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

[ZedsDed]

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.

I'm not talking about mimelim, I'm sure he earned his GPA. I'm just tired of students whining that they deserve a gold star for getting a 3.3 from one of the ivy's.

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[theriomorphos]

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[Lucca]

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 do realize that to have a physician badge on this forum you need to provide proof of licensing right?

 

[Spinach Dip]

And I never got to know the other premeds.

Wait, are you saying this is a good or bad thing?

 

[medic86]

Wait, are you saying this is a good or bad thing?

Good thing!

(I hope).

 

[JulioJones]

"Don't worry about taking any pre-req's your first year, you'll have plenty of time to take them sophomore- senior year, you should ease yourself into college" - My advisor freshman year. Ended up taking nothing but pre-req's sophomore year including one hellish semester of 18 credits physics, chem, bio, and stat to catch up in time for the mcat, as well as some summer school classes. Needless to say I have a new advisor and am back on track for an okay senior year schedule.

 

[releehw]

"Start studying now (while working 60 hrs/week) and take the MCAT next month. It looks awful if you take a gap year, so don't wait a cycle just to study for the MCAT"
-my MD mentor!! yeaaaaah....no.

Doesn't it actually look better to take a gap year?

 

[releehw]

Your GPA isn't really competitive for medical school. I guess that's not really advice, but I feel it was a bad comment to make, since I ended up getting into 3 schools.

What was it if you don't mind me asking? And we're they MD schools?

 

[NeuResurgens]

I'm not talking about mimelim, I'm sure he earned his GPA. I'm just tired of students whining that they deserve a gold star for getting a 3.3 from one of the ivy's.

I agree. I'm definitely not saying "prestigious" means a low GPA is justified. Just reiterating that some schools are well known for difficulty and admissions staff consider students from those schools accordingly.

 

[cactus8910]

Doesn't it actually look better to take a gap year?

It depends what you do with it, but if you gain meaningful experiences and can demonstrate you're more mature than the average college senior, it should be an advantage.

 

[Siroucity]

Some advice from my old community college counselor:

"Your GPA is 2.7, you most likely have no shot at Medical School or acceptance to a UC, even if you get all A's for the rest of your college career"

I ended up turning that around and have raised my GPA to 3.49 and ended up being accepted to all UC schools for transfer. At this rate, I hope to get my GPA to around 3.65-3.75 by the time I graduate. It's a bit harsh for a counselor to tell students they have no shot at transfer or even admittance to Medical School, even if they turn things around (This was during my 2nd year at a JC).

 

[RustBeltOnc]

I agree. I'm definitely not saying "prestigious" means a low GPA is justified. Just reiterating that some schools are well known for difficulty and admissions staff consider students from those schools accordingly.

I got awesome advice. Attended a very difficult undergrad, was advised to give it my all, all the time, and to study past the point of exhaustion.

 

[bluetovah]

.

 

[NeuResurgens]

"You never should have transferred out of the business school. Doctors don't make enough money any more." -cardiac surgeon

I think a lot of older docs think their pay is bad because it's less compared to what it was in the past..

 

[ZedsDed]

First time I met a premed advisor as a nontrad. "With your low gpa you need to just focus on DO schools."

My gpa is around a 3.5-6. Not great but I'd imagine it could be acceptable at some MD schools.



Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk

Depends on grade trends, state of residence, MCAT score, etc.

 

[iDOliveinMD]

.

 

[bluetovah]

I think a lot of older docs think their pay is bad because it's less compared to what it was in the past..

It was just so discouraging to hear this doc talk like money was the only thing that mattered. I told him how medicine interested me so much more than business, but despite that AND despite docs still making plenty comfortable salaries, he still tried to dissuade me. I mean... really??

 

[finestein]

Another gem from the daddio, after I told him I scored well on the MCAT (and he had watched me study every day for months):
"That's cool. You should still look into air conditioning school though... You'll make more money than being a doctor."

 

[northernlights15]

I was so annoyed the other day. I went to this office to inquire if I can shadow an OB/GYN and the receptionist was like "here is some advice, don't call it 'shadowing' call it 'volunteering' because that's not the correct term. shadowing is what 2nd year med students do. I'm a med student so I would know." I'm like okay… and then I asked where she's a med student and expressed that I wouldn't consider it volunteering because the doctor would be helping me more than I'd be helping her and she's like "yeah no, trust me. don't call it shadowing I would know." And then as I was talking to her she was talking about where she went to college and that she's actually getting her M.S. currently and "in the next year or two, [she] will be going for her M.D."

 

[Psai]

I was so annoyed the other day. I went to this office to inquire if I can shadow an OB/GYN and the receptionist was like "here is some advice, don't call it 'shadowing' call it 'volunteering' because that's not the correct term. shadowing is what 2nd year med students do. I'm a med student so I would know." I'm like okay… and then I asked where she's a med student and expressed that I wouldn't consider it volunteering because the doctor would be helping me more than I'd be helping her and she's like "yeah no, trust me. don't call it shadowing I would know." And then as I was talking to her she was talking about where she went to college and that she's actually getting her M.S. currently and "in the next year or two, [she] will be going for her M.D."

well if people pretending to be doctors is something that gets your goat, you probably shouldn't go into medicine

 

[northernlights15]

well if people pretending to be doctors is something that gets your goat, you probably shouldn't go into medicine

1) Her suggestion was strange ("call it volunteering, not shadowing")
2) Yes why wouldn't someone pretending to be something they're not (a med student) annoy me?

 

[Doctor Bob]

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.

How do we do it?
1) Good time management skills
2) Utilization of technology (smartphones, etc)

Why do we do it?
1) To crush our enemies
2) To see them driven before us
3) To hear the lamentation of their women

 

[AgentMay]

1) To crush our enemies

 

[NeuResurgens]

It was just so discouraging to hear this doc talk like money was the only thing that mattered. I told him how medicine interested me so much more than business, but despite that AND despite docs still making plenty comfortable salaries, he still tried to dissuade me. I mean... really??

Medicine has changed a lot since his time, probably. Part of being a premed is definitely battling the discouragements of those around you. There's somewhat of a perception that this is a bad time to go into medicine amongst the general populace, given the political climate.

My parents keep telling me that pharmacy school would make me plenty of money and would have better hours. You really need to get to know the professions in order to tell which one is right for you. Despite others telling me otherwise, nothing calls to me quite like medicine does. Doctors used to make more money than they do now, but the fact is they still live very comfortably if they can manage their money well.

 

[jagster92]

Medicine has changed a lot since his time, probably. Part of being a premed is definitely battling the discouragements of those around you. There's somewhat of a perception that this is a bad time to go into medicine amongst the general populace, given the political climate.

My parents keep telling me that pharmacy school would make me plenty of money and would have better hours. You really need to get to know the professions in order to tell which one is right for you. Despite others telling me otherwise, nothing calls to me quite like medicine does. Doctors used to make more money than they do now, but the fact is they still live very comfortably if they can manage their money well.

Well said. From someone who is (almost) all the way through pharm school, the most influential takeaway from the curriculum was that it helped me find my calling in medicine. The best advice I can give is don't settle for what you thought you wanted to be when you were a high school junior. Now back to all the bad advice haha.

 

[Doctor Bob]

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.

To be fair, I tried to get that user name here, but I could only get PirateHookAbortion70 and that just wasn't the same.

But Reddit, like pre-allo, like allo, like post-allo, like every other forum on here has the problem of quality control. The various hoops that SDN has us jump through to get the little widgets (badges?) can be annoying, but it does help to give a baseline of experience for some people. There's no badge for med student, there's no badge for resident. You just have to take people's word for their level of knowledge.
But even when you verify someone's level of experience, it still doesn't mean they're giving good advice. Maybe they're just giving bad advice to be a jerk; maybe they're speaking from anecdotal experience and it's not really relevant to anyone else; maybe it's old outdated advice. There's no good way to know. If there's a general consensus among people (10 people say A, 2 people say B), then odds are the consensus is the better advice, but it's still worth verifying. Some stuff can never be verified; so it goes. Even on SDN, nothing is gospel.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

How do we do it?
1) Good time management skills
2) Utilization of technology (smartphones, etc)

Why do we do it?
1) To crush our enemies
2) To see them driven before us
3) To hear the lamentation of their women

 

[Doctoblast]

Applying to some DO schools and practicing physician who is a DO says "just write that you're interested in holistic medicine" for all of the secondaries.

 

[ZedsDed]

Applying to some DO schools and practicing physician who is a DO says "just write that you're interested in holistic medicine" for all of the secondaries.

Lol I have a feeling DO AdCom members are tired of hearing this.

 

[DMC0303]

"Don't worry about taking any pre-req's your first year, you'll have plenty of time to take them sophomore- senior year, you should ease yourself into college" - My advisor freshman year. Ended up taking nothing but pre-req's sophomore year including one hellish semester of 18 credits physics, chem, bio, and stat to catch up in time for the mcat, as well as some summer school classes. Needless to say I have a new advisor and am back on track for an okay senior year schedule.

Yeah I went to a state college my first two years and the advisor told me "Don't worry about your first two years, getting your AA is nothing but classes you need to get out of the way. Worry about your major once you transfer." Being a first gen college student I blindly took his advice, time I transferred to a university my junior year they were like "Yeah you should have started your science classes freshman year, no later than sophomore and taking the MCAT this year... You should probably look into doing a career changer post-bacc." Here I am about to graduate (non science of course...) and about to apply to post-bacc programs. I feel like I got screwed by my state college -.- Atleast the post bacc will boost my GPA lol. Pretty cool though that I got to major in something that I really enjoyed that is kind of an off the wall major for med school. Guess it'll help me stand out at least? Haha.

 

[Pusheen]

Another gem from the daddio, after I told him I scored well on the MCAT (and he had watched me study every day for months):
"That's cool. You should still look into air conditioning school though... You'll make more money than being a doctor."

Your dad is trolling hard

 

[Cheefreef]

End of sophomore year after performing 'meh' in my classes, i went to the pre-med advisor at my school expressing interest in the field of medicine, etc.

"based on your first 4 semesters, you're already subpar,"
*exasperated sigh*
"don't do it, just do something else, don't go that route; you can't do it"

-_-

 

[WedgeDawg]

End of sophomore year after performing 'meh' in my classes, i went to the pre-med advisor at my school expressing interest in the field of medicine, etc.

"based on your first 4 semesters, you're already subpar,"
*exasperated sigh*
"don't do it, just do something else, don't go that route; you can't do it"

-_-

Posts like these make me

1) think about how fortunate I was to have very good pre-health advisors

2) wonder why some people choose to become health professions advisors in the first place if they're not going to attempt to give good advice

 

[Pusheen]

It seems like pre-health advisers have very different opinions than SDN. Maybe it's because they don't know current admission procedures very well or something.

My pre-med adviser said that I should have 3 significant "activities" before applying. These could be anything clinically related.
No mention of the clinical volunteering/nonclinical volunteering/research combo that is always promoted here. He also places a lot of emphasis on missions trips for pre-meds and the importance of taking an MCAT prep course (I don't have close to enough money for either of those and probably wouldn't participate if I did).

I've learned far, far more from SDN than anywhere else.

 

[efle]

I'm not talking about mimelim, I'm sure he earned his GPA. I'm just tired of students whining that they deserve a gold star for getting a 3.3 from one of the ivy's.

Mimelim went to Wustl

Is a 3.9 from an average university worth a gold star?

 

[efle]

Posts like these make me

1) think about how fortunate I was to have very good pre-health advisors

2) wonder why some people choose to become health professions advisors in the first place if they're not going to attempt to give good advice

The job of the typical adviser is too easy to often be filled by someone truly bright and motivated. Kind of like how you rarely get really brilliant people teaching in high school

 

[Cotterpin]

The job of the typical adviser is too easy to often be filled by someone truly bright and motivated. Kind of like how you rarely get really brilliant people teaching in high school

Not always. My premed advisor graduated from Harvard. She's been incredibly helpful and supportive.

 

[efle]

Not always

often

 

[Cotterpin]

Yes, I realize. I'm just offering my n=1.

 

[ZedsDed]

Mimelim went to Wustl

Is a 3.9 from an average university worth a gold star?

Depends on what you mean by "average university." All I'm saying, as I said before, is that prestige does not automatically equal rigor. This assumption allows already-entitled premeds to act even more like entitled p*****. One of the schools here in Ca (UCSB) has a reputation for having an engineering program that is very rigorous. UCSB is not a particularly prestigious school in the public's mind. I have no idea if it is true or not, but there are plenty of other examples.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Depends on what you mean by "average university." All I'm saying, as I said before, is that prestige does not automatically equal rigor. This assumption allows already-entitled premeds to act even more like entitled p*****. One of the schools here in Ca (UCSB) has a reputation for having an engineering curriculum that is very rigorous. UCSB is not a particularly prestigious school in the public's mind. I have no idea if it is true or not, but there are plenty of other examples.

It's true that prestige doesn't necessarily equal rigor, but it's also not accurate to assume that most top schools are easy to do well at (not saying you are, just that a lot of people seem to believe this). That's certainly not an excuse to do poorly though, nor does it justify any sense of entitlement.

 

[efle]

Depends on what you mean by "average university." All I'm saying, as I said before, is that prestige does not automatically equal rigor. This assumption allows already-entitled premeds to act even more entitled p*****. One of the schools here in Ca (UCSB) has a reputation for having a physics curriculum that is very rigorous. UCSB is not a particularly prestigious school in the public's mind. I have no idea if it is true or not, but there are plenty of other examples.

I was referring to my old chart on national average MCAT/GPA data vs Wustl data, showing a 3.9 former = 3.3 latter if you compare by MCAT. Most people would give a 3.9 at a typical school a gold sticker so...

Can you give me some examples of Ivy League and similar schools that are not rigorous? I think prestigious schools are a subset of rigorous ones.

 

[efle]

It's true that prestige doesn't necessarily equal rigor, but it's also not accurate to assume that most top schools are easy to do well at (not saying you are, just that a lot of people seem to believe this). That's certainly not an excuse to do poorly though, nor does it justify any sense of entitlement.

Stick with gyarados

 

[WedgeDawg]

Stick with gyarados

You don't like my Charizard with a stethoscope??

 

[efle]

You don't like my Charizard with a stethoscope??

I don't like having to read usernakes to recognize posters

 

[WedgeDawg]

I don't like having to read usernakes to recognize posters

Well I'm sure you'll get used to it in a few days

I felt my old one was getting a bit stale

 

[ZedsDed]

It's true that prestige doesn't necessarily equal rigor, but it's also not accurate to assume that most top schools are easy to do well at (not saying you are, just that a lot of people seem to believe this). That's certainly not an excuse to do poorly though, nor does it justify any sense of entitlement.

This mirrors my opinion.

 

[ZedsDed]

I was referring to my old chart on national average MCAT/GPA data vs Wustl data, showing a 3.9 former = 3.3 latter if you compare by MCAT. Most people would give a 3.9 at a typical school a gold sticker so...

Can you give me some examples of Ivy League and similar schools that are not rigorous? I think prestigious schools are a subset of rigorous ones.

Again, not talking about Wustl or mimelin.

No, I can't. All I can give you are my personal experiences and a collection of anecdotes. I can do this for the UC system, but that's not what we are talking about. I think it's a huge stretch to say the ivy league has earned an automatic assumption of rigor for all of the applicants it produces. Not saying this is what you are saying, but the presumption is definitely out there.

 

[efle]

Again, not talking about Wustl or mimelin.

No, I can't. All I can give you are my personal experiences and a collection of anecdotes. I can do this for the UC system, but that's not what we are talking about. I think it's a huge stretch to say the ivy league has earned an automatic assumption of rigor for all of the applicants it produces. Not saying this is what you are saying, but the presumption is definitely out there.

You can show that schools without fame can have rigor - UCSD for example. That is not the same as showing schools with fame that lack rigor.

I think there is a set of rigorous schools, that many of them are unrecognized for it, but that the set of highly prestigious schools are a subset entirely contained. At every Ivy you will have a rigorous set of science classes

 

[genericpremedstudent]

Your dad is trolling hard

Not necessarily. As someone who did an apprenticeship in that field: you work during the apprenticeship, so from age 18 I was already making $40,000. When completed I was making over $100,000 at the age of 21. Do that for 40 years and retire with a full pension, plus the fact the education is free, in the long run his dad is probably right. But the work sucks and I rather work at McDonalds than do that again.