some troubling statistics

[aspiring20]

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my dad just shared an article that he read about medical school admissions. basically, the article claimed that ivy league-level schools typically have around 92-93 % chance acceptance rates for their pre medical students while state schools such as the Calstates only have around 7-8%.

i am NOT trying to start a flame war about the whole prestige of undergrad issue. i do want to hear from you guys about how validate those stats are, because they certainly dont seem accurate.

from my experience, it seems that for those top private schools, the rate usually hovers around 80% and that for all other schools, it is close to the national rate of 45%. this seems more reasonable.

and lastly, what exactly constitute such a different in acceptance rates between elite undergrads and others? is it simply because the students are more hard working and hence receive higher MCAT (which is probably the #1 factor), or is it because elite schools give their students morei mpressive ECs to put on their apps?

 

[alerk323]

More motivated/brighter students, on average, go to top universities, and thus matriculate through both more impressive EC's (because of motivation, not opportunity), better gpa (motivation/intelligence), and mcat (motivation/intelligence). Also, students going to private expensive universities also have more money to throw around, and thus can afford to jump through all the hoops. Also, students at these schools probably have more affluent and motivated parents, again, on average, than state school students, thus making it that much easier to jump through the hoops.

And finally, some schools are particularly harsh with their pre-meds, only allowing the best to apply, strongly discouraging or even prohibiting students with less than stellar numbers to apply.

In short, there are a large number of variables that would account for these statistics, few of them related to school reputation. Lastly, adcoms have specifically said that school reputation is only marginally considered (and really only for those big name top 5/top 10 schools).

Also, what experience do you have that would give you an accurate measure of the proportion of matriculated students per type of school? You would need to either be privy to large sets of data with these numbers or have met thousands of applicants from 100's of schools... going to an interview and seeing 3 people from Harvard doesn't really count.

 

[La Presse]

Like my psychology professor always says, "You can't always make a cookie cut." Not all Ivy Leagues schools accept their students into their professional--or in this case, medical--programs. I am speculating that the percentage that matriculated from an Ivy undergraduate is high because of things like competition, guaranteed admissions (I'm looking at you Brown) and the students seemed to understand what the Ivy medical schools were looking for. I had a "friend," who interviewed at several Ivies coming from an Ivy undergrad and his application was up to par. High grades and good test scores. He also had good and meaningful activities, not to mention he was fluent in Latin, which he spoke for half the interview session, according to him. So yeah...Ivy students be ballin'. Ivies love their own.

On the other hand, California and even students have their own problems. Along with a tremendous applicant pool, comes the very privileged who are able to snag an acceptance at their state school. Interestingly, outside of Ivy League undergrads, Californians and New Yorkers matriculate in significant numbers to top schools every year.

 

[red doctober]

There are also a ton of state schools compared to the 8 of the Ivy League. Not all state schools should be considered "equal," but yet they are all grouped into the same statistic in this case. What do you think the comparison would be between Cal-Berkley and tiny, unknown state school in the Midwest? Yet here they are grouped together. This article sounds like a case where they manipulate statistics to mislead readers.

 

[aspiring20]

There are also a ton of state schools compared to the 8 of the Ivy League. Not all state schools should be considered "equal," but yet they are all grouped into the same statistic in this case. What do you think the comparison would be between Cal-Berkley and tiny, unknown state school in the Midwest? Yet here they are grouped together. This article sounds like a case where they manipulate statistics to mislead readers.

i definitely see your point.

 

[Parklife]

You don't go to an Ivy? Why are you wasting money on college? Don't you know you're just going to drown in debt only to take up a 40k paying job? Please go flip my hamburgers. You are a key member of society.

Ha, non-Ivy...what a joke

 

[pasiley]

This is an extremely small sample from people I know. So this could all mean nothing.

Ivy League will help you and might even give you a little grade forgiveness. I have heard the adcom at my state school say they give ivy leaguers with lower GPAs a break. Most Ivy Leaguers will have decent MCAT scores. The Ivy's also do a lot of weeding out. Being a pre-med all through an Ivy is impressive but there are ways to avoid the weeding process and make the most of your situation. I know a few people who were not Pre-med at an Ivy and majored in something unrelated. After graduation, they took pre-med courses at schools ranked in the 200s, got 4.0 and received crazy number of interview invites. They had the name to fall back on without having to go through the cutthroat mess as an ivy pre-med.

Top 25-100 may help a little but not to the extent you think it will. Most will also have decent MCAT scores. Plenty of competition but what's the point of going to a harder school when adcoms thing a 3.7 GPA from a top 50 is the same as one from a school that doesn't even require a SAT score.

Anything below 100, a lot of people tend to have high GPAs but low MCAT scores. There are always exceptions but I cringe when I see someone from a lower tier school with a 4.0 and 28 MCAT.

Again,This is an extremely small sample from people I know. So this could all mean nothing.

 

[Fivo]

Kids coming out of high school or community college in California have two choices for state schools (Cal States and UCs). On average, the better students from each tend to go to the UC's while the lower-achieving students go to the cal states. Of course money is a factor with some, but overall the better students will go to a UC and hence the UC system will have a higher probability of success.

 

[aspiring20]

This is an extremely small sample from people I know. So this could all mean nothing.

Ivy League will help you and might even give you a little grade forgiveness. I have heard the adcom at my state school say they give ivy leaguers with lower GPAs a break. Most Ivy Leaguers will have decent MCAT scores. The Ivy's also do a lot of weeding out. Being a pre-med all through an Ivy is impressive but there are ways to avoid the weeding process and make the most of your situation. I know of more than a few people who were not Pre-med at an Ivy and majored in something unrelated. After graduation, they took pre-med courses at schools ranked in the 200s, got 4.0 and received crazy number of interview invites. They had the name to fall back on without having to go through the cutthroat mess as an ivy pre-med.

Top 25-100 may help a little but not to the extent you think it will. Most will also have decent MCAT scores. Plenty of competition but what's the point of going to a harder school when adcoms thing a 3.7 GPA from a top 50 is the same as one from a school that doesn't even require a SAT score.

Anything below 100, a lot of people tend to have high GPAs but low MCAT scores. There are always exceptions but I cringe when I see someone from a lower tier school with a 4.0 and 28 MCAT.

Again,This is an extremely small sample from people I know. So this could all mean nothing.

thanks a lot for this info. i went to a pretty competitive private univ (non-ivy), and my science GPA is definitely pretty low (though not game breaking). I am planning on doing an informal post bacc - which involved me taking individual science courses at my local state university. do you think this is a good idea? from your example with the ivy grads taking courses at schools ranked outside the 200s, it seems so. my stat school isnt prestigious by any means, but it is a top 100 school. thanks again

 

[aspiring20]

Kids coming out of high school or community college in California have two choices for state schools (Cal States and UCs). On average, the better students from each tend to go to the UC's while the lower-achieving students go to the cal states. Of course money is a factor with some, but overall the better students will go to a UC and hence the UC system will have a higher probability of success.

definitely agree. but i'll have to say that the Cal States are very solid four-year institutes. i believe most are ranked within 100?

 

[dmf2682]

Any chance you can link to the article, op?

 

[aspiring20]

Any chance you can link to the article, op?

sorry. my dad told me about the article (didnt show me) and the only thing he remembered clearly is the stats i included.

 

[red doctober]

definitely agree. but i'll have to say that the Cal States are very solid four-year institutes. i believe most are ranked within 100?

I doubt this. I bet all the UC's are in the top 100. I really don't think any of the Cal States are, but who really cares about rankings once you get to a certain point (25+)?

 

[La Presse]

If it makes a difference, I almost went to a public ivy. UVM.

 

[aspiring20]

If it makes a difference, I almost went to a public ivy. UVM.

i apologize for my ignorance, but what school does UVM stand for? did you mean UWM? wisconsin-madison?

 

[pasiley]

thanks a lot for this info. i went to a pretty competitive private univ (non-ivy), and my science GPA is definitely pretty low (though not game breaking). I am planning on doing an informal post bacc - which involved me taking individual science courses at my local state university. do you think this is a good idea? from your example with the ivy grads taking courses at schools ranked outside the 200s, it seems so. my stat school isnt prestigious by any means, but it is a top 100 school. thanks again

I should be the last person giving advice seeing as I haven't been accepted. The reason my friends took the courses at the schools they did was more for financial reasons and the fact they had to move back home and that was their only choice in the area. Once you graduate, financial aid is very hard to get and your school choices become limited by geography. I think if they had the choice, they would have gone to a top 100 but it clearly worked out well for them at unranked schools.

 

[dmf2682]

sorry. my dad told me about the article (didnt show me) and the only thing he remembered clearly is the stats i included.

I'm trying to cut back on being snarky online, so I'll just point out that a secondhand recollection of statistics in an article doesn't strike me as being particularly credible. It's not that I don't believe you, but I'd think that any article that mentions statistics like those should have an accompanying analysis.

 

[FattySlug]

If your goal is just to get in medical school then the name of your undergrad is unlikely to hurt you in that regard as long as it has a decent amount of research going on. If you are good enough to get it then you will.

Generally the better student tend to go to Ivy so it's no surprise more of them get accepted. This is more about the quality of students not the schools.

 

[alerk323]

i apologize for my ignorance, but what school does UVM stand for? did you mean UWM? wisconsin-madison?

uvm is university of Vermont. Not sure where this "public ivy" designation came from...

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

i apologize for my ignorance, but what school does UVM stand for? did you mean UWM? wisconsin-madison?

University of Vermont?...

uvm is university of Vermont. Not sure where this "public ivy" designation came from...

It's a designation that started in the 80s. It used to include 8 public state funded schools that basically were extremely well known for producing adequately trained graduates and funding research that could parallel the private ivy schools. Now it has been expanded to include 30 schools, pretty much the top 30 public research, state, etc. universities in the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy

 

[alerk323]

http://www.uvm.edu/

unless there's another uvm? I dunno what's going on...

 

[pasiley]

thanks a lot for this info. i went to a pretty competitive private univ (non-ivy), and my science GPA is definitely pretty low (though not game breaking). I am planning on doing an informal post bacc - which involved me taking individual science courses at my local state university. do you think this is a good idea? from your example with the ivy grads taking courses at schools ranked outside the 200s, it seems so. my stat school isnt prestigious by any means, but it is a top 100 school. thanks again

I do have one piece of advice. Be careful with state schools. My State has different acceptance criteria for different majors. The average science major in our school has an average SAT score over the 95th percentile. The overall student body is just 80-85th percentile but look at the school carefully and see who will actually be your competition in science classes.

 

[username456789]

And finally, some schools are particularly harsh with their pre-meds, only allowing the best to apply, strongly discouraging or even prohibiting students with less than stellar numbers to apply.

This is actually the most important of the variables, and it's surprising it's discussed so little on here. Most private schools/LACs/ivies have a system in place that essentially strongly discourages people who won't be slam dunk acceptances from even applying, so as to avoid tainting their precious statistics.

 

[alerk323]

This is actually the most important of the variables, and it's surprising it's discussed so little on here. Most private schools/LACs/ivies have a system in place that essentially strongly discourages people who won't be slam dunk acceptances from even applying, so as to avoid tainting their precious statistics.

My school doesn't have an official policy but pre-med advisers are exceptionally mean to those who fall below the 3.5 cutoff...

 

[Nigy]

My college boasts a ~90% success rate for its "qualified" med school applicants. "Qualified" applicants reach some cut-off in terms of stats and readiness and they're the ones who get the laudatory committee letter. I'm sure the overall percentage is much lower. Perhaps the ivies aren't publishing their true statistics, just like this 90% isn't entirely true.

 

[Praefectus]

This is actually the most important of the variables, and it's surprising it's discussed so little on here. Most private schools/LACs/ivies have a system in place that essentially strongly discourages people who won't be slam dunk acceptances from even applying, so as to avoid tainting their precious statistics.

👍 I couldn't imagine taking Organic at an Ivy.

 

[45408]

sorry. my dad told me about the article (didnt show me) and the only thing he remembered clearly is the stats i included.

I don't believe those statistics, at least on a large scale. Some schools will only provide a committee letter to certain students, so they can restrict the number of applicants coming from their school, and they can make sure that they all have an above-average chance of being accepted. Add to that the fact that these are all students who were good enough to get into a highly selective school, and of course the acceptance rates will be good.

The school rarely makes or breaks your application. It's up to you to do well.

 

[Underarchiever]

Actually, it is common sense. If everything is equal, IVY leaguers will have an edge. Furthermore, many references from big IVY or other top science schools are quite well known and are leaders in their fields. It is difficult for adcom to resist the candidate if he or she has done things right. That said, it does not mean that adcom would not seriously consider a good Cal Sate candidate.

 

[DietSexy5000]

In my experience at an Ivy league undergrad, the acceptance rate for kids looking to go to ANY US MEDICAL SCHOOL is definitely >95%. The office on campus responsible for these things likes to publish that statistic to high school students. The more telling percent, at least in this thread, is the US MD acceptance rate. In this past year (they just sent an email to all the people graduating class of 2013 and applying this cycle), my school had 91% accepted to US MD programs. This difference, again in my opinion, is that students here are well connected on their own (professors love to reach out to their cronies at other institutions to give an inside edge) and their parents know people. That and the students are relatively wealthy. I think these things play equally as important a role as the aforementioned "kids at these schools are motivated and intelligent". Both are essential aspects of the higher than average acceptance rates.

That being said, the national average is an average for that reason. Most schools will likely lie within a few points of that.

 

[Chrome19]

. There are always exceptions but I cringe when I see someone from a lower tier school with a 4.0 and 28 MCAT.

Again,This is an extremely small sample from people I know. So this could all mean nothing.

What if the MCAT is a 7VR, 10 BS 11 PS? It happens. The MCAT isn't everything, and I think it's largely useless for medical school. I scored in the 90th percentile and some of my peers who scored below 28 don't have any problems grasping medical school material as the MCAT test makers may want you to believe. The MCAT is just a weed-out test.

I think wealth and class have a lot to do with who gets in ivy league schools and also medical school. The average household income of parents of medical students is >$100,000.

 

[Josh7]

It's a designation that started in the 80s. It used to include 8 public state funded schools that basically were extremely well known for producing adequately trained graduates and funding research that could parallel the private ivy schools. Now it has been expanded to include 30 schools, pretty much the top 30 public research, state, etc. universities in the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy

Haha public ivy sounds so sad, the fact that people have to have a justification for going to a public university instead of private university is somewhat depressing.