med vs vet school admissions

[deuce]

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Any thoughts on the competativeness of med school vs vet school admissions -
Cornells (#1) mean GPA is lower than most of the top 30 med schools, and Penn (#3) mean GPA lower than all but 2 of the top 62 med schools...

 

[cyrille104]

Any thoughts on the competativeness of med school vs vet school admissions -
Cornells (#1) mean GPA is lower than most of the top 30 med schools, and Penn (#3) mean GPA lower than all but 2 of the top 62 med schools...

What it comes down to is that there are a wide range of med schools that, while accepting to the top 30 many exceptional students, also accept many lower-quality (relatively) students in the lower-tier med schools. Vet schools are uniform across the board, and, regardless of which school you're looking at, only accept high-quality students because the applicant pool is so large.

It's harder to get into A vet school than A med school because there are so few schools, and the classes are usually between 80 and 100. This makes the GPA pretty consistent across the board, because people aren't so much concerned about which vet school they are going to as much as whether or not they are going to vet school at all. The average GPA is between a 3.5 and 3.6 for almost every school, regardless of how "good" or "bad" it is. So people who would have to apply to lower-tier med schools generally wouldn't make it in the vet school admissions process.

One important factor that levels out the schools is that they all accept 50% or more of their class from their state (they are all state-funded, even if they are part of a private school). It is difficult to get into a school out-of-state, and tuition is more expensive. States without vet schools will "buy" seats at other states' vet schools, but this doesn't guarantee admission, only that if you get in out-of-state, your state will bring your tuition down to the in-state price. It pretty much sucks if you're from a state without a school, even if they "buy" seats, because it doesn't help you with the admissions process. So even if your state's vet school is ranked lower on U.S. News and World Report's "rankings", or however you want to rank the schools, you have a better chance of getting into your own school and paying less, so you're going to do it even if you could go to the "best" vet school.

 

[InfiniVet]

I concur with cyrille.
An additional thought is that the "best" vet school is somewhat meaningless since theres so many applications of veterinary medicine. If I were large animal or wanted to do production medicine, Texas A&M may be the "best" school for me, but not neccesarily for small animal...in which case, Cornell may be the "best" school for that.
In med school, there's only one species, and less diverse application of medicine.
Its tough to compare med school with vet school.
From my own personal experience only, I've noticed the competition between vet school applicants is much more cut throat, whereas med school applicants tend to huddle together and help each other out. Anyone else noticed this, or is this just me?

 

[mkata]

There are approximately 5500 vet school applicants this year with 2500 in country openings. That means that 50% of applicants are getting in no matter what. That is a pretty high acceptance rate. For my university, there are ~5500 applications for med school. There may be more schools, but there are a whole lot more applicants.

 

[are_jay]

Any thoughts on the competativeness of med school vs vet school admissions -
Cornells (#1) mean GPA is lower than most of the top 30 med schools, and Penn (#3) mean GPA lower than all but 2 of the top 62 med schools...

My opinion:
It is harder to get in to vet school based on the number of spots available. I forget the number of med schools, but it far exceeds vet schools. Vet school applicants are required to have more hands-on experience, and yes there is a sacrifice in the grades department. To my knowledge, med school applicants need volunteer and community experience, but other than that they focus on grades and basic sciences. Once in med/vet school, med students are required to have a better grasp on basic sciences/physiology, because that is what is demanded of them. Vet students must be practice-ready and proficient in all species in 4 years, whereas med students all have further training. Anyway, getting sidetracked. I would be interested to see the GPAs of the "lower tier" med schools. I'm guessing the segment of the population with the highest grades is more interested in being MDs and lawyers than vets. That's always how I remember it, I offer no explanation.

So, I still think it is harder to get a spot in vet school, but med school is academically more challenging. But I don't know, I've only been a vet student and not for long.

There are approximately 5500 vet school applicants this year with 2500 in country openings. That means that 50% of applicants are getting in no matter what. That is a pretty high acceptance rate. For my university, there are 5500 applications for med school and only 100 acceptances...the odds are much much lower. There may be more schools, but there are a whole lot more applicants.

I have a hard time believing that there is an overall acceptance rate of 50%, though I have not looked it up. from what I have seen, the "easiest" schools to get into have about a 50% acceptance rate, many are much, much lower, even for in-state. Where are those numbers posted?

 

[DrBowtie]

There are approximately 5500 vet school applicants this year with 2500 in country openings. That means that 50% of applicants are getting in no matter what. That is a pretty high acceptance rate. For my university, there are 5500 applications for med school and only 100 acceptances...the odds are much much lower. There may be more schools, but there are a whole lot more applicants.

FYI: Last year there was 39,108 med applicants and 17,370 spots. Not too far from 50%.

You were comparing two different stats.

 

[cyrille104]

There are approximately 5500 vet school applicants this year with 2500 in country openings. That means that 50% of applicants are getting in no matter what. That is a pretty high acceptance rate. For my university, there are ~5500 applications for med school. There may be more schools, but there are a whole lot more applicants.

There are actually 7500 applicants, with 2500 openings. Your statistics are old or you were look at VMCAS-only applicants vs. all openings.

 

[mkata]

VMCAS has the number on their webpage. People apply to multiple places.

 

[bubbles525]

VMCAS has the number on their webpage. People apply to multiple places.

There are schools who accept both VMCAS and direct application such as Western, and schools that do not use the VMCAS at all such as Tufts. Thus the VMCAS numbers are misleading and 5500 seems low. I think that may be from another year.

 

[chris03333]

One important factor that levels out the schools is that they all accept 50% or more of their class from their state (they are all state-funded, even if they are part of a private school).

Not true, Western gets NO state funding. All applicants are equal, there is no residency quota (we do limit international students to 8%).

 

[cyrille104]

Not true, Western gets NO state funding. All applicants are equal, there is no residency quota (we do limit international students to 8%).

Oh yeah, you're right - I keep forgetting that Western is the exception