How much do medical schools favor their own undergraduates?

[premedxxz1]

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Hi!

I was wondering just how much of a preference state medical schools give their own undergraduates, especially those that are from the area originally. I was talking to a friend that currently attends one of the SUNY medical schools, and they told me that those that do their undergraduate work tend to get preference, even if they have terrible GPAs and MCAT scores (3.5 and <504 MCAT). Can anyone confirm if this is true? I know that most of the SUNY medical schools have stats that range from 3.8+ 511+

 

[sovereign0]

Depends on the school. But yes, there are definitely schools that favor their own graduates.

 

[Bryant088]

Medical schools want applicants that have strong reasons for wanting to attend their school. If you are an undergraduate at that institution and/or were born and raised in that area, then it's clear that you have a good reason for wanting to go there as you are familiar with the area and have connections/support nearby. This is one of the reasons why you might see that a large chunk of med students did their undergrad at the same school - they probably had a stronger desire and reasons to attend that school compared to other applicants. There are probably some schools that simply prefer to take some of their own undergrads, but I really don't see why they would be so desperate to take their own undergrads that they would overlook really low stats.

 

[bananafish94]

Not at all. (n=1)

...also n = me

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

If you look at the class profile (often posted online) of most medical schools, especially state schools, you will see a large proportion of students come from the associated undergrad.

Some of this is applicant preference and some is self selection.

However I think it’s uncommon for schools to take significantly subpar students from their home institution. There will always be a surplus of qualified applicants both from the associated undergrad and in the pool in general. Schools don’t need to drop their stats very far to show preference.

 

[efle]

Here's Vanderbilt as a case study:

The applied column is applicants from Vanderbilt to each of these places over a few years. The national percent is the overall admit rate for each school. So at peers, Vandy premeds get in at a similar rate as the national pool. At their home school, Vandy premeds get in almost 3x as often...

...but even with that 3x boost, 90% of Vandy premeds who apply to Vandy med are getting rejected.