Dr. Ryan Gray: Like or Dislike him?

[mdog31415]

II’ve used a lot of Med School HQ’s resources via Dr. Ryan Gray, and I like his stuff. However, I want your take. What do you think of his stances? Below are some of his famous ones. I may have to reapply, and I want to consider other views.

1.) It doesn’t matter if you do clinical vs non-clinical volunteering. Just do volunteering.
2.) Studying for the CASPER is not needed.
3.) The interview should be a coffee shop conversation.
4.) Don’t have a plan B. If your intention is to become a physician, you will do it. It’s only time to give up when you think you should give up.
5.) Using a template strategy for the MMI is not a good idea. Just answer the question.
6.) For your personal statement, tell your story. How did a patient change you? How did impact someone else? Why medicine?
7.) Research is not required to go to medical school. Only do it if you want to do it.

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[inoffensivepersona]

I followed most of his advice and I had a relatively successful cycle with interviews and acceptances at top schools. I also didn’t have amazing stats.
For #1, he definitely emphasizes the importance of some sort of clinical experience, but I doubt it has to be volunteering.

 

[Shunsui]

1.) It doesn’t matter if you do clinical vs non-clinical volunteering. Just do volunteering.

Depends. Having both is ideal but isn't always accessible to some students. I believe you should have both clinical and non-clinical volunteering (clinical for exposure to patients/hospital and non-clinical to work with those in your community that are less fortunate than you)

2.) Studying for the CASPER is not needed.

You can't study for it but you can definitely prepare for it. Being exposed to ethical scenarios and developing a method to tackle these is helpful.

3.) The interview should be a coffee shop conversation.

Agreed. It's important to be someone they could see themselves grabbing a drink with. If you're interviewing, you're good enough to get an A. Now you have to show you're a normal, relatable human.

4.) Don’t have a plan B. If your intention is to become a physician, you will do it. It’s only time to give up when you think you should give up.

Disagree. Not everyone has the privilege of forgoing a plan B. Don't necessarily put effort into pursuing it but always be prepared to go down that route if things don't work out.

5.) Using a template strategy for the MMI is not a good idea. Just answer the question.

Disagree. Obviously, you don't want to sound like a robot but having a structure to follow and look at all potential perspectives in the situation is helpful and definitely something that's "graded" in these MMIs.

6.) For your personal statement, tell your story. How did a patient change you? How did impact someone else? Why medicine?

Agree, somewhat. Premeds are so consumed with trying to tell a story that they exhaust exaggerated imagery. "The blaring red siren that pierced my eardrums as I watched the ambulance rush to the ER doors with my patient." I get sick reading this crap and I can't imagine adcoms who read thousands love seeing it too. Tell a story in the sense of getting the impact across to the reader.

7.) Research is not required to go to medical school. Only do it if you want to do it.

Agree with the first sentence. But how can you know if you don't like it without trying? Besides, looking at the MSAR, like 90% of accepted students have some sort of research experience.

 

[KnightDoc]

Why? He's a nice guy who is selling a service. If you like his stuff, that's all that matters.

You're going to get a variety of opinions here, colored by whether whoever used his services was successful, as well as whether people who didn't use his services achieved success without them. People will naturally fall into all 4 buckets (successful and not, both with and without his help).

If the resources you used were the free ones he makes available as marketing to attract people to the paid service, you received good value for every penny you paid. If you were a paying customer and need to reapply, it might be worth a conversation with his people to figure out what went wrong.

But, in my opinion, just seeking general advice on the quality of his service is going to yield a diversity of opinion that isn't going to be of much value to you. I happened to be successful without his paid help, although I spent a whopping $17.37 on a book and thoroughly enjoyed many of his YouTube videos and live streams.

Do I credit him with my success? No. Do I think he developed a thriving business in a highly competitive space catering to a very anxious population trying to achieve success in a very competitive admission process? Yes.

If you need to reapply and like his stuff, give him a call if you think it will help. I'm sure he has a ton of testimonials from people swearing they owe their success to him. I'm also sure you will hear from people who think his service is garbage and who did very well without ever glancing at any of his material.

You only have one application to worry about, and need to figure out what you need to succeed. If you were unsuccessful on your own, like his stuff and can afford his service, you will not be the only person allowing him and his staff to make a living working at Med School HQ. Good luck!!

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

I want your take. I’ve used a lot of Med School HQ resources via Dr. Ryan Gray, and I like his stuff. However, I want your take. What do you think of his stances? Below are some of his famous ones. I may have to reapply, and I want to consider other views.

1.) It doesn’t matter if you do clinical vs non-clinical volunteering. Just do volunteering.
2.) Studying for the CASPER is not needed.
3.) The interview should be a coffee shop conversation.
4.) Don’t have a plan B. If your intention is to become a physician, you will do it. It’s only time to give up when you think you should give up.
5.) Using a template strategy for the MMI is not a good idea. Just answer the question.
6.) For your personal statement, tell your story. How did a patient change you? How did impact someone else? Why medicine?
7.) Research is not required to go to medical school. Only do it if you want to do it.

1) Agreed
2) Faat disagreed. Maybe its the way the test is designed but it outright can and should be answered in the way they want their questions answered.
3) Sure
4) Disagreed. There are many people who will always struggle to get an above 500 MCAT or will have a huge issue with academics. There may be some who realize a year into undergrad that school sucks and they want to be a firefighter instead. There are also various ways of locking yourself out of medicine, be it by failing to score a good enough MCAT over several attempts or failing an SMP. It isn’t about preparing for having a plan B, but having something on your mind is always good.
5) Meh. It doesn’t honestly matter imho.
6) Not really in any way a controversial opinion.
7) With the way research is trending as a must for matching into competitive specialties, I believe this will rapidly change and will put applicants with zero exposure at a disadvantage


Overall, I don’t really like him. Most of his advice is fine, but he seems to present it as the only truth when it honestly isn’t and won’t be. I am far more inclined to listen to the opinions of numerous adcoms on this site for free over someone who isn’t even currently an adcom.

 

[Talldoctor96]

Dr grays interview books are unparalleled - giving admissions advice is hard because every school wants something different- so you can never be 100 percent right. But he does an amazing job at giving the best possible general advice.

 

[donutshere]

1) Agreed
2) Faat disagreed. Maybe its the way the test is designed but it outright can and should be answered in the way they want their questions answered.
3) Sure
4) Disagreed. There are many people who will always struggle to get an above 500 MCAT or will have a huge issue with academics. There may be some who realize a year into undergrad that school sucks and they want to be a firefighter instead. There are also various ways of locking yourself out of medicine, be it by failing to score a good enough MCAT over several attempts or failing an SMP. It isn’t about preparing for having a plan B, but having something on your mind is always good.
5) Meh. It doesn’t honestly matter imho.
6) Not really in any way a controversial opinion.
7) With the way research is trending as a must for matching into competitive specialties, I believe this will rapidly change and will put applicants with zero exposure at a disadvantage


Overall, I don’t really like him. Most of his advice is fine, but he seems to present it as the only truth when it honestly isn’t and won’t be. I am far more inclined to listen to the opinions of numerous adcoms on this site for free over someone who isn’t even currently an adcom.

Agree with most of these opinions.

I would be wary of anyone who tells you not to study for a test. I think plenty of sources/companies/"gurus" can give you advice but you should have your own critical opinion on things and make decisions that make sense to you.

 

[Talldoctor96]

Agree with most of these opinions.

I would be wary of anyone who tells you not to study for a test. I think plenty of sources/companies/"gurus" can give you advice but you should have your own critical opinion on things and make decisions that make sense to you.

You can’t study for casper- you can spend a few hours coming up with a system and doing some practice. But it’s literally: jimmy and Suzy work at the pool and jimmy stole a hotdog

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I've known him for over a decade as he was just starting out. He's a good well meaning person. But we all give a lot of advice that is fairly similar in the end. I don't know his specific perspective in the process offhand so that is something to keep in mind.

EDIT: I don't know where he came to the conclusions about the MMI or Casper, if the descriptions are accurate. We don't have to agree on everything, but I don't know how he came to understand how admissions committees get trained to administer the formats or examine the results. Especially Casper if you have never taken it before. And I have come to learn not everyone does MMI the proper McMaster way. And some of the "McMaster" innovations include teamwork questions which defy any "template" anyway.