What percentage of applicants stand out as having cohesive applications with compelling reasons for wanting to go into medicine? In other words, other than MCAT and GPA, how many applicants stand out? Can you share any memorable applications?
Adcoms...
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They all gel after awhile. I can't think of a single one.
Applicants fall into two groups:
1) Always wanted to be a doctor
2) Wanted to become a doctor after some life event; gramma gets cancer; sister has a rare medical condition; applicant had surgery or a chronic illness.
Applicants fall into two groups:
1) Always wanted to be a doctor
2) Wanted to become a doctor after some life event; gramma gets cancer; sister has a rare medical condition; applicant had surgery or a chronic illness.
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Slightly off topic, but I can only recall two PS for those applying to ortho residency. It's rare to have a memorable PS.. They're all pretty much boring and even worse once you get to residency PSs. For ortho they're all like athletes who hurt themselves and now want to do ortho. As for med school, goro hit the nail in the head.
But the two...
One was a stud who grew up in Africa, friend had his legs amputated in front of him on a basketball court when he stepped on a mine. Talk about an engaging opener to your PS.
The other, another 99.9%ile everything, basically invented a device to help quadraplegica while in college and medical school, patented it, and then started a successful business and then donates all the proceeds to charity yearly.
Think both were ultimately ranked #1 or two by everyone their respective years.
But the two...
One was a stud who grew up in Africa, friend had his legs amputated in front of him on a basketball court when he stepped on a mine. Talk about an engaging opener to your PS.
The other, another 99.9%ile everything, basically invented a device to help quadraplegica while in college and medical school, patented it, and then started a successful business and then donates all the proceeds to charity yearly.
Think both were ultimately ranked #1 or two by everyone their respective years.
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A few stand out -- mostly those who have had life experiences you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Fortunately for the rest of you, there aren't enought of those to fill a class and so we interview plenty of appliants who are pretty much "cookie cutter" but super fancy cookies. 🙂
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I love this response
Fano
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Intellectually, I can understand these responses, but I still find it sad. I have trouble accepting everyone's "cookie-cutter." Maybe the application process forces this result. "Tell me how I'm measured, I'll tell you how I'll perform."
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Why are the responses sad?
How many ways are there to skin a cat? It's a med school application, and each school has between 5,000 and 10,000 applicants. Just how many positive ways are there for someone to "stand out," and what are the odds that literally hundreds of people, every year, at every school, are not going to stumble upon them? Hence, the adcoms' jaded view.
Of course it is understandable, but why is it sad? @LizzyM is conceding that it is not necessary to meet this standard to be successful, since, by definition, very few people could meet it, so what exactly is the problem?? That there literally aren't 20,000+ unique ways to stand out, with new ones being created every year? 🙂
I actually read OP's question a little differently. Not sure if I'm reading it correctly, since he hasn't come back yet, but my twist on it would be to ask what percent of each adcom's accepted applicants are slam dunk As, as opposed to being somewhat randomly selected from a pool from which the adcoms would be happy with anyone in the pool (i.e., how much of the process is truly random for well-qualified applicants)?
I take it on faith that a significant portion of every school's pool are pretty clear Rs, and I'm not asking about them, or whether they are 5% of the pool or 75%. I'm asking what percent of each class is really lucky to be there since they could have been easily replaced with someone the school would have been reasonably equally happy with, who found themselves on the outside looking in for no reason other than the number of applicants.
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Fano
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I don't think anyone wants to be thought of as cookie cutter. Or am I wrong?
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I guess that depends. Do you plan on wearing a white coat at the White Coat Ceremony along with all of the other cookies?? 🙂
Again, 20,000+ entering M1s every year. Regardless of how you want to think of yourself, how many truly unique ways do you imagine exist to be one of the very select few? You think Peace Corps is unique? A ton of people do it. Along with literally anything else you can imagine. Research, serving the under served, starting a business, etc., etc., etc., etc.
Fano
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Like I originally said, I understand it. I just don't like it.
To be clear, I wasn't intending to be critical of anyone doing their jobs in admissions. I was, in a way, just wondering out loud if the process is a good one. Does it result in better doctors as opposed to a process that leaves time for people to express more uniqueness and individuality in a way that adcoms would appreciate? (I recognize that this might be unfair if individual admissions officers interview 300+ per year.)
To help you understand where I'm coming, I'm a parent of someone who is applying to med school this year. She was an accomplished musician in high school. But her ambition to become a doctor required her to achieve high grades, perform research, volunteer, shadow, etc. which were a higher priority versus the time commitment required to play in an orchestra, which she would love to do but didn't have the bandwidth.
So when I read "cookie cutter", it struck a nerve for this reason. And I also wonder if most applicants are so extraordinary that they can maintain a high level of achievement in other areas and, therefore, my daughter's (likely relatively small) sacrifice is a negative that is best to hide.
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lanadelgay124
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I don't think someone has to be "so extraordinary" to have interests and achievements outside of your typical premed checkboxes, and actually think it's relatively common. I did well academically, and was (very) competitive in an artistic (think, classical music or dance) area throughout college. I am by no means extraordinary -- just hardworking with varied interests; I did have to sacrifice in some areas, such as research. It's a myth that every premed needs to overachieve in every area; most premeds I spoke to on the interview trail had pretty interesting hobbies and talents. "Cookie cutter" seems fair to me, and isn't really negative. Most of us (even the nontrads) are in our twenties, did the premed stuff, and had some extra time to devote to a passion outside of medicine/academia. There will always be regression to the mean in every applicant pool.
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Yes, it's worth mentioning. If your kid is not a robot she is likely to do extremely well.
That said, and to answer your question, I'm not sure why "cookie cutter" is setting you off. Med school admissions is extremely competitive. So much so that an accomplished oboist without a demonstrated commitment to practicing medicine, without the shadowing necessary to show she knows what she is getting into, without the research that the top schools she will undoubtedly be gunning for covet, and without the service to the under served that all schools like to see, she just wouldn't be competitive, regardless of her GPA and MCAT.
So, she, too, is a very awesome cookie. She could have also chosen to be an oboist, but didn't, probably because it doesn't pay as well. So, what exactly is the issue?
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It's not just applicants who are cookie cutter. Most schools are as well, and there's no shame in that.
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This is true of graduate program applications as well. Like it or not, academic programs tend to have a list of activities and achievements (personal and academic) that they want their students to have gone through. This ultimately leads to having a majority of applicants who have "cookie cutter" applications as they are trying to appeal to what they, their advisors, adcoms, etc., think make a strong applicant.
Having had reviewed both graduate program and undergraduate research program applications, they all blend after a few years. My first year I remembered most of the essays and though over half of them were amazing. After my 4th year helping read essays and review over a hundred applications, I can only recall two or three individuals. Now imagine you are an adcom who has been part of their medical school's panel for over 15 years. I can easily imagine how most applications look "cookie cutter" after a decade of reviewing them. My partner, who is in the liberal arts, says it is true for their program as well.
I will say, though, that people I have supported to be admitted in my graduate program have always had something unique or inspiring about them. Great academics, amazing research, very compelling PS, but most importantly, a cohesive application that has a clear narrative.
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What you need and what people have the bandwidth for leads to mostly cookie cutter applicants. There are a few, often career changers and those who have had their schooling disrupted by tragedy that have an application that is out of the ordinary.
The ordinary are fancy cookies in that they have the experiences that are recognized as important to success in medical school and the profession of medicine:
excellent grades and test scores
shadowing
clinical experinece beyond shadowing (can be paid or volunteer)
community service
research
teamwork/leadership
teaching/tuoring (nice to have but not essential)
something done for fun and relaxation (sports, visual or performing arts, hobbies)
If someone has time for something beyond that it's nice to see but pretty much we see applicants who have ticked the boxes to one degree or another.
Fano
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I don't believe she's a robot but prior to this thread I didn't think of her as cookie cutter either. 🙂
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I'm sure she isn't. 🙂
All I meant by that is that, every year, there are a few people with stats similar to your daughter's, but totally lacking in interpersonal skills who find themselves rejected and cannot begin to understand why. Stats are the single most important metric, but schools look far beyond them, and do actually reject people every year with superlative stats who they just don't think would be good fits in their class.
Fano
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You can be sure she's not resting on her laurels.
I'm curious about something that maybe should be in another thread. Pardon me, if so. I wonder if adcoms have good (or any) feedback mechanisms to know if they make good or bad choices.
I've been a hiring manager for 25+ years and, as such, see how my hires perform on a mostly day-to-day basis, if they directly report to me. Whereas adcoms don't have that "luxury". Although adcoms can include faculty, it's not nearly the same. So do adcoms take specific steps to gauge themselves in this regard? If so, what are they?
For example, let's say you had a candidate who was borderline but you ended up admitting. If the student ends up performing well, does the adcom recognize this and try to discover how they might have been wrong in an effort to improve their process? Or is this considered, for lack of a better phrase, not a worthwhile use of time?
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How many people have you hired over 25+ years? These adcoms "hire" 100-200+ every single year, and they each have between 5,000-10,000 candidates (er, cookies! 🙂). Do you? I'm not an adcom, but I'm pretty sure their relevant metric is how many people drop out, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
For the record, the number is very low (<1-2%). It's not so much that they are awesome, even though they are! 😎 It's that they are blessed with an embarrassment of riches in that they have 60,000+ candidates vying for 22,000+ spots, and many of them are very well qualified. In such an environment, it's tough to make a lot of mistakes, so your world, where you need to slot the right person into the right role, isn't really applicable when you are dealing with 22,000+ cookies, which brings us back to what set you off in the first place! 🙂
And, for the record, if they admit someone "borderline" and that person ends up doing well, that is an example of the process working exactly as designed!!! Remember -- they took the chance and admitted the person, and the person validated their judgment through performance.
Is your point that they should admit more borderline candidates to test the theory that the process sucks? It doesn't. Everyone who knows knows that plenty of borderline folks would do well if given the chance. The rub is that there is such a surplus of people who are far above borderline, who are even more likely to do even better. The process dictates that the adcom fill the class with the best available candidates, not merely those who clear a minimum threshold.
And, for the record, thousands of people every year are rejected who are also far above borderline. This makes the case for admitting the borderline candidate even more tenuous, even though the borderline candidate would most likely succeed.
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Fano
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I think you read too much into my post. I wasn't making a point, just being curious. And I only brought up my experience and the borderline scenario as examples to clarify my question, but it looks like I was unsuccessful.
Maybe a better way to ask is: How do adcoms improve their process? How do they measure themselves? What metrics do they look at? Some of this might be obvious; yield & avg student stats for examples, but what else? In particular, I was interested in how they might attempt to improve their more subjective judgements about the more controversial candidates.
PS: I'm a curious person, in general, but what's behind it is knowing that often times I learn things that can help me or others and sometimes in ways I didn't expect.
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And, to your point above, I'm guessing they don't. I really shouldn't speak for them (but, OTOH, they seem to be staying out of this! 🙂), but it's probably worth keeping in mind that they all have day jobs (other than the dean of admissions), and they do this on the side as a service to the school. It's not a HR function; it's a MD factory.
Yield, stats, graduation rates, match rates, etc. -- those are their metrics. Screwing around at the margins to "improve a process" might make for an interesting topic at a HR manager convention, but, at the MD factory, they are more interested in attracting more well qualified URMs to their ranks, and plowing through literally thousands of well qualified applicants to seat a class.
They have the luxury of not having to worry about what to do with controversial candidates. They reject them, because they have dozens of equally or more attractive, non-controversial candidates to replace each and every one of them.
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I definitely feel like there are ways to stand out but instead of diving deep into one 'pillar' of an app people just try to checkboxes and go down that path as well. I know this is n = 1 but my roommate who applied next year, no gap year, had about 5 activities on his AMCAS (distinct actual activities, not counting publications, awards, funding, etc.) and essentially put all his chips into research since the moment he entered college; they joined a lab focused on developing some novel ML/AI-based diagnosis method for some obscure disease, worked almost every week as a volunteer for that entire year, then managed to develop the skills and education to do some independent work. They ended up with a few pubs, but more than that, they designed their entire app around this 'tech futuristic treatment' notion, which is probably pretty damn unique. IIRC they swept most of the top schools except for UCSF or something.
Then you come on this forum and people start talking hours, "no you don't even need research," "pubs and research achievements don't matter," like okay maybe they dont matter in principle for a chance at md but if you follow this advice then don't be surprised when you end up cookie cutter lmao
Then you come on this forum and people start talking hours, "no you don't even need research," "pubs and research achievements don't matter," like okay maybe they dont matter in principle for a chance at md but if you follow this advice then don't be surprised when you end up cookie cutter lmao
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As a freshman in undergrad, I learned a senior at my school patented a surgical staple and sold it to Johnson and Johnson, before he entered med school. An example of a Super Cookie!
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All of the applicants who want to be a doctor because mommy and daddy said so are all laughing as they fit neither of these groups
Fano
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I noticed that, too. But give them time... or do they not want to admit how cold & heartless a process this is, though? 😊
IRT the embarrassment of riches, there's always room for improvement. Always.
I've worked with and for some pretty successful organizations & companies where problems that sometimes rear their ugly heads are arrogance and/or complacency. As a parent, I've observed multiple college app processes and, imho, some of that is surprisingly on display. Not long ago, one of my kids rejected a T10 college, at least in part, for this reason. Though it occurred after acceptance and during the wooing phase (or at least should have been wooing). We got the impression they didn't give a ****. Otoh, why should they since they'll no doubt remain a T10? [end of rant]
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and diversity.
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Actually, they fit into 1a) Mommy and Daddy always wanted me to be a doctor!
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and even with all those don't expect to bat a thousand.
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The ultimate decision to admit or not rests with a committee of faculty members. This is required by the LCME, the accreditation body for medical schools. We are faculty members and we see students in classrooms, labs, and clinics over the subsequent years. Dean of Admissions and Services Dean of Students sit together on the Dean's Council and get the scoop on how students are doing and where there are problems that perhaps could have been anticipated. I for one remember the applicants who were admitted over my objections. I'm always interested to see their names four years later to find out where they matched. It has humbled me.
There are thousands of "good enough" applicants and at some point, at most schools, it is just a crap shoot to break throught the pile and land close enough to the top to get an offer.
There are thousands of "good enough" applicants and at some point, at most schools, it is just a crap shoot to break throught the pile and land close enough to the top to get an offer.
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Yeah, we know that, but the applicants never tell us this!
Fano
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This is the kind of response I was hoping to get. Thanks!
Fano
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How many tell you their parents strongly challenged them to be absolutely sure they really want to do what it takes to be a doctor plus have a close relative who's a physician that shares less than positive aspects about the profession at nearly every family get-together; and despite all that still want to be a doctor? Or is it best to just present yourself simply and happily as a member of group 1?
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Sometimes applicants will be asked point-blank if their parents are supportive. Some are asked what they would choose to do if a career in medicine were not an option (dystopian world where med schools are abolished or something like that). Some are asked what the negatvies of a career in medicine are (if they can't think of any, what does that tell us?). It is always best for a student to answer honestly and be themself.
