misleading advertising?

[Erwin Rommel]

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Next year I'm starting college at a small, fairly prestigous (sp?) private university. It claims to have over an 80% acceptance rate into medical school. This was one of the main things that attracted me. lately I've heard from several people that claims like these from colleges are misleading. Does anyone have experience with this? or info on how they mislead?

 

[Moskeeto]

My friend talked to an advisor at CSU, Chico and she told him that they had one of the highest acceptence rates in the state. When he dug a little deeper he found out that only about 8 students even applied to med school. So if theres a low number applying, the percentage getting in really won't tell you your odds. I think as long as your school has a pre-med/health committe or letter service, you should be okay if you just do your best in school no matter where you go.

 

[stillpremed]

sometimes when you have a low gpa at a school and the school doesnt think you can make it or what other reason they may have, they may advise you against applying = increasing their percentage of students getting accepted

 

[ClaireBear]

Hey Erwin, I'm a senior too and in looking at colleges I found that it's not exactly the percentage that matters. It's more the opportunites that the school can provide such as; research, extracurriculars, close relationships with proffessors, ect... What I found is that numbers can be decieving because it is all about each individual and what you put into your education!

Hope this helps!

-ClaireBear 🙂

 

[Yogi Bear]

hey,

what the school's sayings is probably true. however, joining sdn and posting is first step towards getting into med school. i did a poll awhile ago w/ 150+ responses and as of april 1st, about 85% of SDNers have already gotten into at least one med school. so, the 80% is believable.

 

[jwin]

depending on the year, 1/2 to 2/3 of people do not get into med school. any school that claims a deviation from this overall statistic needs to have good reason for doing so. if harvard says they deviate from the norm, then i tend to believe them. if podunk u says they have a 90% acceptance rate, ceteris paribus, they are full of crap.

 

[CD]

Oregon state has a 60% acceptance rate. I think that is due to the difficulty of the premed classes there. Those who make it through the undergrad classes are qualified people!

 

[DoubleDoctor]

Miami has a 60-80% acceptance rate for science majors with at least a 29 MCAT. I attribute this high rate to the difficulty of their science courses because there is no free ride in any of these classes and very little grade inflation. I have had classes where the average of an exam was in the upper 40's or lower 50's. There are some profs who don't care what percent of the class fails and I even was in one course of about 60 kids where there was 1 A, 2 B's and everyone else received a C or lower. I didn't make use of the premed committee but I'm sure they probably discourage borderline students from applying. I'm quite sure this acceptance rate is true though because I do the website for some of the science depts and so I get the statistics of those who applied versus those who were accepted. The positive thing about it is that you do know your stuff when you graduate. Since I have been doing research for the last year, I have had the opportunity to work with people from other schools and it has really made me appreciate my education. It kinda sucks for the ole GPA though........

 

[Neuronix]

Originally posted by DoubleDoctor
Miami has a 60-80% acceptance rate for science majors with at least a 29 MCAT.

Exactly. Then again there will always be those students with under a 28 MCAT who seem to think they can still get into an allopathic medical school and need to fail once or twice before they rethink their plan.

At my podunk state school the percentage accepted to medical school is 50 - 60%. I don't think this reflects on the school at all. Unless you're going to "BIG NAME" University, the adcoms aren't paying much attention to where you went to undergrad and the difficulty of your courseload. This is coming from the adcom I work with.

So General Rommel, the 80% is most likely misleading. Alot of times what undergrad schools do is say a rate like that, but that only includes those who went through or were recommended by the pre-medical committee. At many schools, if they don't think you can get in, they will either refuse to put you through the committee, not give you a recommendation (and then you might as well not apply, because that's practically application suicide), or just strongly discourage you from applying. Schools like Hopkins are notorious for this, but it happens at alot more places.

So to the general, if you still have the oppertunity, go where the tuition is low and you feel the most comfortable. Don't be enticed to some really expensive private school just because they say they're so great at getting you into medical school. That ability will rest almost entirely on your performance at whatever undergraduate you go to.

 

[Brewster]

Getting into medical school has something to do with what school you go to, but a lot to do with how well you do there (grades, letters of reccomendation, MCAT, etc).

As far as whether the number is misleading or not, I would say that it totally depends on what school you are talking about. Making a blanket statement like "80% is definitely misleading" is not realy fair without knowing which school you are talking about. See if you can get the names of some premeds there to talk to them about what the program is like.

 

[mellotron]

One of my favorite quotes:

"The figures don't lie, but liars figure."

The school you went to for undergrad can matter if you're looking for employment upon graduation, because some companies, to be efficient, say we will only recruit from Purdue and Georgia Tech, for example. So schools can advertise that XYZ company actively recruits here. So saying 10% of every class gets offers from XYZ company actually has merit.

Med schools don't work that way. THEY don't come to YOU, YOU go to them. So, I think, unlike a lot of pursuits at college, pre-med is all YOU, man. And no one ought to be trying to take credit for what you've done.

 

[surge]

Much more useful is the number of people that apply/ get accepted (to see if it is unusually low: if 4/5 people total get in, but only the top 5 were encouraged to apply, a red flag should go up), as well as the schools they GOT into (my school is notorious for feeding largely into osteopathic schools, and inflating those stats). Also, you should ask to see things like the average MCAT score (not just of people who apply/are accepted, but of ALL people who take it at the school).

But, above all, you should forget about all this, because in the end, the only thing that matters will be your performance. Good luck.