SDN vs. College Confidencial (CC); interesting observation

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Syndicate

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Im a frequent viewer of both College Confidential (the pre-med forums) and SDN and I've noticed that most posters on CC are parents of current applicants or med students whereas SDN is composed of almost 100% the applicants themselves. Anyone know why this is the case? I'm just wondering
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Syndicate said:
Im a frequent viewer of both College Confidential (the pre-med forums) and SDN and I've noticed that most posters on CC are parents of current applicants or med students whereas SDN is composed of almost 100% the applicants themselves. Anyone know why this is the case? I'm just wondering
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Response: what's a college confidential?
 
Syndicate said:
Im a frequent viewer of both College Confidential (the pre-med forums) and SDN and I've noticed that most posters on CC are parents of current applicants or med students whereas SDN is composed of almost 100% the applicants themselves. Anyone know why this is the case? I'm just wondering
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College Confidential = Where the helicopter parents go to play
 
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SDN > CC
A lot of those people who post there have not effin clue what they are talking about. lol The other day I saw someone post that surgeons make about 180k. OMG! I wanted to make an account and school all those *******es. In addition, it is so weird to see parents looking for answers for their kids. Makes me think those kids are just lazy and want mommy and daddy to do the work.
 
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I didn't even know there was a pre-med forum on college confidentials until now. I just took a look and it really looks like its mostly parents posting and not applicants / students themselves.
 
just went to go look at this CC forum. Lol, wish my parents did all that for me. Parents didn't do @#%$ for me in terms of research or questions.
 
Just checked it out. Whaddya bet sdn starts a thread for parents.
 
I've never been on CC, but if it's a bunch of parents, I bet there is a bunch of weird boomer advice on it.

"Just network your way into medical school!"
"Have you tried getting a job as a CNA and working your way up to physician?"
 
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TheWeeIceMan said:
I've never been on CC, but if it's a bunch of parents, I bet there is a bunch of weird boomer advice on it.

"Just network your way into medical school!"
"Have you tried getting a job as a CNA and working your way up to physician?"
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No I think it's more like,

"Hi fellow parents, my 21 year old manchild is applying to medical school next year. What do you think he should do this summer?

A) My friend can hook him up in a free clinic helping elderly blind lepers in Ecuador
B) Get a job doing a little research for the NIH (again, friend can hook him up)
C) Get toilet trained (we never got around to it, we didn't want to waste time on any non-medically related extracurriculars)
 
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CC mods are power tripping. Enough said.
 
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What I find extremely weird but hilarious is that there is an "IMPORTANT" thread exclusively for parents in the pre-med forums on CC titled "Residency comes next." I mean, by the time you're matching into residencies, you're going to be at least 25. Personally, I wouldn't want my parents to be that involved in my life at that age..
 
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I am imagining helicopter parents in retirement communities frantically trying to get the best fellowship tips for their 30-year-olds.
 
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Holy cow. That is the most confused, wrong forum I have ever seen in my life. How did that even happen??
 
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There is one mom on there that brags about her daughter so incessantly. She is also so quick to give very bad advice. The posters on there also seem to all have multiple acceptances at top 20 schools. It may be true since their parents were probably on CC since high school guiding their kids but sometimes it reads like fan fiction.
 
what about reddit.com/r/premed vs SDN?
 
mdhopeeful said:
I got some pretty solid feedback and advice there a couple of times.
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Agreed... I haven't really spent much time on the premed subreddit. I just perused it one time and it seemed very similar to SDN in terms of target audience and content. But it's just organized as a subreddit rather than a forum. For information, I think that reddit is a worse format. But for identifying and sharing media/content, reddit is pretty good.
 
what's funny is that those helicopter parents on CC may actually be the parents of some of us on SDN and that we just don't know it.
 
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I actually wish I used CC back in high school, glad im on SDN now, so much helpful info on here.
 
pyrrion89 said:
what about reddit.com/r/premed vs SDN?
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I browse and post there somewhat frequently. I think the people there mean well but they tend to be overly optimistic in a way that doesn't really reflect reality. To put it shortly, I think they are more heavily involved in the medicine circlejerk than, say, SDN, which I think colors the responses they give.

It's not a bad place to get advice, but I think SDN generally provides more realistic and comprehensive information. A lot of that is helped by the fact that a bunch of people from various stages in their careers post here, but on reddit most posters seem to be either people getting ready to apply, people applying, or MAYBE MS1s.
 
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Syndicate said:
Im a frequent viewer of both College Confidential (the pre-med forums) and SDN and I've noticed that most posters on CC are parents of current applicants or med students whereas SDN is composed of almost 100% the applicants themselves. Anyone know why this is the case? I'm just wondering
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If true, it sounds pretty lame that an adult is having his/her parents do all the research and work for him/her (or alternatively the parents have nothing better to do with their time!)!!!
 
Flashfan said:
There is one mom on there that brags about her daughter so incessantly. She is also so quick to give very bad advice. The posters on there also seem to all have multiple acceptances at top 20 schools. It may be true since their parents were probably on CC since high school guiding their kids but sometimes it reads like fan fiction.
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Define top 20. Top 20 research allopathic schools? Primary care? Caribbean schools? PA/CNA schools? Nursing schools? Podiatry schools? Chiropractic schools?
 
knv2u said:
If true, it sounds pretty lame that an adult is having his/her parents do all the research and work for him/her (or alternatively the parents have nothing better to do with their time!)!!!
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Yes, well, welcome to the wonderful world of middle class America. If you spend just a little time browsing CC, the whole issue surrounding the indoctrination of the youth that college is the most important thing ever becomes much more obvious. I think those parents mean well, but they're so misguided and myopically focused on getting into HYPM-type schools that they fail to see the harm and ultimate waste of time such a pursuit tends to be - at least when done to the extreme it's done there.
 
NickNaylor said:
Yes, well, welcome to the wonderful world of middle class America. If you spend just a little time browsing CC, the whole issue surrounding the indoctrination of the youth that college is the most important thing ever becomes much more obvious. I think those parents mean well, but they're so misguided and myopically focused on getting into HYPM-type schools that they fail to see the harm and ultimate waste of time such a pursuit tends to be - at least when done to the extreme it's done there.
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The funny thing is, when these people were young, they were the ones who thought that ivy league schools were full of fascists and narcs, man.
 
knv2u said:
Define top 20. Top 20 research allopathic schools? Primary care? Caribbean schools? PA/CNA schools? Nursing schools? Podiatry schools? Chiropractic schools?
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Plenty are talking about interviews at Penn, Harvard, Mayo, Vanderbilt, Duke, JHU, Chicago, Emory. The parents don't seem to know much about DO or Caribbean schools. As for nursing and podiatry, they have an allied forum that is separate from the pre-med forum. Not everyone is getting acceptances, but one of the actual helpful posters has a daughter at Yale. Another has a id at JHU.
 
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That's cause those parents would have an aneurysm before thinking that their SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE would ever think about those DO or Caribbean schools! They would disown their kids before having those absurd thoughts!
 
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NickNaylor said:
I browse and post there somewhat frequently. I think the people there mean well but they tend to be overly optimistic in a way that doesn't really reflect reality. To put it shortly, I think they are more heavily involved in the medicine circlejerk than, say, SDN, which I think colors the responses they give.

It's not a bad place to get advice, but I think SDN generally provides more realistic and comprehensive information. A lot of that is helped by the fact that a bunch of people from various stages in their careers post here, but on reddit most posters seem to be either people getting ready to apply, people applying, or MAYBE MS1s.
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SDN posters however very often fall prey to SDN groupthink and truisms and are very refractory to paradigm shifts
 
BlueLabel said:
Also most of them really love their black suits.
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god don't get me started about black suits on interview days

more on topic, jesus the formatting of that CC forum is atrocious
 
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My mom still uses AOL, and I'm not convinced my dad knows how to check his email - So I'm fairly confident they're not on CC, thank God.
 
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CarlosDanger said:
My mom still uses AOL, and I'm not convinced my dad knows how to check his email - So I'm fairly confident they're not on CC, thank God.
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My mom is more tech savvy, but my dad is a dinosaur when it comes to technology... He doesn't know how to turn his phone on or open up his text messages lol.
yikes.gif
 
I feel as if the prevalence of parental figures on CC somewhat hampers the discussion. Here, we certainly have some sense of professionalism, but we also know when to joke. If someone is being dumb, we'll call them out on it. If something disagrees with our opinion, we aren't afraid to state it. CC isn't terribly too much like this, as seen within the special snowflake comments above. To me, SDN reflects more of a real world environment. If you're going to do something that may bring harm to the patient, you can bet your ass someone is going to mention it. In the CC Hospital, it would be more of a "Oh, well your patient is coding, but at least it's a learning experience, hooray!"
 
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Boolean said:
I feel as if the prevalence of parental figures on CC somewhat hampers the discussion. Here, we certainly have some sense of professionalism, but we also know when to joke. If someone is being dumb, we'll call them out on it. If something disagrees with our opinion, we aren't afraid to state it. CC isn't terribly too much like this, as seen within the special snowflake comments above. To me, SDN reflects more of a real world environment. If you're going to do something that may bring harm to the patient, you can bet your ass someone is going to mention it. In the CC Hospital, it would be more of a "Oh, well your patient is coding, but at least it's a learning experience, hooray!"
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+!
 
TheWeeIceMan said:
I've never been on CC, but if it's a bunch of parents, I bet there is a bunch of weird boomer advice on it.

"Just network your way into medical school!"
"Have you tried getting a job as a CNA and working your way up to physician?"
Click to expand...

My mama literally asked me this last week. She had to start at the bottom of the ladder and claw he way up through her career because of socioeconomic disadvantage and jerk "women can't work outside the home" parents, so I see where she is coming from.

CC is pretty bad. Lots of dubious advice from people who think being internet parents is hip.
 
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BrainsIsCool said:
My mama literally asked me this last week. She had to start at the bottom of the ladder and claw he way up through her career because of socioeconomic disadvantage and jerk "women can't work outside the home" parents, so I see where she is coming from.

CC is pretty bad. Lots of dubious advice from people who think being internet parents is hip.
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Going off that last note, I don't understand some of the lingo they use. What is a "DD" in that context? Darling daughter?
 
BlueLabel said:
Going off that last note, I don't understand some of the lingo they use. What is a "DD" in that context? Darling daughter?
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Urban Dictionary:
dd
An acronym for "Dear Daughter." Mostly used by moms in their 40s when they talk aboutparenting.


boom
 
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Syndicate said:
Im a frequent viewer of both College Confidential (the pre-med forums) and SDN and I've noticed that most posters on CC are parents of current applicants or med students whereas SDN is composed of almost 100% the applicants themselves. Anyone know why this is the case? I'm just wondering
Click to expand...
pyrrion89 said:
what about reddit.com/r/premed vs SDN?
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SDN is far and away better than those other sites, and I feel completely confident and comfortable saying that.

First of all, it's wrong to say that SDN is 100% composed of just the applicants. Just in this thread alone, with 41 responses including mine, 13 responses (i.e. almost a third) have been by a MD/PhD student, Med Student, or Resident. Several of the premeds (such as myself) have taken time off to get other graduate degrees or gain work experience. And this is just one random thread. That's not to include the attendings and faculty members that may browse other threads.

Second, SDN is not just PreAllo. SDN includes entirely separate forums for DO applicants, and for NonTrads, and for Research Applicants, and then for the MCAT. In fact, there are entire forums for school application threads and for getting opinions on your application. And that's just premedical. There are then forums for medical students, dental students, vet, pharmacy, and (though less active) other specialties like public health, physical therapy, podiatry, etc. Then there are even more forums for USMLE preparation, for general residents, and for residents of over 10 different specialties. Every single forum is staffed with one or multiple moderators who have personal experience in that "world".

Third, and probably the most important, the community on SDN is simply better. We aren't full of a bunch of tiger moms looking to get an edge for little Timmy. We've got students with scholarship offers to half a dozen schools. We've got students who are scrapping for just one acceptance--on their 3rd cycle applying. We've got applicants with 270s on their Step 1 and we've got applicants who can't crack 9 on a single section of the MCAT. Becoming a medical professional is a diverse world, and what's more, we've got people at every stage of it and in every position within that stage. You've got access to it all, years and years of experience and perspectives from people who have been a part of this community and who have given years of their time trying to offer advice and lead people down the right path. Sometimes what they say isn't nice, sometimes you get tough love when someone tells you that you're not a special snowflake or that your ECs are average at best. But other times they're there for you, in your corner, cheering you on when you know your dream is to become a doctor and you won't give up, no matter what school you get into.

SDN is a great place. Sure I'm biased. Why wouldn't I be? On multiple occasions I've personally messaged people on here that I've never met when I was in an emergency and they opened their home to me and let me stay with them. Hell, Tots crashed on my bed last year while he was doing some traveling. There are some worthless jerks on this site, and I wish that could change, but that will never take away from the incredibly diverse, supportive, and generous community that also fills these pages.
 
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