How To Select A Med School?

[VickFan]

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few questions

1) wat do u guys look for when u select a potential med school? (wat do u guys look for in a potential med school)

- grading scale (P/F or ABCDF)
- course schedule (one class at a time for few weeks, or several classes at once for the semester)
- programs offered?
- $$$$?
- class size?
- school/city location?
- weather preference?

is there anything i missed?

2)TO ME- the most important aspects are:
A)grading scale (pass/fail or ABCDF)
B)course schedule (whether its taking several classes at once or once class at a time for a short duration- few weeks).

assuming P/F system is less stressing, i want to select a medschool that uses the P/F system + has students taking one class at a time.

so, wat schools are there for me?

3)for #2, does anyone know any good resources/websites i can use to get this information? or do i have to go to each and every medical school WEBSITE to find out this information?

i already know about the princeton review website. that helps me out a little. but if theres another website that generates a MATCH for u, that be greatly appreciated!

 

[Howard Roark]

ask about average USMLE step 1 score. this is the MOST important fact.

good luck


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[Fermata]

The bottom line is just getting in somewhere. Then you can choose.

The biggest factor should be cost.

Just my $.02.

 

[Bones2008]

ask about average USMLE step 1 score. this is the MOST important fact.

Be careful with this. Step 1 scores aren't given out very often and to use them to decide on a school is a mistake, I think. If you go to a place where you can have fun and learn well, you'll do well on the boards. You can go to #1 super-school for board scores; but if it isn't a good match for you, you won't learn as well and you won't do as well on the boards.

By the way, P/F is huge. Best of luck to you.

 

[Howard Roark]

Be careful with this. Step 1 scores aren't given out very often and to use them to decide on a school is a mistake, I think. If you go to a place where you can have fun and learn well, you'll do well on the boards. You can go to #1 super-school for board scores; but if it isn't a good match for you, you won't learn as well and you won't do as well on the boards.

By the way, P/F is huge. Best of luck to you.

Wrong. A school's average step 1 score is a good marker for how well the curriculum is aimed at helping the students do well on step 1. And step 1 is pretty much the most important thing for residency programs (in addition to 3rd year grades and LORs). But residency programs don?t really care if you have had "fun" at school or how many clubs you joined during med school. Its all board scores, 3rd year grades, and LORs. Good luck.


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[patzan]

Wrong. A school's average step 1 score is a good marker for how well the curriculum is aimed at helping the students do well on step 1. And step 1 is pretty much the most important thing for residency programs (in addition to 3rd year grades and LORs). But residency programs don?t really care if you have had "fun" at school or how many clubs you joined during med school. Its all board scores, 3rd year grades, and LORs. Good luck.


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I agree that Step 1 is very important. Most schools have not published their averages for several years, so it is hard to find good numbers for most schools. Schools do, however, publish match lists (simple SDN search will get you a lot), which can be good indicators about what types of residencies (type and quality) a school will match to.

If you want to do IM, FP, etc. and want to practice rurally, go where it is cheapest. If you want to be chief resident and division chair, go to the best school you can. A school's name will take you far. As for the crap about being able to get high scores from any school, think about whether you would rather study for tests with people from ITT Tech or MIT. Where you go matters and most people can tell whether they would like a place after visiting it and talking to students who go there.

EDIT: Be sure to recognize that H/HP/P/MP/F is ABCDF. Pros about P/F is that it is great to lower stress, cons are that schools with strict P/F may not have AOA (often basically required for highly competitive residencies) and the school is secretly ranking you anyway. Also, would you study harder to get an A or a P? Some schools (i.e. Vandy) have the best of both worlds: P/F first year, H/P/F second, and H/HP/P/F third and fourth. P/F should be an important factor for those with little science background to help level them in first year classes.

 

[leechy]

The thing about board scores (from what I can gather) is that a lot of it comes from the type of student body they select. For example, Johns Hopkins probably has better Step 1 scores than my state school, but that may be because the student body there is more ambitious/more talented, not because of anything special in the school's curriculum.

If anything, the best thing a med school could do for your board scores (assuming you're somewhat self-motivated) is to leave you enough time to focus on them throughout your first two years. Pass/fail systems can help in this sense, because you won't have to worry about learning arcane details that a professor teaches you, and can instead focus on learning for the boards from day one.

But getting back to the OP, I'm also very interested in this question of how to choose med schools. Some students have told me that some characteristics they thought were important turned out NOT to be, and other things they didn't even think about turned out to be very important. Anyone have ideas on what these things could be?

 

[DocMizzle]

As for the crap about being able to get high scores from any school, think about whether you would rather study for tests with people from ITT Tech or MIT.

This is an absurd and rediculous comment. There is not a single medical school in the US whose students can be considered the same intelligence as ITT Tech. Curriculum has a little to do with board scores, but when all is said and done, a student's individual score reflects his own preparation and hard work only. In fact, I just interviewed at MCO (a state school) last week, and last year they had 6 students achieve board scores in the upper 250s. What does this say? That those 6 students WERE prepared well enough by a state school curriculum and those 6 students worked their a$$es off to study for the test, the single most important factor to doing well on Step 1.

 

[Howard Roark]

I agree that the "better" schools probably have "better" students and thus have higher average step 1 scores. But it is also true that schools with high average step 1 scores also tailor their curriculum to prepare their students for step 1. Many of the "better" schools have professors that actually write exam questions for the step 1 exam and thus are better able to prepare students for the exam. Good luck.


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