Center Cosmetic Surgery
Becoming a plastic surgeon?
I know that it's been asked many times, but what are the top 5 colleges? I have a 4.0 GPA. So how many years does it take in school and being an intern overall?
Public Comments
- Top 5 colleges- this is hard to say, seeing as how there are a ton of different rankings. According to the U.S. News rankings, the top 5 are (in order): Princeton, Harvard, Yale, CalTech, MIT, and Stanford. However, if you want to go into medicine, you should broaden your scope a bit and look at the top 10 or 20 colleges, and pick out the ones with prestigious biology/pre-med departments. Getting into med school is ALL about grades- look for grade-inflated schools. The same student who goes to MIT (a notoriously grade-DEflated school) and gets a 3.6 could have gone to Duke (which is, by the way, an amazing school for pre-meds) and gotten a 3.8. All of these schools are insanely competitive, it takes a hell of a lot more than a 4.0 to get in (almost everybody who applies has a 4.0 or close to it). These schools are looking for: 1. a high GPA with a challenging courseload (honors, AP courses, etc.) 2. high SAT scores (to be safe, 1450/1600 or higher...anything higher won't help you too much but anything lower may keep you out) 3. extracurriculars (not necessarily a ton, but a few that you are heavily involved in) 4. awards/honors (the higher the level, the better- national/international awards obviously being the most impressive) 5. letters of recommendation (get to know 2-3 of your teachers junior year very well) 6. other (minority/financial status, work experience, etc.) It'll take you 4 years of undergrad (As a pre-med student), 4 years of medical school, and then around 5 years of a residency/specialty training (warning, plastic surgery is one of the most competitive specialities in medicine...the others include dermatology, cardiology, and neuroscience. the competition is intense in pretty much any field where you have the potential to make a loooot of money.) If you really want to be a plastic surgeon for reasons OTHER THAN just the money (trust me, that won't be enough to get you through 13-14 years of schooling/training), then go for it! Good luck!
