Coming from an unknown school a.k.a "easier" school

WSUCougar2012

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Any ideas on how to stand out in the application process when you're coming from a lesser-known state school. It's hard competing with all the Hopkins and WashU grads, but how do students like myself get recognized in the process?

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Any ideas on how to stand out in the application process when you're coming from a lesser-known state school. It's hard competing with all the Hopkins and WashU grads, but how do students like myself get recognized in the process?

The school name factor is only going to take an applicant so far. A 3.7 GPA from unknown state school is going to look better than a 3.4 from an Ivy school (3.7 v. 3.6, then maybe Ivy gets the edge).

Also, the MCAT is the great equalizer. It's the same test that everyone has to take. A strong performance there will eliminate any doubt that you are a weaker candidate than someone coming from a bigger name school.
 
Any ideas on how to stand out in the application process when you're coming from a lesser-known state school. It's hard competing with all the Hopkins and WashU grads, but how do students like myself get recognized in the process?
Where you go to college is not nearly as important as what you do while you're there (assuming that you are attending an accredited American or Canadian institution!) At my medical school, we do not give applicants extra consideration just because they graduated from a well-known college. In general, adcoms will want to see you maintain a high level of academic achievement in college and earn a competitive MCAT score (ideally 30+). You should also participate in meaningful community service or other significant activities and get some experience with the health care system (shadowing, volunteering at a hospital, etc.). It is best to pick one or two activities that you are particularly passionate about and devote more time and energy to those rather than being superficially involved in a lot of activities. Best of luck to you. :)
 
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Where you go to college is not nearly as important as what you do while you're there (assuming that you are attending an accredited American or Canadian institution!) At my medical school, we do not give applicants extra consideration just because they graduated from a well-known college. In general, adcoms will want to see you maintain a high level of academic achievement in college and earn a competitive MCAT score (ideally 30+). You should also participate in meaningful community service or other significant activities and get some experience with the health care system (shadowing, volunteering at a hospital, etc.). It is best to pick one or two activities that you are particularly passionate about and devote more time and energy to those rather than being superficially involved in a lot of activities. Best of luck to you. :)

:thumbup: the above. Also, just to add a little bit. You would have to do the same things to make yourself stand out even if you DID go to a top tier school. While an MCAT of 43 would make some adcom members drool, most people would say that as long as you keep your GPA up and have an MCAT competitive for the schools you apply, to the big thing is going to be the interview.

Have experiences in your life that make you interesting and let you tell a great story. Also, if you are shy, use college to work on those social skills. Even though applying to medical school requires great academics, everyone is attracted to a good personality and adcoms realize that you will be working with patients and interacting with other physicians and midlevels, so your academic prowess is only a part of the puzzle. Don't JUST take a "leadership" role, but also find some experiences where you will be part of a team and show that you can work with other people, not just tell them what to do.

Best of luck!
 
"Competing with all the Hopkins and WashU grads" is not an issue. From a number standpoint, there really aren't that many of them and don't assume that a great medical school means an equally great undergraduate experience/education. Q, you have a better insight into the process than I do, but I've heard a lot of conflicting stuff involving it..some of that might be rivalry stuff though. ;)

Seriously though, go to the undergrad institution that makes you happy. If you have to front the cash yourself or take loans out then you'll never really regret it. I know people from ivy leagues that struggled to get into medical school and I know people from 10,000 person state universities that got accepted to multiple highly regarded schools. You are the biggest factor...not the school.
 
"Competing with all the Hopkins and WashU grads" is not an issue. From a number standpoint, there really aren't that many of them and don't assume that a great medical school means an equally great undergraduate experience/education. Q, you have a better insight into the process than I do, but I've heard a lot of conflicting stuff involving it..some of that might be rivalry stuff though. ;)
Actually, there are certain UGs that tend to be premed powerhouses, meaning they put out a lot of high-caliber, competitive applicants. The two that the OP mentioned are in this group. But that doesn't mean that grads of these schools are preferred over equally qualified grads of other schools like Washington State. It might seem like students from top schools get preference, but this is because state schools tend to have a much larger spread of talent compared to the top schools. In other words, an average student at a state school will usually not be as academically competitive as an average student from a top school. But the top students at a state school can easily hold their own with grads of Wash U or Hopkins. In a nutshell, we want the best students we can get, regardless of the name on their diploma. Does that make sense?
 
But that doesn't mean that grads of these schools are preferred over equally qualified grads of other schools like Washington State. It might seem like students from top schools get preference, but this is because state schools tend to have a much larger spread of talent compared to the top schools.

Bull.

There is a clear and obvious preference at top-tier schools for students who come from top-tier undergrad schools. If you were correct, we should see large numbers of students from state schools in the Ivys, which we don't.
 
Bull.

There is a clear and obvious preference at top-tier schools for students who come from top-tier undergrad schools. If you were correct, we should see large numbers of students from state schools in the Ivys, which we don't.
I respectfully disagree, and here's why. Let's assume that there are 100 applicants from State U and another 100 applicants from Ivy U. The State U applicants run the gamut from people with GPAs in the high 2.0's/low 3.0's with MCATs in the mid 20s to people with 4.0s and 40 MCATs. In contrast, the Ivy U students are clustered more tightly around the top end, with no students below a 3.3/30. Maybe 10% of the State U students are considered academically competitive for Top Med School by whatever cutoff is used, while 60% of the Ivy U students are competitive. So we invite 10 State U students and 60 Ivy U students. Of those interviewed, say we accept 20%. That means only 2 State U students get in, while 12 Ivy U students get in, a 6:1 ratio. One could look at those stats and conclude that the Ivy U students got preference due to their school, as you did, when in fact it was because there is a much higher percentage of highly competitive applicants coming out of Ivy U versus State U. However, the handful of applicants from State U who are highly competitive will also get invites and acceptances to Top Med School. There is just a lower percentage of stellar candidates coming from State U relative to the number coming from Ivy U.
 
^agreed

If you're in an Ivy League school for undergrad, chances are you're extremely smart and hardworking already, so the only "edge" you get is from your own hard work.
 
I respectfully disagree, and here's why. Let's assume that there are 100 applicants from State U and another 100 applicants from Ivy U. The State U applicants run the gamut from people with GPAs in the high 2.0's/low 3.0's with MCATs in the mid 20s to people with 4.0s and 40 MCATs. In contrast, the Ivy U students are clustered more tightly around the top end, with no students below a 3.3/30. Maybe 10% of the State U students are considered academically competitive for Top Med School by whatever cutoff is used, while 60% of the Ivy U students are competitive. So we invite 10 State U students and 60 Ivy U students. Of those interviewed, say we accept 20%. That means only 2 State U students get in, while 12 Ivy U students get in, a 6:1 ratio. One could look at those stats and conclude that the Ivy U students got preference due to their school, as you did, when in fact it was because there is a much higher percentage of highly competitive applicants coming out of Ivy U versus State U. However, the handful of applicants from State U who are highly competitive will also get invites and acceptances to Top Med School. There is just a lower percentage of stellar candidates coming from State U relative to the number coming from Ivy U.

Your argument only makes sense if there are an approximately equal number of Ivy and State students. However, there are far far more non-Ivy than Ivy students, meaning that even if your 10% and 60% numbers were correct (which I also disagree with), you would still have far more total students from the non-Ivys.

But when you look at the undergrad schools of the top med schools, there are a huge number of students from the Ivys and other top institutions. Very few from mid-to-low tier undergrad schools.
 
Your argument only makes sense if there are an approximately equal number of Ivy and State students. However, there are far far more non-Ivy than Ivy students, meaning that even if your 10% and 60% numbers were correct (which I also disagree with), you would still have far more total students from the non-Ivys.

But when you look at the undergrad schools of the top med schools, there are a huge number of students from the Ivys and other top institutions. Very few from mid-to-low tier undergrad schools.
It would be interesting to know the proportions of applicants applying to top med schools who attended one of the UG powerhouses versus state schools. I don't know these numbers even for my own school, and I am not sure if it's possible to get them. But regardless, I don't agree that there are many more applicants from state schools who are applying to the top med schools. First, people will self-select to some extent. Second, there may be 2000 freshmen premeds at State U, but of those, only a very small percentage will ever reach the point of applying to medical school at all, let alone the top med schools. When I was a chemistry instructor, I saw a huge attrition even going from freshman gen chem to sophomore organic. For these two reasons, I would bet that in fact, there are actually *fewer* applicants from state schools applying to my med school than there are from Ivies and other top schools like Hopkins and Wash U.

I readily concede that I only have insight into the admissions process at one medical school. But for this school at least, UG name is not a determining factor in how we select students. Yes, we have many students who attended powerhouse UGs. But we also have a significant number of students who went to state schools for UG, including myself. :)
 
If name doesn't play a big role, then what do you advise students from state schools to do to distinguish themselves from the rest.

Does research and/or do pubs play role? Is it bad if research is a person's main EC?
What about shadowing and community service? How consistently should it be done?
Does being a TA look good?

Any other words of advice would be nice and appreciated.
 
If name doesn't play a big role, then what do you advise students from state schools to do to distinguish themselves from the rest.

Does research and/or do pubs play role? Is it bad if research is a person's main EC?
What about shadowing and community service? How consistently should it be done?
Does being a TA look good?

Any other words of advice would be nice and appreciated.

You have the right idea. Research is a great way to get involved and something that med schools really like. Just make sure that you actually eventually get to do research, and don't become the test tube cleaner. Research shouldn't rule your life, but it definitely helps out in certain programs. There is a fellow student at my school who did medical missions and did overseas volunteering, and the interviewer looked at him and said that he should have dedicated some of that time to research (note that this is a bit of an extreme example, but it is just to make a point that volunteering/trying to save the world isn't all that medical schools look at).

Personal experience: I did research for 2 years with a summer in between. I was the main person on my projects (my projects ended up not being publishable, but they became good interview fodder) and really didn't volunteer a whole lot, and none of the volunteering was clinically oriented, mostly tutoring and habitat and humane society work. Had good MCAT, good GPA and made it into my #1 pick. So you can see that it IS possible to get in without a ton of volunteering or community service...however, it is not the BEST way to do things if your #1 goal from the beginning of college is to go to med school.

Basically, that's a long way of saying that research is great, volunteering is great, but doing both is better. With that said, don't over-stress about cramming too much into your schedule. It would be a good idea to either do a summer research position or find a lab that would let you work flexible hours where you could go in every day or just once a week depending on how busy you are. For volunteering, you could do a summer trip to honduras or something, or you could spend 1 weekend a month doing community service.

Being a TA is a great experience whether med schools love it or not (I would think so since it is a "leadership role", but who knows for sure?). You get to have a pretty good amount of responsibility, and you also get to cement your knowledge in a subject that you are probably interested in.
 
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