happydays said:
what do you mean influences peoples' decisions?
Do you know someone who quit pre-med?
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what do you mean influences peoples' decisions?
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happydays said:
Texas too. We're in the top 10 for # of applicants (I'm way too lazy to look it up). No organized pre-med anything.
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Those who went the PA, NP, pharm, or dentist route might have the last laugh over us who are in medicine.
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At my school, a veritable premed playground (not by raw number, but percentage wise, we rank up there on aamcas despite having class size 1/5 the size of most schools with the same number of premed applicants), I knew so many people who were premed that it was an automatic assumption if you weren't art, architecture or social sciences, you were premed. Even engineering was no escape as there were so many engineering premeds that they made a separate premed committee for engineers.
I remember my two best friends who were premed dropped out. One did so because she felt she had poor grades, and later told me she couldn't stomach the memorization in the med school curriculum. But she liked biology and completed her degree in it, going on to grad school.
The other dropped out because she disliked the stress and the amount of science load at our school. I was saddened that my second friend quit because she was such a hard worker and managed to do pretty well in her science classes. If she had gone to another school that wasn't so tough on their premeds, I think she may have thrived and stayed the course (it was the stress of trying to be 'the best' moreso than her academic performance which turned her off, harder to be 'the best' when eveyone else was also 'the best' back in high school).
However, most of the people I knew personally who were premed stayed the route and got in. The vast majority of self selection occured in three waves: after the first chemistry exam when people found out their were no longer top dog at school anymore and realized getting into med school required alot of work; after the first orgo exam when people realized how much orgo sucked, and a few petter out when they find out their interest lay elsewhere.
All in all, I think my school's premed classes were pretty good preparation for med school admissions. They made sure to have our exams correlate to the difficulty of the MCAT so people who manage to get through the program do moderately well on it (as far as I can tell), and so few people experience the"Help! I got a 4.0 and couldn't hit past 25 on the MCAT!" surprise.
I think the issue with being 'premed' is that it sounds so nice. In a society where the college degree is the new high school diploma, good students try to differentiate themselves by aspiring to do something beyond the bachelor route. I knew so many good students in high school who said they were going to be premed even though they had no particular interest in medicine but they didn't want to say they were just majoring in psychology or whatever. Also, I think people think it makes for a nice goal in life. Doing the premed route indicates that you are an ambitious student with purpose. Succeeding as a premed requires more than just wanting to do 'something', I guess that's why alot of premeds end up dropping out.
I remember my two best friends who were premed dropped out. One did so because she felt she had poor grades, and later told me she couldn't stomach the memorization in the med school curriculum. But she liked biology and completed her degree in it, going on to grad school.
The other dropped out because she disliked the stress and the amount of science load at our school. I was saddened that my second friend quit because she was such a hard worker and managed to do pretty well in her science classes. If she had gone to another school that wasn't so tough on their premeds, I think she may have thrived and stayed the course (it was the stress of trying to be 'the best' moreso than her academic performance which turned her off, harder to be 'the best' when eveyone else was also 'the best' back in high school).
However, most of the people I knew personally who were premed stayed the route and got in. The vast majority of self selection occured in three waves: after the first chemistry exam when people found out their were no longer top dog at school anymore and realized getting into med school required alot of work; after the first orgo exam when people realized how much orgo sucked, and a few petter out when they find out their interest lay elsewhere.
All in all, I think my school's premed classes were pretty good preparation for med school admissions. They made sure to have our exams correlate to the difficulty of the MCAT so people who manage to get through the program do moderately well on it (as far as I can tell), and so few people experience the"Help! I got a 4.0 and couldn't hit past 25 on the MCAT!" surprise.
I think the issue with being 'premed' is that it sounds so nice. In a society where the college degree is the new high school diploma, good students try to differentiate themselves by aspiring to do something beyond the bachelor route. I knew so many good students in high school who said they were going to be premed even though they had no particular interest in medicine but they didn't want to say they were just majoring in psychology or whatever. Also, I think people think it makes for a nice goal in life. Doing the premed route indicates that you are an ambitious student with purpose. Succeeding as a premed requires more than just wanting to do 'something', I guess that's why alot of premeds end up dropping out.
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They won't endorse you so you are discouraged from applying with crap stats. Thus their acceptance rates go up.pnasty said:
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pnasty said:
One ---> English teacher
One ---> pre-law, philosphy major
One ---> republican (well... politician)
They were never serious about it the way they needed to be so you could sense it was coming.
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Ok. got a good one here.
Girl takes ochem THREE times to finally pass (with a C). Decides pre-med isn't for her. Decides to be chem major. Then she fails Pchem twice. Decides chem major isn't for her. Goes for business major. Doesn't go to class. Last I heard she transferred and is getting a degree in interior design. No kidding.
I'd have to say 80% of the "pre-med" folks I met dropped the premed visions of grandiosity, about half after chem and/or ochem. Physics only did in about 10%, and they took the algebra-based physics. Of course, the MCAT took care of about 30%. Only about half of the surviving pre-meds I know actually got into a med school by their second try. (BTW: no MCAT prep classes anywhere nearby, and poor pre-med advisors. We were all pretty much on our own.)
Girl takes ochem THREE times to finally pass (with a C). Decides pre-med isn't for her. Decides to be chem major. Then she fails Pchem twice. Decides chem major isn't for her. Goes for business major. Doesn't go to class. Last I heard she transferred and is getting a degree in interior design. No kidding.
I'd have to say 80% of the "pre-med" folks I met dropped the premed visions of grandiosity, about half after chem and/or ochem. Physics only did in about 10%, and they took the algebra-based physics. Of course, the MCAT took care of about 30%. Only about half of the surviving pre-meds I know actually got into a med school by their second try. (BTW: no MCAT prep classes anywhere nearby, and poor pre-med advisors. We were all pretty much on our own.)
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BrettBatchelor said:
I don't think my school did that. My premed committee was pretty pessimistic of my chances of getting in but they still signed off on my recommendation letter anyway. I think this varies by school. Some schools requires a certain standard while others do not. I have never heard of anyone at my school who was not endorsed because of crappy stats nor was there anyone who feared this could happen. As far as I know, the school's policy was 'whoever wants it, gets a letter'. However, people with crappy stats tend to self select themselves out of the process.
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NonTradMed said:
At my school they had a min GPA and MCAT score requirement if you wanted to get a letter from the pre-med committee. If you didnt meet the requirement you could write a letter of appeal, and I guess if your reason was legit enough they might consider you.
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My old roommate was pre-med, until she met with her advisor between first and second semester of freshman year. She told him she planned on going to medical school. He laughed at her and said, "medical school?? You don't look like the science type." She cried and later became an English major. Bright girl too. Ah well, I guess she should've had thicker skin. Now she's a teacher.
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Moi. I always liked medicine but had other interests too, and I chose those over medicine when I was an undergrad. I ended up majoring in Spanish and living in Latin American/Spain for a few years. Got my MPH, and now I am back applying to med school and will be entering (somewhere) as part of the class of 2010. I am really impressed by people who are 100% sure about what they want to do with their lives when they are 18, 19, 20. I didn't have any real concept until my mid-twenties. And some people are in there 30s and 40s and still don't know, so I guess all of us are lucky. 🙂
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I was premed until I realized that studying law would be more conducive towards where I want to end up
Don't get me wrong, I love science and still have my 3.8ish, majoring in bio and finishing my upper division courses
But it's such a long and drawn out process... you delay being able to have a family, you delay being able to relax and enjoy life, you are committed to years and years of toiling and struggling and potential frustration, all to have to wait probably another decade to gain respect in your field, all to find out that you probably have only about 20 more years left before you start to fall behind the cutting edge and must begin to consider retirement (if you're lucky enough to still be alive)
Then theres the long hours. And you always have to deal with the idea that if you fu*k up even once, someone could die.
In a weird way I used to embrace all of that - I though it would demonstrate how intelligent I was, and how committed I was. I liked the idea that I would be one of the few people to be able to make it through that process.
I probably would have been doing it for the wrong reasons - I'll be much happier studying law (hah, in my pre med days I couldn;t do a thing but make fun of the people who went to law school)
meh, I'll probably end up being an executive or tycoon or whatnot. We'll see.
Don't get me wrong, I love science and still have my 3.8ish, majoring in bio and finishing my upper division courses
But it's such a long and drawn out process... you delay being able to have a family, you delay being able to relax and enjoy life, you are committed to years and years of toiling and struggling and potential frustration, all to have to wait probably another decade to gain respect in your field, all to find out that you probably have only about 20 more years left before you start to fall behind the cutting edge and must begin to consider retirement (if you're lucky enough to still be alive)
Then theres the long hours. And you always have to deal with the idea that if you fu*k up even once, someone could die.
In a weird way I used to embrace all of that - I though it would demonstrate how intelligent I was, and how committed I was. I liked the idea that I would be one of the few people to be able to make it through that process.
I probably would have been doing it for the wrong reasons - I'll be much happier studying law (hah, in my pre med days I couldn;t do a thing but make fun of the people who went to law school)
meh, I'll probably end up being an executive or tycoon or whatnot. We'll see.
