Qualities in a Good Pre-Med School

[j0bea]

I am currently a senior in high school and am now applying or getting ready to apply to colleges. I have narrowed down my list to a few different schools and have visited most if not all of them. I was wondering what you believe are qualities that make a good pre-medical program. I have my own list of important items such as research, teacher-student relations, and a solid pre-health advising department. Overall, what do YOU think makes a good pre-med school?

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[Kurk]

1.) Change your profile picture. Anonymity is important on this site.
2.) A good pre-med school is one where you can achieve the highest gpa possible. You want to be a big fish in a little pond. Going to a top-tier private school means competing with a whole lot of other smart and cuttthroat students. At a smaller school you can really stand-out against the others which is both good for letters of recs from your profs and gpa.

If you value smaller class-sizes and need the teacher-student interaction go for it. Some don't care as they're good at teaching themselves.

Cost should also influence your decision strongly (unless parents are going to pay). As you know med school is very expensive and you don't want to add to it unnecessarily.

If you're interested in research then that can factor in too.

Many on this site believe that pre-health advisors don't know what they're talking about half the time as they use out-dated info or are plain "out of it". I can't speak to that myself but maybe someone else can.

 

[AttemptingScholar]

Agree with changing your picture. Med school admissions people are on here.
Here are the most important things:
1. Are you confident you can get a good GPA in your intended major? A 3.1 engineering major from Harvard just isn't going to look good next to a 3.8 from state schools.
2. Is there school support for health, safety, and academics? (Disabilities or other minority groups you may be a member of?)
3. Is there a relatively accessible hospital or clinic for you to volunteer in?
4. I made sure my UG had an associated med school and have greatly benefitted from talks and guest lectures from people there.

Here are some things I hadn't considered:
1. I'm glad I'm with the semester system. People in the quarter system always seem to be less than two weeks from either midterms or finals and have shorter summers and so are ineligible for many internships. However, if you enjoy a faster learning speed it may be worth it.
2. I went far away and had great new opportunities during the school year but had trouble finding summer things because a lot wanted a one year or 18-month commitment I couldn't make. I decided it was worth it, but food for thought.
3. This is minor but I would hate to be in a school with no buffet-style dining hall. They're all scams.

 

[SLU Student]

One key thing I would look for would definitely be hospital accessibilty. This usually falls in place if your undergraduate institution has a medical school, but not always. Sometimes an institution's undergraduate campus can be hours away from its medical school campus. Do some research on this.

If there's a close hospital associated with your school, then things like clinical volunteering and shadowing will come easy. This is a huge benefit because in this day and age, finding physicians to shadow can be a huge pain in this ass due to a variety of policies and whatnot.

Second thing to look for would definitely be cost and potential GPA deflation.
1. You don't want debt going into medical school if you can avoid it.
2. A school's prestige basically counts for nothing. There's a table that shows how medical schools rank applications and undergraduate prestige is way down there. Make sure your classes are challenging, but not too hard. Don't go to a school where they round your grade down because only a certain percentage of the class can make A's or B's.

Good luck!

 

[823193]

I went to a small, liberal arts school that allowed me to have no debt and get a high GPA. Yeah my college experience wasn't the best or "traditional," but I got into medical school. All of my friends (who I consider smarter than me) are still waiting to get in. There GPAs were a little lower because they went to all of these state schools with huge classes. My classes had max 20 people where their classes has up to 100.