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Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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You have 2 great choices, so you really can't go wrong. You have all the facts. RIT/Upstate are preying on your insecurity and the fact that fact med school admissions are hyper competitive to get someone with your profile to go to a school you'd never otherwise aspire to by removing all your risk.

OTOH, Yale is also crazy competitive to get into, and you have succeeded. The odds are overwhelmingly high that you will be able to do much better than Upstate in 4 years, assuming you are still interested in medical school.

If you don't care about prestige or any of the opportunities or connections a school like Yale will open up for you for the rest of your life, and you are okay taking an Upstate guarantee instead of rolling the dice to try to get into a school like Yale med school later, you know what to do. Otherwise, your choice is obvious.

Just ask Yale what its med school acceptance rate is. I guarantee you it's around double the national average of 36%. So you just have to ask yourself if a 100% guarantee of going to Upstate is enough of an incentive to give up a 70%+ chance to go somewhere else, with a very decent shot of getting an upgrade to a much more prestigious med school.

The desire for insurance is understandable, which is why these programs exist. It really is a personal choice that comes down to your risk tolerance and the value you place on prestige. Yale UG is tough to give up for RIT. Giving up a guarantee at Upstate would similarly be tough for the average med school applicant, but someone applying from Yale is starting out from a position far ahead of the average applicant.

If money is not a factor, I'm not sure a guaranteed acceptance at Upstate is worth giving up the opportunity to spend 4 years at Yale, even if it means having to study and do well on the MCAT. Good luck -- you are in a great position and there really is no bad choice. I advise you to go with your gut, and to not substitute other people's values for your own.
 
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Go to Yale. If you manage to get through it without having a meltdown, you’ll do much better than SUNY upstate. I went to med school at NYU. 8-9 of my classmates were from Yale. Or you can get a job at Bain straight out of college.
 
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Go to Yale, but be careful. The name will not carry you that far for medical school compared to other industries. I’ve personally seen friends with 3.1, 3.2 and decent MCAT not get in at all or end up going DO, when I’m sure they would’ve beat the curve elsewhere.
 
Big congrats on the acceptances! Yale grad here heading to med school this summer. I pivoted towards medicine late in college but still found the premed experience pretty chill.

Of course nothing is a guarantee, especially with admissions becoming increasingly competitive, and a lot will come down to how you make use of the resources available to you. But broadly speaking, Yale students tend to do well in med school applications--these are some numbers the advising office put out for the last cycle:

2021 Applicant Statistics
2021 Applicant Data by School

The main thing to keep in mind is that if your interests develop in another direction, you'll have a ton of opportunities coming from Yale that you might not have elsewhere. I know a lot of people whose priorities and preferences for their career shifted during college and a good number of them ended up in fields that were really only open to them because they came from one of a handful of institutions.

Happy to address any questions or concerns and best of luck with your decision!
 
KnightDoc said:
You have 2 great choices, so you really can't go wrong. You have all the facts. RIT/Upstate are preying on your insecurity and the fact that fact med school admissions are hyper competitive to get someone with your profile to go to a school you'd never otherwise aspire to by removing all your risk.

OTOH, Yale is also crazy competitive to get into, and you have succeeded. The odds are overwhelmingly high that you will be able to do much better than Upstate in 4 years, assuming you are still interested in medical school.

If you don't care about prestige or any of the opportunities or connections a school like Yale will open up for you for the rest of your life, and you are okay taking an Upstate guarantee instead of rolling the dice to try to get into a school like Yale med school later, you know what to do. Otherwise, your choice is obvious.

Just ask Yale what its med school acceptance rate is. I guarantee you it's around double the national average of 36%. So you just have to ask yourself if a 100% guarantee of going to Upstate is enough of an incentive to give up a 70%+ chance to go somewhere else, with a very decent shot of getting an upgrade to a much more prestigious med school.

The desire for insurance is understandable, which is why these programs exist. It really is a personal choice that comes down to your risk tolerance and the value you place on prestige. Yale UG is tough to give up for RIT. Giving up a guarantee at Upstate would similarly be tough for the average med school applicant, but someone applying from Yale is starting out from a position far ahead of the average applicant.

If money is not a factor, I'm not sure a guaranteed acceptance at Upstate is worth giving up the opportunity to spend 4 years at Yale, even if it means having to study and do well on the MCAT. Good luck -- you are in a great position and there really is no bad choice. I advise you to go with your gut, and to not substitute other people's values for your own.
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did_i_inquire said:
I appreciate the in-depth response! Out of curiosity, do you know how much of an advantage med-school admissions give to students from top schools? I've done some research, and with the help of another commenter found that Yale pre-meds have an 83% acceptance rate to medical school without any gap years or reapplying. Of course that number is high, but surely some of that stems from the average Yale student being very smart (much smarter than myself in all honesty lol) and academically capable.
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You are very welcome! I did extensive research on this very topic before I embarked on my journey, and received mixed, non-definitive results.

At first I was led to believe UG didn't matter at all, and schools only looked at stats and ECs. This is clearly not true, as reflected in the comments from the adcom insiders on this forum. That said, a lot of people find success coming from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of schools, from community colleges to HYPSM.

Due to some inbreeding, there is definitely an advantage to coming from some schools, with HYPSM at the top of the list, but, as another person already posted, coming from Yale will not bail out a sub par candidate. After all, even though 83% is spectacular given the national average of 36% (and, not coincidentally, pretty close to the 70%+ I predicted without having access to the actual number! 😎), that still leaves 17% of Yale applicants among the 64% of everyone who are unsuccessful.

I have always taken the position that stars will shine wherever they happen to be. Try not to suffer from imposter syndrome. I assure you the vast majority of people at Yale also think that everyone around them is smarter than they are. It's natural, healthy and a sign of humility. The alternative would be that you would be an arrogant a-hole! 🙂

You are good enough to be admitted. No, I don't think there is magical pixie dust that will wash over you and make you better than you are via your association with Yale. You are a rock star who might benefit from being surrounded by other rock stars at Yale, if that's the route you take. You would also very likely do very well no matter where you go, which is why RIT and Upstate are dangling an Upstate guarantee to induce you to choose them, while you are still insecure and vulnerable. If you are totally risk averse, you grab the guarantee and it's a win-win. Otherwise, you go to Yale because you are grateful for the opportunity to do so, and you do well because 83% of all Yalies do well, and you go from there.

No guarantee. Just an 83% likelihood. Not because Yale makes people better than average, but because Yale has a much higher concentration of stars than the average school. You are now officially one of those stars, whether or not you choose to attend, because you have been accepted. So go shine! 🙂
 
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Good to see 41 applied from the Yale Class of 2021, 34 accepted and resulting 83% acceptance rate overall. To understand this better, IMO what's missing was how many were enrolled initially in the Premed track for the Yale Class of 2021. Has anyone clue/data on this? Appreciated.
 
cheer2021 said:
Good to see 41 applied from the Yale Class of 2021, 34 accepted and resulting 83% acceptance rate overall. To understand this better, IMO what's missing was how many were enrolled initially in the Premed track for the Yale Class of 2021. Has anyone clue/data on this? Appreciated.
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Nope. It's not missing at all. It is very well known that plenty (around 75%) of people who think they are premed upon entry in UG never make it to an application. It doesn't matter whether this number is a little higher or lower for Yale's Class of 2021, because the 83% is what's being compared to the published AAMC number of 36%.

In fact, if OP does decide along the way that med school is not the path for them, they will be infinitely better off with a Yale bachelors degree than one from RIT. People do drop out of BS/MDs programs every year, at every school, for personal as well as academic reasons.

And, little known fun fact. Because BS/MD students make the commitment so early (in HS) and are often under serious parental pressure, they have far higher drop out rates in med school than any other group. So the number of Yale freshman who entered as premeds and are not among the 41 who applied is irrelevant to anything here. They enter the world with a HYPSM degree and do not find themselves enrolled in a grad school they don't want to be in just because their parents laid out a path for them when they were 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17, and they didn't want to disappoint.
 
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Toxoplasma gondii said:
Only 41 applied? That seems shockingly low. Almost like Yale is excluding certain students from being considered in this number if they don't meet some kind of criteria. Here at Brown, we have over 100 and often ~150 apply, not including PLME.
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No, sorry. Someone posted statistics earlier in the thread that their advising office puts out.

41 people applied straight through, with no gap year. They actually break out their numbers in great detail, and provide strong evidence of the disadvantages reapplicants face, even at a school like Yale. 41 no gap year - 83% success rate. 131 with at least one gap year - 86% success rate. And, finally, 17 reapplicants - 59% success rate. Yale of all schools is not manipulating its numbers or stopping people from applying.
 
KnightDoc said:
No, sorry. Someone posted statistics earlier in the thread that their advising office puts out.

41 people applied straight through, with no gap year. They actually break out their numbers in great detail, and provide strong evidence of the disadvantages reapplicants face, even at a school like Yale. 41 no gap year - 83% success rate. 131 with at least one gap year - 86% success rate. And, finally, 17 reapplicants - 59% success rate. Yale of all schools is not manipulating its numbers or stopping people from applying.
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Moreover, Yale does not do committee letters. You don't have to even tell anyone you are applying, so there is 0 barriers to anyone. That makes the 80+% even more impressive.
 
throwaway01564 said:
Moreover, Yale does not do committee letters. You don't have to even tell anyone you are applying, so there is 0 barriers to anyone. That makes the 80+% even more impressive.
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It's Yale. I'm not that impressed.

I guessed their number would be around double the national average, without having any access to the actual numbers. They attract the best students in the country. Their numbers should be right around where they are.

As with the residency match thread, causation or correlation? I strongly believe it is correlation, and I am neither surprised nor impressed that the best undergrads in the country, attending one of the most competitive schools in the country to be admitted to, have a very high med school acceptance rate.
 
KnightDoc said:
It's Yale. I'm not that impressed.

I guessed their number would be around double the national average, without having any access to the actual numbers. They attract the best students in the country. Their numbers should be right around where they are.

As with the residency match thread, causation or correlation? I strongly believe it is correlation, and I am neither surprised nor impressed that the best undergrads in the country, attending one of the most competitive schools in the country to be admitted to, have a very high med school acceptance rate.
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Just for the sake of tabling the data, UCLA has the highest number of applicants to U.S. MD-Granting Medical Schools, 2021-2022. HYPSM is not even closer.
 
did_i_inquire said:
I see, thank you so much for your help!

The numbers do look a tad concerning, in all honesty. The average MCAT score of rejected applicants from Yale is a 515 (!), despite the average matriculant having a 512~ nationally. Even the GPA numbers look pretty high, but I'm assuming some of this stems from Yale applicants aiming much higher when it comes to med schools.

I see myself as a hard worker, but I'm a bit intimidated by the whole "big fish, small pond" effect. Sure, I got good grades and test scores at my local public HS (we're pretty competitive but also inflated GPA-wise), but I'm afraid that hard work alone--that I'll instead need to be some type of genius to succeed--won't be enough to push me over the 3.8+ hump at Yale.

Apologies on if this is a vague question, but is maintaining a top-notch GPA (say 3.8+) feasible at Yale with enough hard work, or is it one of those schools where professors regularly limit how many kids get As/Bs/etc?
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I'd caution against reading too much into the numbers. For example, I think it would be a mistake to look at the high GPA and MCAT averages among the rejected applicants and assume that all other things equal, Yale students somehow have a harder time getting into schools (not that you're suggesting this).

If we assume the pool of med school applicants does fairly well in terms of grades and scores, it's possible the kind of factors that may have limited the success of the rejected ~15% of applicants are not likely to be mitigated by good scores alone.

As for your other question, if you put in the work and manage your workload, the school really doesn't get in the way of maintaining a strong GPA. I can understand the big fish small pond concern, but you don't need to be a genius to do well in the classes. From my experience and all the people I knew, GPA was more about people being diligent with work and prioritizing grades than about being exceptionally brilliant. The school also has a ton of support and resources to help you do well and meet your goals academically.

If it helps to know, from what I recall, 30% of the class or so gets a 3.8-something or above, which was the lowest Latin honors cutoff. Most of the classes I took, I think the average hovered around an A- or a bit lower?

throwaway01564 said:
Moreover, Yale does not do committee letters. You don't have to even tell anyone you are applying, so there is 0 barriers to anyone. That makes the 80+% even more impressive.
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For what it's worth, I applied to schools without informing the advising office, as did others I knew. I did meet with the advising office a couple years back though when I started considering medicine, and they were very helpful.
 
carbonylcarbon said:
I'd caution against reading too much into the numbers. For example, I think it would be a mistake to look at the high GPA and MCAT averages among the rejected applicants and assume that all other things equal, Yale students somehow have a harder time getting into schools (not that you're suggesting this).

If we assume the pool of med school applicants does fairly well in terms of grades and scores, it's possible the kind of factors that may have limited the success of the rejected ~15% of applicants are not likely to be mitigated by good scores alone.

As for your other question, if you put in the work and manage your workload, the school really doesn't get in the way of maintaining a strong GPA. I can understand the big fish small pond concern, but you don't need to be a genius to do well in the classes. From my experience and all the people I knew, GPA was more about people being diligent with work and prioritizing grades than about being exceptionally brilliant. The school also has a ton of support and resources to help you do well and meet your goals academically.

If it helps to know, from what I recall, 30% of the class or so gets a 3.8-something or above, which was the lowest Latin honors cutoff. Most of the classes I took, I think the average hovered around an A- or a bit lower?


For what it's worth, I applied to schools without informing the advising office, as did others I knew. I did meet with the advising office a couple years back though when I started considering medicine, and they were very helpful.
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I think the advising office is fully useless lmfao
 
cheer2021 said:
Just for the sake of tabling the data, UCLA has the highest number of applicants to U.S. MD-Granting Medical Schools, 2021-2022. HYPSM is not even closer.
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Yes, and McDonald's has more restaurants in the US than Morton's and Ruth's Chris combined. What is your point? 🙂

Do you honestly think UCLA has results that are even close to any of the HYPSM? In fact, the numbers alone virtually guarantee that UCLA's success rate is going to be pretty damn close to the national average of 36% since that school alone is supplying 2% of all applicants.
 
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KnightDoc said:
Yes, and McDonald's has more restaurants in the US than Morton's and Ruth's Chris combined. What is your point? 🙂

Do you honestly think UCLA has results that are even close to any of the HYPSM? In fact, the numbers alone virtually guarantee that UCLA's success rate is going to be pretty damn close to the national average of 36% since that school alone is supplying 2% of all applicants.
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KnightDoc said:
It's Yale. I'm not that impressed.

I guessed their number would be around double the national average, without having any access to the actual numbers. They attract the best students in the country. Their numbers should be right around where they are.

As with the residency match thread, causation or correlation? I strongly believe it is correlation, and I am neither surprised nor impressed that the best undergrads in the country, attending one of the most competitive schools in the country to be admitted to, have a very high med school acceptance rate.
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It looks like more than 45% matriculated to a Top 20. I think that’s impressive.
 
throwaway01564 said:
Moreover, Yale does not do committee letters. You don't have to even tell anyone you are applying, so there is 0 barriers to anyone. That makes the 80+% even more impressive.
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Since when? It has been awhile since I made a point of reading LORs but I do recall very formulaic letters from someone at Yale who would also compile submitted letters into a packet attached to the letter. Does anyone know when this changed? I also recall letters from the person now known as "head of college" (formerly "Master").
 
Toxoplasma gondii said:
The issue is, we can’t tell how many of those 45% would have matriculated fo a top 20 had they gone to a different random college.
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And the answer is, just about all of them. Causation vs. correlation.

Yes, Yale has impressive stats. It's because they have an impressive student body, as reflected by how damn difficult it is to be accepted there. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone looking at these stats.

If anything, the surprise would be if the stats weren't this good. By they way, I'm not sure what @Poochie was looking at, but I calculate Yale's T20s at around 63%, not 45%! Impressive, yes. Unexpected, no! 🙂
 
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Toxoplasma gondii said:
I wish Brown published such specific data.
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Why? If you believe it's correlation, it doesn't matter. And, for the most part, it really doesn't. Again, HYPSM will give a boost to some people on the margin at some schools. Not so much everywhere else. Brown isn't nearly as prestigious as Yale. I'm sure its list is impressive, but not nearly as much as Yale's.

So what? You are not a list. You are one candidate. If you are really good, you can come out of a place like Kutztown State and end up at HMS. And if not, you can go to Brown and end up in a random DO school. It REALLY is 99% up to you, and the fact that you go to a good school with a high med school acceptance rate at an impressive array of schools really does nothing for you by way of association.

People at Harvard end up having to reapply, just like people at Brown. The fact that Brown probably has more such people than Harvard or Yale is neither here nor there. It's not random, and your results will not be determined by where you attend UG.

If you are a strong candidate, you can go anywhere in the country and do well. Similarly, if your application is lacking, being a graduate of Harvard, Yale or Brown will not bail you out. Having Brown publish specific data might give you some detail into the composition of its class, but it really will not have any value in predicting YOUR outcome. So my advice is to not dwell too much on it.
 
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Toxoplasma gondii said:
I don't believe it's only HYPSM that will grant a boost. Even the WARS acknowledges that other schools almost as prestigious as HYPSM (Columbia, Brown, Vanderbilt, etc) get a small boost. Perhaps the boost is only from ivy league inbreeding, but there isn't enough data to prove that such a boost does not exist. Regardless, even if it was fully proven that such a boost does not exist, the data would be useful regardless, as the more data one has the better.
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Okay, but it's probably worth keeping in mind that WARS is nothing more than a model developed by a med student. It's not gospel handed down from above reflecting the collective wisdom of all AAMC school adcoms.

The "boost" is anecdotal, based on observations made by some adcoms who post on SDN. There will never be enough data, one way or the other, due to the fact that top students gravitate to top schools, which will then report great results. There is no way to normalize for that, go back in time, place the same class in a less prestigious school, and see whether or not its outcome differs.

So, whether you believe in causation or correlation, you can take it on faith that Brown's list, without even seeing it, will be less impressive than HYPSM and more impressive than T50 or T100. But at least one adcom has said on SDN that the boost she has observed, as modest as it is, fades outside of HYPSM and pretty much disappears outside T20. So Brown, hanging on at #14, might receive something, or not.

Yes, more data is always better than less, but irrelevant data could lead you to a false sense of confidence. The fact that 84% of all applicants over the past 3 cycles with a 3.80+/518+ were accepted did not help the 16% with bad school lists or sub par applications. The same with the 17% of traditional Yale applicants who were unsuccessful, even though they graduated from Yale.

The same with whatever you are looking for from Brown. Your success will depend on you. You shouldn't waste a lot of time looking for data that will show that Brown, the #14 school in the country, has a better than average med school applicant pool that achieves better than average results. Believe me, it's true.

It also does not mean you will receive any boost at all over just going to your state school and doing well, because it is very likely you will not. If these boosts existed in any meaningful way, students at these schools would crowd out everyone else, at least at the top schools. They don't.
 
Toxoplasma gondii said:
Fair enough on the WARS.

So according to some adcoms, a boost does exist. Just not at every school, then.

I highly highly doubt the average adcom considers USNews to be relevant, given how it's absurdly flawed. If it were the case, HYPSM would be different, with Columbia receiving this "boost" instead of Stanford. Similarly, Princeton would be the official #1 school in the nation, which is most certainly not the case (ask 10 people, you'll get 20 different answers). If such a boost does exist, it would be very subjective and vary from school to school, or in the case of Ivy League medical schools, might be limited to Ivy League universities. It's not as if some massive conference of adcoms meets every year to decide which universities would get a boost. Rather, unconsciously, several adcoms might view an applicant to be better than they actually are due to the halo effect if they're associated with universities they consider to be prestigious. While this flowery view wouldn't result in someone getting in if they had no chance to begin with, it could very well be the difference between getting in and not getting in, given how subjective the process is in the first place.

But they do. Efle's Most Premedical Universities, 2016-2017 Edition doesn't prove such a boost exists, but shows that these schools are absolutely crowding the applicant pool, as well as the matriculant pool at some top medical schools: Data: A Case Study in Bias for Prestigious Undergrads, Yale SOM.
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All of your points are valid, but they do not address the question of causation vs. correlation. Some adcoms like some schools. We don't know whether this actually translates into anything, since top schools generally have better candidates. The question is whether they produce them, or just act as conduits for them.

I happen to think it's the latter, just based on how many excellent candidates achieve excellent results without the benefit of an association with these schools. YMMV. There is no data to back my view, just like there is no data, aside from anecdotal observations and an opinion survey from 10 years ago, to back the alternative view.
 
Good for you. Most people would have chosen the prestige factor. Take the $300K savings and put it into an index fund. Don't touch it for 15 years. Once you finish residency, take a look at the index fund, and then use that money to start your life.
 
You should also consider that the NRMP has been getting progressively more difficult over the years. There are USMD students who go unmatched each year. So this means you'll still have to work hard once you get into med school to match successfully. Even students from Harvard Med don't match.
 
I do wanna say that people change a lot in college though, so you might change your mind about what you wanna do. In that situation, Yale definitely would open up a lot more doors to you.

Where are you getting the 300k number? I thought the difference between Yale and RIT was 30k per year.
 
inoffensivepersona said:
I do wanna say that people change a lot in college though, so you might change your mind about what you wanna do. In that situation, Yale definitely would open up a lot more doors to you.

Where are you getting the 300k number? I thought the difference between Yale and RIT was 30k per year.
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Pretty sure they were also comparing IS tuition at Upstate to typical T20 tuition.
 
did_i_inquire said:
My initial numbers were a bit inaccurate. RIT costs roughly $45K, as I mentioned, whereas Yale is actually $85K. The cost-of-attendance at Yale has also been rising pretty quickly (I'd assume faster than RIT), and it will likely be 100K by the time I graduate.

That's closer to $160K-$180K for undergrad at the very least. Meanwhile, I'll pay in-state tuition at Upstate (roughly $25K cheaper annually) and save on rent, since I have family very close to the campus. That'll add up to another $120K pretty quickly!

I'm lucky that money is really a secondary factor, but it's still something I wanted to pay attention to. As for changing my mind, that's another factor that I considered. However, I've been dead set on medicine for a while (I wouldn't have applied BS/MD if I wasn't), and I really don't think that'll happen.
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I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. I’ll say though that while I could be wrong about this, I feel like the doctor family you’ll ask about this will probably advise you to go to Yale. Likely because they’ve probably been away from the med school process for a minute and Yale definitely evokes a je ne sais quoi when a random person hears it.

Also I can certainly empathize with this tough decision you face. I thought I had finalized what med school I was going to attend until I started to seriously consider a generous scholarship at my second choice. Now I don’t know where I’m gonna end up at, and it doesn’t help that their Second Looks are on the same weekend.
 
KnightDoc said:
Pretty sure they were also comparing IS tuition at Upstate to typical T20 tuition.
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There is far from a guarantee OP will go to a T20, and they could always get a merit scholarship at a T20 or another school. They could theoretically end up at Upstate after Yale.

My advice has been about the best choice for the next four years in case medicine falls through. I wanted to be a doctor before college and then changed my mind continuously in college before settling on med school after a few gap years. That might not be an issue for OP since they seem quite certain about medicine. The next four years may not be as important as they may have been if they were more undecided about their career. However, that’s a judgment call that OP will have to make.
 
Toxoplasma gondii said:
While it is far from a guarantee, as @KnightDoc said: over 60% of matriculants from Yale end up at a T20. That's as close to a guarantee as you can get at this stage in the process.
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Where is this stat coming from? Because I remember AMCAS asking if I wanted to share my info with my premed committee, but I said No. I’m assuming this is the source of that data.

I’m planning to matriculate at a T20 school, but people may disproportionately choose to not report their info if they don’t think they’ll go to a T20.
 
these types of situations are always really tough. I would just like to emphasize to always be thinking about backup plans and the opportunities at Yale were you to change your mind about medicine and pursue something else. I knew I always wanted to go to med school and did it but I also saw countless ppl want to do it and then change their mind for any multitude of reasons. Just something to consider but really only you can decide what's best for you. you've worked hard to have the privilege to have these options available to you and you're well equipped to make the decision
 
inoffensivepersona said:
Where is this stat coming from? Because I remember AMCAS asking if I wanted to share my info with my premed committee, but I said No. I’m assuming this is the source of that data.

I’m planning to matriculate at a T20 school, but people may disproportionately choose to not report their info if they don’t think they’ll go to a T20.
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True. No way to know what portion of Yale premeds choose to report, or whether they are coerced into doing so (some schools won't give a committee letter, or won't even let you work with their offices, if you don't agree to share your data).

It's highly unlikely that a meaningful percentage of Yale UGs refuse to share their data. In any event, the 63% T20 only refers to the 155 out of 189 applicants reporting who matriculated somewhere. I'm pretty sure if 189 doesn't capture every single applicant, it captures the vast majority of them, just given the size of Yale's class.

It's true that random people at a no-name school may choose not to share, or that the advising offices at those schools exclude a lot of unfavorable data from what they ultimately report. The Ivies don't need to play such games, and, in general, they don't.

OP should do whatever feels right, including saving money or not chasing prestige. Fear of not being able to be accepted to a med school coming out of Yale, however, is probably not a great reason to choose a BS/MD program.
 
KnightDoc said:
True. No way to know what portion of Yale premeds choose to report, or whether they are coerced into doing so (some schools won't give a committee letter, or won't even let you work with their offices, if you don't agree to share your data).

It's highly unlikely that a meaningful percentage of Yale UGs refuse to share their data. In any event, the 63% T20 only refers to the 155 out of 189 applicants reporting who matriculated somewhere. I'm pretty sure if 189 doesn't capture every single applicant, it captures the vast majority of them, just given the size of Yale's class.

It's true that random people at a no-name school may choose not to share, or that the advising offices at those schools exclude a lot of unfavorable data from what they ultimately report. The Ivies don't need to play such games, and, in general, they don't.

OP should do whatever feels right, including saving money or not chasing prestige. Fear of not being able to be accepted to a med school coming out of Yale, however, is probably not a great reason to choose a BS/MD program.
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I’m happy I didn’t ask my Ivy for a committee letter. I’ve been out of school for a while and I didn’t do much related to premed in college. Idk if it hurt me but I’m happy with my cycle.

Yeah. I guess I can understand the conclusion that not many students choose to not share their info with their premed advisory committee.

I feel like even Ivies, to some extent, play the game of massaging numbers. I didn’t go to Yale, but The one I went to was the same Ivy that had a certain math professor (a person I know personally and who’s a total dick) speculating alleged irregularities in the institution’s reported numbers to USNWR. More generally, the test-optional policy likely still exists at Ivy League schools to keep acceptance rates low and exude an even greater sense of exclusivity. At the end of the day, colleges, no matter how prestigious, are still businesses looking for an edge to stick out from the competition. They’re willing to play the game of coercion with their premed committees if it means being able to advertise that 90+% of applicants get into med school and 60+% of those accepted matriculate at T20s.

I strongly agree with your last paragraph. Yale probably won’t get in OP’s way of getting into med school, even right after graduation with no gap years. Similarly, Yale will likely be a pretty good experience objectively than RIT, based on what we know about OP. It seems to come down to how important the cost differential is.
 
Toxoplasma gondii said:
I can only speak to Brown, and not Columbia or Yale, but our premed committee requirements are very easy.
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Yeah. Though Brown just seems super laidback with its open curriculum and the possibility of taking each class pass fail.

I actually don’t know much about how intense Columbia’s premed committee is since I never interacted with their advisors. But they have super strict deadlines, and I do know that they treat postbac students with substantial disregard.
 
did_i_inquire said:
I agree with your last point. I'm not afraid that I won't get into medical school at all from Yale. I'm more concerned about not getting my money's worth. For that extra $300K, I'd really only be satisfied if I get into like a T10-T20 medical school, which is definitely not a given.

Of course, the college experience does tie into it. I know Yale would likely be a cooler experience overall, but the ability to have a more relaxed (and thus free) undergrad experience might make me happier at RIT, especially since it's still a large school with cool opportunities in itself.

As I mentioned, I don't really care about prestige too much. I'm just trying to become a doctor and do what I love as a career--whether or not I get to train at Hopkins ten years from now is almost irrelevant, now that I've thought about it.
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TBH, it totally sounds like you have your head on straight and know what you want. As I said in the beginning of the thread, there are no bad choices here. Believe me, programs like this are designed to pull people like you from schools like Yale. You will not be alone here. Congratulations, and good luck!!!
 
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