what role does greek play in med school admission?

[EBI831]

I can't believe that this conversation has even lasted this long on this thread. But, that must be because at my school, Greeks definitely don't have such a bad rep, i mean about 65% of women and like 50% of men are greek and the school is a good one so if that much of the school is Greek then Greeks can't all be dunces and slackers. It's a wonder that such stereotypes about all Greeks having easy majors and low GPAs still exists. Like tryfry said, at my school too you have to have a certain GPA to rush and our GPA must be above the all women's average (ie the whole school) unless we get in trouble with the Greek office. We actually devote a lot of time to education with seminars, study groups, and all of that...and we are by far not a service or a coalition of upstanding nerds type sorority...ie its social as crap too. I just think it depends on the school and really being Greek did not hamper my med school odds. In fact, I discussed it at WashU extensively and even talked about negative stereotypes about Greeks and how you can carry it over to negative stereotypes about others and how such limitation marr the medical profession and can hamper the doctor patient relationship b/c of personal biases and said that the Greek system helped me to get along with all kinds of people, work as a team, and taught me a lot about respectability ie proving stereotypers wrong. Oh and PS--the majority of my pledge class is now working in NY at great jobs (wall street, marketing etc), at top medical schools and grad schools, or in TX/Nashville/North Carolina at other wonderful banking/PR jobs. And no i don't want a cookie or a sticker or whatever, i just wanted to let the OP know that listing that you are Greek is not an automatic blackball even tho some narrowminded people may judge you, just be willing to defend your choice and show the highlights of the experience.

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[UCDavisdude]

hmm... UC Davis, eh?

we won animal house of the year from playboy ok!! so not that boring. but of course, nothing to boast about on med apps. lol

 

[Make Or Break]

I know this thread is old and I just stumbled on it randomly but I would liek to put my 2 cents in. I am year and a half president of a local fraternity on campus of 15 guys right now. Local= no "national support", everything we do is self-run, independent of the school. I place heavy involvement in recruiting students aiming to go into professional school, as 75% of faculty at our school were greek, and regularly hold leadership seminars, invite us to conferences (academic and otherwise), etc. As a re-founding member of mine, myself and 3 others built ours from the ground up in 4 years. We started with an average GPA of outgoing members which was around 2.3. We ahve pulled it up to 3.2 cGPA as a fraternity with 1/2 of us on deans list every semester (3rd highest of ALL orgs on campus, not just Greeks). We hold philanthropy events throughout the year for a huge range of charities, one of which we actually attempted to include honor societies in. by the way, guess who showed up every day of our month long event, and who didn't? (Hint, the honor societies put their name on th flier but not a single member outside of myself was there.) On top of it, to emphasize our philanthropic roles I have made it mandatory that ever member volunteer tutor every semester for a class they have earned an A in. FYI this volunteering does not go on resumes, CVs, and is not publicly advertised outside of fliers stating "contact these individuals for private free tutoring sessions." All while getting sh*trocked every weekend. Pretty well-rounded, I'd say.

Gr8 m8

 

[Boolean]

I know this thread is old and I just stumbled on it randomly but I would liek to put my 2 cents in. I am year and a half president of a local fraternity on campus of 15 guys right now. Local= no "national support", everything we do is self-run, independent of the school. I place heavy involvement in recruiting students aiming to go into professional school, as 75% of faculty at our school were greek, and regularly hold leadership seminars, invite us to conferences (academic and otherwise), etc. As a re-founding member of mine, myself and 3 others built ours from the ground up in 4 years. We started with an average GPA of outgoing members which was around 2.3. We ahve pulled it up to 3.2 cGPA as a fraternity with 1/2 of us on deans list every semester (3rd highest of ALL orgs on campus, not just Greeks). We hold philanthropy events throughout the year for a huge range of charities, one of which we actually attempted to include honor societies in. by the way, guess who showed up every day of our month long event, and who didn't? (Hint, the honor societies put their name on th flier but not a single member outside of myself was there.) On top of it, to emphasize our philanthropic roles I have made it mandatory that ever member volunteer tutor every semester for a class they have earned an A in. FYI this volunteering does not go on resumes, CVs, and is not publicly advertised outside of fliers stating "contact these individuals for private free tutoring sessions." All while getting sh*trocked every weekend. Pretty well-rounded, I'd say.

Was there a point to posting this

 

[Goro]

Can't help myself, being Greek will be as helpful as being Turkish, Bulgarian, or Armenian.

 

[AlteredScale]

Was there a point to posting this

I think he's also part of the necrobump competition going around here. He's already beat: last week there was a 14 yrs old necrobump.

That being said: I asked a faculty member of my university's med school what they thought of Greek life on an application and they laughed and walked away mumbling some answer I couldn't peice together.

 

[AlteredScale]

I just wanted to mention that greek life can play a larger role than solely partying all day everyday. If you can integrate a ton of philanthropy and volunteering that you actually organize rather than showing up to once a week, why not do it?

I understand your rationale. It just goes without question that there's a lot of tradition in admissions, and Greek life isn't really seen in a great connotation.

Until the national Greek community of can all extend efforts in making their sole mission philanthropy and community service (and not just putting a front of service while spending the rest of your time partying on the weekends with the brothers) then it will be difficult for anything Greek related to be taken seriously within the medical admissions process.

And by taken seriously I mean I cannot fathom an admissions dean reading your philanthropy work in TKE on your AMCAS/AACOMAS and stating "get this applicant at an interview ASAP". It's sad because like you said, you're the exception.

 

[aprimenumber]

I think that Greek Life can be a great experience if sold correctly. I often drew from my Greek Life experiences during interviews by talking about my leadership experiences, things I learned from trying to work in a big group, and about my various failures and how I learned from them. I actually think that for one of my interviews, my experiences talking about what I learned from trying to work with essentially a 50 man team and my failed attempts at motivating everyone to become better students helped me stand out in a good way, and helped lead to my acceptance.