Is it better to go to a lesser school if you are went to be premed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are choosing between Harvard and Emory, definitely go with Harvard.

Op here. I’m thinking schools like Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, UPenn vs Boston University, Emory, Georgetown.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell are supposedly great for premed but I know so many guys who went there and did not make it to medical school. Have heard Columbia is cutthroat.

My kid really liked BU’s campus.

The second tier schools you listed are not easier. Emory for example has a 68% premed to medical school acceptance rate. Georgetown has a small cohort of premeds. Premed is premed, it's hard. Many guys who went to Emory also did not make it.

If Emory is second tier, so is Cornell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doubt there are more than 1 or 2 NESCACs that do better than Holy Cross. Enlighten us please on which NESCAC has a grad with a Nobel for medicine or a grad as prominent as Dr. Fauci.

Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Williams all likely exceed Holy Cross. Williams and Middlebury are 90=% for at least 5 years running and the other two are only a couple of points behind.

I have huge amounts of respect for Fauci but a pointing out a career civil servant really isn't useful in the conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are choosing between Harvard and Emory, definitely go with Harvard.

Op here. I’m thinking schools like Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, UPenn vs Boston University, Emory, Georgetown.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell are supposedly great for premed but I know so many guys who went there and did not make it to medical school. Have heard Columbia is cutthroat.

My kid really liked BU’s campus.

The second tier schools you listed are not easier. Emory for example has a 68% premed to medical school acceptance rate. Georgetown has a small cohort of premeds. Premed is premed, it's hard. Many guys who went to Emory also did not make it.

If Emory is second tier, so is Cornell

[Anonymous]

A lot of freshmen think they want pre-med. But ultimately change concentrations for various reasons. These are 18 year old kids. They shouldn't know what they really want to do. They're just listening to their parents at that age.

I personally think you should choose a school that is solid all around. A lot of things change between ages 18-22. And it's good to have a plan B for majors and ambitions and be in an environment where you can make those changes.

So I'd encourage going to the top all around school if the fit is good. You want to maintain optionality in case an 18 year old changes their mind about med school.

And regardless, med schools are very well aware of grading differences at selective schools. They adjust accordingly. Your student at MIT or Rice or Princeton and other difficult schools is going to have an easier time with med school admissions than a 4.0 from Podunk U.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a pre-med kid at UVA and a second one at an Ivy. The medical school matriculations from the two are very different. UVA sends primarily to state schools, Ivy sends many to top10 med schools. UVA kids almost all take gap years, the Ivy kids generally do not.

We're both in medicine and realize that an MD is an MD. But it's nice that places like Yale and Penn medicine are in the conversation from the Ivy undergrad.

Yes! Was just talking to a colleague about this. We are a med-law couple. Ours are at different T10s, one is an ivy one not.
He is an MD-professor couple. They have one at UVA and one at a top-10 with a very high ranked med school(not an ivy) and it has been a large difference. That being said, he noted the UVA kid would not have had an easy path to be above-average at the elite school, they pushed UVA ED for that reason plus kid liked it best.
Their elite kid was above-average 3.81 GPA at the elite, 518 MCAT, but not top-quarter GPA or MCAT from that school, and was disappointed to not get into T10 med but they got into two in the T20, one with 50% merit scholarship. They have friends going to T10 who had higher GPA. All had intense 2+ yrs research during undergrad and many were co-authors on papers which seems to be how premeds roll at our kids' schools. The only one who took a gap did it for some funded named Fellowship in Asia.
Their UVA kid has a very high GPA at UVA, 3.9x after first -year, and got into a lab for the fall of their sophomore year which apparently is hard to get as a sophomore. The UVA data has almost all state schools and very rare T20 and up however the MCAT score distribution for UVA grads is likely quite different than the elite, just as SAT distribution is quite different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of freshmen think they want pre-med. But ultimately change concentrations for various reasons. These are 18 year old kids. They shouldn't know what they really want to do. They're just listening to their parents at that age.

I personally think you should choose a school that is solid all around. A lot of things change between ages 18-22. And it's good to have a plan B for majors and ambitions and be in an environment where you can make those changes.

So I'd encourage going to the top all around school if the fit is good. You want to maintain optionality in case an 18 year old changes their mind about med school.

And regardless, med schools are very well aware of grading differences at selective schools. They adjust accordingly. Your student at MIT or Rice or Princeton and other difficult schools is going to have an easier time with med school admissions than a 4.0 from Podunk U.

100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are choosing between Harvard and Emory, definitely go with Harvard.

Op here. I’m thinking schools like Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, UPenn vs Boston University, Emory, Georgetown.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell are supposedly great for premed but I know so many guys who went there and did not make it to medical school. Have heard Columbia is cutthroat.

My kid really liked BU’s campus.

The second tier schools you listed are not easier. Emory for example has a 68% premed to medical school acceptance rate. Georgetown has a small cohort of premeds. Premed is premed, it's hard. Many guys who went to Emory also did not make it.

If Emory is second tier, so is Cornell

The Tier system is done by the medical admissions and last time I saw a list from a T5 med school, Emory was 2 and Cornell was 1. That was 2021. Doubt it has changed much.

[Anonymous]

NP: how about Penn vs Williams for premed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are choosing between Harvard and Emory, definitely go with Harvard.

Op here. I’m thinking schools like Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, UPenn vs Boston University, Emory, Georgetown.

Johns Hopkins and Cornell are supposedly great for premed but I know so many guys who went there and did not make it to medical school. Have heard Columbia is cutthroat.

My kid really liked BU’s campus.

The second tier schools you listed are not easier. Emory for example has a 68% premed to medical school acceptance rate. Georgetown has a small cohort of premeds. Premed is premed, it's hard. Many guys who went to Emory also did not make it.

If Emory is second tier, so is Cornell

The Tier system is done by the medical admissions and last time I saw a list from a T5 med school, Emory was 2 and Cornell was 1. That was 2021. Doubt it has changed much.

Doubt that you are telling the truth but you be you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your student at MIT or Rice or Princeton and other difficult schools is going to have an easier time with med school admissions than a 4.0 from Podunk U.

Sure thing…Whatever you need to believe to make yourself feel better when you write those tuition checks for a premed undergrad degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the two previous posters above, can you please name the Ivy? I'm thinking there are varying experiences at, say, Brown v. Princeton or Cornell v. Harvard. It would be helpful for me to know. Thanks.

I have two at different ivies and many fellow physicians with students at ivies/T10--together we cover all ivies except brown and cornell. They all have excellent outcomes, as do Duke, Hopkins, etc. Why are they all roughly the same? They are "Tier 1" per med admissions committees, meaning they have the most rigorous peer groups to compete against. MIT might be slightly harder as far as peer group, and can get an extra slight boost above Tier 1, as does studying engineering at a Tier 1, but all the rest are basically the same as far as peer group. Test required data that is out so far indicates ivies are indeed basically the same as they were pre-pandemic: 25-75th%ile is close to 1470-1580, median is around 1520-1530 with minor variation among ivies. Duke and Hopkins are in the same range.

Top LACS like WASP were(and probably are again) generally 1420-1530 for the 25-75th%ile, with a median around 1470;
UVA and William and Mary were 1330-1490 for the 25-75th%ile, ie the top quarter overlap with the TOP HALF at WASP/TopSLACs, and that same top quarter at UVA/WM overlaps with the topTHREE Quarters at ivies/Stanford/Hopkins/Duke.

Med admissions are quite well aware of these peer facts, they get GPA distribution from each undergrad school (and MCAT distribution) and judge the GPA accordingly: A below-average 25th%ile GPA from an ivy is basically treated the same as a 75th%ile GPA from UVA. It is not OVERALL GPA it is BCPM or stem GPA that is scrutinized.
It is true. That is how it worked 22 years ago when I served on my T5 admissions committee, and it is how my med-school friends who currently serve on it explain it now. It is how my colleague has said his T40ish med school works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP: how about Penn vs Williams for premed?

Both great but Penn has the clear edge here.
Penn has a medical school right on campus and the peer group makes it Tier 1, in other words slightly lower GPA is ok. Williams is usually considered Tier2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your student at MIT or Rice or Princeton and other difficult schools is going to have an easier time with med school admissions than a 4.0 from Podunk U.

Sure thing…Whatever you need to believe to make yourself feel better when you write those tuition checks for a premed undergrad degree.

PP is correct.
Not only is medical admissions easier but the chance at getting merit aid to attend medical school (usually top ones at that) is greater from top schools.

[Anonymous]

Would put Amherst ahead of Holy Cross but that college transitions data is flawed imo. Its data does not include 1 Jesuit medical school such as Georgetown, St. Louis, Loyola, Creighton and that’s where Holy Cross cleans up on other NESCACs. Again where are the Nobel Laureates in medicine from Bowdoin and Middlebury?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would put Amherst ahead of Holy Cross but that college transitions data is flawed imo. Its data does not include 1 Jesuit medical school such as Georgetown, St. Louis, Loyola, Creighton and that’s where Holy Cross cleans up on other NESCACs. Again where are the Nobel Laureates in medicine from Bowdoin and Middlebury?

I have no idea what you are talking about re:college transitions data and I’m not sure how HC cleans up on NESCACs among the Jesuit schools given that no NESCAC member is a Jesuit school.

Again I’m pretty sure that a Nobel isn’t a good metric for premed success. It’s irrelevant for premed and if one is a Nobel Laureate in medicine the training that won them the prize came from their Med/Phd program, not their undergraduate school. You’re really sounding desperate once again. HC is a great school for premed…..run with it.