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Related Discussions
5 Likes
NYU Med School now offers free tuition to all students
tringo335
Alum Member ⭐
... I'll be keeping an eye open to see if they do the same for NYU Law... If so it'll certainly be my top choice!
Comments
That's great news for med students but there are very significant financial differences between med and law schools that will make it very unlikely nyu law follows their lead. NYU med also jumped 12 spots to #3 on usnews so this is more likely a power play on rankings.
Fingers cross for the unlikely event. Hopefully they announce free law tuition after applications close and I've been accepted.
Do people stress out over the MCAT like the LSAT?
Where did you see this on the news? Please post link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/nyregion/nyu-free-tuition-medical-school.html
I just heard about this! I don't think it will happen with law schools because the intention behind the decision was to better our country. Who knew that a business would do that?
@"samantha.ashley92" is right. There is a reason all science Ph.Ds are fully funded. The government sees value in investing in science and medicine and there is a cap in medical school seats. Law school on the other hand gets little to no government funding and there is less of a imposed cap on the seats in a given law school. There is of course also a societal perception that donating to medical schools is a more praise-worthy deed than donating to law and business schools. NYU med saved up ten years through private donations for this, something I can't imagine most law schools doing. Furthermore there is a physician shortage in primary care (too many US med students choose to specialize for $$$). This is to alleviate some of that debt for those that go into primary care or rural practices.
@"Darrin.lovard.allen" If you go on the premed forums, you'll quickly realize how neurotic the students are, and a big part of that is the MCAT being a brutal 7.5 hours long exam covering 8 subjects. Those forums are what TLS would be like on steroids.
Well, I have some personal MCAT experience, although the current test is somewhat different than when I took it. Generally, when I was moving through my training, I found the exams very rigorous. Like, when I took my first boards test (of three) in med school, it was 1400 questions over two days. MCATs start that exam experience. Unlike the LSAT, which tests thinking and reasoning skills, with MCATs you have to learn a large body of knowledge and facts. Plus, you get one shot at the test. No retakes are accepted. It is possible to do well, but there really can't be anything else going on in your life at the time.
@eRetaker I have been a pre-med for the majority of my undergrad and I don't think people are nearly as crazy about MCAT as pre-laws are about LSAT though. It doesn't weigh as much in the admissions process and as long as you get into A med school you're fine vs. everybody here is stressing like crazy for T14.
Yes, that it is true what @sx23 says about med school rankings. There are a few really not so desirable med schools at the very bottom and a few at the top that it is nice to be from (Harvard, Hopkins) but basically you are good no matter where you go. It matters how you do on Step 1 boards that most determines where you get your residency.
@sx23 I was also pre-med for a bit before deciding to pursue patent law. The issue is that it is significantly more difficult to get into the average med school than it is to get in a T14. With only 41.9% of all applicants being accepted to a single medical school, while most medical schools have lower acceptance rates than HYS. That's of course not even considering that premeds get weeded out before applying whereas there is no weed-out system for prelaws. Unless perhaps you were also referring to D.O. programs in which it is much less competitive to get in for premeds? In regards to the MCAT, getting the 99th percentile would be more difficult just cause the pool of students is stronger (premeds take MCAT in junior/senior year after orgo weeds most people out), and the SDN forums definitely has more people freaking out about the MCAT than people do here about the LSAT. LSAT does weigh more more admissions, but med schools being more competitive forces people to go harder on it than LSAT test takers even if it counts for less.
@"Chipster Study" I would say your impressions of the MCAT are pretty accurate even today.
Source: https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf
21,165 matriculants/51,432 applicants last year, meaning over 30k applicants didn't get into a single med school.
Yup @eRetaker I pretty much agree. One thing that is never done for medical school that you see commonly in law school is declining an acceptance and reapplying the next year to see if you can get into "better schools." Never done. What do they call the person who graduates last in his med school class at Ohio State?.....Doctor.
@"Chipster Study" pretty much lol. Getting into a single medical school is already such a tall order and you definitely do not see the type of scholarship negotiations that go on in law schools.
@eRetaker I disagree on that. At least at Duke where I went to undergrad 85% of students who apply in a given year gets admitted to at least one med school. I don’t think the percentage of students who get into at least one T14 school is gonna be as high as that. As somebody who has taken all premed requirements I think only Otho counts as a weed out class but I think the LSAT functions similarly to that, only that it’s more important. A C in Orgo you can still go to med school. Pre-meds also have more leeways in terms of gpa. You only need a cGPA of 3.6 and a science GPA of 3.5. Whereas these stats will be horrible for T14, not to mention HYS. You might argue classes are harder for premeds, but in reality they always try to find easy classes after the reqs and there aren’t that many hard premed requirements (3 chem, 2bio, 1 biochem, maybe physics if you don’t have AP and bios and biochem are just memorization which everybody can do and learning orgo is essentially like learning LSAT). And even if we assume premeds are more intense, MCAT is harder, and Med school acceptances are harder to come back( this is def true by the numbers). Premeds are evaluated on a far boarder spectrum than prelaws. A good MCAT score and GPA only get you interviews. After that you still face an up-hill battle where your health related experience( e.g. EMT), research, volunteer, and just whether you’re nice matter overwhelmingly. In other words the admissions process is a black box and you will be far better served by just gettin an OK MCAT score and spend time on your resume. And there are plenty of state schools with MCAT score in the 70s percentiles. For T14 law schools, LSAT is like 50% of your app.
@sx23 You bring up some very good points. I definitely agree with you that med schools are more of a black box (softs matter way more), but in the same way that Yale and Stanford law's softs matter way more than other schools. It is also true that premeds do look for GPA boosters after orgo but it's just that prelaws don't have to go through the prereqs first before looking. The 85% Duke pre-med acceptance rate is also after most students have been weeded out. The national pool having a 41.9% acceptance rate versus Duke's 85% is more of a nod to your school's academic strength and reputation. Students at non-top 10 undergrads would be stressing a lot more about MCATs such as mine did. Furthermore, science GPAs are significantly lower due to forced curves. I would also honestly expect Duke pre-laws (if undergoing a weed-out system) to have a 85% acceptance rate to T14 schools. A C in Orgo will keep you out of many top med schools since pre-reqs are valued more than electives whereas law schools do not care as long as the overall GPA is high. A 70th percentile MCAT is also not equivalent to 70th percentile LSAT given the testing population, similar to how comparing SAT and LSAT percentiles would be misleading. I was also comparing the average med school to T14 schools, which would definitely not have MCAT percentiles in the 70s. Lastly, the previous link for med school acceptances shows that with a 506-509 (69-79%) only 49.7% got admitted to a medical school, so yes students would be prepping like crazy for MCAT since a 70th percentile MCAT can essentially close all med school doors. Also just curious but what made you decide on Law from your science background?
Stats on GPAs versus LSAT scores based on majors: https://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source/data-(lsac-resources)-docs/2015-16_applicants-major.pdf
Yes, softs count for a lot in med school. Probably one of the reasons I got in. I had worked many years doing shifts as a production foreman on the open hearths. My interviewer said, "Gee, I can't ever remember a steelworker coming through here." My med school had me on several covers in my work gear standing in front of the furnaces, etc.
My admissions dean looked for years for a circus performer. And when she found a cirque du soleil guy who blew out his knee and wanted to do orthopedic surgery, he got in.
And agree, organic chem grades looked at very closely.
@eRetaker Some very good points! I guess we can’t really talk about this without more quantitative information. I think on my CAS report over 70% of Duke LSAT scores are below 95% or 168. I don’t know whether that’s an average for everybody but I seriously doubt 85% of all students can get into at least one T14. But you’re definitely right that each school is unique. Great discussion! Thanks for all the information.
@sx23 Likewise! Good luck on the app process as well!
Now no one will be able to get in lol
A few years back I remember you could retake the MCAT but different schools had different policies on how they would weigh the multiple tests. Has this policy changed now?
It has been quite awhile since I was applying to med school, but from the kids I have talked to who are applying this year, it is almost completely a one-time test. One kid I talked to who did nto do all that great is dealing with it by changing her application list, not by thinking about retaking. Med schools want people who can perform under pressure and get it right the first time. Law schools do also I assume but law is more deliberative and dare I say - intellectual.
@eRetaker You too!