What Kind of an Advisory Role Does/Did SDN Play for You?

We did not have a pre-med advising office at my campus or even a pre-health club until my class started it last year so the help through school was minimal. I did have a fantastic advisor at school but I was the first serious medical school applicant she had advised and at this point she comes to me with questions for future applicants!

Unfortunately I did not find SDN until the day before my MCAT and probably wouldn't have taken it when I did had I found this sooner. Oh well. Although the forums are extremely helpful and have basically anything you'd ever need to know about the steps to take to apply, I'd have to say the people I've met have been the greatest source of knowledge and support. One person in particular basically acted as an advisor to me and I doubt I could have found a better one had I tried. Some truly inspiring people on this site.

I've also found people on this forum who are in similar situations to me. IRL that does not happen so being able to connect with these people and possibly help them has been amazing

I found that most advice on SDN needs to be filtered before one should apply it to themselves.

I agree with you Q. Right now, the school I attend has zero pre-med advising and their regular advising is suspect as well. If it wasn't for SDN, I'd be pretty lost with the fine details of getting an application ready for med school. I am very grateful for SDN.

I use it as my primary source.

I have met with the admissions office at one medical school at their insistence (personally I thought it was a bit early to be meeting with them..). The man didn't tell me anything I hadn't already learned from here, other than giving me the idea to keep an MCAT study guide close by as I work through my pre-reqs.

Given the ability to filter, pretty much everything one needs to know about getting in to, and succeeding at medical school can be found in the pages of these forums.

This has been and continues to be my manual. But it is half-hazard. Like an archeological find. It has to be sorted through. It took a while to learn how to use it effectively. There is potential for it to be damaging at critical decision points. I had to learn how to filter it's distortion and static.

Once you understand how to use it. And how to dial in the signals you need. It becomes a most powerful agent of the zeitgeist.

I can honestly, 100% honestly say, I wouldn't be anywhere near competitive pre-med if it wasn't for SDN. I wouldn't be anywhere close. SN2ed's MCAT plan, if it works, will result in me being a lifetime donor.

SDN is imho the best source of what's possible: I found out here that there are such things as DOs, SMPs, TMDSAS, ABP and lots more. Where I'm from, none of these things are part of the premed conversation. Where I'm from, nobody had any idea what to do with me as an over-40 low-GPA med school candidate. SDN has boatloads of ideas.

I like my world well-delineated, so it was a big adjustment for me to accept that there are very few absolutes in med school admissions. I would learn fact A and state it as a fact, and immediately get schooled about subfacts A.1 through A.47. Prereqs at a community college? Grad school coursework affect on cumulative GPA? Below-average MCAT? No verdict.

All along I've been inspired by the folks who take the time to educate. Who don't just roll their eyes and say "good god have you heard of SEARCH?!?!?" Who aren't particularly concerned about self esteem, they're concerned about factual understanding of med school. I have yet to reconcile the power of a terse response with the satisfaction of an expressive essay - I like both. Very, very few sermons here sway any opinions, which I forget all the time.

Best of luck to you.

When I was preparing to apply, I had the benefit of a knowledgeable pre-health advisor who rather straightforwardly explained the process and what was expected of applicants. At the time, I hadn't heard of SDN until she mentioned it in a presentation she gave on the application process; she cautioned that you really have to consider critically what's said on SDN to tease apart the valid information from the bullcrap. I logged in and poked around a bit, but I had little use of it until the application cycle actually started; between my advisor's helpful guide to the application process and a co-worker who himself did an MD/PhD, I felt I had adequate support. I did use the school-specific threads to be able to monitor what was going on at individual schools, but I didn't really dive in headlong until I got that first acceptance and had tons of time to kill.

I primarily use SDN as a social network, where I can participate in and get support from a community of peers with similar goals, aspirations, and backgrounds. Some of the members of the community are extremely knowledgeable and I benefit from their wisdom and advice (which I try and pay forward), but that's purely a bonus and not the reason I hang around.

I have no premed advisor so SDN is it for me.

Very few students from my school (with approx. 100 people per graduating class) go on to med school, and career services is imho mediocre (but improving). SDN has been a tremendous resource to me so far.

I made the decision several years after undergrad to go to med school and ended up taking the pre med classes at a CC. Because of this, I had no pre med advising whatsoever available to me. I also didn't know anyone else who was applying to med school so it was a source of support for me, as well as information. Honestly, if it weren't for SDN, I m not sure I would have considered DO programs and then I wouldn't be starting school in three weeks!

Oh now I get it. Duped again by the meddlesome Q.

SDN was is my advisor. But all I do is send self-amusing missives from my imaginary cyber throne. Should've smelled the do-goodery. D@mm it. Fine. 10 very helpful, perfectly logical AND factual public service posts. Final offer.

Ok 15. Gets me everytime with the silence thing.

DrMidlife said:

I have yet to reconcile the power of a terse response with the satisfaction of an expressive essay - I like both.

Click to expand...

I feel the same way, I'm a poor writer and math/science was always my forte rather than the expressive and subtlety of a well written thought. I wonder if it is because of the computer background (which I also have)?

I consider the non-trad advice more credible than anything in the pre-allo forums.

But yeah, SDN plays a very important role for me.

Honestly I feel like studentdoctor is like navigating across a landmine field to get to a hidden treasure chest. The reward is immense but the danger is equally as great. It's hard to post for fear of being told your stupid for not using the search function, you wrote too much, your grammar sucks etc. Even a few people going with statistics and saying you have no shot you WILL not be the exception. That stuff hit me pretty hard in the beginning of my journey until I just learned how to filter and say **** it. Then there are AMAZING people that take the time out of their day to answer the easy and hard questions, the spectacular guides<mcat guide > and the motivational stories. To be honest the stories are what helped me get to where I am now. Overall studentdoctor rocks and I hope to be of benefit to someone in the future.

My only source of networking, and inspiration. Throw in some self-righteous fist-waving at Pre-Allo threads and some lolz in there too.

The people I met on here were my guides and coaches. I've thank everybody enough (I think). They know who they are.

SDN is my sole source of information on medical schools and the application process. It serves as my pre-med club and my advisor. Our school advisor is pretty useless, especially for non-trads. Her advice mostly consists of reassigning people to a biology major even if they didn't ask for it. We have no pre-med committee, either.

In fact, I basically consider Q and Nick and a couple of others to be my pre-med committee. I should probably hit them up for a committee LOR this application cycle!

I know for sure i will not be starting med school this fall without SDN. SDN

I didn't find SDN until after I was accepted into medical school