NEED HELP WITH UNI DECISION

[iliashareghi]

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all doing okay.

I need some help choosing a university program for next year.

I'm really stuck between McGill for Biomedical, Biological, Life Sciences and Western for Medical Sciences.

I'm gunning for the top 10 research medical schools in the U.S.

I feel like it's easier to get a higher GPA at Western (primarily because of their grade scale), but McGill's international reputation is much stronger.

I like both schools equally, so fit is not really a concern.

Do these medical schools (e.g. Harvard) care about undergraduate reputation? I've never found a straight answer to this question. Some people say that it doesn't matter, but how come most people at these top medical schools are from Ivy Leagues or equivalents (e.g. Stanford, Duke, etc)?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

Ilia

[zoxy]

1 hour ago, iliashareghi said:

Do these medical schools (e.g. Harvard) care about undergraduate reputation? I've never found a straight answer to this question. Some people say that it doesn't matter, but how come most people at these top medical schools are from Ivy Leagues or equivalents (e.g. Stanford, Duke, etc)?

They do care about reputation. It's not purely an algorithmic process like Canada and undergraduate prestige does matter. However over-representation of under-graduates from elite schools at high ranking medical schools does not necessarily mean they got in due to the undergrad prestige.

One of the reasons that kids from good undergrads are over-represented is that those kids also do really well on the MCAT. Average MCAT of a UChicago undergrad is a 516, same at UPenn. I'd imagine all the other Ivy-Plus undergrads are in that ball-park. In my opinion, the calibre of students at Ivy-Plus undergrads is the primary reasons that they're over-represented at elite medical schools rather than the prestige of their undergrad. In other words, the prestige does help but I think it's secondary to the calibre of the students.

Now between the two schools you mentioned, McGill is also inexplicably well thought of in the US. I can't answer whether this outweighs Western's easier grading but it is definitely a bigger name, probably the best known Canadian university down there.