Med school admissions biased?

[Meliora]

Hello all,
There is one thing that has been troubling me for quite a while now. Whenever I look at people who have gotten into top schools like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, etc. they all seem to have done undergrad from either an IVY or a top 20 undergraduate institution. Now I understand that GPA/ MCAT are most important but when you are competing with 1000s of other applicants, does your undergrad really give you an edge? I feel like no matter how good my scores will be, my not so prestigious undergraduate will inhibit my chances at the end. Do top schools really want IVY students? Why are all top schools admitting these IVY students? ( other than the fact that IVY students are already very smart and hard working so they do better)


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[efle]

does your undergrad really give you an edge

Yes (see upper left box, highest importance academic factors)

However there are people from outside the "top 20" universities at interview days for the top med schools, I promise you wouldn't be some kind of freaky outlier. It can be an advantage to go to a fancy undergrad but with the right scores, grades, research and other application factors you are not knocked out of the race at all.

 

[AnotherLawyer]

Hello all,
There is one thing that has been troubling me for quite a while now. Whenever I look at people who have gotten into top schools like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, etc. they all seem to have done undergrad from either an IVY or a top 20 undergraduate institution. Now I understand that GPA/ MCAT are most important but when you are competing with 1000s of other applicants, does your undergrad really give you an edge? I feel like no matter how good my scores will be, my not so prestigious undergraduate will inhibit my chances at the end. Do top schools really want IVY students? Why are all top schools admitting these IVY students? ( other than the fact that IVY students are already very smart and hard working so they do better)


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This doesn't trouble me at all. The top undergrad universities accept students who have done well or have demonstrated potential to be high performers, in and out of the classroom. It makes sense that such a pool of students would, on average, do better than the pool of students that have not done so or shown such potential. I say this is as someone who did not go to a top undergrad and did not excel academically initially, so I have no vested interest in thinking that those who go to elite undergrads are somehow "better." But I do think that, on average, they are better students and more knowledge about the admissions game, which in turn makes them, as a group, more likely to perform well in medical school admissions.

 

[voteknope]

Yes (see upper left box, highest importance academic factors)

However there are people from outside the "top 20" universities at interview days for the top med schools, I promise you wouldn't be some kind of freaky outlier. It can be an advantage to go to a fancy undergrad but with the right scores, grades, research and other application factors you are not knocked out of the race at all.

This is true, but I definitely had interview days where I was one of maybe two people who had not gone to top/ivy league schools. It was definitely a little disconcerting at first!

 

[efle]

As above, while I think undergrad rep contributes something, I'd say the effect weve seen is mostly because of the kinds of students involved. If you were awesome enough in college to be getting considered by the most competitive med schools, you were probably awesome enough in high school to get love from competitive colleges. So thats mostly why the pool is skewed imo, rather than Ivy & co. prestige alone boosting people way up in competitiveness.

 

[Goro]

UG schools are feeders to med schools.

Med schools know the caliber of the students they get from feeder schools.

So, in answer to your question, yes.

My own school gets a fair number of grads of the UC system. They're quite good, so we tend to favor them.

Hello all,
There is one thing that has been troubling me for quite a while now. Whenever I look at people who have gotten into top schools like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, etc. they all seem to have done undergrad from either an IVY or a top 20 undergraduate institution. Now I understand that GPA/ MCAT are most important but when you are competing with 1000s of other applicants, does your undergrad really give you an edge? I feel like no matter how good my scores will be, my not so prestigious undergraduate will inhibit my chances at the end. Do top schools really want IVY students? Why are all top schools admitting these IVY students? ( other than the fact that IVY students are already very smart and hard working so they do better)


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[libertyyne]

As above, while I think undergrad rep contributes something, I'd say the effect weve seen is mostly because of the kinds of students involved. If you were awesome enough in college to be getting considered by the most competitive med schools, you were probably awesome enough in high school to get love from competitive colleges. So thats mostly why the pool is skewed imo, rather than Ivy & co. prestige alone boosting people way up in competitiveness.

Might also be candidates from ivies have better resumes or better guidance in college compared to state schools due to the vast opportunities available at these schools and possibly well versed advising staff and mentor availability.

 

[y123]

Where you go for undergrad matters a lot to top schools.

 

[enchantediris]

This doesn't trouble me at all. The top undergrad universities accept students who have done well or have demonstrated potential to be high performers, in and out of the classroom. It makes sense that such a pool of students would, on average, do better than the pool of students that have not done so or shown such potential. I say this is as someone who did not go to a top undergrad and did not excel academically initially, so I have no vested interest in thinking that those who go to elite undergrads are somehow "better." But I do think that, on average, they are better students and more knowledge about the admissions game, which in turn makes them, as a group, more likely to perform well in medical school admissions.

Hmm, it kind of makes me feel bad because I turned down a "Top 20" undergrad in favor of a lesser known university that gave me a full tuition scholarship. Overall I don't really regret my decision because I have no undergrad debt, but I'd hope that adcoms understand that students don't necessarily go to the highest ranked school that accepts them.

 

[efle]

Hmm, it kind of makes me feel bad because I turned down a "Top 20" undergrad in favor of a lesser known university that gave me a full tuition scholarship. Overall I don't really regret my decision because I have no undergrad debt, but I'd hope that adcoms understand that students don't necessarily go to the highest ranked school that accepts them.

I believe LizzyM has commented in the past that they do notice when someone stellar is coming from an unknown program on a merit scholarship and put 2+2 together.

Don't want anyone to take this discouragingly but I also would bet the majority of the unknown uni peeps at Top X interviews chose to go there for financial, family or other reasons over bigger name options, like you did.

 

[aldol16]

Yes, there are many people who went to Ivies for undergrad at the top schools. That's because not only did they go to Ivies but they also did very well and have extremely impressive records. If you also do well and have an extremely impressive record from any school, you can also get in. Many people do. Harvard isn't going to turn down a Rhodes scholar from state school X because they're from state school X.

 

[tbonez71]

Yes (see upper left box, highest importance academic factors)

Lowest Importance Ratings: Selectivity of undergraduate institution (Public)

State university here I come baby!! Oh wait I live in CA...

 

[mwsapphire]

If it encourages you, OP, my tiny , non-flagship state school has sent people to Harvard med. Only a handful of times, but it has happened. Going to a no-name school does not knock you out of the race.

 

[Lawpy]

only being mildly sarcastic here but I dont understand where the bias is here? I mean its a perfectly fair way for the med schools to find the best applicants to fill their class. Oh, you mean bias to the applicants. To be blunt, this process is designed with the medical schools in mind to get what they judge the best raw material to educate and produce physican. Its fairness to applicants only really extends as far as the law requires. Any other percieved fairness that you see is designed for the schools to fulfill their mission

Like @Goro always says, medical school admissions is a seller's market so what medical schools want matters here.

 

[bananafish94]

I went to a state school and many of my pre-med friends are at very prestigious schools ("Top 20," if you buy into that stuff). On the flip side, I know people who went to really fancy colleges and didn't get into medical school (yet). I'm sure it helps a bit but is vastly overshadowed by the other aspects of your application!

 

[Goro]

In other words, it's about what med schools want, not what you want.

only being mildly sarcastic here but I dont understand where the bias is here? I mean its a perfectly fair way for the med schools to find the best applicants to fill their class. Oh, you mean bias to the applicants. To be blunt, this process is designed with the medical schools in mind to get what they judge the best raw material to educate and produce physican. Its fairness to applicants only really extends as far as the law requires. Any other percieved fairness that you see is designed for the schools to fulfill their mission

 

[aformerstudent]

US med schools select students that they feel will not fail out or leave the program. They don't pick people to reward their hard work. So if you feel you worked really hard and did not get in, it's not you really, it's that the school is looking out for their best interest. So yeah it's biased in a way towards the nerd community because one thing you have to admit about a nerd is that a nerd is always reliable academically.

If you get a chance, visit a Caribbean school sometime, you will see a lot of cool kids and a lot of fine women there but a lot of them are dumb as ****.

 

[mwsapphire]

US med schools select students that they feel will not fail out or leave the program. They don't pick people to reward their hard work. So if you feel you worked really hard and did not get in, it's not you really, it's that the school is looking out for their best interest. So yeah it's biased in a way towards the nerd community because one thing you have to admit about a nerd is that a nerd is always reliable academically.

If you get a chance, visit a Caribbean school sometime, you will see a lot of cool kids and a lot of fine women there but a lot of them are dumb as ****.

Okay I'm sorry but there's no gentler way to put this
What type of medical student isn't a nerd?!
And people who are "dumb as ****" don't become docs....

 

[Lucca]

I'm not going to pretend to speak for anyone else but here is why the pedigree chasing by schools, to the extent that it happens in med admissions, bothers me:

Most of the people in the adcom probably have no idea how hard it is to get into a name brand undergrad these days. Honestly, it's practically rigged. The kids that do make it through are either astounding, wound up so tight they'll explode if you touch them, or come from wealth such that their success was guaranteed by attending the right schools and knowing the right people every step of the way.

it doesn't help that of the people I know IrL who have been admitted to "top" medical schools, most are not even interested in ever practicing medicine and are looking for the first opportunity to bail for the comfiest, most lucrative option whether it be in clinical medicine or not. Obviously, I don't think everyone is actually like this, but it's discouraging to say the least to watch what are essentially highly trained, highly capable hoop jumpers rise to the top at every step while genuine, caring but less bright individuals are discouraged from continuing entirely.

 

[efle]

Well...there are a good mix supplying applicants to med schools in general. I bet if you had a Table 7b for colleges producing matriculants to top 10s it would be way less diverse

 

[Lucca]

Well...there are a good mix supplying applicants to med schools in general. I bet if you had a Table 7b for colleges producing matriculants to top 10s it would be way less diverse

We have such a list for MD/PhD programs and at some programs 60-75% of the class comes from 5 undergrads lol.

 

[efle]

We have such a list for MD/PhD programs and at some programs 60-75% of the class comes from 5 undergrads lol.

I looked at a few recent years of Yale MD-only grads and that was at least 75% top 20 alums

 

[Lucca]

We have such a list for MD/PhD programs and at some programs 60-75% of the class comes from 5 undergrads lol.

Hey everyone,

About a year ago there was a thread over at the Physician Scientist forum about elite school bias in MD/PhD admissions. This post is a more in-depth continuation of the data discussed in that thread, this time posted in Pre-Allo for visibility and because of discussions in recent threads about the importance of undergraduate prestige for admissions to elite MD programs.

In that thread, @Maebea posted a table showing the undergraduate institutions of ~3100 MD/PhD matriculants from 2010 - 2014 (the data comes from internal documents at the user's MD/PhD program). In this post I will present some graphs I have made using those and other data as well.

Proportion of MD/PhD Matriculants Coming from Top 30, 20, and 10 Undergraduate Institutions
According to U.S. News and World Report

Top 5 Schools by Percentage of Class coming from Top 30 Undergrads
1. Harvard
2. U Chicago
3. Columbia
4. UCLA
5. UCSF

Top 5 Schools by Percentage of Class from Top 20 Undergrads
1. Harvard
2. Columbia
3. UCSF
4. U Penn
5. U Chicago

Top 5 Schools by Percentage of Class coming from Top 10 Undergrads

1. Harvard
2. Columbia
3. U Penn
4. UCSF
5. U Chicago

As is apparent, MSTPs (MD/PhD programs fully funded by the NIH) tend to have the most significant portion of their classes coming from top UG institutions. At least 24 programs admit half or more of their students from just the Top 30. Harvard is somewhat of an outlier with over 75% of its class coming from just the top 10 undergraduate institutions.

I thought it might also be interesting to see how "inbred" certain top programs were and how prevalent HYPSM grads are at each one. I wrote a script that reads in student directories from the program webpage and collects information on its students' undergrads. I used that to calculate the proportion of the program that comes from its own undergrad, as well as the proportion coming from just HYPSM alone. This data represents the past 8 years of matriculants at these programs. The top programs that do not appear either do not have a student directory or do not list their students' undergraduate institutions.

Using this same script and data I recalculated the proportion of the class coming from the top 30, 20 ,10 undergrads just for these schools (this time with data spanning 8 years as opposed to 4).

As you can see, the results do differ slightly from those in the 4 year matriculant data from the original elite school bias thread. When writing my script, the results for Harvard, JHU, and Stanford agreed with what I found tallying undergrads up by hand.

When I have time in the future I hope to correlate the inbreeding scores and proportions in each category to the USNWR ranking of the MD/PhD program.

Personally, I find it surprising how large the proportion of students just from HYPSM is at top MSTPs.

quoting myself for the curious

 

[libertyyne]

quoting myself for the curious

Its kinda brutal to look at that coming from a no name school. It would be interesting to see the plain jane MD program matriculant data as well. going to a t-20 just means the prerequisite research access.

 

[Lucca]

Its kinda brutal to look at that coming from a no name school. It would be interesting to see the plain jane MD program matriculant data as well. going to a t-20 just means the prerequisite research access.

If you find school directories online and PM them to me, I can use the same script to make similar graphs

 

[Goro]

Okay I'm sorry but there's no gentler way to put this
What type of medical student isn't a nerd?!
And people who are "dumb as ****" don't become docs....

You have to consider who you're responding to.

 

[efle]

If you find school directories online and PM them to me, I can use the same script to make similar graphs

If you can figure out an easy way to pull bachelor's alma maters from PDF, here are a bunch of years for Yale

choose the year then control+f for "Harvard" to go to the start of the section listing all MD grads and their alma maters

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

When is the new msar coming out? Does anyone know?

 

[efle]

going to a t-20 just means the prerequisite research access

do giant state flagships not have research access? Only places I could see research being absent are lib arts colleges

 

[efle]

When is the new msar coming out? Does anyone know?

some time next week

 

[DrHart]

I'm not going to pretend to speak for anyone else but here is why the pedigree chasing by schools, to the extent that it happens in med admissions, bothers me:

Most of the people in the adcom probably have no idea how hard it is to get into a name brand undergrad these days. Honestly, it's practically rigged. The kids that do make it through are either astounding, wound up so tight they'll explode if you touch them, or come from wealth such that their success was guaranteed by attending the right schools and knowing the right people every step of the way.

it doesn't help that of the people I know IrL who have been admitted to "top" medical schools, most are not even interested in ever practicing medicine and are looking for the first opportunity to bail for the comfiest, most lucrative option whether it be in clinical medicine or not. Obviously, I don't think everyone is actually like this, but it's discouraging to say the least to watch what are essentially highly trained, highly capable hoop jumpers rise to the top at every step while genuine, caring but less bright individuals are discouraged from continuing entirely.

my first thought was the "career tributes" from the Hunger Games.

born and bred for jumping through the hoops

 

[aformerstudent]

You have to consider who you're responding to.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but I'm not on probationary status.

 

[mwsapphire]

Sticks and stones may break my bones but I'm not on probationary status.

He's on probationary status because he likes telling off " fools".
I'm surprised he hasn't done it to you, yet.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

going to a t-20 just means the prerequisite research access.

My school (a non top-20) has a relatively small science program, yet it offers a decent amount of research opportunities.

 

[Lawpy]

Sticks and stones may break my bones but I'm not on probationary status.

... weren't you on Account on Hold few weeks ago and only recently resumed posting/trolling?

 

[mwsapphire]

... weren't you on Account on Hold few weeks ago and only recently resumed posting/trolling?

I may be wrong, but isn't "account on hold" the step before getting banned? Whereas probation is just a minor slight ( one too many warnings)?
What are you bragging about, aformermedstudent?

 

[aformerstudent]

He's on probationary status because he likes telling off " fools".
I'm surprised he hasn't done it to you, yet.

Be careful or else you might meet a similar fate with that attitude.

 

[Lawpy]

I may be wrong, but isn't "account on hold" the step before getting banned? Whereas probation is just a minor slight ( one too many warnings)?
What are you bragging about, aformermedstudent?

yeah pretty much

 

[Goro]

I put loose cannons on "Ignore". If you're referring to who I think you're referring to, I expect to a meltdown soon.

He's on probationary status because he likes telling off " fools".
I'm surprised he hasn't done it to you, yet.

 

[mwsapphire]

I put loose cannons on "Ignore". If you're referring to who I think you're referring to, I expect to a meltdown soon.

 

[Lucca]

some time next week

All aboard the hype train.

Only on SDN do people eagerly await the release of slightly altered excel spreadsheets every year.

 

[P0ke]

An adcom once showed me some list that I believe all med schools have access to categorizing undergrad schools into tiers of competitiveness, and they get a certain amount of points according to their undergrad's tier. Maybe people who get into top med schools all have 4.0s and 40+'s (or whatever the heck that is equal to now), so where they went for undergrad makes the difference at that level of competition.

 

[efle]

An adcom once showed me some list that I believe all med schools have access to categorizing undergrad schools into tiers of competitiveness, and they get a certain amount of points according to their undergrad's tier. Maybe people who get into top med schools all have 4.0s and 40+'s (or whatever the heck that is equal to now), so where they went for undergrad makes the difference at that level of competition.

I have only ever heard of this kind of points-per-undergrad system at Miami

 

[P0ke]

I have only ever heard of this kind of points-per-undergrad system at Miami

Yep thats where I saw it. Thought I remember the dude saying other schools have the same list.

 

[aldol16]

Most of the people in the adcom probably have no idea how hard it is to get into a name brand undergrad these days. Honestly, it's practically rigged. The kids that do make it through are either astounding, wound up so tight they'll explode if you touch them, or come from wealth such that their success was guaranteed by attending the right schools and knowing the right people every step of the way.

It's much harder to get into a top med school nowadays. Many Ivies are at ~10% and top med schools are almost an order of magnitude lower. But there are multiple pipelines to the top undergrads, sure. It's well-known that legacies get an advantage and athletes can get decent bumps. If your daddy donates $150 million, they're not going to reject you. But you ignore the fact that most of the kids who do make it through are truly astounding. They got there through an amazing work ethic and a lot of hard work and they kept it through college. There's no reason to disparage someone (not saying that you are) or classify them into a "he went to X so he must have a stick up his ass" category just because they went to X school. Most of the people who go through the top schools are truly amazing people - there aren't that many rich daddies to go around.

 

[Blessthefall]

It's much harder to get into a top med school nowadays. Many Ivies are at ~10% and top med schools are almost an order of magnitude lower. But there are multiple pipelines to the top undergrads, sure. It's well-known that legacies get an advantage and athletes can get decent bumps. If your daddy donates $150 million, they're not going to reject you. But you ignore the fact that most of the kids who do make it through are truly astounding. They got there through an amazing work ethic and a lot of hard work and they kept it through college. There's no reason to disparage someone (not saying that you are) or classify them into a "he went to X so he must have a stick up his ass" category just because they went to X school. Most of the people who go through the top schools are truly amazing people - there aren't that many rich daddies to go around.

Most but not all. There's plenty of idiots running rampant in places of power with Ivy League pedigrees...

 

[aldol16]

Most but not all. There's plenty of idiots running rampant in places of power with Ivy League pedigrees...

That's my point. You can't use a blanket statement to characterize the all based on the actions of a few. Also, is Penn really an Ivy? Really?

 

[Lucca]

It's much harder to get into a top med school nowadays. Many Ivies are at ~10% and top med schools are almost an order of magnitude lower. But there are multiple pipelines to the top undergrads, sure. It's well-known that legacies get an advantage and athletes can get decent bumps. If your daddy donates $150 million, they're not going to reject you. But you ignore the fact that most of the kids who do make it through are truly astounding. They got there through an amazing work ethic and a lot of hard work and they kept it through college. There's no reason to disparage someone (not saying that you are) or classify them into a "he went to X so he must have a stick up his ass" category just because they went to X school. Most of the people who go through the top schools are truly amazing people - there aren't that many rich daddies to go around.

I don't disagree with you. My more specific point is that the level of competition means that there are a lot of incredible students all over the country, not just at the coastal powerhouse and brand name private schools. So, the whole "people at top undergrads are just better human beings / smarter / stronger / more attractive" sentiment that always apologizes for the, quite frankly, significant amount of prestige chasing that can go on at top med schools is really ignoring this fact. That's what bothers me. Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder.

 

[aldol16]

I don't disagree with you. My more specific point is that the level of competition means that there are a lot of incredible students all over the country, not just at the coastal powerhouse and brand name private schools. So, the whole "people at top undergrads are just better human beings / smarter / stronger / more attractive" sentiment that always apologizes for the, quite frankly, significant amount of prestige chasing that can go on at top med schools is really ignoring this fact. That's what bothers me. Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder.

I think one can be a brilliant student anywhere, not just if you went to an Ivy. As you say, many Ivy students waste their potential and "sell out" to finance or consulting. Others got there because of daddy or other connections. Still others got athletic boosts. But as I say, I think the majority of people who get into top schools are amazing people - and that's why they got in. That's not saying that there aren't amazing people elsewhere. I just think there is a greater proportion of these high-achieving people at the top schools. You might have 5% of each graduating class being objectively amazing people at a non-top school whereas that number might be 25% or more (depending on how you define amazing but still using the same definition across both cases) at a top school.

 

[jorjorswens]

It would be interesting to compare mcat/grades and school competitiveness on a chart. My instinct would be that top schools produce higher scoring applicants. It isn't rocket science.


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