
 
Excelsius : that would be true that if the chances of getting in were 1% at each school you apply to. Certainly, from the averages, that sounds reasonable.

However, cutoffs mean that at most schools, if your GPA + MCAT + URM status + a glance at your ECs don't make the cut, your chances are precisely 0%. Population statistics are misleading. Out of 10,000 applicants for a school I know about, only a couple thousand make the cut to be considered for interview. For those couple thousand, their chances of acceptance are much higher than 1%. For the other 8,000 folks, their chances are 0%. Sure, the "average" is maybe 3%, but that's misleading.

I certainly found this to be true, I never got an interview at most schools I applied to. Only my state schools even considered my app because for those schools, the chances of them taking an applicant was much higher, and so their thresholds were lower. I would not be in medical school today otherwise.
 
GeraldMonroe said:
Excelsius : that would be true that if the chances of getting in were 1% at each school you apply to. Certainly, from the averages, that sounds reasonable.

However, cutoffs mean that at most schools, if your GPA + MCAT + URM status + a glance at your ECs don't make the cut, your chances are precisely 0%.

I certainly found this to be true, I never got an interview at most schools I applied to. Only my state schools even considered my app because for those schools, the chances of them taking an applicant was much higher, and so their thresholds were lower. I would not be in medical school today otherwise.
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1% is a pretty good, low average even at higher ranked schools. Sure, as I said in the disclaimer, if you have an obvious problem like an extremely low GPA+MCAT, then your chances would be 0 at most places. On the other hand, I think that the majority of schools do not have a solid cutoff. If you have a low GPA, you can make up with high MCAT; if you have a low MCAT, you can make up with great ECs; etc. If you look at statistics, you'll see that every year there is a sizable number of sub 3.0 GPA and sub 27 MCAT getting into medschool.

Finally, if you went only by cutoffs, then if you say 0%, you can also say 100% if the cutoffs are met by a very healthy margin, but that's just not the case. If you have nothing extreme in your application, you wouldn't be in the 0% range for almost any medical school. I admit though that the best way to size up your chances is to look at yourself as an applicant and evaluate the requirements of each school separately. You would end up with a complex algorithm that would be much more accurate. I am actually working on a formula right now that is much more accurate than just the LizzyM score.

By the way, even at 0.4% chance of getting into any single school (this is way too low), if you apply to 130 schools you'll still be around 40% success rate - close to national average.
 
londongal said:
I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
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You could theoretically do this, but there's no point in doing so. I would say that there are a fair number of state medical schools (University of Hawaii, Puerto Rico Universities, Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas NEUCOM, etc...) that very rarely accept out of state applicants no how high their GPA and MCAT scores are. Besides that, the secondary fee for each medical school is like $100 so you'd spend about $12,000-15,000 in order to do so and this does not include the cost of interviewing, which would probably add $60,000 - $75,000 if you apply to and interview at each medical school in the US.

You're much better off applying to your own state schools, a few mid-tier private schools, several state schools in your geographic region, and maybe a handful of "reach" schools (so figure 15-25 schools) and let's leave it at that.
 
Excelsius said:
And if you have an obvious handicap on your application (like 2.5 GPA AND 20 MCAT, no volunteer experience at all, etc), then again you can't bet on increasing your success rate by much if you apply to more schools. This is why it is better to apply smartly first, and apply broadly second. Good luck.
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2.5 GPA + 20 MCAT != No Volunteer experience. The GPA and MCAT scores are a waaaaaay bigger handicap, but it would be closer if volunteer experience meant "clinical" experience, because that is a serious deal breaker for even the best stats.
 
Excelsius : I've only gotten to see the operation of one med school's internal admissions process. They had cutoffs like a guillitone : they would consider GPA, MCAT, ECs, LORs, URM, and personal statement, and give each applicant "points" for each category.

If you had below 77 points, that's it, you're gone. 0% chance. And, the way the scale was, if you had a low enough GPA and MCAT, you could have perfect scores on the other sections and they'd still trash your app.

Honestly, given the school did fairly consider each section and weight them, and it did have 10,000 applications for 190 spots, this seemed as fair as anything. There was no way for a committe to look at 10,000 application to find someone with 76 points who deserved a spot. If you're wondering, I had 83 points with a 36 MCAT, 3.4 GPA, and good scores for the other sections. I only made the cut by 6 points, and have not been accepted to that school yet.

Most other medical schools have a similar problem : too many applicants, and not enough time to look at all the applications. I don't really see any practical way other schools could do things much differently.

Now, if you're URM, or you're applying to your state school, the ballgame is completely different, because the cutoffs won't be nearly as high for in state applicants. Some schools may give a lot more points to ECs, so it might be possible to get an interview there.

Truth is, even after the interview, your chances are heavily affected by your grades/ECs/ect. The reason was that the interview was just more points. You could get up to 20 points from each interviewer, added to your score. The admissions committee would rank everyone by composite score, and offer acceptances based on that. Presumably, they would pretty much auto accept the applicants with the highest scores, and debate over the ones in the middle, throwing out the ones at the bottom.

That means if you applied to this school on time with a 4.0/42 and had good letters and a good personal statement, you would have so many points that only a bombed interview would prevent you from getting a de-facto auto-accept.

This is why the rare bird who actually had that kind of package generally gets an acceptance to the majority of the schools they apply to.
 
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Well the three factors that one has going against applying to ALL the med schools are: 1. Money 2. Stats 3. State Residency You may have the first two, but I doubt any applicant has simultaneous residency status in all 50 states. Some state institutions such as those in NJ and FL give huge deference to IS applicants.
 
what's wrong with me being at a community college? I finished my BA in psychology at a uni that is about 1 hr from me. MY local community college is about 15 mins from me, and FREE...so yeah that's why i'm back at my community college doing the pre-reqs.

I was a transfer student before entering uni.

I think that would be weird if I was attending uni right now, and doing my pre-reqs at a community college, but that is not the case.

why do people place a bad rep on comm colleges anyway...? yeh they might be easier for general ed classes, but not for science classes, like med-school pre reqs! I'm sure it's the same everywhere, they are all weed-out classes, and there are NO easy teachers for them.
 
londongal said:
what's wrong with me being at a community college? I finished my BA in psychology at a uni that is about 1 hr from me. MY local community college is about 15 mins from me, and FREE...so yeah that's why i'm back at my community college doing the pre-reqs.

I was a transfer student before entering uni.

I think that would be weird if I was attending uni right now, and doing my pre-reqs at a community college, but that is not the case.

why do people place a bad rep on comm colleges anyway...? yeh they might be easier for general ed classes, but not for science classes, like med-school pre reqs! I'm sure it's the same everywhere, they are all weed-out classes, and there are NO easy teachers for them.
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its not us who place a bad rep on CC pre-reqs...its the adcoms...and lets face it, it does matter what they think.

On a different note, I think CCs are fantastic...that's how education should work in this country...and not just the first two years of a Bachelors degree.
 
londongal said:
what's wrong with me being at a community college? I finished my BA in psychology at a uni that is about 1 hr from me. MY local community college is about 15 mins from me, and FREE...so yeah that's why i'm back at my community college doing the pre-reqs.

I was a transfer student before entering uni.

I think that would be weird if I was attending uni right now, and doing my pre-reqs at a community college, but that is not the case.

why do people place a bad rep on comm colleges anyway...? yeh they might be easier for general ed classes, but not for science classes, like med-school pre reqs! I'm sure it's the same everywhere, they are all weed-out classes, and there are NO easy teachers for them.
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Sometimes the truth hurts. The reality is that you have dramatically damaged your chances of being admitted to med school by doing this. If you had taken some pre-reqs, or even all of your pre-reqs at a community college and then transferred to a 4 year school and excelled in upper division science courses, you would be ok. But to take all of your science classes at a community college is a recipe for disaster in med school admissions. Med school admissions committees will view your application with alot of scepticism.

Med school admissions committees do not view community colleges as equivalent to 4 year schools in science education. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. So you have placed yourself at a serious disadvantage.
 
Go for it if you have the funds! Let me know how it works out for you.
 
Well, I hope you blocked out your entire summer for filling out all those secondaries, planning any trips across the country for interviews and working full-time to pay for those...😛
 
OP, take what these posters say with a grain of salt. Much of what's repeated over and over again on SDN has no solid foundation in truth. It may seem intuitive, but it doesn't mean it's true.

When people say "you just screwed yourself" and such, they're essentially postulating and making assumptions. Unless they're members of adcoms themselves, it's difficult to say what something like this "does for your chances." I'm sure it doesn't HELP, but it's not the end of the world either.

FYI, I graduated college without having taken 4 pre-reqs (my major was somewhat science-related, but didn't require Ochem or Physics). I was a broke-ass college grad and couldn't afford to go back to my university to take the classes.

I took 4 science pre-reqs at a CC (3 at the same time over a summer), got into 7 medical schools, and have Honored every single class here so far.

I'm not posting this to brag (I'm a dick a lot of the times, but at least a quasi-humble one as often as I can be), but just to show you that at the very least my n=1 experiment doesn't jive with what people are telling you.

That's not to say I wasn't worried my path wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass. But it's possible to make things work.
 
rogerwilco said:
OP, take what these posters say with a grain of salt. Much of what's repeated over and over again on SDN has no solid foundation in truth. It may seem intuitive, but it doesn't mean it's true.

When people say "you just screwed yourself" and such, they're essentially postulating and making assumptions. Unless they're members of adcoms themselves, it's difficult to say what something like this "does for your chances." I'm sure it doesn't HELP, but it's not the end of the world either.

FYI, I graduated college without having taken 4 pre-reqs (my major was somewhat science-related, but didn't require Ochem or Physics). I was a broke-ass college grad and couldn't afford to go back to my university to take the classes.

I took 4 science pre-reqs at a CC (3 at the same time over a summer), got into 7 medical schools, and have Honored every single class here so far.

I'm not posting this to brag (I'm a dick a lot of the times, but at least a quasi-humble one as often as I can be), but just to show you that at the very least my n=1 experiment doesn't jive with what people are telling you.

That's not to say I wasn't worried my path wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass. But it's possible to make things work.
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great job discrediting other posts on SDN and then giving your own anecdotal account. 😀
 
Thanks for that "rogerwilco", and I'm not worried one bit. It's the type of thing that they MAY look at if I'm going up against an applicant that is equal to me...but other than that I very much doubt it would matter.

I have dramatically damaged my chances? lol common now! recipe for disaster?? Taking courses at a community college, vs, a uni isn't exactly a "hot" topic on medical school entrance posts... or am I just wrong on this one?

Do you really think administration people will be like...ohhh she got straight A's in her sciences, but she took them at a community college, so let's reject her solely because of this!

I'm not trying to get into harvard or other top schools. By the nature of the post I'm sure you can tell than I'm trying to get into a mediocre school, that I'm competitive for.
 
...It seems like an exceptional circumstance, seeing as how you had already graduated college and would have fewer options available...rather than OP saying (s)he is enrolled in a 4-year uni and is simultaneously taking courses at a CC. I doubt that the quality of the CC greatly exceeds that of the uni, even if the class had 10 students, and really, if you were a science major, why would you cheat yourself by taking your science courses at a CC? Isn't that one of the major reasons why you went to that 4-year college anyway? I see CCs as (generally) places for GEs for current 4-year uni students. My $0.02.
 
londongal said:
Do you really think administration people will be like...ohhh she got straight A's in her sciences, but she took them at a community college, so let's reject her solely because of this!
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🙂 This is probably overdramatic. But, there is some truth to what people are saying. Taking sciences at CC won't necessarily hurt you, but it certainly won't help you and you'll need to rely on the substantial remainder of your application to win over the admissions committee. Regardless of your own perceptions of your education at CC, the truth is, courses at the CC level often do not prepare students to the same extent as courses at many 4-year institutions.

Juco transfer come into my school every year and make up a substantial portion of every graduating class, but all of them have to make substantial sacrifices to adjust to the pace and volume of coursework here. In medical school, the pace and the volume will only increase and that's why admissions are often wary of CC work. Succeed at the CC level is just not indicative of whether or not you'll be able to handle the sheer volume of information that you'll need to know once you're admitted.

It won't break you though. Admissions committee members are human and they understand how different people have different life situations that made one path more suitable for another. However, don't overlook it, because you will need to talk about how you got to this point and you will need to demonstrate your abilities in addition to successfully completing your prerequisites, perhaps moreso than the traditional applicant.
 
Siverhideo1985 said:
great job discrediting other posts on SDN and then giving your own anecdotal account. 😀
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anecdotal in the sense that he's just one person giving his experience. but his point is that the naysayers of community college credits are pre-meds who have no experience in Adcomming beyond what they hear on these boards (usually from other pre-meds). i'd far rather trust RogerWilco's "anecdotal account" than a bunch of pre-med talking heads.
 
GeraldMonroe said:
Excelsius : I've only gotten to see the operation of one med school's internal admissions process. They had cutoffs like a guillitone : they would consider GPA, MCAT, ECs, LORs, URM, and personal statement, and give each applicant "points" for each category.

If you had below 77 points, that's it, you're gone. 0% chance. And, the way the scale was, if you had a low enough GPA and MCAT, you could have perfect scores on the other sections and they'd still trash your app.

Honestly, given the school did fairly consider each section and weight them, and it did have 10,000 applications for 190 spots, this seemed as fair as anything. There was no way for a committe to look at 10,000 application to find someone with 76 points who deserved a spot. If you're wondering, I had 83 points with a 36 MCAT, 3.4 GPA, and good scores for the other sections. I only made the cut by 6 points, and have not been accepted to that school yet.

Most other medical schools have a similar problem : too many applicants, and not enough time to look at all the applications. I don't really see any practical way other schools could do things much differently.

Now, if you're URM, or you're applying to your state school, the ballgame is completely different, because the cutoffs won't be nearly as high for in state applicants. Some schools may give a lot more points to ECs, so it might be possible to get an interview there.

Truth is, even after the interview, your chances are heavily affected by your grades/ECs/ect. The reason was that the interview was just more points. You could get up to 20 points from each interviewer, added to your score. The admissions committee would rank everyone by composite score, and offer acceptances based on that. Presumably, they would pretty much auto accept the applicants with the highest scores, and debate over the ones in the middle, throwing out the ones at the bottom.

That means if you applied to this school on time with a 4.0/42 and had good letters and a good personal statement, you would have so many points that only a bombed interview would prevent you from getting a de-facto auto-accept.

This is why the rare bird who actually had that kind of package generally gets an acceptance to the majority of the schools they apply to.
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Thanks for the insight. 2-3% chance of admission to any one medschool is still a good approximation, I think. Unless you work on the admissions board, it is really hard to know exactly how they decide whom to accept. While each medschool has a lot of applicants, most of the applicants are pretty homogeneous. This is why standing out doesn't equal to good grades and vice versa. Lastly, admissions statistics prove that non-URMs have a good chance of getting in even with low numbers. If we subtract the ORMs, these numbers will go even further down.
 
To clarify, I understood during the process that it probably didn't necessarily shine a favorable light on my application, but I was banking on it not hurting it much either. I aced them all, did well enough on the MCAT, and did my best to give the adcoms no reason whatsoever to doubt my abilities as a student and as a future physician.

It's not the path I'd recommend, if you can avoid it, if for no other reason than it was always eating at me a little until that first interview, and then until that first acceptance. But I just didn't have the means at the time to do it any other way without taking a lot more time off (or taking out absurd private loans), so I went with it.

My story wasn't posted to discredit those who say CC's may not be the BEST choice. It was posted to deter some of the people saying that the OP had committed applicant suicide, and that there was no hope.

I'm just one example, but at least proof that there's hope.
 
The people who are bashing CC's have you BEEN to one?!
wow... I've been to uni, there is literally no difference! Apart from perhaps some 101 level general eds...but then again I haven't taken 101 levels at my uni, so there may be no difference at all.

Right now I'm taking physiology at a CC. My professor has a phd in neuroscience from CALTECH! Only 2 people on the 1st test out of 35 got an A -the average was a c - on the first test.

The is just one example of a science class I'm taking. People if you're going to give your opinion, make sure you darn well have gone to a CC!
I would gladly take my science classes at a uni, because there is no difference. In fact I've taken an advanced bio psych course all about the brain. I got an A, but I worked half as hard as I am working now for my physiology class. We covered just as much material, it was mostly physiology based. They even had pre-test study sessions on a saturday before the test.

Obviously it doesn't HURT to take everything at a uni, but my issue is whether it REALLY HOLDS THAT MUCH WEIGHT? All the med-schools I want to apply to say that a college is fine. some mention that we should chose the more rigorous route when it comes to the sciences. I think the fact that I am going to take algebra based physics instead of the harder calculus based physics, is more of an issue. I've called up USC for example, and they said as long as I fill the requirement it doesn't matter to them.

I'm going to study physiology now...i'm on my 30th hour of studying for a test for this monday. Putting in a total of 50-60 hrs. Yes, that's how much is required to get an A (aiming for 100) at this CC...
 
londongal said:
Thanks for that "rogerwilco", and I'm not worried one bit. It's the type of thing that they MAY look at if I'm going up against an applicant that is equal to me...but other than that I very much doubt it would matter.

I have dramatically damaged my chances? lol common now! recipe for disaster?? Taking courses at a community college, vs, a uni isn't exactly a "hot" topic on medical school entrance posts... or am I just wrong on this one?

Do you really think administration people will be like...ohhh she got straight A's in her sciences, but she took them at a community college, so let's reject her solely because of this!

I'm not trying to get into harvard or other top schools. By the nature of the post I'm sure you can tell than I'm trying to get into a mediocre school, that I'm competitive for.
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If you will read my posts again, perhaps you will realize that I was not bashing community colleges. They perform a valuable educational service and many successful med school applicants have taken science classes at community colleges. My point is that it is not a good strategy to take virtually all of your science classes at a community college. Even our friend Roger, who has honored all of his med school courses, apparently only took some of his pre-reqs at a community college - he also, presumably, had a transcript that demonstrated success in science at the university he attended. That was to his advantage.

I certainly am not suggesting that you have virtually no chance of being admitted to medical school by taking all of your science courses at a community college. But I am suggesting that it will not be helpful to your application and will diminish your chances for success, significantly diminish your chances for success.

You are pretty fiesty which is fine, but you obviously do not know much about med school admissions. This is demonstrated by the subject matter of your initial post - should I apply to every medical school in the United States? That is an absured question and of course, the answer is no.


And yes, I have taken courses at a community college, math classes, when I was a high school student. As I said, I like community colleges.
 
I don't think rogerwilco and searun disagree, frankly. Any pre-reqs you can take at a 4-year university will likely be to your advantage. A few CC classes are not likely to torch your application IF you have other classes to balance them out and if you have a great academic showing.

No one's saying a CC is objectively and necessarily lesser than a 4-year university. It depends at least in part on which community college and which university you are comparing. But there is a general bias against community college on the part of adcoms and frankly, adcoms are probably not going to take the time to figure out if your particular community college is one of the most rigorous in the country or one of the least rigorous in the country.
 
I understand your argument, but you probably will NOT have teh chance to make this argument to medical schools. You wouldnt write this argument about why CCs are just as a hard in your secondaries and you probably wouldnt have that much opportunity to bring it up at your interview.

You are being "warned" by sdn people that adcoms may look bad on you taking all sciences at CC and all other courses at Uni. Whenever I recieved information like this that went against what I was already planning to do, I thought to myself: If I spend a year and thousands of dollars (literally) applying and I get rejected, am I going to look back and think "ahh why didn't I do ______".
 
londongal said:
I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
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That would be very taxing on you, in addition to very expensive; you would spend well over 10k and would have hundreds of essays and forms to fill out.
 
pinkblue said:
I understand your argument, but you probably will NOT have teh chance to make this argument to medical schools. You wouldnt write this argument about why CCs are just as a hard in your secondaries and you probably wouldnt have that much opportunity to bring it up at your interview.

You are being "warned" by sdn people that adcoms may look bad on you taking all sciences at CC and all other courses at Uni. Whenever I recieved information like this that went against what I was already planning to do, I thought to myself: If I spend a year and thousands of dollars (literally) applying and I get rejected, am I going to look back and think "ahh why didn't I do ______".
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Well there's a difference between helpful advice from the beginning and criticism after the fact. There's nothing the OP can do now that she's already taken the courses and graduated from university. Even if everyone is right and rogerwilco and the OP are wrong, what do you propose she does? Call it quits simply because of a few classes at a community college?
 
koko_eats said:
Well there's a difference between helpful advice from the beginning and criticism after the fact. There's nothing the OP can do now that she's already taken the courses and graduated from university. Even if everyone is right and rogerwilco and the OP are wrong, what do you propose she does? Call it quits simply because of a few classes at a community college?
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Agreed. I was simply trying to help the OP out and let her know that things may not be as bleak as others were suggesting. What's done is done, and it sucks having to worry about what you may or may not have done correct. The application process is crappy enough, no need to worry even more.

Nowhere in my posts did I try to suggest that everyone should take classes at CCs, or that you will always be viewed as equal to someone who didn't. Just giving one man's story of apparently beating the insurmountable (per SDN) odds.
 
koko_eats said:
Well there's a difference between helpful advice from the beginning and criticism after the fact. There's nothing the OP can do now that she's already taken the courses and graduated from university. Even if everyone is right and rogerwilco and the OP are wrong, what do you propose she does? Call it quits simply because of a few classes at a community college?
Click to expand...

The OP said "I'm taking the pre-reqs at a community college " and that they are planning on applying in 2011... That makes me think he still has a lot of pre-reqs to go and the advice could be helpful.
 
londongal said:
I'm not sure how this process works, but I understand that an applicant checks off the schools they want to apply to, but there's just one application. Is there a fee for each school checked? I'm thinking I would apply to every school out there, would this cost me extra?
Click to expand...

First of all, read up on the process!!! This is a life-defining choice and not one you should make without full knowledge of the process.

When you apply to a school through AMCAS (by checking it) you must then complete a secondary application. This application is sent by the school and it will require multiple short answer/essay questions. So applying to all the US schools will require an almost impossible amount of time to put into secondaries.

If you need to apply to every school (your application isnt strong) then there are some schools that you shouldnt be applying to (the high tier schools).

Good luck; read up!
 
I haven't taken most of my pre-reqs yet. I need a year of chem, organic chem, physics, biochem, and 1.5 yrs of bio.

This makes up for pretty much all of the pre-reqs, apart from math, which I took at CC, and one course at uni.

I'm planning on taking everything at my local CC because, I'm done with uni...it's an hr away, and I don't want to keep commuting.

My local CC is 10 mins away, and free.

I will have to find out more about this, but I think for non-traditional students it's probably understandable why they're at a CC. Even for a transfer student whos major is bio, they would have taken pretty much all of their major pre-reqs (which are the same for med-school) at a CC.

So then why am I, a non-trad student expected to go back to uni...and take med-school pre-reqs?

I'm almost certain that if this was a big issue, the med school would state this on their requirements page, just like some do!


The question is how big of an issue is this. I think it depends on the school. For highly competitive schools it might be a big issue. Other than that, I don't see this being the hot topic that some of you are making it to be. Perhaps because I'm going to a CC I ought to get straight A's for me to look as convincing. This is what I plan to do. I still don't think that a B from a 4-year, looks equal to an A at a CC though
 
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