What are the benefits of a top school

[skiracer123]

Besides the obvious, prestige, residency placement...etc, what is better about say Harvard compared to a mid level school? Is there anything really valuable about the education at a top school that isn't obvious? How valuable is that name on your diploma and why?

Thanks

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[nuclearrabbit77]

let me finish that sentence...

smarter students to outcompete you.....


(all in good fun of course)

 

[nuclearrabbit77]

someone sounds bitter....

 

[citygirl]

Originally posted by holden73
the excessive use of mixed metaphors has left me entirely unable to decipher the intended meaning of your post.

Holdendude, move it to The Lounge and stop wasting everyone's time here.

 

[omarsaleh66]

i have heard from atleast 2 ms4s that are interviewing right now that the name of ur school does matter. Even if u have good step 1 scores and grades, the repuation of ur school can either help u or hurt u.

I think this is for the more competitive residencies like opthamalogy, urolgy etc

however, knowing this, i would still go to a state school rather than a much more expensive private school.

later

Omar

 

[omarsaleh66]

hey sorry, i dont think i answered ur question that well, cuz i didnt really read ur question that well.

well as u can see, I am not a harvard med student, hahahha
so the difference between the 2 schools are :

u will get classmates like me at the state school, so u might wanna to one of the better schools

later

Omar

 

[Bevo]

from what I understand, I think the biggest difference will come during residency application time.

The school will either help or hurt you. I dont believe the education you will recieve will be any different from any school, for the most part. I think you do most of the leg work yourself at this level anyways.

But a better school will have a higher percentage of academically gifted individuals, especially compared to a lower tier school, like mine.

I know that I pretty much have almost no chance in hell in attaining certain residencies because of my school name regardless of my grades and board scores.

 

[skiracer123]

Ok, but what if we ignore residency applications...do you think the quality of the other students is really important? Do you think the teaching is better? Do you have enough time to get involved in any of the research? I've heard the obvious reasons before, I was looking for things I might not have thought of.

 

[Bevo]

I dont think the quality of the other students will matter.

But I think it really depends on where you want to go past med school.

The school you choose can either open up or close certain doors.

if you only want IM, then any school will do. If you like opthamalogy or derm, then going to a great school like ucsf or hopkins might give you that opportunity more so than any other school.

But once out in the real world, the school really doesn't matter so much.

Case in point. My father is a grad of Guadalajara. His partner is a grad of Stanford. They make the same money and no one knows where either of them graduated.

They both do IM.

I dont know about research. I remember from my interviews that they didn't allow students to research until a certain point in their education. I think research helps in attaining certain resdiencies as well. Not sure.

The better schools will prob have advanced research being conducted by some really bright people. Dont know how that translates into teaching though.

I mean, if I had an opportunity to go to a top tier medical school I would definatly go.

Hopefully it would be a state school though

 

[Horseradish99]

B]

medical school is no place for fun, unless you are satisfied with accidentally killing patients as a family practioner in the appalachians.

[/B]

Two responses to this...

1) I'm sorry, but medical school is a helluva lot of fun. I take my studies very seriously, but I don't seem to have a problem finding plenty of fun in what I do.

2) You come across very negative in your example of a family practioner in Appalachia. Has it occurred to you that the people in Appalachia need and deserve adequate health care, and (GASP!) there are actually medical students out there who have a desire to practice in places like that?! When you insinuate that only the "stupid" physicians who can't practice "real" medicine end up doing such horrifically degrading things such as provide medical care to needy, hardworking American families, you expose an awful lot of bias/ego... so much so that I have to question your self-confidence. I doubt you have much.

As one of my friends says, "Some people suck at basketball, others suck at drawing or math. You just suck at being a person."

 

[bullsI]

Originally posted by holden73
the excessive use of mixed metaphors has left me entirely unable to decipher the intended meaning of your post.

Maybe they want to emphasize your current signature, "to be hated is to be loved" to you.

 

[Entei]

I can't speak to how your school affects your residency opportunities since I've got a long way to go before I have to worry about applying for a residency. However, I have experienced what I think is one of the major benefits of going to a "top school." I've only been at Columbia for three months, but I've already encountered a lot of "big shots," from influential researchers to renown surgeons. As a first year, my ability to interact with these people is usually limited to simply listening to a lecture that they're giving, but I think that if you're motivated, you could make a lot of connections here that would benefit you later on. That's not to say that you can't do this at other schools, but I think it's certainly easier when you're virtually surrounded by these kinds of people.

I think any med school can give you the opportunities you need to become the kind of doctor you want to be, but it's up to the student to take advantage of those opportunities. For me, it's just very inspiring to be surrounded by some really amazing people, and that becomes an asset when you're a lowly first year stuck in a lecture hall wondering how you'll ever cram this sea of knowledge into your head, let alone be able to apply it to patient care.

 

[pathdr2b]

Originally posted by Entei
As a first year, my ability to interact with these people is usually limited to simply listening to a lecture that they're giving, but I think that if you're motivated, you could make a lot of connections here that would benefit you later on. That's not to say that you can't do this at other schools, but I think it's certainly easier when you're virtually surrounded by these kinds of people.

As a person with familial "issues" I'll be lucky to finish in the midlle of the class of whatever med school I attend. Fact of the matter is that I'd rateher be in the middle of the pack at Columbia than at a 3rd teir school.

 

[Bevo]

basically, I think you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you ignore an opportunity to go to a great medical school unless you have a great reason not too, like a. financial or b. family.

An older friend of mine just quit school because he could no longer stand being away from his away.


I dont get the opportunity Entei has. Mostly because of location though. But I wish I did though.

 

[monkeyarms]

Look me up in the MGH directory and give me a call.

OOOOOOooooOOOOOOooooOOOOOooooOOoohhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't front on the MGH!!!! This dude's gonna pull out some double reverse jeopardy calculus on that a$$!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[owen_osh]

It seems to me that there are at least two benefits to going to a top school:

1) A degree from a top school makes it easier to get a "top" residency, i.e. a residency that produces mostly academic physicians. This is not the same as saying that you must go to a top school to get into a competitive field. State schools have residency programs in competitive fields and these programs accept state school grads as well as the occasional Ivy grad, but they don't focus on producing academic physicians. (At least, this seems to be true in the Southeast where I'm a student.)

2) Top schools offer the "wow" factor. The students and faculty at all med schools will be smart and accomplished. However, the accomplishments of the students and faculty at top school are often extraordinary.

 

[cguidr4]

Advantage of going to a highly reputable school: "wow" factor for residency programs

Disadvantage:more competition, you may end up at the bottom of your class

Advantage of going to mediocre school: less competition, likely to be ranked higher in your class.

Disadvantage: No "wow" factor when applying for residency.

I have it then as a trade-off. I realy do not think which type school you go to will have an effect on board scores. It is obvious that some schools have higher board score averages, but I think this is a result of higher quality students and not higher quality teaching.

 

[Gleevec]

I agree with the statements regarding residency placement and quality of students, based on what little I know about it, most of it being what people have told me.

I have a question for med students/residents though about the last two years, and your opinion on this theory:

The last 2-3 years of med school is spent in the clinic. For those of you that have rotated away, or are just familiar with multiple clinics, are the experiences that different. Is JHU hospital really that much better to work in than UNC? I understand the patients will be more complex at the top-ranked med schools, but do med students really deal with those cases, or are those basically dealt with by residents? I have heard that at top med schools, which also have top residency programs, that a lot of the work is done by residents instead of med students. Is this true?

I guess my overarching question is, if half of med school is in the clinic, are the differences in clinical experience between the top schools and an average state school really that different for med students? Are we really just paying for the first two years of lecture instruction?

 

[Street Philosopher]

No, I don't think so Gleevec. At a place like Hopkins Hospital, you're going to have people from basically all over the world coming to get care. I mean, literally, people fly in from all over the country and from overseas to be cared for at Hopkins. I'm not sure if medical students will have access to these high profile-type cases, but maybe they will. If so, that is a huge plus in terms of being able to see clinical cases that you would normally only learn about from textbooks and lectures.

For similar reasons, going to school in a big city helps. Unless your school is reputable enough to draw patients from other parts of the state or surrounding states, the smaller schools will have less of those rare cases, on average. Schools in larger cities have the benefit of seeing rarer cases just because the potential patient population is huge, even if your hospital only draws patients from the local population.

If your school only has a hospital in a small remote location, with only a few small satellite clinics, I would guess that your clinical training might be less than optimal. I think this is one of the reasons why NYMC has a hospital in Manhattan (St. Vincents).

 

[KarateGirl]

I'm in the middle of the application process now, and something's struck me that hasn't been mentioned here which I view as a potential benefit. Many of the top schools seem to have a more lenient grading policy than the lower tiered schools, which I imagine would foster a slightly lower stress, less competitive environment. I'm starting to take into account a school's grading system when I evaluate how much I want to go there.

I've heard that the quality of education really varies little from school to school (in other words, you will be fully prepared no matter where you go), but it still seems that you'll benefit from going to the best school you can get into.

 

[dr barb]

Originally posted by KarateGirl
I'm in the middle of the application process now, and something's struck me that hasn't been mentioned here which I view as a potential benefit. Many of the top schools seem to have a more lenient grading policy than the lower tiered schools, which I imagine would foster a slightly lower stress, less competitive environment. I'm starting to take into account a school's grading system when I evaluate how much I want to go there.

I've heard that the quality of education really varies little from school to school (in other words, you will be fully prepared no matter where you go), but it still seems that you'll benefit from going to the best school you can get into.

I totally agree! The "better" schools tend to be more lenient with their grading system AND more accomodating when you mess up. Perhaps they feel that if you were competitive enough to get in to a top school, then you have enough self-motivation that you don't need grades to force you to get the most of your education. You can usually assess how "good" a school is (aside from rankings, reputation etc.) by asking them about their policies when a student fails a class. Not that you expect to fail a class, but certain circumstances in your life may cause you to have a bad semester at one point. A "good" school will understand and do everything they can to help you succeed because they have committed to making you a physician and will work with you to make sure you're the best physician you can be. A not so good school would chastise you for screwing up and threaten to kick you out. Or they might tell you you have to make up the failed coursework on your own at your expense at another university.

As far as quality of education, your education is really what you make of it. I pretty much don't attend any classes that I'm not required to attend (i.e. no lectures). I only go to small group sessions which are req'd. So essentially I'm getting the same education here as I would anywhere.

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by Street Philosopher
No, I don't think so Gleevec. At a place like Hopkins Hospital, you're going to have people from basically all over the world coming to get care. I mean, literally, people fly in from all over the country and from overseas to be cared for at Hopkins. I'm not sure if medical students will have access to these high profile-type cases, but maybe they will. If so, that is a huge plus in terms of being able to see clinical cases that you would normally only learn about from textbooks and lectures.

For similar reasons, going to school in a big city helps. Unless your school is reputable enough to draw patients from other parts of the state or surrounding states, the smaller schools will have less of those rare cases, on average. Schools in larger cities have the benefit of seeing rarer cases just because the potential patient population is huge, even if your hospital only draws patients from the local population.

If your school only has a hospital in a small remote location, with only a few small satellite clinics, I would guess that your clinical training might be less than optimal. I think this is one of the reasons why NYMC has a hospital in Manhattan (St. Vincents).

I agree with your first paragraph for the most part. I guess I am curious as to the degree to which you see these highly specialized cases.

Im not talking about a top med school versus a country/rural med school, but a top med school versus some other urban med school (ie JHU or Mayo vs NYMC or a Temple or something?). I agree on your other points completely though, but I am still a bit curious as to how much of these highly specialized patients you get to see as a med student, as opposed to a resident.

 

[moops]

where do u go?

Originally posted by dr barb
I totally agree! The "better" schools tend to be more lenient with their grading system AND more accomodating when you mess up. Perhaps they feel that if you were competitive enough to get in to a top school, then you have enough self-motivation that you don't need grades to force you to get the most of your education. You can usually assess how "good" a school is (aside from rankings, reputation etc.) by asking them about their policies when a student fails a class. Not that you expect to fail a class, but certain circumstances in your life may cause you to have a bad semester at one point. A "good" school will understand and do everything they can to help you succeed because they have committed to making you a physician and will work with you to make sure you're the best physician you can be. A not so good school would chastise you for screwing up and threaten to kick you out. Or they might tell you you have to make up the failed coursework on your own at your expense at another university.

As far as quality of education, your education is really what you make of it. I pretty much don't attend any classes that I'm not required to attend (i.e. no lectures). I only go to small group sessions which are req'd. So essentially I'm getting the same education here as I would anywhere.

 

[cguidr4]

A not so good school would chastise you for screwing up and threaten to kick you out. Or they might tell you you have to make up the failed coursework on your own at your expense at another university.

I disagree (if you consider state schools to be "not so good"). Most state schools do anything they can to pass their students because the state invests so much money for each students's education. This is why tuition to state schools are so cheap.

 

[nuclearrabbit77]

If my Grand Unifying Theory on Girls and Schools [GUTGS] holds..
perhaps a benefit of going to a bad school would be that there are hotter chicks?

am i a chauvinist? or do i speaketh the truth.........
don't tell me the girls in your class are superhot if you are some ugly-azz uber-loser who never had a g/f before.

ok. i'll stop now.

 

[mfleur]

This may be a stilly question..regarding ranking, how many tiers are there anyway?

 

[nuclearrabbit77]

the tier system is from college rankings. people just transposed the logic over to medical schools. i believe in the college system there are three tiers, and those wack-azz online courses and DeVry crap don't fit into any tier.