Covid and Medical Admissions in 3 Years Time

[Optogal]

Hi folks

I'm not a regular in this forum so I don't know if it's been discussed or not. But I was curious on your thoughts on this matter.

"Many" universities are now entirely online due to Covid. This includes exams, which result in grades. Obviously there will be those who take advantage of testing at home (i.e. cheating), in order to improve their own grades. Furthermore, with all the lockdowns and reduced social interaction, there are fewer opportunities for pre-meds to do extra-curricular activities. This means in 3 years, when med schools select applicants, they'll have less "profile" to go by, and will therefore have to emphasize marks more than they normally would.

What will it be like for med school admissions in 3 years when they get rows upon rows of straight-A student applicants with very little in the way of extra-curricular activities to distinguish them? Even worse, how will they reconcile the entirely likely possibility that the hordes of applicants that are at the top, are simply the dishonest applicants who "cheated at home" during the Covid lockdown? One doesn't have to stretch their imagination at all, to envision even decent individuals, thinking about their future, allowing themselves to extra aides/materials during at-home online exams. This is the reality. How will med schools cope?

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[dirtcobain]

My opinion is that they might be a bit more lenient, but there are still going to be people who work clinical jobs, volunteer in their community, and do research either remotely or in-person. So it's probably not going to be less competitive tbh.

I'm with you on grades though, since that's definitely going to vary from school to school. My classes are so much harder this quarter because the professors are doing a really good job trying to make challenging tests even while it's open-book, and I don't even go to a great university. But I heard my other friends from both lower and top-tier schools are having some real easy times in their classes and there are a lot of people cheating, so it definitely just depends.

Maybe the MCAT is gonna be the great equalizer?

 

[theconfusedapplicant]

Honestly not sure. Hopefully by the middle or end of next year things will start returning back to normal and in-person classes will return and extracurricular activities will be available again. Maybe they'll pay less attention to grades in classes that were taken online? Some schools specifically ask you to write down any classes that you've taken online in their secondary application, so maybe they already consider online classes differently than normal ones. Maybe they'll focus more on MCAT scores? Maybe they won't even do anything differently. I think that there's too much uncertainty in this entire process, even now, to be able to predict what will happen with this.

 

[KnightDoc]

Hi folks

I'm not a regular in this forum so I don't know if it's been discussed or not. But I was curious on your thoughts on this matter.

"Many" universities are now entirely online due to Covid. This includes exams, which result in grades. Obviously there will be those who take advantage of testing at home (i.e. cheating), in order to improve their own grades. Furthermore, with all the lockdowns and reduced social interaction, there are fewer opportunities for pre-meds to do extra-curricular activities. This means in 3 years, when med schools select applicants, they'll have less "profile" to go by, and will therefore have to emphasize marks more than they normally would.

What will it be like for med school admissions in 3 years when they get rows upon rows of straight-A student applicants with very little in the way of extra-curricular activities to distinguish them? Even worse, how will they reconcile the entirely likely possibility that the hordes of applicants that are at the top, are simply the dishonest applicants who "cheated at home" during the Covid lockdown? One doesn't have to stretch their imagination at all, to envision even decent individuals, thinking about their future, allowing themselves to extra aides/materials during at-home online exams. This is the reality. How will med schools cope?

The simple answer is that the reality you are asking about will turn out to be a 2.5 semester reality, not a 3 year one.

It's hard to say exactly how much cheating is going on, but it will be obvious by the huge spike in grades coinciding with online testing at home, coincidentally bracketed by significantly lower grades on each side, which will be obvious to anyone reading the transcript. Adcoms won't have rows upon rows of straight A applicants. Average GPAs will maybe spike from Spring 2020-Spring 2021, which will only serve to make the other semesters more important for everyone (i.e., straight As for all semesters will be As; straight As for COVID semesters with ~3.5 or below for the balance will be viewed accordingly).

ECs will also pick up again sometime next spring or summer, so hours will be lighter for future applicants, but nothing else will change. Grades won't receive more weight due to fewer EC hours. Expectations for EC hours will simply be reduced to conform to the reality of people being unable to accumulate them at the same rate as in the past. Either that, or reapplicants who already have a lot of hours will have an advantage they never enjoyed before.

 

[Goro]

Hi folks

I'm not a regular in this forum so I don't know if it's been discussed or not. But I was curious on your thoughts on this matter.

"Many" universities are now entirely online due to Covid. This includes exams, which result in grades. Obviously there will be those who take advantage of testing at home (i.e. cheating), in order to improve their own grades. Furthermore, with all the lockdowns and reduced social interaction, there are fewer opportunities for pre-meds to do extra-curricular activities. This means in 3 years, when med schools select applicants, they'll have less "profile" to go by, and will therefore have to emphasize marks more than they normally would.

What will it be like for med school admissions in 3 years when they get rows upon rows of straight-A student applicants with very little in the way of extra-curricular activities to distinguish them? Even worse, how will they reconcile the entirely likely possibility that the hordes of applicants that are at the top, are simply the dishonest applicants who "cheated at home" during the Covid lockdown? One doesn't have to stretch their imagination at all, to envision even decent individuals, thinking about their future, allowing themselves to extra aides/materials during at-home online exams. This is the reality. How will med schools cope?

It's a seller's market, not everybody cheats, everyone is on the same page, and so I don't expect anything to change other than many applicants will have a year's worth of P/F courses in their apps.

You can't cheat on the MCAT either, so you do you and quit worrying about others.

Med schools are not going cut slack for a lack of clinical exposure or non-clinical volunteering. Y'all have 2-3+ more years to bulk up your ECs

 

[jhmmd]

Hi folks

I'm not a regular in this forum so I don't know if it's been discussed or not. But I was curious on your thoughts on this matter.

"Many" universities are now entirely online due to Covid. This includes exams, which result in grades. Obviously there will be those who take advantage of testing at home (i.e. cheating), in order to improve their own grades. Furthermore, with all the lockdowns and reduced social interaction, there are fewer opportunities for pre-meds to do extra-curricular activities. This means in 3 years, when med schools select applicants, they'll have less "profile" to go by, and will therefore have to emphasize marks more than they normally would.

What will it be like for med school admissions in 3 years when they get rows upon rows of straight-A student applicants with very little in the way of extra-curricular activities to distinguish them? Even worse, how will they reconcile the entirely likely possibility that the hordes of applicants that are at the top, are simply the dishonest applicants who "cheated at home" during the Covid lockdown? One doesn't have to stretch their imagination at all, to envision even decent individuals, thinking about their future, allowing themselves to extra aides/materials during at-home online exams. This is the reality. How will med schools cope?

Well, mathematically, if everyone is more equal, then those at the top are more equal than others. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. If everyone is more equal, then that just makes it easier to med schools to skim off the top.

Also I'm not sure if you've heard but there is a vaccine coming out this summer

 

[Mr. Nightmare]

Well, mathematically, if everyone is more equal, then those at the top are more equal than others. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. If everyone is more equal, then that just makes it easier to med schools to skim off the top.

Also I'm not sure if you've heard but there is a vaccine coming out this summer

More than likely we would be waiting a lot longer due to logistics.

 

[jhmmd]

More than likely we would be waiting a lot longer due to logistics.

Boooo

 

[Cheezin]

Boooo

One source (morning brew) says there are about 50 million elderly, 80-100 mil with underlying conditions and 40-60 million essential workers in the US which, even with some overlap, is a lot of vaccines to prioritize before getting to the young non-essential college student.

 

[jhmmd]

One source (morning brew) says there are about 50 million elderly, 80-100 mil with underlying conditions and 40-60 million essential workers in the US which, even with some overlap, is a lot of vaccines to prioritize before getting to the young non-essential college student.

Yea I am aware of that. You'd be surprised how fast people can mobilize, though. Remember H1N1 in 2009?

 

[jhmmd]

See this article--"51,700-575,400 people worldwide died from H1N1 during the first year the virus circulated"

 

[deleted889094]

Imo, there's no excuse for lack of EC's during covid if you have internet access. There are tons of things you can still do if you get a little creative. Tutor online. Make educational videos or comics. Get involved with something local, maybe meals on wheels needs help. Soup kitchens aren't gonna close. Do some googling and leverage your time and skills.

 

[Dr.SPAC3MAN]

Just thought I might add that since there may be a decrease in time spent on ECs this year that time should be spent on academics and maintaining/improving GPA

 

[stickgirl390]

“What will it be like for med school admissions in 3 years when they get rows upon rows of straight-A student applicants with very little in the way of extra-curricular activities to distinguish them?”

Plenty of applications already looked like this long before covid. Even those with extra curriculars tend to be cookie-cutter.