Diversity of Interests

[Entirecropslost]

Many schools say they want a diverse study body with different backgrounds and interests. I know what they mean by background obviously, but what about interests? What do you guys think they mean by that and maybe an example of whatever that is. Thanks for any help!

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[tacojohn]

Many schools say they want a diverse study body with different backgrounds and interests. I know what they mean by background obviously, but what about interests? What do you guys think they mean by that and maybe an example of whatever that is. Thanks for any help!

I sort of wonder how true that it anyway. I mean, what difference to my classmates does it make if I play the trumpet or tap dance or play badmitton? It's not like this is undergrad all over again. Presumably by this age, you've been exposed to a wide variety of people. I figure it just sounds better than saying, "100 nearly identical students enter our class every year and all perform similarly."

 

[jocg27]

I take it to mean professional interests, too. The medical profession needs to admit some people who seem like they may be more geared towards primary care, some who seem like they're headed for psych, some who will probably gravitate towards radiation oncology, or ob, or what have you. Even broader than that, for the future of medicine they need to find people with public health interests, people who plan to research, people who enjoy business and may become hospital ceos, etc, etc.

Regardless of how well they did on the mcat, if US med schools start accepting only, say, physics majors, or biochem majors, or philosophy majors, before long medicine in this country would be very different.

Clearly this isn't a perfect correlation - a lot changes in med school. But I'd bet physics, biochem majors are much less likely to enter psych and fp, psych and poli sci majors are much less likely to gravitate towards radiology.

There are a lot of different kinds of doctors out there, not just in specialty, but in personality, focus, interests, etc, and they all play a role. Everyone has their place.

This is important to keep in mind...Because no matter what group you fall under, before long in med school you'll be wondering about some people, how on earth did this hippy communist/stuck up science geek/elitist tool/raging feminist/whatever-else-you-can-think-of get into school?? Do we really need doctors like this?

Remind yourself, yes, we do.

 

[jackieMD2007]

I sort of wonder how true that it anyway. I mean, what difference to my classmates does it make if I play the trumpet or tap dance or play badmitton? It's not like this is undergrad all over again. Presumably by this age, you've been exposed to a wide variety of people. I figure it just sounds better than saying, "100 nearly identical students enter our class every year and all perform similarly."

I don't know, man, adcoms seem to dig that stuff. And you know what? You aren't writing the secondaries for your classmates, you're writing it for the adcom. Playing an instrument is cool. Tap dance is hard. I don't know how to play badminton. I think all of those things are interesting.

 

[thewarehouse]

It's not like this is undergrad all over again.

That's really funny that you say that- the "diversity in backgrounds" prompt soulds like the one on the UMich secondary, and it's actually taken almost word-for-word from the UMich undergrad app.

 

[MiesVanDerMom]

I don't know, man, adcoms seem to dig that stuff. And you know what? You aren't writing the secondaries for your classmates, you're writing it for the adcom. Playing an instrument is cool. Tap dance is hard. I don't know how to play badminton. I think all of those things are interesting.

if i don't have someone to play badminton with, then forget med school

 

[jackieMD2007]

if i don't have someone to play badminton with, then forget med school

You could teach me when we're classmates at UPitt!

 

[MiesVanDerMom]

Prayin' for that everyday, Jackie!

 

[tacojohn]

There's a great JAMA paper that shows a positive correlation between badminton skills and success in medical school. If only I could find it again...