"Pitted" against other applicants from your school?

[panda16]

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My premed advisor mentioned this in an advising session once, cautioning us from all applying to similar schools because "those schools receive a higher # of our school's applicants, meaning your chances are lower because they'll only take the top applicants here."

To me, this implies a sort of "school quota" on one end and then a logical "well only the best people get in to med schools anyway" thought on the other. To be fair for her point of view, the number of people accepted to WashU, Harvard, Yale, etc each year is weirdly constant at my school.

Any Adcoms have any input on this? Do you compare the applicants from one specific school with one another before choosing which ones are the best fit? Or do you just pick the best applicants and if there happens to be more from that school, that's just the way it happens?

 

[chemist16]

The reason the number of people accepted to those schools from your school each year is constant because the demographics of your school likely do not change significantly from one year to the next. So, the same number of people are qualified to get into those schools from yours each year. But, this is an interesting question because in general, you should look at the average statistics for admitted applicants from your school and if you're in line with that, then you're competitive. I say this because at my school, the MCAT averages are way above the national average. What is the national MCAT average for admitted students now? 30-32? The average MCAT of admitted applicants from my school is ~35 and the average MCAT of rejected applicants from my school is in the 30-32 range.

 

[panda16]

The reason the number of people accepted to those schools from your school each year is constant because the demographics of your school likely do not change significantly from one year to the next. So, the same number of people are qualified to get into those schools from yours each year. But, this is an interesting question because in general, you should look at the average statistics for admitted applicants from your school and if you're in line with that, then you're competitive. I say this because at my school, the MCAT averages are way above the national average. What is the national MCAT average for admitted students now? 30-32? The average MCAT of admitted applicants from my school is ~35 and the average MCAT of rejected applicants from my school is in the 30-32 range.

A very good point about the demography situation. And yeah, I understand where you're coming from in terms of average MCAT. Ours is around a 33, last time I heard average overall was like a 30.

And I've certainly compared myself to others at my school in terms of averages and I'm in good shape. I was just more curious about how this would work at a "top tier" school...say an Adcom has two applicants that are very similar to one another and are amazingly qualified, but they would perhaps forgo one of those applicants so as to increase their "geographic diversity" if that makes sense.

If anything, I find the opposite is true. That is, well-regarded feeder schools to a specific medical school may in fact give those candidates a slightly better chance. Adcoms may give more weight to those from the well-regarded feeder school than from another. In my first position many years ago there was a very strong bias to applicants of the undergraduate college of the university where the medical school was located.

Thanks for sharing. And yeah, while my university doesn't have a medical school affiliated with it, there are definitely schools that are "feeders" for med schools (i.e. schools where there are consistently 30+ applicants per cycle...and my premed class is about 200). Hell, one of the schools accepted 50 of us last year.

 

[Goro]

More evidence that the average pre-med advisor has the intelligence of a flea.

Schools will take good candidates, no matter where they're from. If my school wanted to fill its class with every pre-med from, say, U Washington if they were good enough, we'd take them all.

Med schools want the best candidate from anywhere and everywhere.

More importantly, the only person you should be competing against is yourself.

My premed advisor mentioned this in an advising session once, cautioning us from all applying to similar schools because "those schools receive a higher # of our school's applicants, meaning your chances are lower because they'll only take the top applicants here."

To me, this implies a sort of "school quota" on one end and then a logical "well only the best people get in to med schools anyway" thought on the other. To be fair for her point of view, the number of people accepted to WashU, Harvard, Yale, etc each year is weirdly constant at my school.

Any Adcoms have any input on this? Do you compare the applicants from one specific school with one another before choosing which ones are the best fit? Or do you just pick the best applicants and if there happens to be more from that school, that's just the way it happens?

 

[raiderette]

I go to a small school, but there is a real pattern of top schools that move applicants from my school and those that don't even offer interviews. Most from my state still end up at the state school but two top 20 schools seem to at least interview our top students every year. Now if your scores and ECs are far below the norm of previous applicants from your school, I would be worried.

 

[nwts]

I view "competition" against classmates from my undergraduate university in a very different way. There are a few schools that accept a lot of students from my undergraduate university every year, and all of the pre-meds at my university know exactly which schools these are. Because of this, a bunch of people from my university apply to those schools, thinking: "They accept a bunch of people from our university, so I have a good chance, right?" I feel like those few medical schools know that a lot of people from my university apply to those few medical schools looking for an easy acceptance without a lot of real interest in the school itself. I could be way off base, but I just feel like the schools have to know that a reasonable number of the applicants are looking for low-hanging fruit instead of actually being interested, right? Anyway, since I feel like those schools are already more suspicious of applicants from my school applying without interest than the average applicant, I think it is all the more important to make sure secondary responses are very good and show real interest. I don't think applicants from my university have to have better GPAs, MCAT scores, ECs, and stuff like that to compete with their classmates, I just think we have to be careful to make it very clear that we are actually interested in that medical school in particular, not just an acceptance. I know all candidates have to do that, but I feel like we might have to do this slightly more at those particular medical schools since there are always a lot of applicants from my school who aren't actually interested. Again, I could be way off base.

 

[panda16]

More importantly, the only person you should be competing against is yourself.

How are you so quotable, jeez! Great advice, though.

I go to a small school, but there is a real pattern of top schools that move applicants from my school and those that don't even offer interviews. Most from my state still end up at the state school but two top 20 schools seem to at least interview our top students every year. Now if your scores and ECs are far below the norm of previous applicants from your school, I would be worried.

Exactly. I think the point that my advisor was trying to make is that there are some schools that look for a very specific kind of candidate in general, and if you don't necessarily fit that profile (i.e. if you don't do research, etc) it may be more difficult for you to break through at those schools.

I view "competition" against classmates from my undergraduate university in a very different way. There are a few schools that accept a lot of students from my undergraduate university every year, and all of the pre-meds at my university know exactly which schools these are. Because of this, a bunch of people from my university apply to those schools, thinking: "They accept a bunch of people from our university, so I have a good chance, right?" I feel like those few medical schools know that a lot of people from my university apply to those few medical schools looking for an easy acceptance without a lot of real interest in the school itself. I could be way off base, but I just feel like the schools have to know that a reasonable number of the applicants are looking for low-hanging fruit instead of actually being interested, right? Anyway, since I feel like those schools are already more suspicious of applicants from my school applying without interest than the average applicant, I think it is all the more important to make sure secondary responses are very good and show real interest. I don't think applicants from my university have to have better GPAs, MCAT scores, ECs, and stuff like that to compete with their classmates, I just think we have to be careful to make it very clear that we are actually interested in that medical school in particular, not just an acceptance. I know all candidates have to do that, but I feel like we might have to do this slightly more at those particular medical schools since there are always a lot of applicants from my school who aren't actually interested. Again, I could be way off base.

I think that your line of thinking is very similar to mine, to be honest. If, for example, five people from the last matriculating class went to Harvard people would be like "oh people from my school get into Harvard, so let's apply!" even if they might not necessarily be a competitive applicant.

 

[gyngyn]

Pre-med advisors like other humans, tend to see patterns even where no pattern exists.

 

[Law2Doc]

My premed advisor mentioned this in an advising session once, cautioning us from all applying to similar schools because "those schools receive a higher # of our school's applicants, meaning your chances are lower because they'll only take the top applicants here."

To me, this implies a sort of "school quota" on one end and then a logical "well only the best people get in to med schools anyway" thought on the other. To be fair for her point of view, the number of people accepted to WashU, Harvard, Yale, etc each year is weirdly constant at my school.

Any Adcoms have any input on this? Do you compare the applicants from one specific school with one another before choosing which ones are the best fit? Or do you just pick the best applicants and if there happens to be more from that school, that's just the way it happens?

While I agree that admissions SHOULD work the way Goro and others have suggested, my experience has actually been the opposite (particularly in terms of home school prospects). Schools want diversity and also when people are on the exact same grading metric in terms of identical coursework it's just too easy to slot people as better/worse than each other. So you are fighting human nature.
For much the same reason I've in the past suggested that people shouldn't focus on eg "nontrad friendly" schools because no school is going to take more than a few.

 

[panda16]

For much the same reason I've in the past suggested that people shouldn't focus on eg "nontrad friendly" schools because no school is going to take more than a few.

That's the issue that I'm honing in on, too. The fact is that often the schools that have a certain reputation as being "X and Y friendly" or preferring a certain applicant end up getting saturated with those applicants anyways.

 

[NeuResurgens]

It would seem logical that students from the same UG, in the same cycle, applying to the same school might be seen on some sort of a continuum based on their GPAs, with the MCAT mitigating somewhat. Human nature. I think that's the extent of the pattern.