Reply to Premed undergrad and rigor?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Premed undergrad and rigor?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I started my 1st sem med school pre-reqs at my T10 and bombed, so I took summer 2nd sem classes at my state flagship and got easy As. Did that for the rest of the pre-reqs every summer.

[b]T10 tests were a beast -- short answer and essay and drawing cycles from memory, while state flagship tests were easy -- matching and multiple choice with maybe one short answer. 
[/b]
I ended up choosing a different health profession, and my interviewer told me they were excited to have someone from [my T10 university].

So maybe consider other health professions if med school isn't in the cards.  [/quote]

This is correct based on my family's recent experience: My first is recent graduate from a non-ivyT10, and your description is precisely how her science tests were. Chem major. DH went to the same place for undergrad and went to a top med school as well: the grade "curve' has shifted to more students getting A range, but the average % correct on tests is still commonly 60-70%. Long extrapolative exam questions in orgo, cell bio, physics are the norm, with many questions asking for interpretation and application of emerging research. no one is supposed to get them all right, it is supposed to challenge you to think on a deep level. D is on a gap year at NIH, graduated above average 3.8ish, but that is not top 25% there(they publish cutoffs). MCAT 518, one try, studied one summer which is norm there; undergrad average is 517. Based on premed advising tables will easily get in to her "safety" T75 med schools. The difficulty is at a top school, they are all chasing top-10 med schools, many dozens of the 200+ med applicants get into t10 schools each year. the 3.8x is quite borderline for the t10 med programs from there. In reality it does not matter much, she realizes, but the gap year was a choice to boost the resume for the top tier chances. 
Fast forward DS, at a flagship ranked recently in T50 though historically has been 15 spots lower. The tests are easy. Son is an engineer and also premed and it is less challenging than his magnet public stem high school because it is almost all memorization. Only 20% get A- or above not the 45% at the T10, but it seems quite easy to be in that A range; a 3.9X seems all but guaranteed. However there is a large set who get Ds and Fs on tests and drop; the grade distributions are bimodal. He is a high performer, over 1500, just did not have top10% grades in high school to get into a T25, so he had to settle for the flagship. The school does not release Gpa v MCAAT med admissions tables until closer to the process, but the average MCAT is 504 and they say to have a shot at med school at all, advising recommends as close as possible to 4.0. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics