I concur. It is a crapshoot. And really, isn't the notion that the more "interesting" applicant is the better applicant fundamentally flawed? Just because a person wrote a book, is a national athlete, or worked in the Peace Corps for two years, how will this make them a more successful student, intern, or physician? Are they less likely to be sued for malpractice because they were a champion cheerleader? Are they more likely to invent a new surgical instrument because they spent 2 months working in Tanzania?
The med schools want the best applicants they can possibly get for their class. Do they make mistakes? Definitely. There are probably physicians from top schools who get sued, make mistakes, become addicted, become depressed, become bad doctors. They also probably want the most diverse applicants they can get for their class. The fact is that the number of applicants with high stats is huge. Roughly 5% of all MCAT testers, out of N=66,000, will score 35+, meaning that there are 3,300 people with high scores. The top ten schools will probably only be able to accomodate 1,200 applicants at most. Which is to say, that even with high numbers, the schools can afford to be exceptionally selective. Even with a 38 and a 3.8, there's going to be at least several hundred applicants that apply to their school with identical stats. So then the question, unfortunately, falls on us. Why should we pick you? At which case, acceptance becomes almost a function of mere probability. It's like going into a supermarket and deciding which bag of doritos you would like to eat. There are probably 100 on the shelf, you can only reasonably consume one bag, if you have no reason to pick one equally good bag over another. The only exception is gimicks and defects. A bag of doritos that looks like its been stepped on will be passed over although it probably contains the same flavor and nutritional goodness of any other bag. A bag with an extra shiny toy in side my be picked up by the kid over all others.
So I guess our objective is clear, we must become like the box of cereal that has better marketing. We must be like the pokemon card - no actual useful function, probably not any better than any other card game (ala magic the gathering), but made to be desireable. We must be the box of cereal that contains an extra offer for a toy, decoder ring or bobble-head, so that people will choose us. That's the game. Med schools all want to recruit, but they don't really need to. Play the game. Life's tough. It's filled with winners and losers. Time to make sure we're worth it.
