Does location really matter?

[orthomyxo]

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I was just wondering if med schools really care about where you have done your pre-med studies. Ex. someone who went to Harvard vs. someone who went to a non-selective state school. How much will it affect someone's chances of admission?

 

[Renova]

Does it make a difference?
Yes.

Is it a deal breaker?
Absolutely not.

Going to Harvard, or a similar top tier undergrad, does have a certain cachet. Just like when you're applying for a job, med school admission committees will take into account where you went to college...and people from prestigious colleges will slide by with slightly lower stats. For instance, the average GPA for med school matriculants nationwide is around a 3.6-3.65...however the average for students accepted from my (US News top 10) undergrad was around a 3.4.

Again, this isn't to say that going to an Ivy is going to make up for doing poorly in your classes or bombing the MCAT, or that people who go to less prestigious undergrads can't get into top med school (infact many do)...but going to a top college can definitely help.

 

[CoolWhipp]

It helps a lot more than people would like to acknowledge. If you can make it work, do it.

 

[EMS5]

If you ask a medical school ADCOM, no there is no bias made based on where you did your undergrad studies. I think renova hit it pretty well. It may sway their opinion a little, but its not the make-or-break of your med school application.

 

[xnfs93hy]

A 3.9 at Harvard is worth a hell of a lot more than a 3.9 at your typical state school.

 

[ILikeFood]

It sort of is and it isn't. I had a classmate at my state school with a 3.99 (one A-) and a 31 MCAT and she made it off the waitlist at USC in late May/early June. That being said, she received interviews from UC Davis, UCSF, Albert Einstein, Loyola (admitted), and turned down a whole bunch of other ones.

If I were 17 again I'd consider a school that was competitive enough, and gave me an opportunity to really stand out from the crowd. Then again, you can't pass up a place like Harvard, right?

 

[Terpskins99]

A 3.9 at Harvard is worth a hell of a lot more than a 3.9 at your typical state school.

More importantly, a 3.9 at a typical state school is worth a hell of a lot more than a 3.5 at Harvard.

Where you go doesn't matter nearly as much as how well you do there. Most medical schools aren't savvy enough to know which schools are more difficult to get A's in than others. Someone who pulls a 4.0 at Timbuktu-state university is going to look better than someone who pulls a 3.5 at Cornell. Obvious right? Well, getting a 3.5 GPA at a typical Ivy League school could be a whole lot more difficult than the 4.0 at the state school when you consider how much of your grades will be based on a bell-curve.

But from the medical school's perspective: they'll assume that 4.0 guy at Timbuktu could also have gotten a 4.0 at Cornell. And why not? There's nothing to say that he/she couldn't. Can they say with certainty that the 3.5 GPA guy at Cornell would have pulled a 4.0 at Timbuktu?

(As an aside, Harvard is notorious for grade inflation... but I think you get the point.)

 

[MilkmanAl]

Where you go doesn't matter nearly as much as how well you do there.

That, folks, is really all you need to remember.

 

[NickNaylor]

I would think that in only very rare cases would this actually matter. Some other aspect of the application would probably be the difference maker before undergrad institution.