connections?

[nattiv]

Have you guys ever heard of anybody getting into a medical school partially or completely based on who they know or their connections? For instace, if a pre-med student has grandparents or realtives that are alumnus/professors at a specific med school is it feasible for them to use that connection to greatly increase their chances of admittance to that particular school? Does networking help alot in trying to get into a specific medical school? [email protected]

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[pre-hawkdoc]

it can work, but if you overdo it or approach it incorrectly, it can also get your app in the rejection pile pretty quickly. personally, i'd ask myself this: do i really want to get into med school and have to wonder if it was because i was a highly qualified applicant or because my grandpa was a golfing buddy of the dean's.

 

[phillybabe]

Jefferson Med is notorious for nepotism. I have met several students from Jeff med who admit to this - they could not have gotten in there if it wasnt for their connections.

 

[twister]

The way I see it, there are thousands of people who are both brilliantly qualified to attend medical school and want to attend for the right reasons.
Unfortunately, the amount of spots (as we all well know) available is far less than the number of qualified people.
Therefore, if a medical school wants the most talented/best fitting class for the school, they will scrutinize the applications/recommendations before making the final cut...
So, let's say that admissions committee member Dr. Smith is reading over Candidate Z's file. Dr. Smith notices that her good friend Dr. Jones (who is also a professor at the same medical school) wrote Candidate Z is superb recommendation. Dr. Jones has a great reputation as well. Since Dr. Jones is both a good friend of Dr. Smith and willing to stake his reputation on someone, Candidate Z is given a letter of acceptance.
(We all know there is a little more to this in terms of academics and extracurriculars and MCATs, but you get the idea.)

Alternatively, if Dr. Smith hated Dr. Jones or if Dr. Jones had a horrible reputation, this could be much different scenario.

Med school admissions are so competitive that it seems that things like this push people into the "Accepted" category...

Maybe I am way off on this, but this seems to be completely possible.

 

[phillybabe]

I think its more like you getting admission because your brother or your dad's third cousin or someone like that graduated from that med skool. This certainly is not valid criteria to judge potential doctors.

 

[Hope88]

I know someone who got into her state school w/ a 23 on the MCAT (6 in VR). Her mother knew someone on the admissions committee. While I don't think this is entirely fair, I know she will be a great doctor regardless of her MCAT score.

 

[drintraining]

It's not what you know its who you know and believe me if you have connections to the adcoms you will get in. I don't care what school. People like doing favors. Its like I scratch your back and you scratch mine kinda thing. This has been going on since cave man days. If I had the choice of being a top candidate with no connections or just a regularly competitve candidate with some connections I would pick the latter any day. Much less stressful, and It would never bother me how I got into med school because I am confident of who I am and that I will make a great phys any day

 

[Djanaba]

I do believe that a part of why I was offered admissions to the schools I was accepted to was because of a faculty at that school who wrote me a letter of recommendation. I didn't know he was on the Adcom at the time, and I know he sat out when they decided on me. Mine is part of a school with more than one campus, and both campuses accepted me. While I know from my gpa, mcat, and etc. that I was qualified, I know lots of others were and are, too. But I remain unconvinvced that said letter had nothing to do with it.