What should an AdCom member know about SDN?

[curiousadcom]

Several applicants brought this site up in interviews this cycle, and I'm really curious to learn more about it. What do you think are SDN's implications for admissions committee members? What do you think we should know?

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[hushcom]

 

[Louis C.K.]

There will be people in the pre-med forums who get into 20 page long internet fights with each other about things unrelated to the original topic lol. I don't know if there is really anything for AdCom members on here, other than the occasional user who uses not-so-anonymous names and details about themselves during their application run. Look at the school-specific discussions and locate your school, you may be able to identify applicants who you interviewed! Also, once you have been identified as an AdCom, you will get many many requests from pre-meds looking for advice on how to get admitted.

 

[ski89]

I don't think that there are necessarily "implications" per say for ADCOMs. This site is very helpful for students as they go through every stage of the premed process and beyond. We get advise from both peers, upperclassmen, ADCOMs, physicians, etc.

If anything I think it might be informative for ADCOMs to check out the school specific threads and see what students are saying about the application process for your particular school (how the interviews are, what they think of the school, the quality of the communication between admissions offices and applicants - or lack thereof.

Lastly, if you are actually an adcom then there is a verification process you can go through by contacting the moderators of the site to confirm your position. Thus giving you the credibility to participate in the forum as such.


Sent from my iPhone

 

[Winged Scapula]

Several applicants brought this site up in interviews this cycle, and I'm really curious to learn more about it. What do you think are SDN's implications for admissions committee members? What do you think we should know?

There are several different ways to use SDN. The two most common are to use it to monitor what students and prospective students are saying about *your* program and the second (which is greatly appreciated) is to use it to offer advice without shilling for your program.

SDN has been infinitely improved by the gracious volunteer of time and sage wisdom from several members of the US medical community. It offers something that books and on-line guides simply can't.

What I think you should know is encapsulated here: http://www.studentdoctor.net/about-sdn/our-history/ . SDN is the largest medical forum in the US and attracts a number of students and potential students from all over the world.

 

[NickNaylor]

Next to nothing unless you're going to contribute to the community. I think the only thing that might be of interest to individual adcom members is the school-specific application thread for their institution. You can get some candid feedback about applicants' perception of the school, and you can also be made aware of issues about your application process. Short of that, I don't think it really has any impact from the school perspective - unless, again, you want to contribute to the community your experience on the other side of the desk.

 

[altblue]

There will be people in the pre-med forums who get into 20 page long internet fights with each other about things unrelated to the original topic lol. I don't know if there is really anything for AdCom members on here, other than the occasional user who uses not-so-anonymous names and details about themselves during their application run. Look at the school-specific discussions and locate your school, you may be able to identify applicants who you interviewed! Also, once you have been identified as an AdCom, you will get many many requests from pre-meds looking for advice on how to get admitted.

Yes, seriously, this is also the one of the only places on the internet where a pre-med gets to argue with an adcom. I'm not sure if an adcom is interested in this, though.

 

[Goro]

I find that SDN is useful for getting inside the heads of pre-meds; for seeing perspectives of other Adcoms, residents, clinicians, and medical students; and for mining great interview questions.

Keep in mind that the typical SDNer is NOT representative of the typical pre-med, either. There's a high level of neuroses here.

It's also useful to see what people think of one's own school!

Several applicants brought this site up in interviews this cycle, and I'm really curious to learn more about it. What do you think are SDN's implications for admissions committee members? What do you think we should know?

 

[Mad Jack]

As many others have said, it's a great place to get perspective on your own school, and get a feel for why prospective students want to attend your institution, how current students feel about it, etc. It has much more to offer students and prospective students than it does practicing physicians and adcom members, who largely are here to provide guidance to the next generation as they make their way through the dog and pony show that is med school admissions and the match process, as well as to provide support and understanding through the nightmares of med school and residency.

 

[aconn51]

Honestly, 95% of what I saw on SDN when I was a pre-med and during my application process (not all that long ago) was negativity, neuroses, and erroneous "advice" from other pre-meds; in other corners of the internet, it's got kind of a terrible reputation for that reason.

If you want to contribute accurate information and advice about the application process in general and for your school in particular, that would probably be the most beneficial use of your time and efforts here.
Peer-to-peer support is great, but doesn't always lead to accurate information being circulated- the ability to get good, accurate information from people actually in-the-know can be really difficult when you're thinking of applying or in the middle of the application process, so if you're willing to contribute that, I think it would be much-appreciated by pre-med students here.

 

[curiousadcom]

Thanks so much for all of your answers!!!

 

[Winged Scapula]

Honestly, 95% of what I saw on SDN when I was a pre-med and during my application process (not all that long ago) was negativity, neuroses, and erroneous "advice" from other pre-meds; in other corners of the internet, it's got kind of a terrible reputation for that reason.

If you want to contribute accurate information and advice about the application process in general and for your school in particular, that would probably be the most beneficial use of your time and efforts here.
Peer-to-peer support is great, but doesn't always lead to accurate information being circulated- the ability to get good, accurate information from people actually in-the-know can be really difficult when you're thinking of applying or in the middle of the application process, so if you're willing to contribute that, I think it would be much-appreciated by pre-med students here.

Given that you joined less than a year ago and have fewer than a couple of dozen posts, may I posit that you really haven't investigated SDN?

Implying that 95% of the posts here are useless and/or inaccurate is a gross overestimation and fails to honor the students, residents and attendings who do post accurate advice here. While it is true that we have our share of the "blind leading the blind", its not all that difficult to find accurate and helpful information here.

 

[Mad Jack]

Honestly, 95% of what I saw on SDN when I was a pre-med and during my application process (not all that long ago) was negativity, neuroses, and erroneous "advice" from other pre-meds; in other corners of the internet, it's got kind of a terrible reputation for that reason.

If you want to contribute accurate information and advice about the application process in general and for your school in particular, that would probably be the most beneficial use of your time and efforts here.
Peer-to-peer support is great, but doesn't always lead to accurate information being circulated- the ability to get good, accurate information from people actually in-the-know can be really difficult when you're thinking of applying or in the middle of the application process, so if you're willing to contribute that, I think it would be much-appreciated by pre-med students here.

I wouldn't be in medical school right now if it weren't for SDN. The advice here is far beyond anything an adviser or book could ever get you, if you know where to look. You just need to learn to sort the chaff from the wheat.

 

[Willy38]

I wouldn't be in medical school right now if it weren't for SDN. The advice here is far beyond anything an adviser or book could ever get you, if you know where to look. You just need to learn to sort the chaff from the wheat.

Exactly. Its great to talk to peers and gain insight to their points of view but for the application process advice or important guidance, always consider the source.

I personally have been helped tremendously by advice from the generous adcom members on this site. It makes a huge difference to have contact with people who are intimately involved in the application process and can provide brutally honest feedback from the behind the curtain.

Much thanks to everyone who makes this possible!!

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

For me, SDN has dispelled various myths about the application process and medicine in general. I am very grateful for this site and the support it offers.

 

[aconn51]

Given that you joined less than a year ago and have fewer than a couple of dozen posts, may I posit that you really haven't investigated SDN?

Implying that 95% of the posts here are useless and/or inaccurate is a gross overestimation and fails to honor the students, residents and attendings who do post accurate advice here. While it is true that we have our share of the "blind leading the blind", its not all that difficult to find accurate and helpful information here.

I spent a lot of time browsing the fora here before I joined- several years, in fact, since I ended up applying a few years out of undergrad, and originally had planned to apply as a traditional applicant in my junior year- and have spent plenty of time since browsing. I am actually fairly certain that I used to post under a different name, which I no longer remember. Maybe I just managed to hit it at a bad time or managed to pick the wrong threads to read. Or maybe what SDN offers wasn't really what I was looking for at the time.

What I will say is that the time I spent here as a premed resulted in me seeing a lot of people suggesting that stats like mine would never get me in to any med school, that being in grad school was at best of negligible significance to my application, and that what I was doing/had done for clinical experience wasn't enough. All without really knowing much about me or what else I had to bring to the table for an application.
All of which was very discouraging and turned out to be false.

I'm glad that people have found the community useful and continue to do so- that's just not the experience I had as a pre-med student.
At risk of being vulgar, I very much got a feel that a lot of the pre-meds were in a giant d**k measuring contest and there were a lot of people out to make others look and feel inadequate, and/or feed the pre-med panic machine.

But hey, maybe I did actually just manage to have bad timing every time I stopped by, because most of what I have seen in the past few weeks when I've decided to post again has been of better quality in terms of accuracy and much friendlier and more collegial than anything I've seen in the past.
I was just sharing my experience; you are welcome to take it or leave it, just as I decided to "leave" most of the advice I got here and apply anyway.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I spent a lot of time browsing the fora here before I joined- several years, in fact, since I ended up applying a few years out of undergrad, and originally had planned to apply as a traditional applicant in my junior year- and have spent plenty of time since browsing. I am actually fairly certain that I used to post under a different name, which I no longer remember. Maybe I just managed to hit it at a bad time or managed to pick the wrong threads to read. Or maybe what SDN offers wasn't really what I was looking for at the time.

What I will say is that the time I spent here as a premed resulted in me seeing a lot of people suggesting that stats like mine would never get me in to any med school, that being in grad school was at best of negligible significance to my application, and that what I was doing/had done for clinical experience wasn't enough. All without really knowing much about me or what else I had to bring to the table for an application.
All of which was very discouraging and turned out to be false.

I'm glad that people have found the community useful and continue to do so- that's just not the experience I had as a pre-med student.
At risk of being vulgar, I very much got a feel that a lot of the pre-meds were in a giant d**k measuring contest and there were a lot of people out to make others look and feel inadequate, and/or feed the pre-med panic machine.

But hey, maybe I did actually just manage to have bad timing every time I stopped by, because most of what I have seen in the past few weeks when I've decided to post again has been of better quality in terms of accuracy and much friendlier and more collegial than anything I've seen in the past.
I was just sharing my experience; you are welcome to take it or leave it, just as I decided to "leave" most of the advice I got here and apply anyway.

Its certainly true that there can be "cycles" where people are more or less negative. It can usually be timed to MCAT or application deadlines.

The key is sticking around and finding out who to listen to, and who to ignore. Like most things, it shouldn't be used as a sole source of information but I still contend that the majority of information here is quite valuable. I also believe (a shared wisdom) that the worst part of SDN in terms of misinformation (outside of The Lounge) are the pre-med forums. The medical student and residency forums are much more likely to be helpful and filled with responses from others who've got some real answers.

 

[bc65]

Several applicants brought this site up in interviews this cycle, and I'm really curious to learn more about it. What do you think are SDN's implications for admissions committee members? What do you think we should know?

This site might be useful to adcoms in allowing them to see the process from the applicant's perspective. That might lead to a change in what they look for in applicants. Adcoms might decide that there may be no benefit in having applicants jump through certain hoops.

I also don't think that this site is necessarily representative of all pre-meds. It's my impression that there is a bimodal distribution of applicants who post here. Both the highly qualified and unqualified, the knowledgable and the ignorant, seem to post here in excess of their actual distribution in the population.

There is a lot of useful information here, as well as a lot of misinformation. I would recommend that everyone read a few "how to get into med school books" before applying or posting here. The books lay out the entire process in a more organized fashion that one can get from a website. I suppose that planning ahead and researching in advance is part of what distinguishes the better candidates from the rest.

 

[Mad Jack]

Its certainly true that there can be "cycles" where people are more or less negative. It can usually be timed to MCAT or application deadlines.

The key is sticking around and finding out who to listen to, and who to ignore. Like most things, it shouldn't be used as a sole source of information but I still contend that the majority of information here is quite valuable. I also believe (a shared wisdom) that the worst part of SDN in terms of misinformation (outside of The Lounge) are the pre-med forums. The medical student and residency forums are much more likely to be helpful and filled with responses from others who've got some real answers.

What's wrong with The Lounge?

 

[beachside]

There will be people in the pre-med forums who get into 20 page long internet fights with each other about things unrelated to the original topic lol. I don't know if there is really anything for AdCom members on here, other than the occasional user who uses not-so-anonymous names and details about themselves during their application run. Look at the school-specific discussions and locate your school, you may be able to identify applicants who you interviewed! Also, once you have been identified as an AdCom, you will get many many requests from pre-meds looking for advice on how to get admitted.

Let's not give out advice on how to circumvent the privacy of others.

 

[GameTheory29]

I wouldn't be in medical school right now if it weren't for SDN. The advice here is far beyond anything an adviser or book could ever get you, if you know where to look. You just need to learn to sort the chaff from the wheat.

I feel if you read or lurk for a long enough time like I've been doing on the low, you get a real good overall gestalt of the right things to do, the process, tips, what not to worry about so much/what to worry about. I wish I had caught on a couple years earlier

And eventually you can see right through what is unnecessary neuroses versus really useful information

Where else can you have a question answered within a day that you normally wouldn't even know who to ask otherwise? Unfortunately, sometimes this power is used too freely, but thats the internet in general in 2015

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

What's wrong with The Lounge?

 

[Louis C.K.]

Let's not give out advice on how to circumvent the privacy of others.

Then don't be dumb enough to let them!!

 

[Louis C.K.]

While people should be smart and try to protect their own privacy, I strongly agree with the above poster that giving advice on how to circumvent anonymity (the #1 TOS of this site) is a bad idea.

Lol...too late, I already posted it! BEWARE PRE-MEDS, WE ARE ALL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE!!

 

[breakintheroof]

Lol...too late, I already posted it! BEWARE PRE-MEDS, WE ARE ALL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE!!

Ummm . . . speaking of disguising one's identity, while your status says "Medical Student," your posting history indicates you are a premed yourself and applying this year. Why are you seemingly implying that you are an adcom in this thread?

Ironically, your first post in this thread was about people getting into pointless arguments, and now you have drawn us into this one.

 

[Louis C.K.]

Ummm . . . speaking of disguising one's identity, while your status says "Medical Student," your posting history indicates you are a premed yourself and applying this year. Why are you seemingly implying that you are an adcom in this thread?

Ironically, your first post in this thread was about people getting into pointless arguments, and now you have drawn us into this one.

Ummm...you're the one starting this pointless argument, so I'd say that proves my original point about pointlessness.

 

[beachside]

Ummm...you're the one starting this pointless argument, so I'd say that proves my original point about pointlessness.

You're just digging yourself a hole, dude. Just let it go.

 

[Louis C.K.]

You're just digging yourself a hole, dude. Just let it go.

Alright, alright. I'm clearly not going to win this one. I think the original topic has been answered adequately anyways.

 

[Psai]

Ummm...you're the one starting this pointless argument, so I'd say that proves my original point about pointlessness.

It's not pointless if you are misinterpreting yourself as a medical student which takes away from the legitimacy of actual medical students. Very selfish and obnoxious

 

[Winged Scapula]

It's not pointless if you are misinterpreting yourself as a medical student which takes away from the legitimacy of actual medical students. Very selfish and obnoxious

The problem has been fixed.

 

[pyrrion89]

I know of adcomms who like to read the "X vs. Y" med school match up threads where an applicant is deciding which school to go to... especially if the school in question is theirs!

 

[LizzyM]

For sure, the school specific threads can help an adcom (or more pertinently, the office staff/dean of admissions) keep up with the applicants' perspective of how the interview season is going. It is also very gratifying to see the excitement from the other end when offers go out.