Ivy League Undergrads where were you Accepted?

[efle]

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I dont agree with your general conclusion or how you interpret it

Perhaps I'm missing something in your analysis? You say HYPSM is king with a third of the class, yet we see Princeton missing or sending one person while Stanford shares spaces with Hopkins and WUSTL and other Ivies.

Everyone is free to their own opinion, of course. Mine is that HYPSM > Ivy > Others clearly isn't a pattern that describes the data well.

 

[Nietzschelover]

Whether the argument is HYPSM or those plus the next 10 universities and the top 5 LACs the theme of the thread holds. Prestige however defined appears to matter (a lot). Doesn't mean you can't get to the mountaintop from elsewhere but it's a lot of harder. Here's a great example. Just 3-4 years ago a guy from Ursinus got in HMS. Yeah, Ursinus. His credentials? Only a Rhodes Scholarship. I think he is of Indian descent. A place like Harvard Med will take pride in accepting someone like this because they are a great story, but if you're gunning for Harvard Med or similar, I think the moral here is.....better make sure you have a really, really great story.

 

[SurgeonOfLife]

^Amazing he's a Rhodes scholar.

And totally agree. 'Students who work hard can be successful anywhere' as one of the above posters mentioned. But the probability of that success is different everywhere (lower in some places). Coming from a state-school ,you literally have to be the best-of-the-best, unique, or very interesting as a person to be noticed by the top-tiered private programs. That is difficult in itself. I always felt there was more pressure in that there's no room to mess up too. Every LOR has be of utmost quality. Absolutely no slip-ups of gpa, etc.



In fact I just found out today me and another guy from my state school got into Penn MSTP this year (I think he deferred a year from last year tho)!!!...we both had 4.0s. No slip ups of gpa. There's not a single student at Penn from my UG currently. Pretty odd.

 

[Nietzschelover]

^Amazing he's a Rhodes scholar.

And totally agree. 'Students who work hard can be successful anywhere' as one of the above posters mentioned. But the probability of that success is different everywhere (lower in some places). Coming from a state-school ,you literally have to be the best-of-the-best, unique, or very interesting as a person to be noticed by the top-tiered private programs. That is difficult in itself. I always felt there was more pressure in that there's no room to mess up too. Every LOR has be of utmost quality. Absolutely no slip-ups of gpa, etc.



In fact I just found out today me and another guy from my state school got into Penn MSTP this year!...we both had 4.0s. There's not a single student at Penn from my UG currently. Pretty odd.

Exactly. I was trying to make a similar point in a previous post in this thread. Not only are the odds from really good non-top 15 schools and good state universities tougher, but there's no reason to think that being the top student among all pre-meds at a state university with 20 to 40K students is a piece of cake. A major state university (and not just Cal, Michigan, UVA, UNC, UCLA, etc) is for various reasons going to have at the very least their own small cadre of super-brilliant students. No one should think they can necessarily go to a major state university and earn tippy-top status. Those schools have competition within them too.

 

[SurgeonOfLife]

but there's no reason to think that being the top student among all pre-meds at a state university with 20 to 40K students is a piece of cake

Yeah tell me about it. Mine has 30k undergrads. It's ruthless here. We have thousands of premeds in this small college town. It overruns everything and competition for simple volunteering opportunities is harsh. I do not recommend being pre-anything at my UG.

 

[Nietzschelover]

@SurgeonOfLife .... Just read your MDapps. Congrats! Can't believe you had to go through another entire cycle with your stats/profile. Must all seem worth it now, but must have been difficult.

 

[efle]

I don't think you can just look at numbers for one school for one year because every year most of HYPSM sends a pretty small number of applicants out (100-200). Like I know for certain that last year more than 11 people got into Harvard from a certain HYPSM school but only about half of them matriculated. People go to different schools for different reasons but that doesn't indicate anything about what the med school's preference is with regards to selectivity.

For instance, you're looking at Yale. Yale will draw a lot from Yale and Harvard. I know that Princeton feeds into Columbia and Penn quite a lot; Harvard feeds into Harvard; Stanford feeds into Stanford and UCSF, etc. Does it mean that Yale doesn't pref HYPSM? Not necessarily. It's just that people might not want to spend 4 years in New Haven and decide to go to NYC, Philly, Boston or the West Coast (matriculation vs. admittance).

A better metric would be what fraction of the top 10 schools have HYPSM students. So if you tallied Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins (maybe Duke and WUSTL... but they're not really part of the elitist hive mind of the Northeast Ivies and Stanford ilk, which is why I'm also excluding public top programs like UW and UCSF), I believe there would be a large HYPSM preference. Even more so if you counted schools like Cornell, NYU and Mt. Sinai which are known to prestige whoar over applicants.

HYPSM preference relative to what, a typical state flagship or other Ivy? I just find the latter to believe when the student bodies are so similar. Look at Columbia this year and Princeton; Columbia had the lower admit rate and their avg ACT are a half a point apart. That someone would really benefit from one vs the other is something I'm skeptical of by default. I haven't looked for alma mater listings on other top schools, only found the Yale ones because I recalled they were floating around out there before and Grapes mentioned it specifically as an example.

 

[SurgeonOfLife]

@SurgeonOfLife .... Just read your MDapps. Congrats! Can't believe you had to go through another entire cycle with your stats/profile. Must all seem worth it now, but must have been difficult.

Thanks man! Yeah exactly what you said, worth it now...but definitely had its major difficulties.

 

[bingy95]

Wow! Not what I expected. I agree though because I am currently at a state flagship school where the majority of my premed classmates are going to our state med school but then so are friends from high school who attended prestige schools like Northwestern and Vanderbilt.

Only one girl i know of with a 4.0 got accepted at a prestigious med school.

I personally have close to a 3.8 cGPA and 3.5 sGPA and am completing an mph and taking a gap year in hopes of getting into a 1st ot 2nd tier med school. So many more hoops to jump through it seems.

The general consensus seems to be that the prestige undergrad definitely opens more doors.

Guess we wait to see what happens on Ivy Decision day....

 

[zedsdead]

I go to an HYPS and all the people I know from my school that have average stats get average results, and plenty of students with iffy stats getting zero acceptances. I don't know how much it helps, but it will not save you if you don't have the individual accolades.

 

[efle]

I go to Northwestern (top 15 undergrad) and I recently got our med school matriculation data from the pre-med office. Surprisingly, Harvard and Stanford med have accepted no Northwestern undergrads in the past three years. Hopkins has accepted 5. I thought this was a really interesting data point, not sure what to make of it, but looking at this matriculation data, it appears that there are maybe a couple med schools (mostly in the midwest) that really like Northwestern students, while other institutions don't really care (for example, only 1 being accepted to Duke vs. 19 for UMich or 8 for WashU)

You're looking at matriculation data; are you sure nobody has been accepted to Harvard of Stanford? Perhaps a few people have, but all chose to matriculate elsewhere like Hopkins.

 

[md-2020]

I go to Northwestern (top 15 undergrad) and I recently got our med school matriculation data from the pre-med office. Surprisingly, Harvard and Stanford med have accepted no Northwestern undergrads in the past three years. Hopkins has accepted 5. I thought this was a really interesting data point, not sure what to make of it, but looking at this matriculation data, it appears that there are maybe a couple med schools (mostly in the midwest) that really like Northwestern students, while other institutions don't really care (for example, only 1 being accepted to Duke vs. 19 for UMich or 8 for WashU)

You're looking at matriculation data; are you sure nobody has been accepted to Harvard of Stanford? Perhaps a few people have, but all chose to matriculate elsewhere like Hopkins.

Yes, the table I was given has both acceptance and matriculation data. I can see that 5 were accepted to Hopkins but only 3 matriculated there.

Northwestern is probably a bad example to use in this thread. Top pre-meds at NU are heavily skewed towards 3 tracks: HPME (BS/MD), NUPSP (early acceptance for high achieving sophs), and, interestingly enough, HuMed/FlexMed @ Mt. Sinai. Very few tippy top students actually end up applying the regular route.

Unlike my UG school, where everyone and their mothers were gunning for HMS

 

[efle]

Yes, the table I was given has both acceptance and matriculation data. I can see that 5 were accepted to Hopkins but only 3 matriculated there.

Wow, that's pretty crazy. Three years is something like 1,000 medical applicants out of NW. Not a single one impressed H or S? Hard to blame that on bad luck

 

[efle]

Northwestern is probably a bad example to use in this thread. Top pre-meds at NU are heavily skewed towards 3 tracks: HPME (BS/MD), NUPSP (early acceptance for high achieving sophs), and, interestingly enough, HuMed/FlexMed @ Mt. Sinai. Very few tippy top students actually end up applying the regular route.

Unlike my UG school, where everyone and their mothers were gunning for HMS

Huh, good to know. I don't know anyone at WashU that did any early programs

 

[efle]

You're absolutely right, I know a bunch of HPME kids and most of the strong pre-meds I know applied for NUPSP. Data says that of the 103 that matriculated at Feinberg, only 23 were not through a special program.



Actually, every year NU graduates ~200-250 pre-meds (out of a graduating class of ~2200) so it's closer to 600 pre-meds over the three years. But still, hard to blame on bad luck, agreed.

334 last year per AAMC

 

[efle]

Interesting... My table shows 582 total matriculants over the past 3 years (including through early admission programs) so it looks like our matriculated/applied percentage is pretty low... Maybe even lower than peer institutions. Cool!

I doubt your admit rate is below 60%, maybe people just fail to update the prehealth office on where they end up accepted/matriculating?

 

[Lucca]

You can't really lump HYPSM like that that, though, since it just lets their own undergrad and harvard carry the other names. I get 91 total grads, with

Harvard 16%
Yale 8%
MIT 5%
Hopkins, Stanford 3%
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, Berkeley, UCLA 2%
Many others sending only one including names like Princeton, U Chicago, Amherst, Emory, Michigan, UVa, USC etc. WUSTL absent, Dartmouth absent.

I applaud you for a pretty good spin as HYPSM > Ivy > others! But really all I see, again, is

• a huge range even within HYPSM (16 vs 1, last time 13 vs 0)
• Non-Ivy doing as well or better than Ivy (like Hopkins and Northwestern here, Hopkins and WUSTL other year)
• A lot of variation between years, with places doing as well as Ivy one year and absent the next.

Still very, very unconvinced that HYPSM stands alone above other Ivy, or that Ivy is above non-Ivy top 15 or top 20...

In the MD/PhD data Princeton is also notably less represented than the other members of HYPSM. It really should be HMYS, in that order. Maybe it's the deflation. Maybe Princeton grads have other goals. Hard to say for sure but the fact is they are not as well represented in the data as their peers. I think HMYS stands heads and shoulders above the rest but only if you are consider top tier private medical schools.

We could get serious and just get as much data as possible and figure it out. I'll put on Coltrane and the coffee. Tbh, I imagine (hope) schools keep records on these types of trends throughout the years as a form of quality assurance, as it were. One would think an organization meant to train very, very expensive professionals would want to ensure that it makes the best possible decisions each time and that all of its assumptions are holding up against historical trends or changes. This is the age of big data, it would be easy for a school to just take their own data and find trends in admissions and future performance they didnt even know existed and then try to figure out if there are connections they didnt notice or if connections they assumed were there really dont exist.

 

[Lucca]

Princeton's significantly smaller in size than HYMS in terms of student enrollment. I also think the fact that Princeton is academically harder than HYS might deter premeds and account for its heavy feeding into Wall Street and consulting. But I think at least as far as top tier MD programs are concerned, 40% of applicants each year get into a top 10 MD or MD PhD program. I don't know how much lower that is than HYMS, but P doesn't have a med school of its own and thus does not have academic inbreeding. But to say it doesn't have the catchet simply because it has fewer people represented in MD/PhD is false.

I wasn't aware their program was smaller, I just imagined all of those schools had similarly sized undergrad classes. They are still 16th in terms of raw MD/PhD matriculant numbers. They are just behind the rest of HYMS and other similar schools by those numbers. Smaller class size could explain it partly.

 

[Arabidopsis]

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[efle]

elfe

ಠ_ಠ

The current cycle's "Undergraduate Institutions Supplying 100 or More White Applicants" (https://www.aamc.org/download/321458/data/factstablea2-7.pdf) has Harvard with 122 and Yale with 124. Princeton didn't make the cut. For Asian applicants (https://www.aamc.org/download/321456/data/factstablea2-6.pdf), Harvard had 91, Yale had 87, and Princeton had 62.

To the right of where it shows 62 Asian, it shows 168 total, in keeping with the 171 from my Most Premedical Universities chart.

 

[carpediem22]

I will agree with posters who have mentioned that for MD/PhD admissions, undergrad institution definitely does matter. At my top-20 MSTP interviews, there were usually only 1-2 non-Ivy applicants present. I went to a HYPSM and had very good results with top-20 schools, but I don't think that this was attributable in any major way my college name. I think that the name is a small boost, yes, but school name will not make up for an otherwise mediocre application.

One potential downside of an LAC is that it may limit research opportunities. Some LACs have amazing research and undergrads can get involved at very advanced levels due to the lack of grad students, but because there are fewer PIs there is less breadth of field and topic exposure. It's tough to know which research area you might be interested in as a freshman, and going to a large research university would allow for greater breadth and depth of opportunities in that respect.

The idea that it will be harder to maintain a high GPA at an Ivy is false, except for in cases of notorious grade-deflation like Cornell. Harvard, Yale, and Brown all grade-inflate.

 

[Lucca]

The only data on Princeton's applicants that I could find online is here: http://www.princeton.edu/hpa/suggested-reading/12-13-Applicant-Guide-FINAL.pdf. It is a compilation from 2009-2012 so it is a little bit outdated, but the metrics should not have changed that drastically since then.

Some things to note:
-In Table 4 on page 40, the total number of medical applicants was 487 (122 per year on average). This number is in line with the 2013 cycle (124) and the 2015 cycle (116).
-According to elfe's "The Most Premedical Universities" thread, in that given year, Harvard had 323 applicants, Yale had 232, and Stanford had 283. However, in that same data set, Princeton is listed with 171 which is most definitely too high. Unfortunately the link to that year's AAMC Table A-2 where he extracted the data is broken so it's hard to resolve this discrepancy.
-The current cycle's "Undergraduate Institutions Supplying 100 or More White Applicants" (https://www.aamc.org/download/321458/data/factstablea2-7.pdf) has Harvard with 122 and Yale with 124. Princeton didn't make the cut. For Asian applicants (https://www.aamc.org/download/321456/data/factstablea2-6.pdf), Harvard had 91, Yale had 87, and Princeton had 62.
-For 2009-2012, according to page 39, there were only 18 MD/PhD matriculants. Putting this together with Lucca's quoted post implies that Princeton is not only supplying fewer MD applicants overall, but even fewer MD/PhD applicants proportionally compared to Harvard and Yale.

As kringle previously mentioned, the reduced number of applicants may be attributed to grade deflation, the lack of an affiliated medical school, and/or the strong banking and consulting culture. Princeton has ~5390 undergrads whereas Yale has ~5450, so an objectively lower percentage of students are choosing to pursue medical school. However, if you examine the acceptance matrix on page 41, 90% of applicants got in which isn't bad. If you include those who did science post-graduate work, the acceptance rate dropped to 88% (429/487). The fact that 12.3% of applicants had 39+ and 40.5% had 36+ MCAT may reflect rigorous grading. The committee does not appear to screen as indicated by the "low" GPA/MCAT outliers, but this does not rule out self-selection which may be significant for both prospective MD and MD/PhD applicants.

I do believe that Harvard and Yale are better for aspiring pre-meds. Regardless, "Between 35% and 40% of [Princeton] students who matriculated to medical school in the past four years is attending a top 10 US News & World Report research school." so it's still a solid undergraduate university for those that dream big.

One potential problem with data from a school is how they define "applicant". Some places have pre health committees which "screen"
an applicant and by writing them a committee letter essentially "approve" their application to medical school. By doing this only for competitive applicants, they can keep their stats high. The AAMC data is better in that it just tells you how many people submitted an application through AMCAS and came from Princeton that year. 168 came from Princeton according to the table you linked, which is close to the 171 reported in @efle's thread.


Also, I never meant to imply Princeton wasn't a good institution. In fact, I think it is more than "solid", it is one of the best undergraduate institutions in the country. We shouldn't fall into the slippery slope trap of saying "this school may not have as large an advantage as this one" and then concluding "all schools are crap except for these few schools". Isolating a variable does not assert that all other variables don't matter.

 

[D2D]

I doubt that going to Cornell or Dartmouth over a place like Swathmore, Williams, or Amherst will have any bearing on one's career or life trajectory.

I think it will, but not because of the Ivy name tag. For example, it would be incredibly difficult to get into top engineering programs (like MIT or Caltech) for a PhD, coming out of Swathmore regardless of how well you did... Cornell/Princeton are a great bet for this (on the other hand, Dartmouth nor Harvard would be)! As a 17 year old, one should not pull all their eggs in the medschool basket. Bigger schools give students wider exposure and thus many more opportunities (again a well known state school such as UMich or Berkeley with a smaller debt load is a much better option than expensive Ivy education). I feel small liberal arts schools will pigeonhole him in the long run.

 

[Nietzschelover]

I think it will, but not because of the Ivy name tag. For example, it would be incredibly difficult to get into top engineering programs (like MIT or Caltech) for a PhD, coming out of Swathmore regardless of how well you did... Cornell/Princeton are a great bet for this (on the other hand, Dartmouth nor Harvard would be)! As a 17 year old, one should not pull all their eggs in the medschool basket. Bigger schools give students wider exposure and thus many more opportunities (again a well known state school such as UMich or Berkeley with a smaller debt load is a much better option than expensive Ivy education). I feel small liberal arts schools will pigeonhole him in the long run.

First time I've ever heard that a Swarthmore education could limit your future. And, btw, Swat HAS engineering.

 

[D2D]

First time I've ever heard that a Swarthmore education could limit your future. And, btw, Swat HAS engineering.

Yes, but not the undergrad research/ engineering EC opportunities that the big schools do. In the engineering world, the projects one works on, the hands on experience gained, and the depth of original individual contribution play a huge role in seeking jobs and higher education. Name of the school and perfect GPAs not so much....

 

[Lucca]

I think it will, but not because of the Ivy name tag. For example, it would be incredibly difficult to get into top engineering programs (like MIT or Caltech) for a PhD, coming out of Swathmore regardless of how well you did... Cornell/Princeton are a great bet for this (on the other hand, Dartmouth nor Harvard would be)! As a 17 year old, one should not pull all their eggs in the medschool basket. Bigger schools give students wider exposure and thus many more opportunities (again a well known state school such as UMich or Berkeley with a smaller debt load is a much better option than expensive Ivy education). I feel small liberal arts schools will pigeonhole him in the long run.

Dont think this is true, small LACs have very good reputations in the sciences as well and some have a lot of connections for undergraduates to do research or take on other projects. My PI graduated from a small LAC (1/4 the size of Princeton's total enrollment) and went to CalTech for their PhD in a physical science; they are young enough for this to be relevant for recent PhD grads too and not just old-timers. Industry connections are probably better at bigger schools though.

 

[D2D]

Dont think this is true, small LACs have very good reputations in the sciences as well and some have a lot of connections for undergraduates to do research or take on other projects. My PI graduated from a small LAC (1/4 the size of Princeton's total enrollment) and went to CalTech for their PhD in a physical science; they are young enough for this to be relevant for recent PhD grads too and not just old-timers. Industry connections are probably better at bigger schools though.

I don't know about pure physical sciences. I would guess for these it probably is ok to go to LACs

 

[Nietzschelover]

Yes, but not the undergrad research/ engineering EC opportunities that the big schools do. In the engineering world, the projects one works on, the hands on experience gained, and the depth of original individual contribution play a huge role in seeking jobs and higher education. Name of the school and perfect GPAs not so much....

I'm gonna go out of an limb and suggest that Swat grads will do just fine. In terms of rigor of the undergrad education Swat is almost unmatched with its only true peer probably U Chicago.

Anybody got a match list for Swat premeds?

 

[ridethecliche]

Yeah, swatties do very well. I went to a NE LAC with a solid reputation and my peer group has done incredibly well when applying to med school, MBA programs, PhD programs, etc. I always considered myself one of the 'least academically smart' of my friends and I'm in med school now. So...

A cousin and his gf, woah wait, now wife, both went to swat. She's working at a consulting firm or ibank in NYC and he's doing a finance program at columbia. The students that go to these schools often choose to go there over ivies. Not all the time obviously, but there are many that do.

Throwaway account. I'm a Dartmouth alum, currently at a tippy-top medical school.

While I had a fantastic time at Dartmouth, there were definitely people who did not, so individual opinions and experiences do differ. However, what the Ivies (and other universities like MIT and Stanford) do offer is a (1) huge endowment, which allows for student funding for a whole range of different activities, such as (2) a higher faculty-to-student ratio, and (3) closer alumni connections. This means that these schools provide an incredible array of opportunities. My courses at Dartmouth were between 2 (special history seminar) to 60 students (organic chemistry), which gave me many opportunities to get to know my professors. This was great for my education, since I didn't have to compete with other students for the professors' attention. Plus, through alumni connections I was able to shadow a wide range of alumni back in my home town/whatever city I happened to be in for long-term and undertake a number of creative projects in non-science disciplines.

Me: Hey, I don't know you, but I went to your school decades after you did, could you help me out?
Rad Onc/Peds/Derm/Anesthesiologist/Famous Guy: Sure!
Me: Awesome.
(And when we met up in person, we always talked about old traditions and some of the unforgettable restaurants/places that we craved every once in a while.)

Me: Hey, I got this funding from the school to do a research project + travel across the country to present my research at a national symposium. Can I work in your lab?
Professor: Sure!
Me: Awesome.

Me: Hey, I want to start this one organization, and I want you to raise the budget for one of the organizations that I'm already in charge of because we've been doing some amazing things.
Administrator: Sure!
Me: Awesome.

(After graduation)
Me: Hey, you're wearing a Dartmouth cap! Nice to see you. I'm a recent alum.
Dartmouth alumnus from decades ago: Nice to see you too! Do you now go to school here?
Me: Yes, I go to the med school
Dartmouth alumnus from decades ago: My child (also at Dartmouth) is thinking about med school. Would you be interested in talking with him/her?
Me: Sure!
Dartmouth alumnus from decades ago: Awesome.
(And the cycle continues)

However, opportunities are not limited to ivy league institutions. Right now in my medical school, and among my class, there are graduates of the Ivy Leagues, MIT, Stanford, as well as students local colleges, public universities throughout the country, and fantastic liberal arts colleges. One common thread that I can observe is that we were able to use the opportunities provided by our respective institutions to excel in our own way, whether that was through health policy, entrepreneurship, research, etc.

So, in all, I believe that prestige is a poor proxy for predicting future success, and while Ivy League schools probably do have more money to spend on its students, students who work hard can be successful anywhere. Best of luck to your brother! With those choices, it would be very difficult to go wrong, and the toughest part is about what comes after--making the most of his opportunities!

The top liberal arts schools do exactly that as well. State school honors colleges do that as well.

This idea that funding is exclusive to the ivies is hilarious. I worked abroad twice in undergrad via funding I got through my university. I did not go to an Ivy.
I also got funding to run a cycling club, a bike repair shop, etc etc etc through the student government. We helped kids fix their campus bikes so we were providing a service as well, but we got tons of money for it. A lot of it was spent on ****ty beer as well.

Look at the selectivity of the schools for admissions and the numbers etc as well. Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Haverford, Swatmore, Bowdoin, etc etc etc. I'd say Dartmouth undergrad is in the same league as those schools. They're all friggin elite and their alums help their undergrads/new grads out plenty.

 

[HopefulMD20]

Go Ivy. I chose a pre-med powerhouse school over an Ivy for undergrad and I have some regrets just because Ivies have the prestige and grade inflation.

[at ivy now] not all ivy's have inflation, if anything, some have deflation

 

[efle]

[at ivy now] not all ivy's have inflation, if anything, some have deflation

And by some, you mean Cornell?

Edit: Will also be interesting to see if Princeton's reputation changes after recently doing away with their anti-inflation policy

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

I'm tired of Ivy Leagues receiving so much attention. They are not the best schools, no school is. It varies by the specific department and what suits your needs as an individual. There are other goods schools. I am tired of seeing Harvard mentioned everywhere.

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

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[WedgeDawg]

I'm tired of Ivy Leagues receiving so much attention.

You probably came to the wrong thread then.

 

[justadream]

From what I have observed on the interview trail, I definitely think that HYS undergrad (not as much MIT/Princeton) is disproportionately represented in the top 5/10 med schools vs. undergrad at Penn/Columbia/Dartmouth/Hopkins/WashU/etc.

The reason it might not be reflected well in the data @efle brought up (with the Yale info) is because of a few factors
- As I said above (and explain more below) I don't see the pattern as much with MIT and Princeton but I do with HYS
- You are looking at matriculation data at Yale. Lots of Stanford grads may have gotten into Yale but disproportionately (relative to HY grads) prefer attending Stanford/UCSF over Yale. If we had access to matriculation data for UCSF/Stanford Med, I think we would see the opposite (i.e., Stanford ugrad represented a lot but HY not as much).
- Sample size is too low at Yale Med. But if we had access to acceptance (not matriculation) data and accounted for self-selection in terms regional preference for HMS/SMS/Hopkins/UCSF/Penn medical schools, I think you would see a statistically significant difference.

***Note that I don't think MIT/Princeton are as well represented a HYS. I believe this is because of a combination of grading policies (M and P are generally harder in terms of getting A's) and student interests (seems like students who go to MIT/Princeton are less interested in med).


Also, just intuitively speaking (as in, ignoring the limited data that is hard to read into), I would think that HYS grads are more represented (relative to other Ivies/Hopkins/WashU/etc). This is because:

- Additional "prestige." These schools are just known for being more selective in the public eye (I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing. It's just the reality). Thus, even implicitly, people are just more impressed when they hear someone went to Harvard (over, say, Columbia, which is still a great school). The difference might not be a lot (it's certainly less than say Harvard vs. avg state school) but I do think there is still a difference that gives HYS students a bump.
- Students at HYS are typically more desirable overall candidates in terms of ECs/LoRs/Connections/Intangibles/Unique factors. For example, the vast majority of cross-admits between Harvard ugrad and Columbia ugrad will go to Harvard. Thus, the HYS schools generally end up with more "desirable" students. Are these students at HYS actually smarter? Maybe to some extent although if you look at SAT/ACT data, it's not a huge difference. But the students at HYS likely has better ECs/Connections/LoRs/Intangibles/Unique factors (and these same things all help with med school admissions too).

Basically, those reasons are the same as the reasons why Harvard disproportionately sends schools to top med schools vs. [insert avg state school here]. The level of this "disproportion" for Harvard vs. Columbia is definitely less but, at least in my opinion (and from my observations), still not negligible.

 

[DokterMom]

He is waiting to hear from Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell. No aid because of high parental tax bracket. Already has multiple merit aid packages from in state private schools and some east coast LACs.

He is 100% intent on becoming a doctor but is worried his gpa will be sub par at Ivy League school so he is really conflicted.

Same old " is it better to be a big fish in a small pond...." question I guess.

This is the opposite of a "rock or a hard place" choice, as both LACs and Ivys offer great opportunities for pre-meds and others. Some things to consider:

• Will your brother do better in a SMALL college environment where he won't risk falling through the cracks and where the availability of hand-holding when necessary will be a strong consideration? (If so, rule out Cornell - sorry. It's big, and at the Ag, Eng or A&S schools, he could get lost.)
  
• Or is he more self-advocating and self-driven enough to seize the opportunity and scramble to the top, wherever he is? If so, Cornell offers fabulous opportunities, whether he ends up in medical school or not, and offers an alumni network and name-recognition that is hard to beat. I'm not sure about medical volunteering opportunities in a smaller town like Ithaca, though -- so if he doesn't have medical exposure opportunities at home, that may be something to consider.
  
• Dartmouth and Brown are small, like the LACs, but are still technically 'Ivy League' -- so perhaps the best compromise solution. IF they are a good fit for your brother. Fit is an incredibly important quality that is hard to measure but that is incredibly important to a student's happiness and future success.

My advice? If he hasn't visited all of these schools, he needs to get moving. If he loves Brown or Dartmouth, go there. If not, go Cornell if 'big' is not a problem, or to one of the LACs if it is.

 

[Lucca]

Yeah, swatties do very well. I went to a NE LAC with a solid reputation and my peer group has done incredibly well when applying to med school, MBA programs, PhD programs, etc. I always considered myself one of the 'least academically smart' of my friends and I'm in med school now. So...

A cousin and his gf, woah wait, now wife, both went to swat. She's working at a consulting firm or ibank in NYC and he's doing a finance program at columbia. The students that go to these schools often choose to go there over ivies. Not all the time obviously, but there are many that do.



The top liberal arts schools do exactly that as well. State school honors colleges do that as well.

This idea that funding is exclusive to the ivies is hilarious. I worked abroad twice in undergrad via funding I got through my university. I did not go to an Ivy.
I also got funding to run a cycling club, a bike repair shop, etc etc etc through the student government. We helped kids fix their campus bikes so we were providing a service as well, but we got tons of money for it. A lot of it was spent on ****ty beer as well.

Look at the selectivity of the schools for admissions and the numbers etc as well. Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Haverford, Swatmore, Bowdoin, etc etc etc. I'd say Dartmouth undergrad is in the same league as those schools. They're all friggin elite and their alums help their undergrads/new grads out plenty.

I love this post and based on what I know now after 3 years of higher education I think a rigorous, small LAC is probably the best education you can get in this country. I'm lucky in that I've had the small-class experience at a large school and the quality of the classes are really just much better than larger classes, especially when all of your peers are genuinely invested in the class. That is just one of the many benefits of going to a small rigorous LAC, potentially. The worst part about those schools is that they tend to be very expensive. If you get a good scholarship though, I would recommend it for any student seriously interested in learning stuff and not just getting a job.

 

[ridethecliche]

I love this post and based on what I know now after 3 years of higher education I think a rigorous, small LAC is probably the best education you can get in this country. I'm lucky in that I've had the small-class experience at a large school and the quality of the classes are really just much better than larger classes, especially when all of your peers are genuinely invested in the class. That is just one of the many benefits of going to a small rigorous LAC, potentially. The worst part about those schools is that they tend to be very expensive. If you get a good scholarship though, I would recommend it for any student seriously interested in learning stuff and not just getting a job.

I think the reasons you state are the exact reasons why they prepare students well for future degrees. I was terrified as a frosh sitting in a seminar class I signed up for without knowing wtf was going on. It was an advanced anthro class and I took it because I liked the name lol. I learned a lot, but I had no idea what anthro was as a first semester frosh in a class with jrs that were majors. It really forced me to figure my **** out and learn like a mofo so I wouldn't word vomit when I was asked a question in a 10 person discussion class. My science classes became like that too in jr and senior year with advanced biochem seminars where we'd just sit around and talk about research papers and research methods.

The hardest thing about transitioning from that environment to the 'real world' was that you weren't surrounded by those people, i.e. nerds, all the time. Even med school isn't like that. To be honest, I think I'd be doing MUCH better in med school if I was in an environment like my UG had sponsored. My pre-games friday nights would often involve sneaking wine into the library in a coffee mug and reading papers with friends for a couple of hours before we'd go out for dinner and go out for the night. I learned most of the stuff I did in college by studying with friends leading up to exams where we'd all just sit around and talk about what we thought was cool. The environment in med school seems way more like college at times where you're learning because you have to, not because you're curious about it. There are exceptions obviously, but that's the feeling I get from a lot of people at a lot of places.

I do have friends at school that often study in small groups. The school sponsored small group stuff is really forced and artificial feeling. I'm not much of a fan of that.

/gets off soapbox.

 

[Yellow_Elephant]

Here's the Cornell specific info:

 

[DumboOctopus]

I think a rigorous, small LAC is probably the best education you can get in this country.

Edit: feel free to contact me, if you are interested in hearing more about the LAC experience and all the reasons why I am satisfied by it!

 

[KungFuPanda123]

.asdf

 

[ridethecliche]

Here's the Cornell specific info

Wait, so you're saying that students that go to a school with lots of resources and a big dedicated pre-med resource center do better than the average applicant to medical school?

 

[DumboOctopus]

Yes, but not the undergrad research/ engineering EC opportunities that the big schools do. In the engineering world, the projects one works on, the hands on experience gained, and the depth of original individual contribution play a huge role in seeking jobs and higher education. Name of the school and perfect GPAs not so much....

Compared to MIT or Caltech, Swat might lack resources, but there are far fewer people COMPETING for the resources. swat engineer grads do incredibly well in the post-graduate job hunt. the critical thinking skills LAC students develop (small class sizes/many team-based activites/etc) are unmatched, and they place into top grad programs.

 

[salemstein]

Time to bust some myths. I think there deserves to be some credit for HYPSM getting more attention than others in terms of admissions. It may be true that some are grade inflated in a lot of subject areas, but definitely not in the sciences. Earning an A is by no means a joke. You're in a class with people who won international science competitions, math olympics, etc. and only ~20-25% gets As (even in summer classes too, which is supposed to be easier than if you took it during the school year). I think most science classes curve around a B, which is pretty average compared to other institutions, but as someone was saying earlier, it is the students that make it so competitive. sGPA is a pretty huge factor in admissions and if you somehow survive with a 3.7+ I'd be pretty pissed if that wasn't opening doors. I've also taken classes at my state flagship, and MAN was there a difference.

 

[DokterMom]

I love this post and based on what I know now after 3 years of higher education I think a rigorous, small LAC is probably the best education you can get in this country.

👍

Time to bust some myths. I think there deserves to be some credit for HYPSM getting more attention than others in terms of admissions.

👍

I think these are BOTH dead-on correct statements.

• There is no doubt in my mind that having a degree from HYPSM is the best undergraduate credential in the world.
• There is also no doubt in my mind that for most people, the best place to get the very best education is at a smaller top-notch LAC.

 

[SurgeonOfLife]

Here ya go. Coded this pretty quick. Used the pdf directory they gave us and extracted the relevant strings. Tried to catch different strings of the same university (Hopkins vs Johns Hopkins or Swarthmore being spelled as 'Swathmore'). Let me know if there are any errors.

Total unique universities: 76
Total students: 184
Thought this data might be interesting. Does not include the incoming class starting in Fall 2016.

One from FIU 👍 Soon to be two from UF possibly.

Edit: Found 'Berkeley' vs 'UCBerkeley'
Also, UMichigan as Michigan
UAlabama as Alabama
UIowa as Iowa
dang these state schools messing with me

 

[Lucca]

Here ya go. Coded this pretty quick. Used the pdf directory they gave us and extracted the relevant strings. Tried to catch different strings of the same university (Hopkins vs Johns Hopkins or Swarthmore being spelled as 'Swathmore'). Let me know if there are any errors.

Total unique universities: 80
Total students: 184
Thought this data might be interesting. Does not include the incoming class starting in Fall 2016.
View attachment 201544

One from FIU 👍

Ughhh this is exactly the program I wanted to write but I dont have access to all of the student directories. Why cant all data just be freely available 😛.

 

[ridethecliche]

Hard to say much about that data since it doesn't adjust for class size at the respective schools. Some LAC total graduating classes are tiny. Swatty is about 1550 total undergrads.

 

[SurgeonOfLife]

Oh yeah totally agree. Just thought it'd be interesting to share because these may be my classmates for quite a while if I decide to attend.

Nice to see visually the distribution at a glance

 

[ridethecliche]

I see lots of LACs on that list though, atleast as many as the universities if not more.