Overrated and Underrated Schools

[VCMM414]

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Dammit Gleevec, what were you doing on SDN when the big game's on TV??

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by spumoni620
Adding fuel to the WashU fire...

I was invited to interview there, and my MCAT is (statistically-significantly) below their average. granted an interview is a far cry from acceptance, but it's not as though they have an automatic cutoff for ppl below a 36 mcat or something.

merit scholarships don't necessarily go to the top-scoring individuals, MCAT-wise. many schools offer scholarships based on intangible, non-numerical factors. (vandy, mayo fall into this category). also this would have to be the case at michigan, for example, because i'm not in any way a "top scorer" and yet was offered a scholarship. if wash u is only offering scholarships to top-scoring applicants...well, that actually backs up gleevec's point about pure numbers-based recruitment.

Hi spumoni,
Thanks for the info, but shouldnt you be studying for your final 😉 😛 . Then again, I should be writing my paper due tomorrow.

I just want to say that despite what responses to some WashU evangelists was, that I really think its a great school and makes a fantastic contribution to medical care not only in the midwest, but the entire US. The students are obviously top notch, and the care provided in the hospital is some of the best in the nation.

While it is good in all these regards, it didnt strike me as on par with some of its peer institutions in terms of diversity, student personality, the city, and some other aspects Ive mentioned. This is just my assessment of the school. The whole concept of overrated and underrated is a personal manifestation of the difference between one's view of a school and what one perceives other's view of the school is. So everyone's classification in this regards is subjective. I just dont think anyone should state something as if it were fact when its an opinion, which is why I had a disagreement on the "more gunners at JHU than WashU" comment.

In any case, I still believe WashU is overrated, but I still think its a good school. This is my opinion and Im sticking to it, because it is honestly what I feel. You can throw a ton of numbers and factoids about the school at me, but it doesnt change the impression I got when I was there. This is not to say that WashU is bad, or even mediocre, its quite good, I just dont think its one of the best, but that's just me.

 

[goobernaculum]

whew! this thread got kinda nasty! what happened here? let's try and be a little more resourceful to our current applicants and get away from the WashU debate. I think we've heard plenty of opinions about whether WashU is overrated or deserving of its current status.

Are we all for letting this one go?

Any other opinions on other schools? Otherwise, this potentially good thread is about to go down the drain.

 

[Thewonderer]

Originally posted by exmike
I think we just found out why thewonderer takes criticism of WuSTL so personally. He went there for med school. Talk about biased 🙄 🙄

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?s=&postid=58053#post58053

Dude....you really need some serious help with your reading comprehension and logic reasoning....

"as a MSII [at a med school in the United States of America] getting info from other friends [some of whom go to Wash U and other top 10 schools], Wash U is really not that different from other top 10 places."

I never said that I am or was an MSII AT WASH U, have I???

Originally posted by exmike
Absolutely no logic? I proposed polling people on the reputation of two schools, which is directly related to whether or not a school is over/underrated. Whats so illogical about a poll? Maybe we should choose politicians using USNew ratings instead of polls.

over-rated = people think that the schools are good in terms of reputation, but in fact the schools really are NOT that good in terms of quality.

your poll would address the reputation but would not address the real quality of the institution. Heck, if 99 out of 100 people choose Hopkins over Wash U, what does that mean? Hopkins is over-rated because its reputation is so much better than wash U but its real quality in terms of medical education is only on-par with Wash U?

 

[Gleevec]

Sigh, and the WashU fanatics play into overtime... I'm done with this thread, no one is better off by this bickering... 🙄

Fine fine, WashU is the best school on the planet, no school comes close. St. Louis is heaven, the professors are all nobel prize winners, look like tom cruise or jessica alba, and have the personality of the nicest and funniest guy you know. The facilities are 20 years ahead of their time, no other school comes close. The reason their MCAT average is so high is because everyone they accept who did AIDS research in Ghana or rescued orphans just happened to have an MCAT of 39 as well.

There, can this thread continue in peace now?

Originally posted by Thewonderer
Dude....you really need some serious help with your reading comprehension and logic reasoning....

"as a MSII [at a med school in the United States of America] getting info from other friends [some of whom go to Wash U and other top 10 schools], Wash U is really not that different from other top 10 places."

I never said that I am or was an MSII AT WASH U, have I???



over-rated = people think that the schools are good in terms of reputation, but in fact the schools really are NOT that good in terms of quality.

your poll would address the reputation but would not address the real quality of the institution. Heck, if 99 out of 100 people choose Hopkins over Wash U, what does that mean? Hopkins is over-rated because its reputation is so much better than wash U but its real quality in terms of medical education is only on-par with Wash U?

 

[TheFlash]

Originally posted by Thewonderer

over-rated = people think that the schools are good in terms of reputation, but in fact the schools really are NOT that good in terms of quality.

Personally, I take "overrated" to mean "over-ranked," and the only tangible ranking system out there is USNews. So, in my opinion, an overrated school is one that fails to live up to the standards of schools it has been ranked above (whether that be in terms of location, facilities, quality of faculty/students/instruction, residency placement, peer assessment, etc.). Obviously, since each person has his or her own opinion of what standards are/aren't important, one man's overrated school may very well be another man's dream school. Moral: arguing accomplishes nothing. 😉

TF

 

[DrBodacious]

thank you snowbear, for the insight on Finch.

 

[Jonah]

Sorry guys, just wondering what the following terms mean:

gunner

URM

PBL


Thanks!!

 

[supersunny]

Originally posted by Jonah
Sorry guys, just wondering what the following terms mean:

gunner

URM

PBL


Thanks!!

gunner: do a search, there are tons of threads on it.

URM: Under Represented Minority. this consists of black, mexican-american, puerto rican, and native american people(to my knowledge).

PBL: problem based learning

 

[jlee9531]

Originally posted by Gleevec
Sigh, and the WashU fanatics play into overtime... I'm done with this thread, no one is better off by this bickering... 🙄

Fine fine, WashU is the best school on the planet, no school comes close. St. Louis is heaven, the professors are all nobel prize winners, look like tom cruise or jessica alba, and have the personality of the nicest and funniest guy you know. The facilities are 20 years ahead of their time, no other school comes close. The reason their MCAT average is so high is because everyone they accept who did AIDS research in Ghana or rescued orphans just happened to have an MCAT of 39 as well.

There, can this thread continue in peace now?

yes....the madness can finally end....

that is unless.....😱

 

[MacGyver]

On the numbers, I don't think WashU is trying to admit higher scoring people to boost their average per se.

Absolutely they are. Look at their MCAT average. Its statistically distinct from even places like Harvard, Hopkins, Duke, etc.

WashU takes numbers people because they are trying to shoot up in the US News rankings. Did you ever consider where washu would be in the rankings if they didnt have enormous GPA and MCAT numbers? They'd be no better than top 20.

By accepting insanely high MCATs, they are making a conscious choice to move up in the rankings. They dont do it because they think MCATs = better students, they do it because they want higher rankings.

Seriously, do the math. Look at the US News formula and redo the rankings with WAshU having MCAT and GPA comparable to the other schools. You will be shocked at how low they fall.

 

[MacGyver]

Originally posted by Xega
Actually some of my friends who are med students at Hopkins say they prefer to rotate at bayview and some other places since the residents at the hospital are so on top of things that they hardly get to do anything at Hopkins hospital, this was especially true for their medicine rotations.

Sorry but thats bull****. YOu need to look at the AAMC website that has the student satisfaction surveys. All 4th year students take these surveys when they graduate from med school.

Hopkins is off the charts when it comes to satisfaction with clinical rotations. They rated it extremely high. That speaks for itself.

 

[jonny_little]

wow macguyver- just did the mcat calculation- wow, it's actually true. and I heard from a first year there that the majority of students are asocialites

 

[sickofit]

MacGyver, what's that aamc website address?

thanks

 

[asama527]

what does "bump" mean?

 

[lane]

Originally posted by asama527
what does "bump" mean?

when the thread falls to the bottom of the page or onto another page people will bump it up for more people to see - all you have to do is post something and it returns to the top of the 1st page 🙂

 

[Kashue]

Originally posted by MacGyver
Absolutely they are. Look at their MCAT average. Its statistically distinct from even places like Harvard, Hopkins, Duke, etc.

WashU takes numbers people because they are trying to shoot up in the US News rankings. Did you ever consider where washu would be in the rankings if they didnt have enormous GPA and MCAT numbers? They'd be no better than top 20.

By accepting insanely high MCATs, they are making a conscious choice to move up in the rankings. They dont do it because they think MCATs = better students, they do it because they want higher rankings.

Seriously, do the math. Look at the US News formula and redo the rankings with WAshU having MCAT and GPA comparable to the other schools. You will be shocked at how low they fall.

Yup, MacGyver is right. USNEWs attributes 20% of the score to students average GPA/MCAT's. Some schools are really nutty over the rankings, including Vandy, WashU and even Sinai, where I work, they also care about their ranking.

The USNEWS.com is what my PI said, free advertisement. They see WashU as top 10 and everyone, including everyone's parents, think that it's a great place to go.

 

[Tezzie]

Considering that about 20% (if i am not wrong) of WUSTL med school is in there with a scholarship i would say that is the reason for their high MCAT/GPA scores. Maybe i am wrong ...

I would try to post more on this but i am in terrible pain so i am out ... 😛

 

[medhopeful08]

tezzie,

hope you feel better soon!! just a couple more weeks...sigh.🙄

 

[jwin]

okay, i was going to quit posting on this thread, but some people will just not quit posting bull$hit:

if you take gpa/mcat out of the equation, let look at the categories that matter:

residency directors assessment: tied for 3rd
peer assessment: tied for 3rd
nih money: 7th

-acceptance rate is not really a factor: BU, Vermount, Stanford (it has a small class), Mayo (it has a small class) lead this category, people apply to places because of location or do not apply to places because of their high stats (Wash U)
-faculty/student ratio: who cares


with two 3rd's and a 7th in non gpa/mcat categories, i do not think they are going to fall too far.

 

[bigbaubdi]

Originally posted by jwin
if you take gpa/mcat out of the equation, let look at the categories that matter:

residency directors assessment: tied for 3rd
peer assessment: tied for 3rd
nih money: 7th

Personally, I decided not to apply there when I got a letter from them asking me to apply b/c of my MCAT score. Their lack of diversity compared with other top schools was also disturbing to me.

That said, WashU has an excellent match list and as jwin pointed out, WashU has excellent rankings in some important areas. In these respects, WashU is quite underrated.

However, I doubt they would be tied with JHU in the US News rankings if they didn't place so much emphasis on MCAT/GPA. WashU is definitely a top school though.

Originally posted by exmike
Unfortunately you didnt take any of your basic science courses at hopkins. The professors were superb, especially the dean of the Bio dept. Dr. Corces. He's probably one of the best professors I've had, through undergrad and two grad schools.

I totally agree w/ exmike about JHU. Even though all of the profs are there b/c of research, most of them (at least in the bio dept) are extremely interested in teaching as well. I haven't heard many good things about the BME or chem dept however.

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by jonny_little
wow macguyver- just did the mcat calculation- wow, it's actually true. and I heard from a first year there that the majority of students are asocialites

whats the result of the MCAT calculation?

 

[tigermike37]

Overrated: Tulane

Underrated: LSU-New Orleans

 

[Jalby]

Sorry to beat a dead horse. Just found this thread and found it pretty fun reading. I love the "What's the difference between a 36.6 and a 35???"

Top MCAT's:

Wash U 36.6
Duke 35.4
Columbia 35.4
UPenn 34.5
Haaaavurd 34.2
Hopkins 33.9
Baylor 33.9
UCSF 33.6
Yale 33.6
Michigan 33.3


Top GPA's

Hopkins 3.86
Wash U 3.83
Harvard 3.80
Mayo 3.78
UPenn 3.78
UCSF 3.77
Columbia 3.76
Duke 3.75
Vandy 3.74
Yale 3.74

 

[LFosterMD07]

My opinion on this subject, and I consulted a good number of residents before I made my decision to attend LSU-Shreveport, is that as long as you go to an accredited US medical school, do well on your board exams, do well in your rotations, and have a good interview, you can get a residency spot pretty much anywhere. A good of number of residents told me that. I don't think that a graduate from Harvard or WashU is going to be any better than me because I chose to go to a state school. Another thing is that I don't think your MCAT score is totally indicative of your success in medical school. I did ok, a 27 which may seem low to some other people but it got me in to my state schools and Emory. I think success in medical schools boils down to how hard you work. Being really smart helps too. Every medical school has it pros and cons but it all boils down that almost every medical school recognized by the AAMC will prepare you to be a component physician.

I saw some of you were dogging Emory so I have to say something. I was accepted Emory and I was very impressed with the school. The facilities are superb and the facutly and staff were very nice. I attended the Emory Revisited Week and I swear I fell in love with the school. I still regret that I chose not to attend Emory but I'll be there for residency!