When my father applied to Pharmacy School, his degree from the University of Texas was weighed more heavily than some others because of the degree of difficulty. In fact, Midwestern even bumped his gpa up from a 2.75 to a 3.2 because of it! I’m sure they would do the same with ivy leaguers. Not every university is the same.

If you attend a top schoolyou will taught by professors who are true experts and who have specialized in one subject for many years. You will be in a lab with the latest state of the art equipment. You prof will give you really hard assignments because he will know that you and your classmates are smart and can handle any level of problem. But if you are stuck he will be there for you and help you work out the problems because he knows you are a hard worker or you wouldnt be there in the first place. You will be continuously competing against very smart kids who will push you to your limit.

When you have had three years of that kind of competition you will take the MCAT and do well because you have had a really complete education. Probably you had really good coaching from the premed advisor who has placed hundreds of students in med schools and personally knows the admission committee members at the med schools. You and most of your premed friends will wind up as MDs.

If you go to Bigstate U. then you will probably be in a huge class where you will get no personal attention. Your lab will probably be taught by some ho-hum grad student who couldnt care less what happens to you. The prof will either slack off on the grades to keep his department head happy, or else give you weed out tests without giving you any help in preparing for them. When you get to the MCATs your chances of doing really well will be minimal because you just didnt have the preparation and help you needed to do your best. In theory, you WILL be able to succeed, but it will take iron self-discipline. Most of your premed friends will wind up as high school bio teachers.

The admission committees are not idiots. They know that an A in organic chemistry at Duke, Chicago or Stanford is not the same as an A in organic from Valley Community College.

Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

Truth be told, you don’t want to go to a really crappy college. You might not get in if you have a 4.0–medical schools won’t think the colleges are hard enough. But your college doesn’t have to be Ivy League in order for you to get in. Make sure your school is at least a fairly good school. It doesn’t have to be the top one in the country to be respected. Also, it might be better to go to a slightly less competitive school than the Ivy League if you are not confident that you can earn a GPA above 3.0 at the Ivy League school. Most of the competitive candidates have GPAs that are about 3.4-3.6 at the very least. You might be screwed if you get like a 2.7 at a top notch college.

It’s the reputation of the school that matters to the employers sometimes. When an employer sees for instance that you went to Harvard to become a doctor, they will think of how well Harvard is highly rated in it’s excellence. As long as you get good grades before and after you enter medical schol you are ok. It’s just the reputation of the school that employers really look at.