Great. We can continue when you can respond and make a point. Or find a source to the claim! |
Why would I pay attention to what a random person online wants? |
Mcat is probably most important then Gpa then undergrad program is considered: both the school itself as well as the rigor of the curriculum. One can challenge themselves at state schools and be a top kid and get into Harvard or PennMed or similar |
You do have to go to a top med school if you want a subspecialty that only 30-40 schools have a decent reputation and/or if you want to go into research medicine at a top academic institution to be on the cutting edge of new healthcare discoveries. You cannot match into neurosurgery from any school, and others are similar. You cannot be a peds heme-onc researcher leading the world unless you can match into CHOP ora handful of other programs and the odds ofthat match are very low outside of one of the top 30-40 research med programs. Same for MD-phD with big academic goals. Some future doctors have these big goals. Others do not know: the optionality of top med schools is superior to lower ranked ones. DO is a complete different entity: there are many DO schools that have about 1/3 have to scramble for residency after not matching, with most having to switch to family med or rural med to find a spot. MD programs as a whole have less than 5% scramble. The T30-40 med schools have essentially 0 scramble AND one can match into a cardiothoracic surgery or plastics or derm or other harder to get fields from anywhere in the med school class. That is how a T10 med works back 25 yrs ago and still today. That level of school opens ALL doors. Non-T50ish can close some doors but not most. DO schools close many doors. People do not want to hear it because it goes against the classic dcum and CC “go to the cheapest undergrad and who cares what med school a doctor is a doctor”. But it is not true. There are differences depending on aspirations. |
You had no issue believing strangers online before. |
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^residency programs select based on experience: some DO schools do not have adequate inpatient ward experience so internal med or pediatrics at a research hospital will not pick from DO.
Same for MD schools that are primary care basd or low ranked research: they do not have transplant medicine, neurosurgery, many more. The known bigger name residency programs will not pick med students who have not had experience in that field. |
| I’m wondering what is better for premed if you had a choice between Brown vs. Bowdoin/Amherst, or Tufts vs. Wesleyan. Brown has more volunteer/research/shadowing opportunities, but are they very competitive and hard to get? Is it hard to get these at tufts because there are so many premeds there, and in Boston more generally? I’ve heard both that access to a med school is helpful (Brown/Tufts), and that top SLACs are less likely to have weed out classes and are good for premed. Not sure how to weigh these. |
All about the same. These are all top schools with minute differences in med school acceptance rates. |
this!! |
Except it completely misses the mark. Boston university has intense grade deflation. You’re also losing those opportunities to Harvard, Wellesley, Tufts students. |
First part is true - second part, not really. Each step in the training process matters way more than the step before it. My wife chose the full scholarship at a lesser med school, but was at the top of her class and rolled that into a residency at Mayo Clinc/ fellowship at Johns Hopkins in a surgical field. That would not have happened with DO, but by the time she got to Hopkins, her med school training was hardly considered. |
| We choose in-state flagship (UVA, so similar to UMichigan) in order to preserve funds for med school. We are comfortable financially but not so comfortable that a few hundred thousand dollars means nothing to us. |
Oh and I left out she graduated from Mary Washington out of state for undergrad, which isn't ever brought up past med school. |
Not sure what you meant by "losing those opportunities to Harvard, Wellesley, Tufts students." |
Those are the better premeds who will get the research and internship opportunities in the city. Pretty obvious. |