2009-2010 Harvard Application Thread

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trueBelief said:
I am not sure of 'best' schools but several programs are sorta distinctive from others in how they are structured, for example: Mayo (really small class size), Yale (the Yale System), Duke (1 pre-clinical year), CCLCM (research yr included, 5 yr program), Hopkins (Genes to Society - New Curriculum), Stanford (Scholarly Concentrations), Dartmouth (Global and National Clerkship opportunities).

I am sure there are several more 'unique' programs, these are just one thing that makes some of the schools I looked into different from each other. At the end of the day, you will get a good medical education almost wherever you go. It's a matter of fit more than anything else.
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Very true indeed. You raised some good points about other schools that I had not considered (because I'm personally a huge fan of the Yale System 😛). But really, it is all about what makes a difference to YOU as an individual.
 
bamtuba said:
👍

I personally agree with this 110%

But I am still curious, again NOT FLAMING ANYONE FOR THEIR OPINION, as to what measure would be used to make the case that a school can be THE BEST versus a school being THEIR BEST FIT.

I do have problems with "US NEWS" rankings, but that's just me. Is there any other reason, other than being told by the media what they believe, that anyone believes Harvard to be, arguably or not, THE best school in the country? If so, why?

Again, I'm applying here, not knocking the school...and trying to kill some time waiting for a qPCR to finish up on an otherwise boring Sunday. 🙂
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I made careful note to include the word "arguably" in my statement. If you want to criticize USNWR, that's one thing, but no reasonable person would ever disagree that Harvard Medical School is among the top medical schools in the nation.

If you have a better way to rank schools than USNWR, I'd be glad to hear it. You're proposing criticisms with no solutions other than that each person has their own 'best-fit schools,' but since no ranking agency can submit rankings tailored to each individual person, we must do the best we can with what we have. The argument stands that while not everyone agrees Harvard is the best medical school in the US, it is certainly one of the best, if by no other measure than the outstanding quality of its students and faculty.

@w8ting2exhale: I agree the Yale system sounds incredibly interesting!
 
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congrats. they rejected me =[

whoever said they interviewed 800-1000 (correct) from a pool of 5,000 (incorrect). the pool is 10,000+

I think what differs hms from other good ms is that hms looks for well rounded people. The people I know that got into hms...2 had very good thesis, as in they got published in some great journey cell/nature or something similar. one helped some doc and was named in NYtimes front page, and the fourth did stocks/options I am not sure how much he's worth but I knew it was multimillion, so 2+ (not sure why he is going to med school).

Than I can name 5 others who had 40+ mcats and 3.8+ from my college (duke). I'd say their vols/leadership/EC were middle of the road. And according to one, hms expects you to sleep 4-5 hours a night and think about med school the other 24 hours of the day (haha). And I was advised from one: "be prepared to explain why you didn't spend every second of your undergrad preparing yourself for med school...OH and explain why you went home during spring break to visit your family who you did not see for 3 months instead of 'better preparing yourself by getting involved in the numerous activities available at your university or going abroad to help our neighbors in other countries'".

but guess i don't have to worry about that =/
oh well, good luck!
 
hiiiEEE said:
congrats. they rejected me =[

whoever said they interviewed 800-1000 (correct) from a pool of 5,000 (incorrect). the pool is 10,000+

I think what differs hms from other good ms is that hms looks for well rounded people. The people I know that got into hms...2 had very good thesis, as in they got published in some great journey cell/nature or something similar. one helped some doc and was named in NYtimes front page, and the fourth did stocks/options I am not sure how much he's worth but I knew it was multimillion, so 2+ (not sure why he is going to med school).

Than I can name 5 others who had 40+ mcats and 3.8+ from my college (duke). I'd say their vols/leadership/EC were middle of the road. And according to one, hms expects you to sleep 4-5 hours a night and think about med school the other 24 hours of the day (haha). And I was advised from one: "be prepared to explain why you didn't spend every second of your undergrad preparing yourself for med school...OH and explain why you went home during spring break to visit your family who you did not see for 3 months instead of 'better preparing yourself by getting involved in the numerous activities available at your university or going abroad to help our neighbors in other countries'".

but guess i don't have to worry about that =/
oh well, good luck!
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That's not incorrect. The figures I pulled were directly from Harvard's website for the class I indicated above.

Every bit of advice you just gave seems questionable. Harvard interviewers do not ask you to explain why you didn't spend your spring break better preparing yourself for medical school, that's absurd.
 
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bamtuba said:
1) Nothing personal, so argument mode is not needed.

2) I acknowledged that you used the word arguably and was wondering upon what you would base Harvard being "the best" or in this case "one of the best" other than rankings, which you alluded as the only reason per the above.

3) A better way to rank? OK. How about average returns? The schools that do the MOST with the LEAST get ranked THE BEST. That's one way. This brings me to...

4) "Outstanding quality" of who the school draws is opinion at best and can vary according to who you ask. This means little to your education at an institution. Your Biochem teacher winning a Nobel does not make that person an effective educator.

I am not saying that these factors do not CONTRIBUTE to the institution, and in fact I would say THEY DO! But just because a reputation draws bigger fish does NOT mean the fish will do their personal best in that pond.

I hate standardized testing for many reasons, but would prefer to see comparisons made between how well a school prepares what they are given rather than how much money the school brought in for research.

For example, if the average MCAT at Harvard for the class of 2009 was a 36, and the average Step 1 for that same class was a 235, wouldn't it be of interest to note when another school has a class of 2009 MCAT average of 33 and those same students average a 240 on their Step 1?

THAT WOULD TELL US SOMETHING USEFUL! But that has nothing to do with money, prestige, or politics...just facts and data. And note, this would involve "best-fit" as well as other factors. I would bet that, if this were the way we ranked schools, we would have some surprising Top-20 schools! The difference between attracting successful people and educating people for success is too-often ignored.

No, I'm not "posting criticism with no solution." I'm pointing out (at least in response to your post) that reputation alone does not an educational experience make.

So I'll re-word my question: OTHER THAN REPUTATION AND "RANKINGS," (both of which are all I have heard from this post) what makes Harvard arguably THE BEST or ONE OF THE BEST in your opinion?

Just curious. Really. For me it would personally be a great fit, there's that inconvenient term again, because of the great resources the school has to offer as well as the educational opportunities of the school's curriculum.
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If we ranked using "average returns," Harvard would be absolutely destined to fail. It has so many resources, it couldn't possibly compete well enough to get its "average returns" high enough. I'm not in "argument mode," by the way, I'm in 'healthy debate mode.' You are simply arguing with the system, nothing about it works for you. You don't like the rankings and you don't like standardized tests. It sounds to me like your ideal application system would involve a school simply drawing names out of a hat and an applicant essentially doing the same to pick which schools he or she would like to attend.

There are problems with any ranking systems and I clearly exposed a significant weakness to your proposed ranking system. Schools with more resources and students with higher average stats cannot significantly improve the students they have. WUSTL has a 38 MCAT average, but even with a hypothetical 250 Step 1 average, that still wouldn't represent MUCH of a change from what it had. Your system tries to identify large gaps which are indicative of excellent preparation. That's useful for identifying a small amount of schools who do well in preparing students for yet another standardized test which you so detest.
 
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whatever dudes. not many ppl care about the presteige once you get away from the east coast. only the stuck up, self-entitled, who are your parents and how much money do you have, ppl up there care.

other than that, you'll be an MD. if you want to be a great doctor, thats up to you and your self-motivation, not the name of the school on your diploma.
 
bamtuba said:
Well, according to that logic, should the kids with the MCAT average of 32 really be pulling an average 240 on step one? There would be ways of allowing for the discrepancy, and it would be FAR MORE valuable than just going by $$$ and extra-educational factors that have NOTHING to do with why you would likely go to that school in the first place.

I believe the current system is much like the "out of hat" method with an eye toward favortism for "traditionally big name" places.

BTW, I edited my post to allow for "healthy debate" mode. Sorry for my original assumptions. 😉
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I really don't understand what you're trying to argue. If a school has a 36 MCAT with a 235 Step 1 average while another school has a 32 MCAT with a 240 Step 1 average, that indicates to me that they may teach better towards the Step 1 exam and that's all you can glean from that. There is really nothing else more to gain from that argument. If Med School 1 tailors all of its exams and classes to be essentially like TPR for Step 1 for 2 years, then I would expect Med School 1's students to perform better than Med School 2's students who didn't have 2 years of preparation.

Does that mean that Med School 2's students are less-prepared for careers in medicine? Absolutely not. Maybe they have had more clinical experience and will be better prepared for Step 2 CK and CS.
 
bamtuba said:
I've had no issue so far. And I've had PLENTY of opportunities to do so. 😉
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You haven't been accepted to any schools yet, so I would definitely argue that it's too early to tell.
 
bamtuba said:
I don't know what you meant by "ppl up there," but being from the South, and having lived in the NE for 9 years, I have found "ppl down there" to be more political and concerned with "who you know..."

🙂
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thats interesting. i dunno, ive always found ppl from the east coast to be rude as hell/crazy
 
bamtuba said:
So by what would you judge the knowledge base of an applicant upon graduation from med school as a residency director? The $$$ the teacher's bring in?

🙄

The current rankings system does this. Which makes more sense?
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A lot of students end up going to their medical school's teaching hospitals for residency. You're arguing in circles, by the way. First you claim that standardized tests are bad. Second you claimed that a school's Step 1 score determines its relative awesomeness and now you go on to argue that it's the only thing a residency director has to judge. Residency directors can look at your letters of recommendation, interviewing abilities, extracurricular activities, passion for the field, etc.

The residency matching system is a complex algorithm that takes a lot of things into account. It's very different from anything most people have seen and is designed so that hospitals get the students they desire. Step 1 scores are important for residency, but they aren't the most important factor for admission. Show me a school with significantly lower stats than Harvard (ie not Hopkins, WUSTL, UCSF, Penn, etc) that matches better than Harvard. You'd be hard-pressed to find one. Why don't we rank schools by the way their students end up matching?
 
I dont know in whose favor this point goes -- but my educaional experience of many many years both as a teacher & as a student, tells me -- an instructor who has great amount of knowledge, but cannot come down to the level of the student & explain things to the students, makes for a very bad instructor.
So schools might have great amount of research money, because they have excellent scientific minds, but can these minds come down to the level of an MD student??? A brillian scientist does not necessarily make a brilliant instructor.
Also how much time effort is the instructor willing to teach us guys, is also a big question.
So the real question should ideally be (as far as MD students are concerned -- it all changes in residency) which school emphasizes on teaching rather then research for the faculty who work with MD students.

I wont be surprised to find, the schools which are not even rated, have some some excellent instructors, because the school is not on their back to publish stuff.

Just my thoughts.
 
bamtuba said:
Nice touch. When you can't argue a fact, just put the ball in the other person's court!

But I would like to point out that you just made my point. I agree. Harvard is AMONG the top schools. Now you get it.

I'm done here.

:luck: with those interviews!
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It was nice talking to you.
 
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Hey by the way -- did anyone notice that US news ranks schools' 2 ways. One research money & then another (I'll let you explore on your own).
 
This thread makes me want to withdraw my app from Harvard and run as far away from Boston as possible... Hello, West Coast!
 
Yay! I received my secondary today.

To Quote! "The Medical School does NOT have rolling admissions; all applications submitted by the November 1st deadline will receive full consideration."

Just to clarify some earlier posts in this thread.
 
invite today!! wow! here's hope to those with more average gpa's!
 
archimedesxx said:
Can you puS@Ies get lives. Damn!
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Although this post accurately reflects what many of us are thinking, I would still like to emphasize the stupidity of the dialogue between bamtuba and betacell.

Seriously people. wtf.
 
Thanks! Complete 8/19, my ec's are not outstandish... research, volunteering abroad, clinical experiences... perhaps I'm just a good persuasive writer?
 
i counted Harvard out because I did not have Calc 2 prereq but today I received an interview invite for the New Pathway program. Do you think this was a mistake? 😕
 
Complete 8/19. NP invite

You don't need a 40MCAT or a 3.7 gpa! It's been proven! :]

Good luck everyone!
 
doctor2014 said:
i counted Harvard out because I did not have Calc 2 prereq but today I received an interview invite for the New Pathway program. Do you think this was a mistake? 😕
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your mdapps link doesn't work but congrats!
 
Hey, I just found they have an interview date on Saturday (October 24) Any idea whether it is going to be any different from the weekdays? I am very attempted to pick this date but I am afraid all the adcom people would be like "why am I still working on Saturday, just want to go home" :-(
 
how many of the 800-1000 do they accept, do you know?....I hate the fact that med schools only publish how many people matriculate instead of how many people are admitted...who care about about how many people matriculate?


hiiiEEE said:
congrats. they rejected me =[

whoever said they interviewed 800-1000 (correct) from a pool of 5,000 (incorrect). the pool is 10,000+

I think what differs hms from other good ms is that hms looks for well rounded people. The people I know that got into hms...2 had very good thesis, as in they got published in some great journey cell/nature or something similar. one helped some doc and was named in NYtimes front page, and the fourth did stocks/options I am not sure how much he's worth but I knew it was multimillion, so 2+ (not sure why he is going to med school).

Than I can name 5 others who had 40+ mcats and 3.8+ from my college (duke). I'd say their vols/leadership/EC were middle of the road. And according to one, hms expects you to sleep 4-5 hours a night and think about med school the other 24 hours of the day (haha). And I was advised from one: "be prepared to explain why you didn't spend every second of your undergrad preparing yourself for med school...OH and explain why you went home during spring break to visit your family who you did not see for 3 months instead of 'better preparing yourself by getting involved in the numerous activities available at your university or going abroad to help our neighbors in other countries'".

but guess i don't have to worry about that =/
oh well, good luck!
Click to expand...
 
eyepop said:
Hey, I just found they have an interview date on Saturday (October 24) Any idea whether it is going to be any different from the weekdays? I am very attempted to pick this date but I am afraid all the adcom people would be like "why am I still working on Saturday, just want to go home" :-(
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While the school experience you get might be different, I doubt they would offer the time if people were unwilling to work on the weekend.

Don't worry about it if the weekend works best for you.
 
BerlinDude said:
Although this post accurately reflects what many of us are thinking, I would still like to emphasize the stupidity of the dialogue between bamtuba and betacell.

Seriously people. wtf.
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Alright, I'll bite.

Everyone has a bad day. In this case, two people made a bad call and this was the result. Mistakes happen. I agree with the stupidity and we all get the point.

Moving on with an otherwise great thread.
 
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eyepop said:
how many of the 800-1000 do they accept, do you know?....I hate the fact that med schools only publish how many people matriculate instead of how many people are admitted...who care about about how many people matriculate?
Click to expand...

Not sure about how many they accept, but for some other schools it is as much as double. With a place that likely goes through fewer spots on the waitlist it is likely far less.
 
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ontheroad86 said:
This thread makes me want to withdraw my app from Harvard and run as far away from Boston as possible... Hello, West Coast!
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hey. the people posting in this thread who have gotten invited to interview all seem pretty cool! 🙁

kierkegaard said:
Thanks! Complete 8/19, my ec's are not outstandish... research, volunteering abroad, clinical experiences... perhaps I'm just a good persuasive writer?
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woot! congrats

doctor2014 said:
i counted Harvard out because I did not have Calc 2 prereq but today I received an interview invite for the New Pathway program. Do you think this was a mistake? 😕
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hrm. well in the official invite email with the date of my interview and everything, there was a pre-req fill-in sheet attached. it'll be pretty noticeable if you leave the second semester of calc blank... are you still in school? maybe you can take it next semester?
 
dw2158 said:
hrm. well in the official invite email with the date of my interview and everything, there was a pre-req fill-in sheet attached. it'll be pretty noticeable if you leave the second semester of calc blank... are you still in school? maybe you can take it next semester?
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Hey dw, how long after you responded back with your choice of dates did u hear back. I got my invite on Thurs and responded back the same day with my top 2 choices but haven't gotten any confirmation yet.

And yes, there was a slight distraction on this thread a few posts ago but all is good now so I we should bring back the spirit of this thread back =)
 
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