Undergrad choice?

[Unshuretain]

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[Mwooster]

Hi all!

I'm currently a high school senior, and I was just wondering what I should be considering if I'm thinking about pursuing a MD/PhD or MSTP. I've seen a lot of "choose the undergrad that you'll graduate with the least debt and will fit your personality," but isn't choosing an undergrad a bit more complicated compared to choosing a school as a regular prospective MD? In terms of debt...at least for my undergraduate years, I won't have to worry so much about that (financial aid <3).

Regarding the "complicated" side of things, I've seen that research is much more important for MD/PhD and MSTP applicants. That being said, I've considered schools where getting research experience is very easy to obtain (just accepted into Caltech <3) and whatnot. However, in your guys' opinions, which schools have the best "balance" in terms of research experience availability, extracurricular variety, supportive premed advising, etc.? For example, Caltech might be awesome for research, but from what I've read, maintaining a competitive GPA might be a bit difficult, so I might consider it a less "balanced" choice. If it helps... I did OChem at my state school last semester and got an A in the class, so in terms of GPA at "that level," I'm not insanely worried...but Caltech tho', haha...

Thank you for your time!

Congrats on your CalTech acceptance

Pretty much any school in the Top 20 have great research opportunities, especially those such as Harvard and Hopkins that have great medical schools/schools of public health to conduct research.

Trying to save $ is perfectly fine too. Even if you don't go to those schools, go to your state university and get accepted into the honors program and do research there and then over the summer at NIH or elsewhere, such as summer internships at Top 10-20 institutions

 

[Lucca]

Read this thread, it should answer all of your questions:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/elite-school-bias.1169892/

tl ; dr : School name is not as important as the rest of your package but certain schools are heads and shoulders above the rest in terms of sending students to MSTPs. Notably, school prestige seems to be more important to MSTPs than MD only programs
(Rank in terms of # of students sent to MSTPs) .....University......Number of students sent to MSTPs in 2015.
1 Harvard University ................................... 25
2 University of California-Los Angeles ....... 20
3 Cornell University .................................... 19
3 Yale University ......................................... 19
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ... 18
6 University of California-Berkeley ............. 17
7 Washington University in St. Louis ......... 16
8 Columbia University ................................. 13
8 Johns Hopkins University ....................... 13
8 University of Florida ................................ 13 ....... 173 .............. 28% of the class in the Top 10 UG Colleges (by volume)
11 Stanford University ................................. 12
12 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor ........ 11
12 University of Pennsylvania .................... 11
14 University of Chicago .............................. 10
14 University of Washington ....................... 10 ........ 227 ............. 36% of the class in the Top 15 UG Colleges (by volume)
16 Duke University ...................................... 9
16 Princeton University ............................... 9
18 Northwestern University-Evanston ........ 8
18 University of Pittsburgh ......................... 8 ......... 261 ............. 42% of the class in the Top 19 UG Colleges (by volume)
20 University of California-San Diego ............ 7
20 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.. 7
20 University of Maryland-College Park ............ 7
20 University of Wisconsin-Madison ................ 7 .......... 289 ............ 46% of the class in the Top 23 UG Colleges (by volume)


More general advice: It is way too early for you to decide if MD/PhD is for you. I don't care if you have been doing research for four years in high school, you will change in college. Your priorities, your career goals, your personality, what you know, what you like - some of it or all of it will change. Leave room for that change and don't tunnel-vision any particular path. That being said, it's great that you are considering the dual degree and research and I would say Cal Tech is among the best if not the best place to go to undergrad in order to become a scientist. Other schools to consider would be MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale (that order is my personal preference, they are largely interchangeable in terms of prestige and research opportunities). If you are the type of student that gets into CalTech you will rise to the challenge of competition but it will not be easy at CalTech. It's not a cutthroat competitive environment from what my one (read n=1) friend at CT has told me but it is very, very hard to have an excellent academic record coming from there and your record will need to be nothing less than excellent (3.6+ at least, 3.8+ ideally).

My personal advice: Go to the best school that accepts you that you feel comfortable paying for. Go somewhere where you can get an education (one not solely predicated on professional school that emphasizes more than getting a job but can provide more substance than a latinate piece of paper).

 

[efle]

Pretty much all the top 20 will have research, plenty of ECs and good prehealth. Caltech, MIT, Chicago, Hopkins and Cal are much tougher on the GPA than others though. If someone had their pick I'd say HYS, Brown, Duke all excellent.

School fit should be the biggest factor between such schools though. Most people have a strong preference between a school sized like Caltech vs Cornell, with sports culture or without (say Duke vs WashU), in a city like Boston versus rural like Dartmouth, and so on.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Prestige (with resources) + grade inflation = ideal situation

Others may disagree with the above formula, but if you continue on the pre-med pathway, you'll need a competitive gpa (ideally a 3.7+). I'm not saying such a gpa is not attainable at Caltech, but it'll be an uphill battle unless you're a superstar.

 

[justadream]

IMO, top 3 are probably Harvard/Stanford/Yale

All have decent prestige, decent resources for research support, and relatively friendly grading systems*.

*No, it's not even close to guaranteed A at these schools but it's probably easier than doing so at say MIT/Caltech/UChicago.

 

[Reckoner]

More general advice: It is way too early for you to decide if MD/PhD is for you. I don't care if you have been doing research for four years in high school, you will change in college. Your priorities, your career goals, your personality, what you know, what you like - some of it or all of it will change. Leave room for that change and don't tunnel-vision any particular path.

👍👍👍

I didn't even know these programs existed until my junior year of college

Anyway OP, sounds like you'll be deciding between schools with plenty of great researchers, so no need to worry about that. Your main concern now should be finding the place with the best combination of lenient grading policies, good weather, and attractive men/women. Stanford sounds pretty good to me

 

[7331poas]

You don't even need to go to a top 20 school. I go to a non flagship state school and we have great research opportunities in the department.

The real determining factor is what PI you work under and at what stage in his career is he. One of our professors is really new and he is on pace for 8 pubs this academic year.

 

[Lucca]

You don't even need to go to a top 20 school. I go to a non flagship state school and we have great research opportunities in the department.

The real determining factor is what PI you work under and at what stage in his career is he. One of our professors is really new and he is on pace for 8 pubs this academic year.

Also not true. The real determining factor is your own personal research record and the content of your PI letters + numbers. No one will be impressed with your PI or even your first author pubs if you can't give a chalk talk or even a 10 min research talk.

 

[7331poas]

Also not true. The real determining factor is your own personal research record and the content of your PI letters + numbers. No one will be impressed with your PI or even your first author pubs if you can't give a chalk talk or even a 10 min research talk.

Well of course thats true. But a new PI interested in pushing out publications may be more inclined to allow you to participate in that process. Your ability to give a chalk talk has no bearing on whether you went to a top 20 school or not.

 

[DokterMom]

If you go to a school like CalTech or MIT, you will get some slack in the GPA division just because the extreme competitiveness and difficulty (and lack of grade inflation) of those is well-known. But overall, @Cyberdyne 101 nailed it --

Prestige (with resources) + grade inflation = ideal situation