Pitt students finding it tougher to get into Pitt’s medical school

Pitt junior Tiffany Sinclair knows exactly what she wants.

She wants to be an infertility… Pitt junior Tiffany Sinclair knows exactly what she wants.

She wants to be an infertility specialist, and she wants to go to a top-20 medical school to learn how.

Sinclair is interested in attending Pitt’s School of Medicine, ranked 15th in the nation for research in U.S. News ‘ World Report’s 2006 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools.

But the odds are against her.

In Pitt’s current first-year medical school class, three of the 147 students – or 2 percent – graduated from Pitt. In similarly ranked schools, the percentage of undergrads attending the same institution is between 15 percent and 30 percent.

Also, the percentage of Pennsylvania students attending Pitt’s School of Medicine has decreased steadily from 58 percent for the entering class of 1997 to 15 percent in this year’s class.

Edward Curtiss, the senior associate dean for admissions and financial aid at the medical school, explained that Pitt’s medical school has become more competitive.

“You don’t get more consideration if you went to Harvard than if you went to Pitt,” Curtiss said. “You have to do well at both institutions.”

But what many pre-med Pitt students wonder is whether more of them should be accepted to Pitt’s School of Medicine.

Only half of the students who apply to medical school are ever admitted, according to Raymond Mizgorski, the health professions consultant at Pitt’s Career Services.

The application and interview process are intensive and students who are considering medical school have to not only excel at school, but put in countless volunteer hours, do research and participate in multiple extracurricular activities.

Pitt’s national reputation helps attract applications from all over the country, including many from graduates of Ivy League schools.

“Because [Pitt is] a top ranked school, they can be as picky as they want,” Mizgorski said.

Curtiss explained that Pitt’s medical school class has to matriculate 148 students each year. To do so, it admits three times more, because only a third will select Pitt as their school of choice.

The 2 percent statistic, therefore, may be misleading because more Pitt students could have been admitted to the school of medicine but chose to go elsewhere.

In the 2004-2005 admission cycle, 82 out of 5,300 applications came from Pitt – 2 percent of them. However, out of 1,188 students who were interviewed, only nine were from Pitt – less than 1 percent.

Medical students cannot gain admission unless they have been selected for an interview.

At most medical schools, the respective undergraduate school is the most represented. In 2005, the most represented school at Pitt was the University of Michigan.

Vanderbilt Medical School of Medicine – a private Tennessee school ranked 18th in the country – has 16 Vanderbilt undergraduates, 15 percent of the first-year class.

Nineteen percent of The University of Chicago’s (Pritzker) medical school, ranked 19th, came from its undergraduate student body. Also, almost 30 percent of the University of Michigan’s medical school class came from the University of Michigan. It is ranked ninth.

The other two state-affiliated medical schools in Pennsylvania, Penn State and Temple, have a larger percentage of their own undergraduates and in-state students than Pitt, but these schools fall lower in the rankings.

Eight percent of Penn State’s first-year medical school class graduated from Penn State, with 45 percent from Pennsylvania. Temple graduates make up 6 percent in its medical school, and in-state students make up 53 percent.

Sinclair, a junior neurology and psychology double major, believes one of the reasons why Pitt undergrads are so slimly represented at Pitt’s School of Medicine is because of the difference in reputation between the two schools within the university.

She said that Pitt undergrad cannot be compared to the top-20 medical school. In the latest U.S. News ‘ World Report, Pitt was ranked 58th of the nation’s universities.

“If you look at Pitt’s undergrad, it’s not near the top, it’s a mediocre school, it’s a big state school, and it is what it is,” Sinclair said. “It’s not on the same level as the medical school.”

While in rank, Pitt medical school looks more prestigious than its undergrad, pre-med adviser Mizgorski said Pitt definitely puts out competitive students. But he also doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that it is extremely difficult to get into Pitt’s School of Medicine.

“I don’t pull my punches,” he said.

Pre-med junior Michael Santos said he felt that Pitt is preparing him for medical school, but only as long as you get the right professors.

“Some of the professors have done a very good job,” he said, but added, “I think a lot of the professors are really … they don’t really care.”

Other students have a higher appreciation for the undergraduate curriculum.

Pranav Shetty, a third year Pitt medical school student and Pitt graduate, said he felt that Pitt adequately prepared him for medical school.

“A lot of my work undergrad, because it was neuroscience, was pretty specific, but I felt that it helped prepare me,” Shetty said.

He had to choose between Pitt’s School of Medicine and the University of Michigan, but chose Pitt because he was given more scholarship money.

Shetty said he has seen a change in the type of students being admitted into the School of Medicine.

“I’ve heard that … over the last few years that Pitt [medical] students have tended to be less fun and more studious,” he said. “Which, if you’re going to be my doctor, that’s a really good thing, but if you’re going to be my friend, that’s going to be a really bad thing.”

Curtiss agreed that the School of Medicine has had a greater focus on research since Arthur Levine was made the senior vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine in November 1998.

Levine had previously worked for the National Institutes of Health, the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research, and thus enhancing the research potential of Pitt’s medical school.

However, Curtiss said, research did not make or break a student when it came to admission into the medical school.

“I’ve been here for 35 years and I have an allegiance to training medical students,” Curtiss said. “What we want are wholesome research people who are going to be competent and caring doctors besides being academic physicians.”

Another change that affects all in-state students is that admissions no longer gives preference to Pennsylvania residents.

“In the past, Pennsylvanians were given a break on the admissions committee,” Curtiss said.

The School of Medicine no longer gives preference to students from Pennsylvania, including Pitt undergrads.

State Representative Jess Stairs, R-Westmoreland and Fayette, who serves as the chairman of the House Education Committee, said he hopes that this is not the case.

“If we have two students who are of equal quality, I would hope they would pick the Pennsylvania student,” Stairs said.

Pitt – along with Temple, Penn State and Lincoln – is a state-affiliated university, meaning that it is a private university, but receives state funding; 12.1 percent of Pitt’s revenues in 2005 came from the Commonwealth.

How much of that funding goes to the medical school is hard to calculate because the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is a separate corporation, and faculty members both do clinical work through UPMC and teach at the medical school.

“State funding for this medical school has always been terrible,” Curtiss said.

And apparently state funding does not help in-state students get into medical school in Pennsylvania.

Penn State College of Medicine does not have a policy that dictates a preference for Pennsylvania residents, according to Assistant Director for Admissions Marc Lubbers.

Maria Demmler, the associate director of admissions at the Temple School of Medicine, said that Temple does not have a policy on the books that gives preference to Pennsylvanians. Temple School of Medicine’s percentage of in-state students has hovered around 50 percent the last few years. But according to Demmler, it used to be higher.

“It’s not that we are any less committed to Pennsylvania,” she said, adding that that’s just the way the numbers have worked out.

Stairs said he is surprised that there is such a small percentage of Pennsylvania residents at Pitt’s School of Medicine.

“I think we should try and encourage schools to admit as many Pennsylvania students as they can,” he said.