Applying to Medical School 30-40 years ago?

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sfwtboy

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I'm not exactly sure why, but I woke up today wondering what it must have been like for someone to apply to medical school in the 70's and 80's today. We complain a lot about how long things like transcript verification and MCAT scores take now with the internet, so I'm curious anyone know how the process worked/how long it was back then?

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When I told my primary care physician about how I spent 3 months studying for the MCAT. He told me about how when he was in college, he studied off a pamphlet that was offered by med school recruiters. He then applied for med school and got in without ever knowing his MCAT score.
 
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This comes up fairly regularly. I started med school when a peanut farmer was the president of the US, well before we elected a professional actor. There were some differences. The MCAT was important and there WERE prep classes, but few took them as there was much less focus on the MCAT as a deciding feature of admissions. All of the things valued now, including shadowing, service, leadership and research were valued then. However, much less emphasis was placed on them, especially service in a hospital or community setting. I think that letters of rec were more honest and probably more critical back then in the process. They tend to be more generic now. I never heard of anyone going to Guatemala on a medical adventure for a week to try to get into med school. We had a nurse in my med school class and a handful of other non-trads.

I don't remember the administrative side very well of applying. Perhaps that means it wasn't so complex? I was accepted to med school a few weeks after an interview in October, I don't recall any fixed dates for acceptances being sent. I continued to interview but ended up at the first place. On the whole, I really believe more is similar than different compared to then, although it is a more intense process now.
 
This comes up fairly regularly. I started med school when a peanut farmer was the president of the US, well before we elected a professional actor. There were some differences. The MCAT was important and there WERE prep classes, but few took them as there was much less focus on the MCAT as a deciding feature of admissions. All of the things valued now, including shadowing, service, leadership and research were valued then. However, much less emphasis was placed on them, especially service in a hospital or community setting. I think that letters of rec were more honest and probably more critical back then in the process. They tend to be more generic now. I never heard of anyone going to Guatemala on a medical adventure for a week to try to get into med school. We had a nurse in my med school class and a handful of other non-trads.

I don't remember the administrative side very well of applying. Perhaps that means it wasn't so complex? I was accepted to med school a few weeks after an interview in October, I don't recall any fixed dates for acceptances being sent. I continued to interview but ended up at the first place. On the whole, I really believe more is similar than different compared to then, although it is a more intense process now.
The fact that everything was on paper is crazy to think about. I think it's easy to take for granted how convenient things are now.

Speaking of the peanut farmer, you know his grandbaby is running for Jawja governor? All in the family.
 
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I'm not exactly sure why, but I woke up today wondering what it must have been like for someone to apply to medical school in the 70's and 80's today. We complain a lot about how long things like transcript verification and MCAT scores take now with the internet, so I'm curious anyone know how the process worked/how long it was back then?
Go to your library and get a copy of the MSAR from back then and check it out. MCAT scores were low-thirties for the top schools I think.
 
The fact that everything was on paper is crazy to think about. I think it's easy to take for granted how convenient things are now.

Speaking of the peanut farmer, you know his grandbaby is running for Jawja governor? All in the family.

I did the paper secondaries when I first applied in 2004 and paper MCAT. AMCAS was online (I had to reset my password this time as I couldn't remember it, lol). Definitely a lot easier this time around. My handwriting is crap so I felt like that was definitely a disadvantage.
 
I did the paper secondaries when I first applied in 2004 and paper MCAT. AMCAS was online (I had to reset my password this time as I couldn't remember it, lol). Definitely a lot easier this time around. My handwriting is crap so I felt like that was definitely a disadvantage.
Paper Secondaries 0.o I didn't even think about that! You couldn't use a computer in 2004 for them though?
 
How did you even get copies of things in the early 60s? Like, did each LoR have to be individaully typed out and mailed? It's hard enough to get a LoR nowadays, imagine then...
 
The fact that everything was on paper is crazy to think about. I think it's easy to take for granted how convenient things are now.

Speaking of the peanut farmer, you know his grandbaby is running for Jawja governor? All in the family.

That's offensive. Keep yer Yankee opinions to yerself.
georgia.gif


Anyway, I've thought about this quite a bit too. The idea of having all of the application material on paper is crazy. It seems that a lot of the information would be very easily misplaced.
 
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That's offensive. Keep yer Yankee opinions to yerself.
georgia.gif


Anyway, I've thought about this quite a bit too. The idea of having all of the application material on paper is crazy. It seems that a lot of the information would be very easily misplaced.
Don't you dare call me a Yankee I'm from Texas and I'll say whatever I want. Jawja is a term of endearment. Some of my best buds were dawgs and my best friend is currently away Emory law.
 
Don't you dare call me a Yankee I'm from Texas and I'll say whatever I want. Jawja is a term of endearment. Some of my best buds were dawgs and my best friend is currently away Emory law.
Lol! Texas=\=Yankee, for certain.
 
Just for kicks, I did apply (and was accepted) to PA school in 1997. It was all paper then and I'm pretty amazed none of it got lost. As far as I know if I had applied to med then would have been similar and probably a paper MCAT then. I did take one of the first-offered computer-based board exams for PAs (PANCE) in 2000 but it took 2-3 months to get results and was only offered twice a year.
And this is just 15-17 years ago lol
 
How did you even get copies of things in the early 60s? Like, did each LoR have to be individaully typed out and mailed? It's hard enough to get a LoR nowadays, imagine then...

Dictation. Now, currently mostly used in legal proceedings like depositions, we routinely dictated letters of all sort as well as histories and physicals, discharge summaries, etc. Voila, the dictation service (or office secretary) typed them out and put them on the chart, etc. Copies were done on Xerox machines, they existed in the 60's. I wonder how many of you have ever seen "shorthand" as it was used for many decades for verbal dictations?
 
Back in the day, applications were maintained in a separate room and managed in a way similar to the management of medical records. Things were very unlikely to be misplaced.Of course, you young folks haven't seen paper medical records, either. 😉

Actually, I work for a free clinic and we have yet to fully implement our EMR. Paper everywhere. :scared:
 
Go to your library and get a copy of the MSAR from back then and check it out. MCAT scores were low-thirties for the top schools I think.

The scale and scoring averages have changed several times over the last 50 years. There have been some threads covering this in the past and I think there is a Wikipedia page or something similar covering the history of the MCATs. The more important point is that the MCAT was important in the 70's, but not as important as it is now.
 
When my mom took the mcat there was a general knowledge section -- it had random history, econ, politics type stuff.

I think that a huge difference in the intensity of the application process has come from media/technology. All this chatter on SDN wasn't available to make it easy to compare yourself to other applicants & provide you with (mis)advice to freak out about or try to one-up.
 
It's interesting to see how much more competitive it's gotten. The radiologist I shadowed had never shadowed when he was young and thought it was strange that as a former rad tech I needed to shadow some for my application. Another doc said with my GPA all I had to do was take the mcat just so I had a score on record and I could accepted anywhere.
 
When I told my primary care physician about how I spent 3 months studying for the MCAT. He told me about how when he was in college, he studied off a pamphlet that was offered by med school recruiters. He then applied for med school and got in without every knowing his MCAT score.
lmao you can't be serious. I've heard it was a lot easier back then, but that easy. lol
 
I applied in the mid- 1970's. Overall, the process was the same. Back then, the overall acceptance rate was about the same as it is today, around 43%, if I remember correctly. The year I applied application numbers peaked, and I believe acceptance rates got a bit higher the following years. Individual school acceptance rates were about the same as well.

The GPA you needed back then was essentially the same as you need now.

The MCAT back then had four parts: Verbal, Math, General Knowledge, and Science. Each was scored out of 800, like the SAT. You also got a percentile score for each part, but there was no combined score. It was a paper exam, and you filled in the bubbles with a #2 pencil. Lest you think that this is archaic, please note that the LSAT exam ( for law school) is still on paper. I think it took 4-6 weeks to get the scores back.

Based on my experience then with the application process, after converting my old MCAT scores to the current ones ( by utilizing the equivalent percentile scores, and counting the verbal once and the science twice ) it seems to me that the MCAT score percentile requirements have not changed either.

Everyone I knew took a review course for the MCAT, although preparing for the SAT was almost unheard of then, at least among my classmates. I believe Kaplan was the only review course for the MCAT around at the time. I eventually taught the MCAT for Kaplan at the company headquarters in Brooklyn, where Mr. Kaplan himself was always around, still running the company. For those of you who aren't aware of this, Stanley Kaplan single-handedly founded the test prep industry, and eventually forced the test-makers to acknowledge that students could prepare for the exams and improve their scores by studying, something that the test companies had steadfastly denied was possible, until Stanley Kaplan came along.

The AMCAS application was similar, but I don't recall 15 the separate spaces for activities. I typed out the application and mailed it in, and AMCAS photocopied and mailed out copies to each school. Secondaries were similar, I believe, but all hand typed; no cutting and pasting. One advantage to that was that applicants were less likely to put in the wrong school name.

The personal statement was important, and the interview process was important as well. The interview process and interview questions were the same as they are now, although there was no MMI yet. I didn't have any stress interviews.

What was different was that the ancillary activities that are de rigeuer today, such as shadowing, clinical experience, volunteering, and research were not as necessary as they are today. I did none of them, although that probably hurt my application. Some of my classmates did some or all of those activities.
When I applied, the question was " have you had any clinical experience" rather than " what clincial experience have you had" .

One other thing that has changed is that the USMLE step 1 exam score is now very important for residency applications. That phenomenon seems to be about 10 years old. No one that I work with who finished residency 10 years ago or more has any idea what their step 1 score was. We were just told that we had to pass. Now, that score seems to determine whether you have any chance at getting into a competitive residency. By the way, when I took that exam, it was known as the NMB parts 1, 2, and 3. ( NMB= National Medical Boards ) .
 
I applied in the mid- 1970's. Overall, the process was the same. Back then, the overall acceptance rate was about the same as it is today, around 43%, if I remember correctly. The year I applied application numbers peaked, and I believe acceptance rates got a bit higher the following years. Individual school acceptance rates were about the same as well.

The GPA you needed back then was essentially the same as you need now.

The MCAT back then had four parts: Verbal, Math, General Knowledge, and Science. Each was scored out of 800, like the SAT. You also got a percentile score for each part, but there was no combined score. It was a paper exam, and you filled in the bubbles with a #2 pencil. Lest you think that this is archaic, please note that the LSAT exam ( for law school) is still on paper. I think it took 4-6 weeks to get the scores back.

Based on my experience then with the application process, after converting my old MCAT scores to the current ones ( by utilizing the equivalent percentile scores, and counting the verbal once and the science twice ) it seems to me that the MCAT score percentile requirements have not changed either.

Everyone I knew took a review course for the MCAT, although preparing for the SAT was almost unheard of then, at least among my classmates. I believe Kaplan was the only review course for the MCAT around at the time. I eventually taught the MCAT for Kaplan at the company headquarters in Brooklyn, where Mr. Kaplan himself was always around, still running the company. For those of you who aren't aware of this, Stanley Kaplan single-handedly founded the test prep industry, and eventually forced the test-makers to acknowledge that students could prepare for the exams and improve their scores by studying, something that the test companies had steadfastly denied was possible, until Stanley Kaplan came along.

The AMCAS application was similar, but I don't recall 15 the separate spaces for activities. I typed out the application and mailed it in, and AMCAS photocopied and mailed out copies to each school. Secondaries were similar, I believe, but all hand typed; no cutting and pasting. One advantage to that was that applicants were less likely to put in the wrong school name.

The personal statement was important, and the interview process was important as well. The interview process and interview questions were the same as they are now, although there was no MMI yet. I didn't have any stress interviews.

What was different was that the ancillary activities that are de rigeuer today, such as shadowing, clinical experience, volunteering, and research were not as necessary as they are today. I did none of them, although that probably hurt my application. Some of my classmates did some or all of those activities.
When I applied, the question was " have you had any clinical experience" rather than " what clincial experience have you had" .

One other thing that has changed is that the USMLE step 1 exam score is now very important for residency applications. That phenomenon seems to be about 10 years old. No one that I work with who finished residency 10 years ago or more has any idea what their step 1 score was. We were just told that we had to pass. Now, that score seems to determine whether you have any chance at getting into a competitive residency. By the way, when I took that exam, it was known as the NMB parts 1, 2, and 3. ( NMB= National Medical Boards ) .
Very insightful post. Thanks!
 
I applied in the mid- 1970's. Overall, the process was the same. Back then, the overall acceptance rate was about the same as it is today, around 43%, if I remember correctly. The year I applied application numbers peaked, and I believe acceptance rates got a bit higher the following years. Individual school acceptance rates were about the same as well.

The GPA you needed back then was essentially the same as you need now.

The MCAT back then had four parts: Verbal, Math, General Knowledge, and Science. Each was scored out of 800, like the SAT. You also got a percentile score for each part, but there was no combined score. It was a paper exam, and you filled in the bubbles with a #2 pencil. Lest you think that this is archaic, please note that the LSAT exam ( for law school) is still on paper. I think it took 4-6 weeks to get the scores back.

Based on my experience then with the application process, after converting my old MCAT scores to the current ones ( by utilizing the equivalent percentile scores, and counting the verbal once and the science twice ) it seems to me that the MCAT score percentile requirements have not changed either.

Everyone I knew took a review course for the MCAT, although preparing for the SAT was almost unheard of then, at least among my classmates. I believe Kaplan was the only review course for the MCAT around at the time. I eventually taught the MCAT for Kaplan at the company headquarters in Brooklyn, where Mr. Kaplan himself was always around, still running the company. For those of you who aren't aware of this, Stanley Kaplan single-handedly founded the test prep industry, and eventually forced the test-makers to acknowledge that students could prepare for the exams and improve their scores by studying, something that the test companies had steadfastly denied was possible, until Stanley Kaplan came along.

The AMCAS application was similar, but I don't recall 15 the separate spaces for activities. I typed out the application and mailed it in, and AMCAS photocopied and mailed out copies to each school. Secondaries were similar, I believe, but all hand typed; no cutting and pasting. One advantage to that was that applicants were less likely to put in the wrong school name.

The personal statement was important, and the interview process was important as well. The interview process and interview questions were the same as they are now, although there was no MMI yet. I didn't have any stress interviews.

What was different was that the ancillary activities that are de rigeuer today, such as shadowing, clinical experience, volunteering, and research were not as necessary as they are today. I did none of them, although that probably hurt my application. Some of my classmates did some or all of those activities.
When I applied, the question was " have you had any clinical experience" rather than " what clincial experience have you had" .

One other thing that has changed is that the USMLE step 1 exam score is now very important for residency applications. That phenomenon seems to be about 10 years old. No one that I work with who finished residency 10 years ago or more has any idea what their step 1 score was. We were just told that we had to pass. Now, that score seems to determine whether you have any chance at getting into a competitive residency. By the way, when I took that exam, it was known as the NMB parts 1, 2, and 3. ( NMB= National Medical Boards ) .
It's like we're breeding a generation of neurotic superdoctors
 
almost no women or black people
 
almost no women or black people

My class in the late 70's was 1/3 women, and their number was in the process of increasing.

The class had about 5% Asians, and no southeast Asians. Those numbers probably accurately reflected the applicant pool at the time. ( Immigration laws changed in the 1960's, allowing more Asians into the US ).

We had only one African-American in my class. The school made a big effort at recruiting, but my school was lower down on the food chain, and the accepted applicants matriculated elsewhere.


and a lot more cronyism

Can you substantiate that statement? If so, please post the evidence.
 
What about what medical school admissions will look like in 30-40 years?
"In the news today, Congress has pushed back the hearing of a senate bill directed at expanding the number of American residency positions for the twentieth year in a row. We asked Dr. Harold Birch of the Harvard Medical School admissions committee what he had to say on the issue:

'Well, it's really fantastic. My job just keeps getting easier every year.'

He stopped to think and to throw some more darts at a wall of applications.

'No medical student outside of the top 20 is guaranteed a match anymore, and ever since the average accepted MCAT rose to a 57/60 our committee has been able to complete an entire admissions cycle in three days. Every day we have a new game to pick out applicants.'

The prestigious medical college's acceptance rate has plummeted to .000001% - farther south, the 500th Caribbean medical school just welcomed its inaugural class of 2000 eager student doctors.

Reporting from five hours from the front of the line at a primary care office in rural Idaho, this has been MSNBC reporting live."

I kid, I exaggerate and I kid......but seriously though.
 
"In the news today, Congress has pushed back the hearing of a senate bill directed at expanding the number of American residency positions for the twentieth year in a row. We asked Dr. Harold Birch of the Harvard Medical School admissions committee what he had to say on the issue:

'Well, it's really fantastic. My job just keeps getting easier every year.'

He stopped to think and to throw some more darts at a wall of applications.

'No medical student outside of the top 20 is guaranteed a match anymore, and ever since the average accepted MCAT rose to a 57/60 our committee has been able to complete an entire admissions cycle in three days. Every day we have a new game to pick out applicants.'

The prestigious medical college's acceptance rate has plummeted to .000001% - farther south, the 500th Caribbean medical school just welcomed its inaugural class of 2000 eager student doctors.

Reporting from five hours from the front of the line at a primary care office in rural Idaho, this has been MSNBC reporting live."

I kid, I exaggerate and I kid......but seriously though.
I really don't understand why Congress keeps pushing this legislation back. Do they want the MD to end up like the Lawyer status at the moment? Jesus...
 
My memory of the time is exactly the same as bc65 except we had a lot more asians in my medical school in California. % of females probably about the same. Applicants today do have many more ancillary requirements but the GPA stats required are easier in general due to grade inflation at the college level. The increase in the number of allopathic slots should also help many of you applying now.
 
Back in the day, there was thing called a typewriter. Had to feed in the application pages into typewriter, and pluck on the keys, using this stuff called white out when you made an error (no spell checker either). My Dad applied to the second ever MSTP class at U of M in 1982. Talked about his basic stereochemistry research at the U of M interview, not about "patient" experience (he didn't have any). Needless to say, even back then, this didn't go over well. The MSTP director had U of M admissions "reinterview" him for acceptance. First and last time I ever heard of anyone getting 2 interviews. He only applied to 3 schools for MD/PhD (Hopkins/Harvard and U of M). Only got into U of M. When it came time for residency, he got to thumb his nose back at Harvard and Hopkins, and went to Stanford for residency. I had the privelege of attending preschool at Stanford while he was a resident there!! That is about as close to Stanford I'll ever get.
 
Back in the day, there was thing called a typewriter. Had to feed in the application pages into typewriter, and pluck on the keys, using this stuff called white out when you made an error (no spell checker either). My Dad applied to the second ever MSTP class at U of M in 1982. Talked about his basic stereochemistry research at the U of M interview, not about "patient" experience (he didn't have any). Needless to say, even back then, this didn't go over well. The MSTP director had U of M admissions "reinterview" him for acceptance. First and last time I ever heard of anyone getting 2 interviews. He only applied to 3 schools for MD/PhD (Hopkins/Harvard and U of M). Only got into U of M. When it came time for residency, he got to thumb his nose back at Harvard and Hopkins, and went to Stanford for residency. I had the privelege of attending preschool at Stanford while he was a resident there!! That is about as close to Stanford I'll ever get.

For some reason, I just had an image of a toddler with his head in the books at a Stanford library amongst other college students.
 
For some reason, I just had an image of a toddler with his head in the books at a Stanford library amongst other college students.

Ha ha, more like toddling on the Farm!! The preschool is near the family housing. I still remember the great weather, as I'm now stuck in the midwest. THose were the days.
 
I was puzzled by the claim of more "cronyism" in the past as well. There are unlikely to be reliable data about the number of med school admissions due to "cronyism", but my opinion, based on no evidence but my personal knowledge and experience, is that the frequency of this has increased, not decreased over time. YMMV.
 
my friend's dad graduated from med school in the early 60s (so even earlier than this thread asks about). He took the MCAT with literally no prep and hadn't even taken organic chemistry before taking the exam and got a very, very, very low score for that section. He went to U Chicago (it wasn't Pritzker yet). He also was talking about how his resident salary was 5k/year, no women or minorities in his residency program, and he would moonlight at the ER of some other hospital for a few hundred bucks a shift.
 
Without the ECs dog and pony show, applicants back in the day didn't come off as painfully fake as they do now. The original Mother Teresa still looked righteous as well. 😉
 
For some reason, I just had an image of a toddler with his head in the books at a Stanford library amongst other college students.

That would be me, but the book would be Goodnight Moon, Tuesday, or The Berenstein Bears!! With a Juice Box and my Pooh Bear Blanket in tow.
 
For some reason, I just had an image of a toddler with his head in the books at a Stanford library amongst other college students.

Well....that was me when my mother was going for her teaching credential at the University of Alabama.


Would have been cooler if it was Stanford though haha
 
I really don't understand why Congress keeps pushing this legislation back. Do they want the MD to end up like the Lawyer status at the moment? Jesus...

wait what, limiting residency spots is what keeps physician salaries up. If you go to a US MD school, you will have no trouble matching, most likely in the specialty of your choice. It's only when you start going down the totem pole does it get exponentially scarier.

Roughly

Top 40 AMG > AMG > DO >>>>>>>> IMG

When **** gets more competitive, the IMGs get crowded out, then the DOs, then finally the AMGs.
 
I was puzzled by the claim of more "cronyism" in the past as well. There are unlikely to be reliable data about the number of med school admissions due to "cronyism", but my opinion, based on no evidence but my personal knowledge and experience, is that the frequency of this has increased, not decreased over time. YMMV.

Sign of the times, really. Everyone has been taught to bash The Man, patriarchy, and white male privilege even at the cost of injecting cronyism into situations where it may not have existed.
 
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