Some of the worst advice you received as a pre-med

[Mystic123]

"Don't worry about any of the requirements for what you want to do, take other classes outside of your interest to explore because you might like something else."

Advisors like that put people behinddddd

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[touchpause13]

Did they mean for undergrad or medical school?

Undergrad.[/QUOTE]

That's reasonable when you are taking into account how much debt you will be in with med school + undergrad loans. Going to a cheap undergrad that I have 0 loans from is a huge burden off of my shoulders

"Don't worry about any of the requirements for what you want to do, take other classes outside of your interest to explore because you might like something else."

Advisors like that put people behinddddd

Do the requirements + classes that interest you is good advice for the record. Obviously ignoring requirements all together is dumb.

For me it was "you have to take physiology in order to apply for medical school" which was with a prof that hates teaching premeds and would try and make people cry in class and never really taught ****. Tanked my GPA because of that dingus.

 

[Mystic123]

Undergrad.

That's reasonable when you are taking into account how much debt you will be in with med school + undergrad loans. Going to a cheap undergrad that I have 0 loans from is a huge burden off of my shoulders

Do the requirements + classes that interest you is good advice for the record. Obviously ignoring requirements all together is dumb.

For me it was "you have to take physiology in order to apply for medical school" which was with a prof that hates teaching premeds and would try and make people cry in class and never really taught ****. Tanked my GPA because of that dingus.[/QUOTE]

AHHH! I just finished my spring semester with a c- in biochem. The professor who teaches it hates premeds and is known to be hard. The grade KILLED my gpa :'(

 

[Goro]

I almost spit my tea out allover my keyboard!

"Call up [DO school a few hours from where I live] and see if they can get you started for Fall 2015."
-my MD father, April 2015

I think he honestly expected me to call up this school that I hadn't even applied to and ask them if they could rig something for me.

 

[medic86]

That's reasonable when you are taking into account how much debt you will be in with med school + undergrad loans. Going to a cheap undergrad that I have 0 loans from is a huge burden off of my shoulders

Do the requirements + classes that interest you is good advice for the record. Obviously ignoring requirements all together is dumb.

For me it was "you have to take physiology in order to apply for medical school" which was with a prof that hates teaching premeds and would try and make people cry in class and never really taught ****. Tanked my GPA because of that dingus.

Ugh.

Reminds me of a physics professor I had. Bye bye 4.0!

 

[Gandyy]

I feel like even with some of the neurotic posters on here who freak out about their 39 (its not a 40?! OMG I'm screwed!!!), you get better advice from the hive mind.

Yea, there is no better advisor than actual adcoms lol.

 

[Cotterpin]

So... I don't know if this is actual bad advice or not. We had an adcom panel at my school where one of the panelists from an MD adcom said that shadowing isn't very important. He said they get an image of a puppy following a doctor around and they'd rather see other kinds of clinical experience. How true is that? Because to read SDN, you'd think you need extensive shadowing experience in every specialty to stand a chance.

 

[gettheleadout]

Don't listen to SDN, it's just a bunch of neurotic crazy people.

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

 

[emraldragon]

So... I don't know if this is actual bad advice or not. We had an adcom panel at my school where one of the panelists from an MD adcom said that shadowing isn't very important. He said they get an image of a puppy following a doctor around and they'd rather see other kinds of clinical experience. How true is that? Because to read SDN, you'd think you need extensive shadowing experience in every specialty to stand a chance.

I think it definitely depends on who you ask. Different adcoms will weigh certain aspects differently. (witness adcom telling me that getting paid for being a CNA was killing my app). I think that's why we need to fill the whole package, because their will be adcoms who don't care for shadowing hours as much and others who say all medical volunteering (hospital shelf stocking) cannot be considered altruistic because the applicant is getting something out of it. (not a direct quote, but heard it straight from the adcom's mouth). It's like pokemon--gotta catch em all!

 

[jagster92]

So... I don't know if this is actual bad advice or not. We had an adcom panel at my school where one of the panelists from an MD adcom said that shadowing isn't very important. He said they get an image of a puppy following a doctor around and they'd rather see other kinds of clinical experience. How true is that? Because to read SDN, you'd think you need extensive shadowing experience in every specialty to stand a chance.

I've never really got the vibe from SDN that you need crazy amounts of shadowing. Just enough to show that you know (or at least made a good effort to see) what you're getting into.

 

[emraldragon]

I've never really got the vibe from SDN that you need crazy amounts of shadowing. Just enough to show that you know (or at least made a good effort to see) what you're getting into.

And you should shadow more than one specialty too. The EM lifestyle differs greatly from the Derm lifestyle etc etc etc. Shadowing 200 hours of ortho only even if you're 100 percent sure you wanna be an ortho brah does not a good application make.

 

[f4reignbeauty]

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

Hmm... Wonder why

/s

 

[Dr. Retractor]

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

Wouldn't say they hate SDN, they just think everyone here is an over-achiever and advice from here generally isn't applicable to the people towards the middle of the bell curve. Not to say there aren't some posters there who bash the crap out of SDN, but it's far from the general sentiment.

Edit: I'm referring to the subreddits you indicated, as I'm not familiar with the other online pre-med/med communities.

 

[Mad Jack]

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

Probably because they'll never be the best premed community out there. Certain people just love to root for the underdog and hate on a winner. I'm more of a Yankees guy myself.

 

[Dandine]

(edit: forgot to put advice in, whoops)

" It is better to do 20 one-hour activities then a few activities you are passionate about."

For real? I was under the impression that the "few activities" stance was common knowledge.

I didn't think I had any horrible advice in undergrad...just some experiences that I would have rather avoided.

The whole "follow your passion" mindset I don't think is bad, although it does require some strategy that I think would have been nice if I had kept that in mind. Example: in a music ensemble while in a semester with multiple sciences = not exactly the best plan. Do I regret it, though? Absolutely not.

 

[bear2roo]

Oh I have one..

Mentor of 2 years looks at my cv and sees I have a 3.5+ GPA and a 30+ MCAT.

"As an ORM, No way you can make MD. Not even DO. I think you might make SGU or Ross but it'll be a reach"

Said it in total seriousness. Oh and he graduated from HMS and trained at a top surgery residency.

 

[deleted642188]

"Take calculus-based physics and engineering calculus; it makes you look so much smarter!!!"

 

[ZedsDed]

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

I've been over there. Their anti-SDN rhetoric is both hilarious and pathetic. Many of them believe Lizzy, gyngyn, Goro, mimelin, etc. are 13 year old trolls that like to s*** on premeds between WOW sessions. I saw a post there once about how SDN sells emails to Saint Georges University . Because we all know this non-profit thing is just a front (a tin-foil hat emoji would be great here.)

Here's a few gems I found:

"The way people suck up to LizzyM makes me ashamed. No wonder most medical students in medical school are sycophantic a**holes! Personally, I think LizzyM is the #1 troll in the medical world. Of course, one can merely take SDN's word that she is an adcom but that would be exceedingly naive."

"SDN is run by kids that are applying to medical school and are trying to scare the competition."

"Yeah they're all trolls. I've visited the WAMC forum for SDN for pre-meds. All the people giving advice like the adcoms (goro, gyngyn, catalystik etc.) and the adcom's sycophants (SkipJunior, Faha, mimelim, NickNaylor, Dermviser) are all trolls. They just want to play god and tell you that you are not good enough. I posted a thread there and goro and gyngyn shot me down in a disgusting way."

"There are several millions of dollars to be made off medical school applicants. The companies that make these millions would be extremely stupid and completely lacking in business sense if they didn't set up an SDN-type service pretending to be adcoms giving advice."

Unsurprisingly, all of the above individuals (with one exception) were unsuccessful premeds

 

[Spinach Dip]

This thread is one of the best ever to appear on SDN. It makes me wonder how many medical careers were aborted due to horrible advice.

One thing I've gleaned is that a lot of practicing clinicians know nothing about the current app process.

I think it's because the whole process is a huge crapshoot. If you take 10 students with the exact same 'stats', half might get in because they have some amazing experiences/applied to the right schools/interview well. The remainder are left out in the rain while asking "why me?"

I've also had some older physicians say "In my day, all I had to do was take the MCAT and throw out some applications. We didn't need to do any shadowing or volunteering just to prove ourselves."

Have changed for the better? I don't know.

I feel like even with some of the neurotic posters on here who freak out about their 39 (its not a 40?! OMG I'm screwed!!!), you get better advice from the hive mind.

There are a few nuggets of gold interspersed between the excetia this forum is known for.

 

[Spinach Dip]

Unsurprisingly, all of the above individuals (with one exception) were unsuccessful premeds

Being a premed is bad enough. Being an unsuccessful premed is even worse.

 

[Psai]

In case anyone didn't know, other online communities (e.g. /r/medicalschool and /r/premed) hate the culture on SDN (and I don't mean the lounge/wolf's den, I mean Pre-Allo.)

well we got more important things to do than post overused memes from 2010 with unoriginal titles

 

[Gandyy]

I've been over there. Their anti-SDN rhetoric is both hilarious and pathetic. Many of them believe Lizzy, gyngyn, Goro, mimelin, etc. are 13 year old trolls that like to s*** on premeds between WOW sessions. I saw a post there once about how SDN sells emails to Saint Georges University . Because we all know this non-profit thing is just a front (a tin-foil hat emoji would be great here.)

Here's a few gems I found:

"The way people suck up to LizzyM makes me ashamed. No wonder most medical students in medical school are sycophantic a**holes! Personally, I think LizzyM is the #1 troll in the medical world. Of course, one can merely take SDN's word that she is an adcom but that would be exceedingly naive."

"SDN is run by kids that are applying to medical school and are trying to scare the competition."

"Yeah they're all trolls. I've visited the WAMC forum for SDN for pre-meds. All the people giving advice like the adcoms (goro, gyngyn, catalystik etc.) and the adcom's sycophants (SkipJunior, Faha, mimelim, NickNaylor, Dermviser) are all trolls. They just want to play god and tell you that you are not good enough. I posted a thread there and goro and gyngyn shot me down in a disgusting way. SkipJunior, being the annoying suck up that he is, supported his "adcom" masters. Also, I think Dermviser and SkipJunior are working together. If you go to their profile pages, Dermviser is following SkipJunior and SkipJunior is following Dermviser. Something fishy between those 2 idiots."

"There are several millions of dollars to be made off medical school applicants. The companies that make these millions would be extremely stupid and completely lacking in business sense if they didn't set up an SDN-type service pretending to be adcoms giving advice."

Unsurprisingly, all of the above individuals (with one exception) were unsuccessful premeds

Sigh............................... Of course if you come into the WAMC forums with a 2.7 gpa and a 21 MCAT adcoms are going to tell you that you need a plan B or make serious changes. lol. Its
because thats what you are going to HAVE to do.

 

[NeuResurgens]

"Do what you're passionate about." -SDN. If people actually did the things they are genuinely passionate about for getting into medical school, they would never get in. Unfortunately, it's become a dog and pony show where people pretend to be passionate about certain things in order to get into medical school. This is not a fun way to spend your college years.

Disagree here. I'm pretty sure adcoms can tell when a person gets genuine enjoyment out of something, although I'm sure there are a few sociopaths who manage to be just manipulative enough to fool them.

I've heard all kinds of stupid things, from only applying to 3 schools to save money to being told I could pretty much be a doctor, just with shorter school time, if I went PA.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Lol I feel like someone's told me this before too.
Most of the time when I tell people I wanna go to medical school, they assume I mean to be a medical assistant or a nurse. Very rarely a doctor. Lol. Just shows how little the general population knows about the different healthcare professions

I quickly stopped correcting people on the difference between EMTs and Paramedics. Everyone is a medic to the general public, it seems.

Probably because they'll never be the best premed community out there. Certain people just love to root for the underdog and hate on a winner. I'm more of a Yankees guy myself.

I'm more of an underdog guy myself, but this isn't sports. This is med school admissions, and SDN seems to have a very high success rate!

 

[goldy490]

This advice wasn't given to me but a neighbor of mine was told by a Caribbean recruiter that going to a lower tier state med school was worse than going one of the "Top Caribbean Schools." The girl actually dropped out of her combined BS MD Program to matriculate into Ross!

 

[Goro]

Yup! My first thought when I browsed through that horror show of a website was "Look at all the people who will never be doctors".

Unsurprisingly, all of the above individuals (with one exception) were unsuccessful premeds

Jeeze, talk about culling the herd!

This advice wasn't given to me but a neighbor of mine was told by a Caribbean recruiter that going to a lower tier state med school was worse than going one of the "Top Caribbean Schools." The girl actually dropped out of her combined BS MD Program to matriculate into Ross!

 

[Lawpy]

This thread is one of the best ever to appear on SDN. It makes me wonder how many medical careers were aborted due to horrible advice.

One thing I've gleaned is that a lot of practicing clinicians know nothing about the current app process.

It's literally the adviser's version of Funny quotes from 'less informed' premeds

 

[emraldragon]

This advice wasn't given to me but a neighbor of mine was told by a Caribbean recruiter that going to a lower tier state med school was worse than going one of the "Top Caribbean Schools." The girl actually dropped out of her combined BS MD Program to matriculate into Ross!

Oh no! That's awful! Something about that seems almost criminal . . . false advertising maybe?

 

[DrShephardWannabe]

My adviser told me "If I didn't maintain 17+ credit hours a semester, medical schools might look down on my courseload."

Yeah, because calc 2, ochem, genetics, english, and an elective, along with lots of EC's was totally an easy schedule because it was only 13 credit hours.

 

[WingedOx]

My adviser told me "If I didn't maintain 17+ credit hours a semester, medical schools might look down on my courseload."

Yeah, because calc 2, ochem, genetics, english, and an elective, along with lots of EC's was totally an easy schedule because it was only 13 credit hours.

Jesus, I think I only took more than 16 once in 8 semesters. And it was only pure laziness that kept me from graduating in three and a half years.

 

[Spinach Dip]

This advice wasn't given to me but a neighbor of mine was told by a Caribbean recruiter that going to a lower tier state med school was worse than going one of the "Top Caribbean Schools." The girl actually dropped out of her combined BS MD Program to matriculate into Ross!

Jeeze, talk about culling the herd!

Reminds me of a time I attended a presentation about the military's HPSP. The guy told us we could enter as enlisted now and re-negotiate our contracts once we got an acceptance to med school. When I asked how we could even apply if stationed overseas, he acted like military grunts aren't stationed overseas.

Meanwhile, some of the others attending thought this was a great idea.

Culling the herd.

 

[Gandyy]

My adviser told me "If I didn't maintain 17+ credit hours a semester, medical schools might look down on my courseload."

Yeah, because calc 2, ochem, genetics, english, and an elective, along with lots of EC's was totally an easy schedule because it was only 13 credit hours.

This is another one I've heard a lot. I do believe that you have to stay around 14 credit hours though just to graduate in 8 semesters. But yea, 17 credit hours per semester isnt too smart unless you are sure you can handle it and all of your extracurriculars.

 

[NeuResurgens]

This advice wasn't given to me but a neighbor of mine was told by a Caribbean recruiter that going to a lower tier state med school was worse than going one of the "Top Caribbean Schools." The girl actually dropped out of her combined BS MD Program to matriculate into Ross!

This is why I hate Carribbean medical schools. These guys are deplorable!!

 

[Gandyy]

This is why I hate Carribbean medical schools. These guys are deplorable!!

The bad thing is these schools are still hardcore recruiting even though they know that the merger is coming. This is why I have so little respect for the Business profession.

 

[NeuResurgens]

The bad thing is these schools are still hardcore recruiting even though they know that the merger is coming. This is why I have so little respect for the Business profession.

Agreed. I hate businesses that stretch the truth, at the expense of their consumers, just to sell their product. People need some integrity.

 

[jw3600]

Oh I have one..

Mentor of 2 years looks at my cv and sees I have a 3.5+ GPA and a 30+ MCAT.

"As an ORM, No way you can make MD. Not even DO. I think you might make SGU or Ross but it'll be a reach"

Said it in total seriousness. Oh and he graduated from HMS and trained at a top surgery residency.

There are probably hundreds of applicants with a 3.5+/30+ that get no MD acceptances. The DO part is obviously horribly wrong. Those are the students they are seeking.

 

[allanMED15]

Yup! My first thought when I browsed through that horror show of a website was "Look at all the people who will never be doctors".

Goro, throwing some shade to those redditors!

 

[NeuResurgens]

I've been over there. Their anti-SDN rhetoric is both hilarious and pathetic. Many of them believe Lizzy, gyngyn, Goro, mimelin, etc. are 13 year old trolls that like to s*** on premeds between WOW sessions. I saw a post there once about how SDN sells emails to Saint Georges University . Because we all know this non-profit thing is just a front (a tin-foil hat emoji would be great here.)

Here's a few gems I found:

"The way people suck up to LizzyM makes me ashamed. No wonder most medical students in medical school are sycophantic a**holes! Personally, I think LizzyM is the #1 troll in the medical world. Of course, one can merely take SDN's word that she is an adcom but that would be exceedingly naive."

"SDN is run by kids that are applying to medical school and are trying to scare the competition."

"Yeah they're all trolls. I've visited the WAMC forum for SDN for pre-meds. All the people giving advice like the adcoms (goro, gyngyn, catalystik etc.) and the adcom's sycophants (SkipJunior, Faha, mimelim, NickNaylor, Dermviser) are all trolls. They just want to play god and tell you that you are not good enough. I posted a thread there and goro and gyngyn shot me down in a disgusting way. SkipJunior, being the annoying suck up that he is, supported his "adcom" masters. Also, I think Dermviser and SkipJunior are working together. If you go to their profile pages, Dermviser is following SkipJunior and SkipJunior is following Dermviser. Something fishy between those 2 idiots."

"There are several millions of dollars to be made off medical school applicants. The companies that make these millions would be extremely stupid and completely lacking in business sense if they didn't set up an SDN-type service pretending to be adcoms giving advice."

Unsurprisingly, all of the above individuals (with one exception) were unsuccessful premeds

Comes to SDN with a crappy app, asks for advice in the WAMC forum, gets honest opinion, butthurtedly complains to another community of butthurt premeds, together they all come to the groupthink conclusion that the adcoms here are trolls.. sounds about right. These are probably the same people that another poster described who are analogous to the people who go on american idol thinking they're way talented and can't stand to hear an objective assessment.

Newsflash, guys - chances are good that through the course of training, another med student, resident, or attending is going to be an ass to you. Better get used to it, if you hope to make it anywhere.

 

[ZedsDed]

community of butthurt premeds

Sounds like about half of my school. They think that because they go to a top-tier UC they are somehow entitled to something. I was talking to DrMidlife about this the other day. Entitled premeds are everywhere nowadays, unfortunately.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Sounds like about half of my school. They think that because they go to a top-tier UC they are somehow entitled to something. I was talking to DrMidlife about this the other day. Entitled premeds are everywhere nowadays, unfortunately.

It is unfortunate in the societal sense, but I must admit I like that it makes it a bit easier to compete against them when they have that attitude

 

[texan2414]

"If you haven't taken Anatomy and Physiology in college, you will not go to med school".

 

[allanMED15]

It is unfortunate in the societal sense, but I must admit I like that it makes it a bit easier to compete against them when they have that attitude

This is rampant everywhere. But yes it definitely helps us that have put a lot of work into it.

 

[cloudmurder1]

"If you have to study for the verbal mcat section, you shouldn't be a doctor" - a poster from r/premed

What do you expect when you start a forum with mostly premeds and not many others such as med students, attentings, etc?

 

[goatcheese]

The worst advice i've seen is when people on SDN claim that a gpa is a gpa is a gpa. I've known multiple people from schools like Princeton, U Chicago, Hopkins, and MIT who have gotten into a range of MD schools with gpa's in the 3.2-3.4 region. This advice from these "adcoms" and others here is both unnecessarily discouraging and inaccurate. Also I'm just wondering how some of these people here who are supposedly doctors have all this time during the day to comment on internet forums. My parents who are both actual doctors spend their time during the day practicing medicine and would not have time to be on some internet forum going on a power trip to a bunch of neurotic premeds.

 

[cloudmurder1]

The worst advice i've seen is when people on SDN claim that a gpa is a gpa is a gpa. I've known multiple people from schools like Princeton, U Chicago, Hopkins, and MIT who have gotten into a range of MD schools with gpa's in the 3.2-3.4 region. This advice from these "adcoms" and others here is both unnecessarily discouraging and inaccurate. Also I'm just wondering how some of these people here who are supposedly doctors have all this time during the day to comment on internet forums. My parents who are both actual doctors spend their time during the day practicing medicine and would not have time to be on some internet forum going on a power trip to a bunch of neurotic premeds.

Yeah and I've known and heard of multiple people with the same gpa range at schools of same calibre that have had ttouble with getting accepted. This doesn't prove that all gpas are equal, but it does show you are not guaranteed slack notwithstanding the higher difficulty at your undergrad institution.

The people here are not unencouraging whatsoever provided that you don't make an arse of yourself when posing a question and seeking advise. They'll even tell you the best course of action to take in addition to assessing you.

You say both your parents are doctors, and you've implied your at a top school. Perhaps you've been coddled a whole lot throughout your life and can't take criticism.

I'm joking about the last part, but seriously, humbly use SDN, and it will help you. It has helped me quite a bit.

 

[ZedsDed]

The worst advice i've seen is when people on SDN claim that a gpa is a gpa is a gpa. I've known multiple people from schools like Princeton, U Chicago, Hopkins, and MIT who have gotten into a range of MD schools with gpa's in the 3.2-3.4 region. This advice from these "adcoms" and others here is both unnecessarily discouraging and inaccurate. Also I'm just wondering how some of these people here who are supposedly doctors have all this time during the day to comment on internet forums. My parents who are both actual doctors spend their time during the day practicing medicine and would not have time to be on some internet forum going on a power trip to a bunch of neurotic premeds.

You sound like one of the entitled premeds I was referring to earlier.

So you have anecdotes, great. We have data, and much better anecdotes (from AdCom members.)

 

[NeuResurgens]

The worst advice i've seen is when people on SDN claim that a gpa is a gpa is a gpa. I've known multiple people from schools like Princeton, U Chicago, Hopkins, and MIT who have gotten into a range of MD schools with gpa's in the 3.2-3.4 region. This advice from these "adcoms" and others here is both unnecessarily discouraging and inaccurate. Also I'm just wondering how some of these people here who are supposedly doctors have all this time during the day to comment on internet forums. My parents who are both actual doctors spend their time during the day practicing medicine and would not have time to be on some internet forum going on a power trip to a bunch of neurotic premeds.

I haven't seen a lot of claims here that GPA is standard. In fact, Mimelim has told stories about how he came from an UG school with a reputation for rigor and got into some top MD schools with a lower-end GPA.

Be careful how you express yourself, though - there was a discussion earlier in this thread about how Reddit premeds think all the SDN adcoms are trolls. Your post doesn't say this outright but seems to imply it.

 

[ZedsDed]

I haven't seen a lot of claims here that GPA is standard. In fact, Mimelim has told stories about how he came from an UG school with a reputation for rigor and got into some top MD schools with a lower-end GPA.

Be careful how you express yourself, though - there was a discussion earlier in this thread about how Reddit premeds think all the SDN adcoms are trolls. Your post doesn't say this outright but seems to imply it.

Prestigious does not always equal rigorous

 

[ZedsDed]

Goro, throwing some shade to those redditors!

Color me shocked that a website that contains countless "d*** pics" and "FAIL videos," consists of users with names like "PirateHookAbortion69," and is notorious for hating on women/minorities, doesn't give out the best advice.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Prestigious does not always equal rigorous

I'm aware. Was his school prestigious and not rigorous? I always thought he explained it in a way that made it sound like it was hard to get a high GPA there.