Medical School

[Anonymous]

Heads up that one way schools get a "high admissions rate to med school" is by strongly discouraging struggling kids to change majors along the way.

That way, those how are left by senior year, have good prospects.

[Anonymous]

If your mind is set on medical school or law school, you should take an entirely different strategy.

Nobody would care where you went for undergrad, people would care what medical school or law school you got your degree from.

[Anonymous]

Nobody cares what med school you went to either. It's the residency training that matters.

[Anonymous]

To posters at 13:07 and 13:09, what is the better strategy for undergrad and medical school? Legitimately asking as my student is interested, but I am in a completely different field and not sure how helpful I can be. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To posters at 13:07 and 13:09, what is the better strategy for undergrad and medical school? Legitimately asking as my student is interested, but I am in a completely different field and not sure how helpful I can be. Thank you.

I am not 1307 or 1309 but there is no such thing as better strategy, IMHO. Premed kids are extremaly driven and competitive. If there were better strategies, everybody knows about it. No secret hidden doors to med school.

[Anonymous]

Doctor (MD) here. I am also a specialist who has done 2 fellowships and a training program director so I see the entire training gamut and thousands of applications.

Sorry but 3.2 wont cut it. If you go to a prestigious undergrad that helps a little but ONLY if you also have the grades and test scores.
You have a small chance at a Caribbean medical school but will forever feel like a second class citizen even if you can get back to the US for a low tier residency.

If this is their dream, then go back and get better grades, score super high on the MCAT and do a boatload of research WITH publications and get stellar letters of rec.


ps. an NP or PA is a good job but anytime you need a real decision, you will always want an MD with real training, understanding of pathophysiology and not just cookbook decisions. Sorry but otherwise why would our best and brightest students go into medicine if its the same as seeing an NP. Another topic for another time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To posters at 13:07 and 13:09, what is the better strategy for undergrad and medical school? Legitimately asking as my student is interested, but I am in a completely different field and not sure how helpful I can be. Thank you.

It was mentioned here and there in this forum. You can see that the undergraduate prestige doesn't matter much.
The OP mentioned that her daughter almost killed herself to get into Northwestern. This was not necessary for the purpose of medical school admission.

You still want to do your best and get into a good enough school that fits you, but again the undergraduate prestige doesn't matter.
You can save up some money by going to a good state school and save it up for medical school.
You would prefer a school with grade inflation rather than deflation.

[Anonymous]

DD graduated with a 3.3 GPA from a PAC-12 school where she was an athlete on the volleyball team. She scored 515 on the MCAT and got accepted to a medical school in the ACC conference. People in this forum have no idea what they are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD graduated with a 3.3 GPA from a PAC-12 school where she was an athlete on the volleyball team. She scored 515 on the MCAT and got accepted to a medical school in the ACC conference. People in this forum have no idea what they are talking about.

\
Sure, and there is always the 3.5 GPA and 1300 SAT student that gets into Harvard too so your n=1 is great but this would be few and far between. And 515 is a strong MCAT.

[Anonymous]

It sounds crazy, but here is a direct-entry NP program at Vanderbilt: https://nursing.vanderbilt.edu/msn/prespecialty/index.php

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heads up that one way schools get a "high admissions rate to med school" is by strongly discouraging struggling kids to change majors along the way.

That way, those how are left by senior year, have good prospects.

Huh? I don't understand this tip. Could you please further explain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heads up that one way schools get a "high admissions rate to med school" is by strongly discouraging struggling kids to change majors along the way.

That way, those how are left by senior year, have good prospects.

Huh? I don't understand this tip. Could you please further explain?

Many schools assign certain (or one ) advisors to pre-Med students . They know who will realistically be admitted. If they discourage non-competitive kids from staying in the pre-Med track, by senior year, only kids with a good chance of getting in will apply. That results in the school having a high admit rate to Med school.

[Anonymous]

It is possible. Like everything in life it is who you know. She can do a postbacc program at a place with a medical school and network into a spot- its a hard path but it works.

[Anonymous]

What happens if you apply to med school in say UK? As l understand it, kids go to med school there in lieu of college…then you would need to pass all the tests to become a resident here…l know a few folks that did UK MD and US residency but l am not sure how it works…
Depending of where you live in US, UK isn’t any worse than CA in terms of distance…

[Anonymous]

I work at a graduate health science center with a medical school. We have a strong post-bacc program, and the majority of students who go through are able to get into a graduate health science program (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc). If your daughter really want to pursue medicine she might want to look at a post-bacc program. Alternatively, our PA graduates go on to great success, as well.