The Med School Secondary Fee Racket

[jj6vcb]

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Basic economics at work here...

Except you're treating the applicants as suppliers while they are actually consumers of secondaries. Yes there are other factors involved, but there should be an inverse relationship between fee and applications if you control for those other factors.

You would be hard pressed to convince me that those schools like GW are not simply operating at the profit max (total apps * app cost) point of their pricing curve.

 

[boaz]

I bet that a lot of schools that charge a low fee and receive a small number of applicants are those that have a strong preference for in-state applicants.

It is interesting that the schools with the highest fees attract the largest number of applications. If applicants were price sensitive, you'd expect fewer applications at the schools with higher application fees. Something else is going on here to drive consumer behavior. I wonder what it is.

I'm thinking that there's nothing inherently great about the schools that have such large numbers of applications. It simply reflects the statistics: MCAT and GPA for these schools are largely in the average range, which is where there is the largest concentration of applicants. The closer the applicant's numbers to the school's, the higher value he/she places on that secondary application. If I have a 29, 3.50 I would place a much lower value on Harvard's secondary than on NYMC's.

Except you're treating the applicants as suppliers while they are actually consumers of secondaries. Yes there are other factors involved, but there should be an inverse relationship between fee and applications if you control for those other factors.

You would be hard pressed to convince me that those schools like GW are not simply operating at the profit max (total apps * app cost) point of their pricing curve.

I don't know much economics/business. I was just trying to show how the high demand (applicants being consumers) is correlated with high prices and that there's something significant other than price that is influencing demand.

 

[CCLCMer]

If you guys really want to go to med school, get used to forking over big bucks for pointless expenses now. Last year, I had to pay $1100 just in REGISTRATION FEES to take Step 2 CS, which is the most pointless exam imaginable for American medical students. (Its original function was basically to make sure that foreign grads could speak English.) Seriously, what you're spending now to get into med school is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they're going to get out of you later. And sadly, what med students pay for med school is a "bargain" compared to what it actually costs to educate a physician. However you look at it, this gig is not for the financially faint of heart.

 

[amine2086]

If you guys really want to go to med school, get used to forking over big bucks for pointless expenses now. Last year, I had to pay $1100 just in REGISTRATION FEES to take Step 2 CS, which is the most pointless exam imaginable for American medical students. (Its original function was basically to make sure that foreign grads could speak English.) Seriously, what you're spending now to get into med school is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they're going to get out of you later. And sadly, what med students pay for med school is a "bargain" compared to what it actually costs to educate a physician. However you look at it, this gig is not for the financially faint of heart.

I think that is the most useless test there is. I do not think anyone would make it through medical school admission process and medical school if they can not speak English. If they want to make sure foreign graduates can speak English, why don't they just make them take the TOEFL.