Undergraduate College

[bartlett10katie]

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Hello! Does where you get your undergrad degree effect your chances of getting into medical school?
I really love University of North Carolina at Greensboro but I’m worried about the fact that the school is a fairly small liberal arts college that does not have an official pre-med program.
Will the degree be look at the same as one from a school that has their own med school and are considered to have good pre-med programs. I’ve been looking at Johns Hopkins and UNC Chapel Hill but I would greatly prefer UNCG.
Thank you in advance


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[JMilo]

Go wherever you want. Grades matter much more than where you get them.

 

[Dr. Scribe]

Honestly, UG matters when applying to the Top 20 but not for your state schools and low tier privates. You can still become a MD regardless of your UG but don’t expect to get into an Ivy.

 

[Dwight Snoot]

My opinion is that if you go to Hopkins for undergrad, and do well in school, you will have a better chance of getting into medical school than if you went to a small lesser known undergrad. However, you should have no problem getting into medical school coming from UNCG. In my experience, coming from a low/mid tier state school, I found that what undergrad you attend matters more than I originally thought. If your goal is to get into the best medical school you possibly can, I would try to go to a top-tier undergrad. If your goal is simply to get into a solid medical school, and enjoy your undergrad, I would go to the school that you would be most happy attending (this would be my advice).

 

[21Rush12]

Odds first post are high...

This is a hSDN question for sure, but anecdotally I went to a UNC as well and I’m now in second year. No problem.

 

[calivianya]

I went to UNCG myself, and I have a DO acceptance. The G is the bomb... I wish they did have a med school so I could have stayed there. Love that place. 😍

 

[Dr. Scribe]

I have had 3 nontrad advisees in the past couple of years who had UG degrees from stat schools but got into Ivy med schools. Certainly lower odds in doing so but still possible. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, GPA matters at least 1-2 magnitudes higher in importance. Selecting a UG school because of a perceived boost in possible medical school acceptance should be, at best, a very minor consideration if thought about at all

Which state schools? The flagship state college is probably good enough for Ivy depending on which state you are from

 

[ndafife]

UNCG has like 19k students? Maybe I'm crazy but when I think of "fairly small liberal arts college," I think of an enrollment of 5k or under.

But to say something relevant, you can get into medical school from anywhere. Top 20 care more about where you went to undergrad, but that is just one factor in the full scope of an application. Go where you will be happy and able to succeed in undergrad

 

[Microbug]

I would assume JH and UNC would have better research and clinical opportunities.

 

[aldol16]

This topic has been beaten to death on these forums without any good definitive answer, because there isn't good definitive data out there for every school. Going to a good school will give you more opportunities, which translates into greater success. But the name of the school itself? That really only matters if you go to a tippity top school like HYPSM where the name might give you a tiny boost at top medical schools where your stats and app are already stellar. It's not good practice to make plans based on the assumption of your future stats/app being stellar though.

 

[Dr. Scribe]

This topic has been beaten to death on these forums without any good definitive answer, because there isn't good definitive data out there for every school. Going to a good school will give you more opportunities, which translates into greater success. But the name of the school itself? That really only matters if you go to a tippity top school like HYPSM where the name might give you a tiny boost at top medical schools where your stats and app are already stellar. It's not good practice to make plans based on the assumption of your future stats/app being stellar though.

N=1 but I have a friend who went to our flagship state college and got a 4.0 as a biochem major with a 37 mcat (Pre-2015 format change) and had great ECs with research, TAing, volunteer work, and EMT work....no love at all from Ivy League schools....

 

[ObjectiveBoba]

N=1 but I have a friend who went to our flagship state college and got a 4.0 as a biochem major with a 37 mcat (Pre-2015 format change) and had great ECs with research, TAing, volunteer work, and EMT work....no love at all from Ivy League schools....

I am sure the many adcoms on SDN can give you a better answer, and even then each may have differing opinions.

In my opinion, it's more of a chicken and egg question. Are students who attend "prestigious" undergraduate institutions the main drivers for their own success (e.g. they pursue research, volunteering, etc. more than students from less "prestigious" universities)? Or does the name of their undergraduate institution play a role? Given that even comparing schools like UC Berkeley (50-55%) to schools of Princeton's tier (80-90%), both with student bodies that presumably have similar work ethic, there is already a huge spread of accepted percentage of students to medical school. Therefore, I find it likely that both these factors play a role in applying to medical school. Furthermore, I find it terribly unlikely that each and every Princeton pre-medical student enters a highly ranked private medical school, so name may play a role at lower ranked private schools as well.

In other words, a top undergraduate institution probably does influence medical school applications. But as other posters have mentioned, going to a great undergraduate does not excuse low grades/lack of ECs. If you don't attend a top 10-20 undergraduate, I don't think name of the undergraduate institution would play any factor.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

I literally stewed over this for months. The first time this came up was in a room of 500 premed high schoolers and the speaker was adamant that is mattered greatly. The next day, in a small panel discussion, the three medical students agreed that it did not matter. By the time the week was over, it felt like every possible opinion on this had been given. I don't believe there is an answer.

In my case, I researched the undergraduate institution for medical students attending each of the schools in my state. I didn't look at acceptance rates, which I probably should have done, but at absolute numbers. I chose my school because it had multiple acceptances at all of the medical schools in my state. So far my choice has worked out well in terms of opportunities. I'd say that the most important factors when choosing a school are your ability to get good grades at that school and the number of research and volunteer opportunities. I know me, and I would not have been able to get as good of a GPA at a prestigious school. I didn't choose the most prestigious school from my acceptances; I chose where I thought I could thrive.

 

[DokterMom]

Comparing the three specific schools you mentioned:

• Hopkins will earn you some street cred for medical school admissions, but only if you are able to maintain a top GPA there -- which will be surprisingly difficult to do because they're notorious grade deflators and have thousands of wannabe pre-meds all conflating JHU undergrad and JHU medical school. I'd have a hard time recommending the school for undergrad for those reasons. (There are more prestigious schools that will help your chances with their prestige bumps more than they hurt your chances by torpedoing your GPA.)
  
• UNC Chapel Hill is a very well respected State U. UNC's very top grads will be competitive for top medical schools. UNC's strong performers will be competitive for most other med schools. But it's also a really big school and you will have to search out opportunities and compete for them.
  
• UNCG is also a well respected State U. UNCG's strong performers will be competitive for most med schools. And furthermore, if the environment at UNCG helps you thrive, you are likely to perform well and get strong letters of recommendation from professors who actually know you. If you'd perform better in a more nurturing environment, you may find it here.

 

[begoood95]

Anecdote: I go to a non-flagship state school in the midwest, and I got love from all the "top" schools. However, at my interviews, there were not many non-Ivy league students; most were from HYSP-type institutions. So it's not impossible to get into top medical schools from a non-top undergraduate school, but I'd bet that it is harder—and this likely has to do with research and institutional focuses at these schools in comparison to other state universities.

 

[21Rush12]

Wait a minute...doesn’t North Carolina have a state school that’s at the beach?

 

[donutzebra]

Generally, small liberal arts colleges (I graduated from one) mean smaller class sizes, which means the professors are more likely to get to know you and be able to write strong letters of recommendation. Also consider the flip side though; this means skipping classes or falling asleep in classes (I'm guilty) will be much more noticeable.

Also, you don't need to "major in pre-med" or anything like that, but it would be really helpful if your undergraduate school has good pre-medical advising. Most first-year pre-meds don't really know much about how to prepare for medical school and become a competitive applicant, so good pre-med advisors can really make a difference.

 

[Dr. Scribe]

Lol @ “good pre-med advisors”

That’s an oxymoron, like ‘jumbo shrimp’

 

[donutzebra]

Lol @ “good pre-med advisors”

That’s an oxymoron, like ‘jumbo shrimp’

That's another thing, OP. A lot of pre-med advisors out there truly are horrible. I'd suggest talking to upperclassmen pre-meds for their opinions about your school's pre-med advising and whether or not they're trustworthy.

Even the good pre-med advisors sometimes get things wrong. I really liked my school's pre-med advising, but they occasionally told me things that I thought was inaccurate. For instance, they told me that most schools don't care about shadowing and that reapplicants are not at a disadvantage at all.

Something funny you'll notice is that SDN and pre-med advisors generally hate each other. Both sides will tell you that the other does not know what they're doing. In any case, if you're told something from anyone about the medical school application process that you find suspect, I'd get second opinions from people who have been accepted to medical schools, current medical students, admissions committee members, medical schools themselves, etc. That's where you'll most likely find the most accurate information. Good luck!

 

[HomeSkool]

Wait a minute...doesn’t North Carolina have a state school that’s at the beach?

UNC-Wilmington.

 

[seren1051]

rest attending no-name schools like Penn, WashU, Cornell, and Stanford

wat

But I'll also agree. Another n=1, but all of my T25 interviews were packed with people coming over from big name schools. Interestingly, I've seen plenty of these people at non-T25 school interviews as well.

 

[liquidcrawler]

wat

Whoosh.

 

[seren1051]

Whoosh.

where's that dislike button??? madness