Undergrad question

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

Hi Everyone


Quick question here. Do med schools care about the quality of undergrad schools?






2

A blanket answer is hard. I’d say overall, it seems like no. Your performance matters more than the name of your school.


That said, many medical schools specifically say you cannot use community college classes for pre-reqs, so that matters. And then it can also depend on your interviewer. Do they get warm fuzzies because you both went to state school? Do they have some bias against a school? That is impossible to predict and it’s easy to drive yourself crazy over what if.


So, in short, find the school that’s right for you and ace your classes. You can’t go wrong doing that. You can go wrong being in an environment that doesn’t work for you simply for the name of the school.

3

Yes.


Does that mean you can’t get into med school unless you attend a certain school?


No.

4
  • pathdr2b Said:
Yes.

Does that mean you can't get into med school unless you attend a certain school?

No.



I second this answer. It's extremely complicated, in that your application is a "package." But your undergrad school is part of that package, and reputation matters.
5

Not in the undergrad way of thinking about schools though…

6

I’ve been to two community colleges and two universities, so i’ve got some perspective on this.


Look at it this way. Typically, an A in a community college science course is equivalent to a B- to an A at a university because university sciences are so much more rigorous, especially the labs. The med schools have a harder time figuring out how you would match up to the majority of premeds that went to a university.


So as a final answer, I would say the med schools would refer to your MCAT scores to see how you really compare.

7

I third that. Univ Washington admits to at least considering the qualities of the undergrad school as well as the difficulty in your course load/program when looking at an application. That being said, their initial screening process is all quantitative, and I would bet that your undergrad institution/program would be one of the last discriminators used in their holistic approach to secondaries.


I would say: Go to school where you want to (be wary that some schools shun CCs), study what interests you so you’ll do well, and try to be well-rounded. There’s a difference in doing things to gain experience and doing things because they’re what you think schools want you to do.