"Complete Date?" "LizzyM?" Questions: (Un)necessary?

[FuturePediatricNeurosurge]

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Almost every MD-specific thread I watch, there are users who ask people invited for interviews these questions incessantly.

Maybe I am missing something, but what is the point of these questions? How will knowing when someone submitted their secondary or what their LM score is have any impact on one's own application?

Why ask individual users for their LM score when schools publish their entire entering class' statistical data as an aggregate on the MSAR or admit.org?

Interested to see what others think.

 

[wysdoc]

They are merely a way for waiting applicants to compare themselves to people who already got interviews
It’s perplexing to me too how this helps because whether their stats are lower or higher, they will still wonder “why not me?”
People are free not to answer

 

[FuturePediatricNeurosurge]

They are merely a way for waiting applicants to compare themselves to people who already got interviews
It’s perplexing to me too how this helps because whether their stats are lower or higher, they will still wonder “why not me?”
People are free not to answer

Right -- the problem is the LM comparison is too shallow for it to offer any significant value.

There's so much else that goes into an application that an LM score misses, so the comparisons aren't even worth making imo. No one ever asks: "clinical hours? "research pubs? "volunteering hours?" "compelling story?" "was your family poor or wealthy growing up?"

 

[MrM45]

I think it's the same reason when people hear that someone died and they ask "how old were they?" and "were they sick?". Your mind is trying to show you that you're okay. So if someone dies and they're old/sick, then it calms the person down; here, they hope to find out that the LM score is lower and/or the person submitted before them, and they convince themselves that they're okay.

However, when the other person has a higher LM or submits later than them and gets the interview, it creates this toxic premed anxiety.

My thoughts

 

[FuturePediatricNeurosurge]

I think it's the same reason when people hear that someone died and they ask "how old were they?" and "were they sick?". Your mind is trying to show you that you're okay. So if someone dies and they're old/sick, then it calms the person down; here, they hope to find out that the LM score is lower and/or the person submitted before them, and they convince themselves that they're okay.

However, when the other person has a higher LM or submits later than them and gets the interview, it creates this toxic premed anxiety.

My thoughts

🙋🙋Ooh ooh! Just world hypothesis! … sorry, mcat studying flashback

Good points though.

 

[Butalbusaur]

Neurosis lol

 

[Rachapkis]

Right -- the problem is the LM comparison is too shallow for it to offer any significant value.

There's so much else that goes into an application that an LM score misses, so the comparisons aren't even worth making imo. No one ever asks: "clinical hours? "research pubs? "volunteering hours?" "compelling story?" "was your family poor or wealthy growing up?"

I disagree--the LM score is a useful, albeit imperfectc, heuristic. It is no substitute for in depth analysis, but gives one a general sense of the applicant's strength.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I'm more critical of people asking for LM/WARS without sharing their own progress/numbers. Those of you who do, thank you, but it also underscores the fact that these indices provide some value.

 

[CDaFutureDocMan]

I think people want to decipher the pattern of the ever enigmatic medical school admissions process. Asking for the LM and the completion date is just gathering information to form an idea of what that pattern is. Ultimately, most of us are aware that searching for a pattern is futile because every school is different, and it doesn't really matter either way.

Comparison is the thief of joy after all.

 

[polymerization]

Outside of the answers you probably already know and are sidestepping for rhetorical effect, yes, a huge part of this behavior is for psychological reassurance. And also yes, the more you have to lose in not being accepted anywhere, the more "neurotic" and desperate that reassurance-seeking becomes. And finally, yes—this is every bit as consequential and potentially life-shattering as it sounds for a great deal of people (and these days, the circle of prosperity that shields people from the consequences of their own decisions is becoming smaller and making long-term goals like medicine more precarious to pursue).

Conversely, the more you have been shielded and propped up structurally through the invisible work of dozens of others, the more you assume the facility and comfort you've experienced is universal (or at least, that barriers are trivial or dramatized). And so even if your meaning isn't to say "I'm superior," it implies that you cannot empathize or understand why someone could be anxious in their position intellectually, even if you did not personally experience the challenges that make applying to medical school risky.

In that way, to be cool as a cucumber throughout this process is really just yet another way in which inequality manifests. It's not just that material resources or opportunity is unequally distributed, but even the felt, psychological sense of confidence (and more importantly, a lack of visceral fear) tends to be unfairly distributed too.

We have not all lost our minds. This is just...believe it or not...really hard. Maybe not for you personally, but certainly for most people.

 

[FairEver]

Right -- the problem is the LM comparison is too shallow for it to offer any significant value.

There's so much else that goes into an application that an LM score misses, so the comparisons aren't even worth making imo. No one ever asks: "clinical hours? "research pubs? "volunteering hours?" "compelling story?" "was your family poor or wealthy growing up?"

I think there is a bit of psychology involved here. In general, we value the things that are hard to achieve and really have to work hard for. LM score ( MCAT + GPA) is exactly that. It is not a joke to get 3.8+ over four years. No matter what, only 3% can score 520+ on the mcat and only 1% can get 524+. On the other hand, any 14+ years old can collect 1000s of volunteer hour hours. Any high school graduate can accrue 1000s of hours of clinical hours. It is not only a big deal, you don’t really learn much from it. So, you don’t value them that much. Regarding research publications, they are not entirely up to your talent. A lot of luck involved here. Getting an opportunity to work in a productive lab, the capability of the team, and in some cases knowing some influential people to add your name to the publications etc. So, naturally you won’t feel that they are meaningful achievements.

The medical school admissions in America used to give the most importance to MCAT and GPA up until 2010 or so. Then everything changed because politics began to intrude into the admission process and achieve predetermined outcome. All of a sudden, everyone started saying, “stats don’t matter”, “ stats are not everything “, “just because you are smart, you would not necessarily make a good physician “, “ just because person X has low stats, he wont make a good physician” etc. Some medical schools started to diminish the importance of stats I.e. only schools assigns only 15% weight for mcat and 15% for GPA. Some set lowest possible threshold for stats like 3.5 & 500 and picked applicants for the interview by lottery, some stopped considering mcat and gpa until after the interviews are done etc in order to protect themselves from legal troubles. So, just because medical schools reduced the importance of LM for their convenience, the students won’t feel the same way. They (especially those who achieved the most) know the true value and the importance of high stats.

 

[CDaFutureDocMan]

I think there is a bit of psychology involved here. In general, we value the things that are hard to achieve and really have to work hard for. LM score ( MCAT + GPA) is exactly that. It is not a joke to get 3.8+ over four years. No matter what, only 3% can score 520+ on the mcat and only 1% can get 524+. On the other hand, any 14+ years old can collect 1000s of volunteer hour hours. Any high school graduate can accrue 1000s of hours of clinical hours. It is not only a big deal, you don’t really learn much from it. So, you don’t value them that much. Regarding research publications, they are not entirely up to your talent. A lot of luck involved here. Getting an opportunity to work in a productive lab, the capability of the team, and in some cases knowing some influential people to add your name to the publications etc. So, naturally you won’t feel that they are meaningful achievements.

The medical school admissions in America used to give the most importance to MCAT and GPA up until 2010 or so. Then everything changed because politics began to intrude into the admission process and achieve predetermined outcome. All of a sudden, everyone started saying, “stats don’t matter”, “ stats are not everything “, “just because you are smart, you would not necessarily make a good physician “, “ just because person X has low stats, he wont make a good physician” etc. Some medical schools started to diminish the importance of stats I.e. only schools assigns only 15% weight for mcat and 15% for GPA. Some set lowest possible threshold for stats like 3.5 & 500 and picked applicants for the interview by lottery, some stopped considering mcat and gpa until after the interviews are done etc in order to protect themselves from legal troubles. So, just because medical schools reduced the importance of LM for their convenience, the students won’t feel the same way. They (especially those who achieved the most) know the true value and the importance of high stats.

How many times will you go on this same rant?

 

[Butalbusaur]

I think there is a bit of psychology involved here. In general, we value the things that are hard to achieve and really have to work hard for. LM score ( MCAT + GPA) is exactly that. It is not a joke to get 3.8+ over four years. No matter what, only 3% can score 520+ on the mcat and only 1% can get 524+. On the other hand, any 14+ years old can collect 1000s of volunteer hour hours. Any high school graduate can accrue 1000s of hours of clinical hours. It is not only a big deal, you don’t really learn much from it. So, you don’t value them that much. Regarding research publications, they are not entirely up to your talent. A lot of luck involved here. Getting an opportunity to work in a productive lab, the capability of the team, and in some cases knowing some influential people to add your name to the publications etc. So, naturally you won’t feel that they are meaningful achievements.

The medical school admissions in America used to give the most importance to MCAT and GPA up until 2010 or so. Then everything changed because politics began to intrude into the admission process and achieve predetermined outcome. All of a sudden, everyone started saying, “stats don’t matter”, “ stats are not everything “, “just because you are smart, you would not necessarily make a good physician “, “ just because person X has low stats, he wont make a good physician” etc. Some medical schools started to diminish the importance of stats I.e. only schools assigns only 15% weight for mcat and 15% for GPA. Some set lowest possible threshold for stats like 3.5 & 500 and picked applicants for the interview by lottery, some stopped considering mcat and gpa until after the interviews are done etc in order to protect themselves from legal troubles. So, just because medical schools reduced the importance of LM for their convenience, the students won’t feel the same way. They (especially those who achieved the most) know the true value and the importance of high stats.

W ragebait