Easiest MD Schools To Get Into

[AngryBaby]

Popcorn....check

slushy.....check

Alright, yall can go on now

To get back on topic...sort of...I don't think you can count Meharry/Howard as "easy" to get into just cause of their entrance stats. Do we really think that a upper-middle class white/asian-american applicant with a 3.5/30 is getting in there? Not a chance, I don't think, unless there's some kind of connection with the school/adcom member. We all know of the state schools in the south/midwest that accept mostly in-state students and their entrance stats are in the mid/low-tier DO range but do you think anyone with avg-good stats from out of state gets in? Only easy to get into if you fit their very particular demographic.

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[Gabujabu]

Davis has the reputation as the "easiest" med school for a CA resident to get into. The UCs don't have in-state quotas or exclusivity like many other state systems so us CA residents just get screwed.

Well, in '03 423 out-of-staters applied to UC Irvine and 1 was interviewed and accepted! The UCs are definitely harder to get into than most state schools, but it's significantly "easier" in-state.

 

[Rafa]

The UCs don't have in-state quotas or exclusivity like many other state systems so us CA residents just get screwed.

Incorrect.

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2005/2005school.htm

 

[hermit]

What the...!? This is no good. The flames seem to be dying down. Let's see...how can I fix this...A HA!

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So what if 76% of Howard's matriculants are black? What percentage of the applicants do you think are black? Probably close to 76%. I don't see the problem here.

There is absolutely no problem with any particular demographic at any school - Howard included. It should blend into the crowd of medical schools and get just as much mention as any other. The reason it comes up so often is that the mean GPA and MCAT score are substantially lower than 99% of other medical programs - which is odd given the increasing competition for admission. In an effort to explain this statistical outlier, one turns to the MSAR and finds an unusually large demographic: black. For some reason, a lot of people get upset when posters try to correlate these phenomena. If those that fail to accept this hypothesis object to such posts, I would ask that they submit conjectures of their own to explain the data.

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There...that ought to do it.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

The reason it comes up so often is that the mean GPA and MCAT score are substantially lower than 99% of other medical programs - which is odd given the increasing competition for admission.

if gpa and mcat were the only criteria for admissions you'd have a point

 

[hermit]

if gpa and mcat were the only criteria for admissions you'd have a point

Is it your submission that the reason these scores are so low is becuase the tireless vounteer efforts of those applicants prevented them from keeping their grades up?

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Is it your submission that the reason these scores are so low is becuase the tireless vounteer efforts of those applicants prevented them from keeping their grades up?

no, but then why not just rank all applicants based off of an objective score? then the AAMC can go down the list and ask each applicant by their rank where they want to goto med school and that's where they go (unless the class has been filled up by higher ranked applicants). If that were the case, then sign me up...but let's get real!

 

[hermit]

why not just rank all applicants based off of an objective score? then the AAMC can go down the list and ask each applicant by their rank where they want to goto med school and that's where they go (unless the class has been filled up by higher ranked applicants).

I really like your idea! But you are right - won't happen in my lifetime.

You didn't answer the question, though. While they are not the ONLY criteria used for admission, would you agree that they are the two primary criteria used? And if so, how would you account for the disparity between the scores at Howard and other medical programs?

 

[QuantumMechanic]

I really like your idea! But you are right - won't happen in my lifetime.

You didn't answer the question, though. While they are not the ONLY criteria used for admission, would you agree that they are the two primary criteria used? And if so, how would you account for the disparity between the scores at Howard and other medical programs?

gpa and mcat are used as indicators that one has the potential to succeed in medical school. I assume that most of these "lower quality" students which Howard matriculates go on to graduate, pass the boards, and become at least standard quality physicians.

it is widely known that many URM's perform worse on the mcat and have lower gpas. however, this means nothing if they are satisfactorily prepared to study medicine. Howard and Meharry obviously aren't trying to be world-renowned centers of academic medicine and biomedical research. Their aims are more toward serving populations that are underserved by the medical community. It is these schools view that by educating minorities, that the minorities will go on to serve these communities. I would also assume that the minorities that they accept also have demonstrated an interest in serving these populations.

Just like Harvard, Hopkins, and Stanford have a niche accepting top students with the promise of becoming preeminent physician scientists and leaders of the medical community, Howard and Meharry have a niche of producing physicians which serve a demographic which has not been given quality medical care and attention in the past. Medicine is not a field entirely based upon merit, it is a field of service to science and the community as well.

 

[hermit]

@quantummechanic

These are very good points.

 

[notdeadyet]

being on SDN and listening to people obsess over numbers like this gives me insight into why the majority of my son's doctors are such utter jackasses. thanks SDN!

Very true. The younger you are, the more you focus on things like GPA, ranking, MCAT, etc. When you have a few miles under your belt, you have perspective.

 

[hermit]

Very true. The younger you are, the more you focus on things like GPA, ranking, MCAT, etc. When you have a few miles under your belt, you have perspective.

Put yourself in the shoes of the traditional medical school applicant. Every single one is identical. All have virtually the same volunteer activities, the same leadership opportunities, blah, blah, blah.

Whereas the older applicant is diversified and can draw on work experiences to make an application unique, the traditional applicant is a clone striving to stand out. Little things like GPA and MCAT score (which get increasingly difficult to achieve as they rise) can be very important.

Your stereotype of younger applicants is highly offensive.

 

[iceman77_7]

Incorrect.

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2005/2005school.htm

That doesn't tell you percent in-state accepted versus out-state accepted though, only matriculants. I would think a greater proportion of in-state would choose to matriculate because of the no tuition aspect, thus bumping up the percentage of matriculants.

 

[Instatewaiter]

Back to the original post about easiest MD school to get into, here is a link comparing GPA and MCATs of the different schools.

http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/nas/premed/MCAT_GPA_List.htm

 

[Rafa]

^ That list is innacurate, at least in MCAT and GPA scores.

 

[Dr Durden]

^ Where are the dead horses? I would have thought they'd have made an appearance by now.

 

[mshollywoodmd]

whatchu trying to say? that black students in school are there because they are more "white" then black? huh? huh? huh? what a r....a.....c.....i....s.....t

haha sorry i just wanted to fan the flames with a little bit of ridiculousness

Basically the term African American isn't just restricted to blacks. I deem an African American to be someone who either themselves or their parents were born in Africa, relocated and now are citizens of America. Also applicable to any other descriptive geographical term hooked on to American

 

[mshollywoodmd]

To the OP, the word easier seems to belie that there is less of a worry about getting in a particular school and I am not sure even those who applied to what they considered safety schools or "easy" schools could honestly tell you they felt any easier as they sat by their computers, telephones, mailboxes, waiting to hear from any school they applied to whether they deemed it easy or not. This thread has obviously gone off on a tangent which I can say has made it interesting and throughly entertaining (Thanks hermit for fanning the flames) but I think that as you apply to schools you should try not to get caught up in the whole top-tier, low-tier thing. Apply to where you want to go most, where your stats are comparable and all your state schools and then come back and tell us which school you thought was "easier" to get in. ---just my $.02

 

[MedicineForLife 777]

Back to the original post about easiest MD school to get into, here is a link comparing GPA and MCATs of the different schools.

http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/nas/premed/MCAT_GPA_List.htm

Can anyone verify the accuracy of this website? Some of those stats look kinda fishy.....

 

[Law2Doc]

Can anyone verify the accuracy of this website? Some of those stats look kinda fishy.....

Well, considering that Chicago- Finch changed it's name to Ros. Franklin a couple of years ago, it appears to be at least that far out of date.

 

[dr_zippo]

The public schools in the southern US seem to be significantly easier to get into than other regions. The education system down here is not up to par with the rest of the country, so our low undergrad tests admission scores seem to correlate with our lower MCAT scores.
However, most of the schools down here prefer instate to a greater extent than other state schools.

 

[notdeadyet]

Your stereotype of younger applicants is highly offensive.

Heh. You say about traditional med school applicants that "every single one is identical" and you say that I'm stereotyping?

"Nontraditional applicant" does not mean old. A 22 year old philosophy major that spent a year studying in rural Brazil is a nontrad, for example. Nontraditional just means that the student didn't do what every one else does, which is major in a biological science, do 150 hours of volunteering in the ER, 100 hours at a nonhealth nonprof, a semester of TAing and a semester of research.

I don't agree with you that "All have virtually the same volunteer activities, the same leadership opportunities, blah, blah, blah". Many do. Most premeds are lemmings by nature. There's so much fear about not having what the other guy has that many folks structure their applications in exactly the same way as that next guy.

There's no reson for your application to look like the next guy's. If you don't stand out, don't blame "the system." It's on your shoulders.

 

[jstuds_66]

.

 

[jstuds_66]

My point is that you came off as a pompus jerk in your first post. Who are you to judge the validity of a certain med school's admission requirements? Your comment was unnecessary and elitist.

I'm gonna go with option one for you. It's sad that that can be deduced from the first sentence you posted in this thread.

Let me guess. You're some rich white guy.

Now who's stereotyping?

Did you know that "coco" in portuguese can mean coconut or poop depending on how you pronounce it?

 

[notdeadyet]

Did you know that "coco" in portuguese can mean coconut or poop depending on how you pronounce it?

Yeah, you have to be careful. I once tried to order a coconut milk and asked for diarrhea by mistake. Good times...

 

[Rafa]

Heh. You say about traditional med school applicants that "every single one is identical" and you say that I'm stereotyping?

"Nontraditional applicant" does not mean old. A 22 year old philosophy major that spent a year studying in rural Brazil is a nontrad, for example. Nontraditional just means that the student didn't do what every one else does, which is major in a biological science, do 150 hours of volunteering in the ER, 100 hours at a nonhealth nonprof, a semester of TAing and a semester of research.

I don't agree with you that "All have virtually the same volunteer activities, the same leadership opportunities, blah, blah, blah". Many do. Most premeds are lemmings by nature. There's so much fear about not having what the other guy has that many folks structure their applications in exactly the same way as that next guy.

There's no reson for your application to look like the next guy's. If you don't stand out, don't blame "the system." It's on your shoulders.

Well said. Technically, I think anyone who doesn't graduate college between 21 and 22 (ie, 4 years college on the "regular" track) counts as a non-trad. It doesn't just mean someone in his or her thirties with a family et al, who decides s/he wants to pursue medicine before succumbing to alzheimers.

 

[notdeadyet]

It doesn't just mean someone in his or her thirties with a family et al, who decides s/he wants to pursue medicine before succumbing to alzheimers.

Can I get an MCAT accommodation for Alzheimers? Hmmm...

 

[butmylipshurtrealbad]

Yeah, you have to be careful. I once tried to order a coconut milk and asked for diarrhea by mistake. Good times...

That might be the funniest thing I have ever read on SDN. I think I love you