People lie to your face and people lie on the internet. As with everything, use your sense. If you see something said by a lot of people consistently, and it it seems to make sense, it's more likely to be true. If you see only a vocal handful citing anecdotes that flies against what seems reasonable or what seems to be reported by the vast majority, it's less likely to be true. I actually have stated multiple times that SDN is a bimodal population. There are a lot of people here with intense stats seeking to get into multiple top schools. Then you have the population who have serious "damage control" that just want to get into a school. Both are motivated to research everything they can to figure out how the system works, thus why they show up on SDN. The bros in the middle aren't as represented because their applications are strong enough that they think they'll probably get in somewhere, but they're not so anal about it that they must do
everything to maximize their chances.
Also, sometimes people simply don't want to accept that there are people out there with ridiculous applications. Some of it is fake, and trolls are pretty easy to identify, but from seeing a lot of top applicants, I can tell you that most of it is real. Resist the temptation of feeling you need to compare yourself constantly to every applicant, but also resist the temptation to degrade or discredit the applications of others to make yourself feel better.
I also call BS on frequent claims that SDN is hostile to people with low stats. Actually
look at the WAMC forum (
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forums/what-are-my-chances.418/) and you'll note that the
majority are not people with Star Wars numbers. Most of them are people that are non trads or have low GPAs or MCAT scores. Rather than tell applicants they have no chance, applicants here are frequently told not to lose hope and to do X, Y, and Z to best improve their chances. Sometimes the advice isn't want people want to hear. "Take a year off to strengthen your chances." Does that mean you don't have a chance? No, you could get in, not even adcoms can 100% predict who will get into their own school. But given the success of previous applicants, you're in danger of
not getting in, and that's a lot of money and time to burn when you could take a year to strengthen your application and apply (without the added complications of being designated a "reapplicant").
Basically people need to use their brains and know what they're reading. This is a place where people try to share the wisdom of what works best. Some people get in that no one expected, some people get rejected that no one expected, but for the most part, the advice here is quite good and has successfully guided people to successful application seasons. It's not magic, it's just what happens when you get enough people who share information about the process and successes from the perspective of applicants, medical students, doctors, and adcoms. None of us have crystal balls and sometimes we'll be wrong.
