Does my undergrad insitution hurt my chances?

[TheMaverick]

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I have three excellents (37 MCAT, 3.85 GPA, lots of research), but am at CUNY College of Staten Island. I've been told that CUNY's poor reputation, and CSI's even worse one, will have a significant negative impact on my application. Is this true? Does it help that I'm in the Macaulay Honors College (AKA CUNY Honors)?

 

[Neuronix]

It's fine. I don't know if the NYC schools will thumb their noses at you, but otherwise this isn't a big deal.

 

[miz]

It'd probably be a big deal if your MCAT were low. Since it isn't, it shouldn't hurt your overall chances at admission but I can't say that it won't hurt your chances at top 5-10 programs because those are sometimes kind of weird and insular? I think it definitely wouldn't hurt you at big top programs at all (eg Penn, WashU), and might hurt you a little at small top programs BUT it shouldn't prevent you from applying because I suspect that if there is a disadvantage, it is small enough that it could be canceled out by a great interview.
Was your research at CUNY CSI or at another institution?

 

[TheMaverick]

It'd probably be a big deal if your MCAT were low. Since it isn't, it shouldn't hurt your overall chances at admission but I can't say that it won't hurt your chances at top 5-10 programs because those are sometimes kind of weird and insular? I think it definitely wouldn't hurt you at big top programs at all (eg Penn, WashU), and might hurt you a little at small top programs BUT it shouldn't prevent you from applying because I suspect that if there is a disadvantage, it is small enough that it could be canceled out by a great interview.
Was your research at CUNY CSI or at another institution?

So the larger the program the less this matters, and make damned sure I can interview well.

Most of my research has been at CSI in a natural products lab (no papers yet, although a 1st author pub and a late author pub on separate projects will be submitted soon; might get on a patent). I did summer research at Carnegie Mellon (in K. Matyzewski's lab) and will be going back there this summer.

 

[Neuronix]

So the larger the program the less this matters, and make damned sure I can interview well.

I think the former statement is inaccurate. I don't think size of program has anything to do with this and it's impossible to predict how individual adcoms within institutions might view this. I went from no name undergrad to big name MD/PhD program to not so big name residency. I've felt that throughout this process reputation of program has been very unimportant compared to objective indicators such as grades and exam scores.

As for interviews, 90% of applicants interview well. It's more of a screening test and a sales pitch than anything else. Every year everyone freaks out about interviews, but you will find them to rather stress-free.

 

[miz]

Hm. The take-home message I meant to give you is that you should apply across the board independent of your school. I have no solid basis for my comments except for anecdotal evidence and my own observations.

Tangentially I have always believed that larger programs accept a larger range of candidates relative to similarly ranked smaller programs simply due to their increased acceptance:applications ratio. For example, WashU and Stanford both receive ~500 applications/cycle (http://mstp.wustl.edu/admissions/Pages/Timeline.aspx and http://mstp.stanford.edu/faq.html for references), but WashU extends offers to ~40-50 students whereas Stanford extends offers to ~15-20 students. Unless the top 50 students applying to each school all have similar qualifications, WashU extends offers to more diverse populations (including, possibly increased diversity in undergrad institution). The only scenario where this would not be true is if the top 50 students all have very similar qualifications, or if WashU and Stanford evaluate what are the top 50 by extremely different rubrics. I haven't found that to be the case, but who knows, I could certainly see that as a possibility. If anyone can enlighten me I'd love to hear about it.

This is not entirely related to your undergraduate institute, though. Apply away!

 

[Piper9132]

I went to a relatively unknown school in the UNC system (i.e. not chapel hill). I received interviews at two top tens for MD/PhD, but did not get accepted to either (38 MCAT, 3.9 GPA, lots of research). A lot of this process is a random crapshoot. But I honestly do not think that undergraduate institution matters much in the long run... if your MCAT scores were low, then I would worry about it. But they are great and show that despite being from a small school, you still can score on par with the best of the best in the rest of the country.

But then again, who knows what really goes on behind closed doors at these top programs is anyone's guess. Every one of my interviewers at Hopkins told me they couldn't wait to have me there as a student, and then I still got rejected. Who knows, maybe one of the adcoms said we dont want a student from this UNC school... but then again it could have been how I wore my hair that day....

So ultimate take home message should be to apply broadly and you should do great with your stats! Take a look at Nebraska, Minnesota, MUSC as safety schools, schools like Chapel Hill/Emory/etc. would be good reach schools, and then apply to some top tens as dream schools 😀.

 

[Gnomes]

Apply on the opposite coast. No-one there has heard of your school, and if they think they have, they will mistake it for a famous one they've heard of. I think it worked for me. My undergraduate school has a local reputation as a party school in California, but on the East Coast, many people confuse it with UC Berkeley. 😀

"Oh, wow, you went to CUNY? What was it like going to college in Manhattan?"

 

[kimicurtis]

Apply on the opposite coast. No-one there has heard of your school, and if they think they have, they will mistake it for a famous one they've heard of. I think it worked for me. My undergraduate school has a local reputation as a party school in California, but on the East Coast, many people confuse it with UC Berkeley. 😀

"Oh, wow, you went to CUNY? What was it like going to college in Manhattan?"

Haha! +1

OP, I don't think you should be worried, what can they say, "your school was not rigorous enough to leave you prepared for the MCAT"
Nope. They can't say that, you got a 37, which is 95th percentile. You'll be fine, at this point, just focus on personal statement and being able to answer in-depth questions about your research.