Role of college in decisions?

[jenmarie]

(I put this question in another thread, but it didn't really have anything to do with the thread so I decided to make a seperate thread for it)

Do med schools take into account where you went to college? Like, does it play a good part in the decision? Say, if one person went to a non-top 100 school, graduated with a 4.0, and made a great score on the MCAT, and one person went to a top 10 school with the same GPA and MCAT score, would they accept the one in the better school over the other?

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[mrs.smith]

I agree. I'm also a Ivy League alumni with an ok GPA and only a so-so MCAT, but have gotten some great interviews too. It could have been my LORs and my personal statement which were both strong, but I also think the reputation of a school must have some influence in the process.

 

[FemalesCANTDriv]

i agree... i go to a tier 3 school with 4.0 and solid mcat... i have mad amounts of research including two pubs one of which is a first author... and i have received only one OOS interview... but its all gravy

moral of the story, go to an ivy for undergrad

 

[Wizard of Oz]

i agree... i go to a tier 3 school with 4.0 and solid mcat... i have mad amounts of research including two pubs one of which is a first author... and i have received only one OOS interview... but its all gravy

moral of the story, go to an ivy for undergrad

I won't go that far. Going oos at a state school is going to be tough regardless of where you went to college. That's just a fact of life--states (particularly the red states) want to train people who will stay and practice if they are going to subsidize your education.

I'm from a tier 3 school, but my ability to interview oos was based solely on my ties to the states in question.

At my state school, we have people from Cornell, Notre Dame, Penn, yada yada. The thing that they have in common with people who went to a state school (both of our public D I's are tier 3 unless one of the football teams is hot in a given year) is that they're originally from here. They (or their parents) paid 5 times what I did to arrive at the same place.

moral of the story: raise your kids where they have good state schools.

 

[number77]

Maybe some of the decision makers are aware of the grade inflation at certain top schools?
I know I took a community college course and there were some private college students who didn't do so well (failing, and were allowed to drop the last day of the course.).
(I'm not saying all private school students are dumb. Just that they all aren't as smart as the name of the school would lead you to believe.)

 

[JadedSurgeon]

Say, if one person went to a non-top 100 school, graduated with a 4.0, and made a great score on the MCAT, and one person went to a top 10 school with the same GPA and MCAT score, would they accept the one in the better school over the other?

Yes, but if you really have a 4.0 and great MCAT, that will go a long way in any medical school and it is unlikely that your alma mater will play a huge part in the decision. Other things like extra-curriculars will probably be the determining factor and generally those at top 10 schools have better extra-curriculars.

 

[Writer1985]

Name recognition probably does play a part in this process, but I don't think it's everything. There are plenty of good "public Ivies", that give you a strong undergrad education for a significantly cheaper price tag. Not having undergrad debt is a blissful thing.

 

[crimsonkid85]

i agree that the undergrad institution does matter, insofar as what the reputation of the courses there are like in terms of difficulty, etc. and i would at least like to think that med schools have a pretty good idea, since they have been reviewing gazillions of applications.

as for grade inflation, i don't know how much i believe in it. i go to an institution where many say grade-inflation is rampant, but i honestly think that i slaved away for the grades that i got. my gpa isn't anything to laugh at, but it's definately not 'top-notch,' but i still got interviews.

 

[amathew]

Maybe some of the decision makers are aware of the grade inflation at certain top schools?
I know I took a community college course and there were some private college students who didn't do so well (failing, and were allowed to drop the last day of the course.).
(I'm not saying all private school students are dumb. Just that they all aren't as smart as the name of the school would lead you to believe.)

your peer probably did no work assuming he/she would do great since its community college. Because most of my fellow students (i was ivy leagued myself) who took classes at any other school except community college since those credits arent accepted at our school aced their classes. once you graduate, you realize that ivy leagues prepare you for competitive schools/environments because thats what you're surrounded by at undergrad. However, at the end of the day, it really does depend on how much work you're putting into it.

Moral of the story: Hard work pays off, no matter which school you go to.

 

[guptaso2]

I go to a middle of the road state school right now. Do you think it would help when applying to top 20 MD schools (research) if I got a masters degree from an Ivy before applying for my MD?

 

[Cirrus83]

(I put this question in another thread, but it didn't really have anything to do with the thread so I decided to make a seperate thread for it)

Do med schools take into account where you went to college? Like, does it play a good part in the decision? Say, if one person went to a non-top 100 school, graduated with a 4.0, and made a great score on the MCAT, and one person went to a top 10 school with the same GPA and MCAT score, would they accept the one in the better school over the other?

Yes it would. A non-top 100 school isn't nearly as rigorous as any Ivy type school, so right there the rigor of your previous coursework would be in question.

A 4.0 at a top 10 school on the other hand, is insane. It's WAY easier to get a 3.9x GPA at a non-top 100 school, whereas I'd say that getting a 4.0 at a top 10 school is quite an insane feat (even considering grade inflation, a straight 4.0 is insane).

 

[Cirrus83]

Name recognition probably does play a part in this process, but I don't think it's everything. There are plenty of good "public Ivies", that give you a strong undergrad education for a significantly cheaper price tag. Not having undergrad debt is a blissful thing.

lol yeah but don't worry, the undergrad debt is nothing compared to the med school debt, so really you're just adding 15% to how much you'll owe anyway

It's not fun to have the debt I have, but it's not burying me either, and the government will pay the interest while I'm in a med school. So that's free interest money right there.

 

[Cirrus83]

I won't go that far. Going oos at a state school is going to be tough regardless of where you went to college. That's just a fact of life--states (particularly the red states) want to train people who will stay and practice if they are going to subsidize your education.

I think his point was that he only got one interview and it happened to be OOS-he didn't get any in state interviews.

Actually even I regret not getting into a better school, since a 3.55 from an Ivy would look an awful lot better than a 3.55 from Rochester. It's only lately that I'm realizing that Harvard hasn't even taken ANYBODY from my school in the last 5 years. I mean seriously, not a single person. At least Yale can respect a 3.8 from Rochester, but apparently Harvard has some kinda of allergic reaction to us.

Anyways, I'd bet that you'd have a very slim chance of getting into Harvard with an undergrad from anything other than like the top 20 schools in the country, even if you had a 3.9 and a 39 on the MCAT.

 

[TSK]

and anyone who tells you differently is being unrealistic. No matter where you go, you're expected to do well, but let's face it some schools are more rigorous than others. I'm an Ivy League grad w/a degree in biomedical engineering. My GPA is pretty good but not stellar. But, at like, all of my interviews, the interviewer said something along the lines of, "Wow, a BME major from Ivy League, that's pretty impressive."

Of course bright/competitive students can be found at all types of schools and with the right GPA, ECs, and MCAT, can be competitive for a spot at any medical school.

 

[FemalesCANTDriv]

I think his point was that he only got one interview and it happened to be OOS-he didn't get any in state interviews.

Actually even I regret not getting into a better school, since a 3.55 from an Ivy would look an awful lot better than a 3.55 from Rochester. It's only lately that I'm realizing that Harvard hasn't even taken ANYBODY from my school in the last 5 years. I mean seriously, not a single person. At least Yale can respect a 3.8 from Rochester, but apparently Harvard has some kinda of allergic reaction to us.

Anyways, I'd bet that you'd have a very slim chance of getting into Harvard with an undergrad from anything other than like the top 20 schools in the country, even if you had a 3.9 and a 39 on the MCAT.

no actually i meant that i have only had one OOS interview at a top 20 when i have 2 top 20 schools in my home state that instantly invited me for interview (i.e. within a week) and i have already been accepted at one of them... therefore, i am simply making the point that a 4.0 from a tier 3 school in texas isnt as good as say a 3.7 from harvard... thats all im sayin

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

What school you went to matters very little - but this varies slightly from school to school. It's not an excuse for bad grades or GPA. It definitely does not carry the same weight as GPAs, MCAT, LOR, ECs, etc. It is probably one of the last things they look at, maybe at the most on par with MCAT writing score.

Again this depends on the school, some of them actually factor in a small numerical value based on your college, others ignore it almost completely.

 

[jayhawk07]

I think that where you go for undergrad can definitely impact the med school application process. I have lived in Kansas for my entire life, and interviewers at several east coast schools have been very curious about why I chose to apply. One (private!) school's interviewer even told me that its adcom did not want to give spots to people who had no apparent attachment to this particular state -- perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, but I think spending 3 or 4 years during undergrad in a state could constitute a significant attachment. My state school, KU Med, falls to the middle of the national pack when looking at average GPA and MCAT scores, but is sort of notorious for being almost unreasonably tough on OOS applicants, even when said out-of-staters have numbers well above the average figures, and from what I understand this is because the adcom doesn't see any sort of connections to the state of KS in a lot of these applicants, something that, for whatever reason (keep docs in KS, don't want to give out OOS acceptances to students who won't matriculate, etc.), it really values.

My point: it really matters to some schools if you have some kind of connection to the state or region, and your undergrad institution can play a role in establishing this connection.

 

[Karina 07]

On the other hand, my boyfriend being from South Carolina and having gone to an Ivy, back in South Carolina all the adcomms were kind of instantly impressed. Depends on the school, but there they really seemed to take it as an instant mark of smarts, being a state that doesn't send that many people there at all.