Physicians, I need some feedback.

I'd look at Baylor. Great med school and the athletics have just been raping people of all sports lately.

Rice then. SMU is for people with coke habits.

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Sewanee

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I knew 4 or 5 people that went there, and all of them developed a healthy cocaine habit and flunked out. That may be the company I keep and not indicative of the school overall, but just a cautionary tale. They were all good high school students.


Your daughter sounds like a spitting image of mine. Swims, takes school VERY seriously, wants to be a doctor, but mine is only in 5th grade. She has her heart set on Birmingham Southern, though we have a long time to figure that out.

My wife works in the medical field, and best I can tell the place for undergrad doesn't really matter. All of the doctors she works with went to Alabama, Auburn, or some other big school. I think the medical school they go to is a bigger deal.

Like I said, it's likely just the company I kept at one point in my life. Sewanee is a good school, and honestly a lot of these smaller liberal arts colleges probably have the same problem as they get a lot of kids from the well-heeled private high schools in the South.

And if she does swim team, that will likely keep her out of trouble.

I agree with what others said. Specialty talk is way early. My wife and I changed our minds about our specialty several times in medical school.

It’s all going to hinge on her MCAT and her GPA. It does not matter what school she attends as long as she can crush the MCAT.

Pick a small school that she can swim and have fun. Because the next 8 years will be awful.

I don't have much advice to answer the specific question, but I do have some other advice.

Please do whatever you can to encourage her to keep an open mind. Getting fixated on one particular thing at her age might work out perfectly, or it might end up making her life miserable.

Lots of things in college for a smart kid to discover that may be completely new to her, and she might like more than a medical career.

Lots of perfectly normal people change their minds as they progress through their careers; try not to help her think she has to make her final decision now and never deviate from it.

Honestly, med school doesn’t matter. Save your money and go to a state school (like UAB if you are from Alabama). You want an elite residency/fellowship.

I disagree with RockTownHog to some extent. Hog is right if all she ever wants to do it practice Primary Care medicine somewhere with no aspirations of anything outside of the clinic. But if she ever wanted to be say a Medical Director or the Chair of a Department at some point, then medical school counts a lot. The reason is that it is very competitive for some of those positions and every advantage helps. If she's competing against someone from Johns Hopkins or an Ivy League school, then all else being equal, they will take the person with the best medical school.

The better medical schools are well known for how difficult they are to get into as well as their tough curriculum. Once they graduate from a great medical school, then it's easier to "match" with the better Residency's. Some may disagree, but I'm positive that hiring entities such as CEO's and other MD's look more favorable the less someone has moved around. So for instance, if she goes to the same school for undergrad, medical school and also stays for her residency, then it looks awesome on a CV (doctors resume). They like it because the longer someone stayed, it means they were doing a great job and weren't asked to leave and didn't have any personality conflicts with anyone. Yes, sometimes when doctors make a move it's because they were asked to leave for any of a variety of reasons. So on a CV it looks like they made a change for some reason, but in actuality they were asked to leave and other people in the industry know this happens and are on the lookout for it.

As far as the best medical schools, it can depend on several factors like the specialty she plans to go into or the region of the country she plans to work. All of the top ranked medical schools that you've often heard of, like the ones you mentioned, are great and therefore often mentioned. She won't go wrong if she's able to get into any Ivy League school, or John's Hopkins, or something like that because nationally they are well known as great schools. Regionally there are good schools and a lot of people in a certain state might look very favorable on a local medical school. If she wants to work in Texas for example, the Baylor College of Medicine or UTMB are both well known and liked. Just remember, clinical medicine is about marketing yourself. When patience are looking for a new doctor, when they have a choice, they will go with someone from Harvard over a medical school they've never heard of. Hospitals look at marketing their new hires in the same way, so they want a marketable school and will pay more for it. It's the same if they want to go into research and publish. The more reputable they sound, the better chance they'll have. Hope this helps...

My sister is an OB/GYN.

Undergrad doesn't really matter. Go to a good school and make good grades. Then apply to Medical schools.

She may even realize once she gets to college that she isn't interested anymore.

You don't need to go to the same college for undergrad and medical. It's way too early to pick a college based on their medical school.