friends with similar stats

[vanillabear55]

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So:

If you had a friend, who is from the same town as you, who graduated from the same high school with you, went to the same undergrad. as you, did the same internship at a hospital with you, and more or less took the same prereq. classes with you (and he did a half grade or so better in several of them) is it wrong to want to want to separate yourself for some things?

Lately I can't help notice that our applications are going to seem SO similar for medical school...minus the fact his science and overall gpa are going to be higher and he has a different major. Which leaves me to believe that he would get picked over me if push came to shove and we are probably going to apply to many of the same schools.

So I guess my question is: is it wrong to want to look into volunteer/employment/research opportunities for just myself? We usually talk about things like this, so I feel like it would be obvious if I didn't share (hes asked me about going to look for places to volunteer over the summer) thus me being a pretty bad friend, but I've brought this up before with him and he doesn't see my point of view at all. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, so I was wondering what other people thought.

thanks!

 

[Avoidthetiger]

You're acting like a gunner. Don't do that. Pretty much a large chuck of applications sound exactly the same -- so I wouldn't worry about doing the same activities with your friend. Your personal statement, activity descriptions, LORs, and interviews will be different.

If you find some experience that you want to do - there's no need to hide it from your friend. There's a chance that he might not join in with you due to hopefully different interest (like research you want to pursue compared to him).

 

[mauberley]

[YOUTUBE]-yZHveWFvqM[/YOUTUBE]

I can sympathize with how you feel, but don't act douchey towards your friend. Ultimately, your application is all about you. Not him. And schools are certainly not going to stack your application next to his and say "we can only choose one."

 

[vanillabear55]

You're acting like a gunner. Don't do that.

...I don't know how I didn't see this coming haha

Pretty much a large chuck of applications sound exactly the same -- so I wouldn't worry about doing the same activities with your friend. Your personal statement, activity descriptions, LORs, and interviews will be different.

If you find some experience that you want to do - there's no need to hide it from your friend. There's a chance that he might not join in with you due to hopefully different interest (like research you want to pursue compared to him).

I know most will look similar, I was just worried about same institution/hometown etc. Reading over my original post, theres no way I could hide stuff from him without feeling guilty anyway haha. I made it seem like we just happened to have all these things in common, we're actually really good friends. (and roommates haha)
It just feels like sometimes I do all the work searching for opportunities....like I found the internship we both applied for (and got) & I found research to do over the summer and his response was "Oh, I don't have a job, maybe I'll email that professor and see if I can do it with you too."

 

[vanillabear55]

[YOUTUBE]-yZHveWFvqM[/YOUTUBE]
"

lmfaooo perfect

 

[mauberley]

It just feels like sometimes I do all the work searching for opportunities....like I found the internship we both applied for (and got) & I found research to do over the summer and his response was "Oh, I don't have a job, maybe I'll email that professor and see if I can do it with you too."

I think this is a legit gripe; seems like he's mooching off of you.

 

[cowme]

Or you could say exactly what you posted here. Saying you think your apps are identical and doing something unique on your own shouldn't be a big deal to your friend.

 

[bobow98]

My friend and I took almost all our Prereqs together. We did research in the same lab for 2 years. We played on the same damn sports team through college. Hell, on paper we might even look like the same people aside from our Personal Statements and our home state residency (as far as you can be counting all 50 states). Our scores were similar, with his slightly higher than mine.

Did I resent this at all? No. We went through this $h1t together, and it feels good to have to have someone who understands your misery at times.

Don't be "that" guy.

 

[Lunasly]

I'd just say take it easy and enjoy the ride. I think there are more important things such as enjoying your college experience while it lasts.

 

[CaptainSSO]

So I guess my question is: is it wrong to want to look into volunteer/employment/research opportunities and not tell him about it? We usually talk about things like this, so I feel like it would be obvious if I didn't at first (hes asked me about going to look for places to volunteer over the summer) thus me being a pretty bad friend, but I've brought this up before with him and he doesn't see my point of view at all. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, so I was wondering what other people thought.

It's never going to come down to you vs. him. There are thousands of applicants.

Doing that would be douchey. I actually had the opposite situation as you come up. Like you, my friend and I would do all the same activities, and we had all the same classes. Our apps were almost identical, except for me having a very slightly higher GPA and MCAT than him. Similar to your situation, I was the one who told him about a lot of the activities that we did. Anything useful I could find (MCAT books, volunteer spots, shadowing opportunities, etc.), I would share it. Then he went and found a bunch of stuff on his own and didn't tell me about it. In the end, we both got accepted and his little covert gunner maneuvering did nothing except create animosity between us. The little things add up, and even though I used to hope we'd end up at the same med school, in the end, I'm kind of glad we didn't, knowing these same patterns would probably continue in the future.

 

[HAV000]

It's never going to come down to you vs. him. There are thousands of applicants.

Doing that would be douchey. I actually had the opposite situation as you come up. Like you, my friend and I would do all the same activities, and we had all the same classes. Our apps were almost identical, except for me having a very slightly higher GPA and MCAT than him. Similar to your situation, I was the one who told him about a lot of the activities that we did. Anything useful I could find (MCAT books, volunteer spots, shadowing opportunities, etc.), I would share it. Then he went and found a bunch of stuff on his own and didn't tell me about it. In the end, we both got accepted and his little covert gunner maneuvering did nothing except create animosity between us. The little things add up, and even though I used to hope we'd end up at the same med school, in the end, I'm kind of glad we didn't, knowing these same patterns would probably continue in the future.

Maybe the answer is open communication OP. You should be open about your concerns, and ask for some space (i.e. not do all the things you do). And it doesn't matter if he doesn't see your point of view or whatever he claims. He should give you that respect as a friend not to be a copycat/biter.

 

[KTownGT]

As others have said, it makes the process easier to bear. Especially when you are lightyears behind half of the other applicants.

 

[Narmerguy]

I disagree with some of the other posters. You're not really bound to tell him everything that you're doing. Hell, most premeds don't.

Also, if you feel weird telling him to go find his own opportunities or whatever, in your situation I would give him a list of volunteer opportunities I was considering, and basically leave it at that. If he's aggressive asking which you're going to pick you'll eventually have to explain that you want to try to distinguish yourself a little bit.

Haha, and if you two are really that similar, how do you know he isn't reading this forum/thread right now?! 😱

 

[unhappytnt]

I hope he is not following you here on SDN too..

 

[KTownGT]

I hope he is not following you here on SDN too..

But buddies!

 

[vanillabear55]

It's never going to come down to you vs. him. There are thousands of applicants.

for some reason I was under the impression that this wasn't true, that certain schools will be like 'oh we already accepted ___ amount of students from ___ undergrad, rejected "

 

[235009]

if u considered him to be a true friend you wouldn't have even thought of doing this so i say go ahead and do it ...clearly you don't care about keeping this guy as a friend or are willing to trade that friendship to momentarily alleviate your insecurity

who knows maybe you will both end up at the same med school after you do this and that way you would have gotten a head start in backstabbing your med school classmates .... win-win!

 

[CaliGirl14]

He's not your husband. Do what you will and what you need to do to get into medical school. As someone previously mentioned, you won't be compared to just him, you'll be compared to thousands of other applications. Besides, you two aren't technically equal applicants until you both take the MCAT. Even then, you wouldn't be.

 

[vanillabear55]

if u considered him to be a true friend you wouldn't have even thought of doing this so i say go ahead and do it ...clearly you don't care about keeping this guy as a friend or are willing to trade that friendship to momentarily alleviate your insecurity

who knows maybe you will both end up at the same med school after you do this and that way you would have gotten a head start in backstabbing your med school classmates .... win-win!

well that was a tad overdramatic

 

[Swiss Medical]

I can see this coming FAST!!! If you are not careful, he will end up in Sinai and you in Touro.......

But be nice tho'....ad a good friend.

 

[CaptainSSO]

Do what you will and what you need to do to get into medical school.

Oh hell yea CaliGirl! Get after it!

 

[Taikonaut]

u jelly

 

[GoSpursGo]

1) Your applications will probably be reviewed by different members of the adcom, meaning no one will notice if they're similar
2) Every pre-med's application looks essentially the same: GPA X, MCAT Y, medical volunteering Z, research Q, etc etc... the specifics don't really matter at some point. Unless you can put on your application, "Recently submitted as first author 'How I Cured Cancer, HIV, and World Hunger' to Nature," you're not going to have anything they haven't heard before in some shape or form. What's important is that you do something you're truly interested in and passionate about, and that you can convey that passion in your PS and interview.

 

[gravitywave]

lol Spurs beat me to it by like ten minutes... but the point i wanted to make was this: take your analogy a little further: with same HS, same UG, same GPA, same MCAT, same ECs, same PS, same schools applied to.... if the two of you were carbon copies of each other, you would still end up with different results out of your application cycle because different people will end up reading your files.

in the immortal words of Lettie, "you're suffering from 'special little snowflake' syndrome." in the end, your application will be far more similar to those of thousands of other applicants than it will be different. this is not necessarily a bad thing, but, as the other guy/gal said, you're acting like a gunner. just stop already.

 

[esrever]

Sounds like you are creating a lot of work for yourself (research, volunteering, etc.). This could be months or even years of commitments just to make yourself more competitive than your friend for admission into medical school.

In my opinion, why go through all this hard work when you could probably just sabotage the career aspirations of your friend with a few minutes/hours of work and planning... thus thrusting yourself of him as a more competitive applicant. Unfortunately, there are still a few thousand competitive applicants you will be measured against as well, but you can figure out the details later.

 

[vanillabear55]

1) Your applications will probably be reviewed by different members of the adcom, meaning no one will notice if they're similar
2) Every pre-med's application looks essentially the same: GPA X, MCAT Y, medical volunteering Z, research Q, etc etc... the specifics don't really matter at some point. Unless you can put on your application, "Recently submitted as first author 'How I Cured Cancer, HIV, and World Hunger' to Nature," you're not going to have anything they haven't heard before in some shape or form. What's important is that you do something you're truly interested in and passionate about, and that you can convey that passion in your PS and interview.

thanks for this- makes sense and was helpful

to the other two: try reading what I said, I'm not a gunner and I'm not trying to push ahead of my friend, I was just curious about something and have not done anything to negatively impact his chances ( or anyone else's for that matter )

 

[Blarry]

My friend and I took almost all our Prereqs together. We did research in the same lab for 2 years. We played on the same damn sports team through college. Hell, on paper we might even look like the same people aside from our Personal Statements and our home state residency (as far as you can be counting all 50 states). Our scores were similar, with his slightly higher than mine.

Did I resent this at all? No. We went through this $h1t together, and it feels good to have to have someone who understands your misery at times.

Don't be "that" guy.

In the end it's really not going to matter if your applications look the same. plus at the end of the day do you want a friend or a line on your application.

 

[Tapepsi]

This is a very sore topic for me so I guess I'm biased, but my wise advice to you is: karma's a b*%#@

I had a friend who was premed like me (although we didn't meet until sophomore year), who I thought was a great friend. We agreed to help one another so that we'd succeed and get into the same med school. I'd always share any advice or info I found, and always told him about any shadowing/volunteering experiences that I found. Well, it turns out he screwed me over multiple times and tried to hurt my chances at medical school because he thought that somehow it would increase his chances. He would "jokingly" tell my professor who he was a T.A. for (and who he knew was writinig a LOR for me) bad things about me. And while he was just joking, professors still remember those things when writing letters.

Anyway, I got in this application cycle and with 4 interviews he has gotten 3 rejections and 1 waitlist (and his MCAT score is much higher than mine).

So you can think in your mind that you and him are competing for that last spot at a medical school, but a better mindset should be to keep your friend and share opportunities with him because maybe one day he'll return the favor. Not too many people are in your situation and it's great to have someone to share your successes and failures with. If you are a good enough applicant you will get in somewhere.

 

[apumic]

This is a very sore topic for me so I guess I'm biased, but my wise advice to you is: karma's a b*%#@

I had a friend who was premed like me (although we didn't meet until sophomore year), who I thought was a great friend. We agreed to help one another so that we'd succeed and get into the same med school. I'd always share any advice or info I found, and always told him about any shadowing/volunteering experiences that I found. Well, it turns out he screwed me over multiple times and tried to hurt my chances at medical school because he thought that somehow it would increase his chances. He would "jokingly" tell my professor who he was a T.A. for (and who he knew was writinig a LOR for me) bad things about me. And while he was just joking, professors still remember those things when writing letters.

Anyway, I got in this application cycle and with 4 interviews he has gotten 3 rejections and 1 waitlist (and his MCAT score is much higher than mine).

So you can think in your mind that you and him are competing for that last spot at a medical school, but a better mindset should be to keep your friend and share opportunities with him because maybe one day he'll return the favor. Not too many people are in your situation and it's great to have someone to share your successes and failures with. If you are a good enough applicant you will get in somewhere.

I wouldn't be too surprised if the prof he TA'd for actually hurt him with the LOR. I mean... the attitude and [lack of] character it would show the prof when his TA repeatedly says nasty things about his friend (even in a "joking" manner) behind his friend's back... I bet the prof didn't exactly help his TA much considering what he was hearing from this TA's mouth.


What I can tell you is the cooperating with and helping your friends is FAAAAAR more rewarding in every way than competing with them in a cut throat manner. Sure, friendly competition is good, but you want that competition to be friendly, not driven and heartless.

 

[sixpence]

Someone already said it but I really think if you guys are good friends then forget about whether you put in all the work and he doesn't. Being pre med we are never guaranteed admission so it's natural to be worried about your own ass and you feel if he gets in and you didn't then you would feel like an idiot. I had the same feelings as you and early in college I went through with those feelings and really regret it. Often times those guys don't even realize what the situation is. So my point is just don't think about. Friendships are worth more than you think.

 

[vanillabear55]

Someone already said it but I really think if you guys are good friends then forget about whether you put in all the work and he doesn't. Being pre med we are never guaranteed admission so it's natural to be worried about your own ass and you feel if he gets in and you didn't then you would feel like an idiot. I had the same feelings as you and early in college I went through with those feelings and really regret it. Often times those guys don't even realize what the situation is. So my point is just don't think about. Friendships are worth more than you think.

exactly.


thanks for your input! I definitely don't plan on doing anything to hurt him/not help him out, its just the thought that had been bugging me for awhile so I figured I'd ask if anyone had a similar circumstance or experience. We probably will wind up doing volunteer work together or something this summer anyway!

 

[Ursa]

i had a friend once who.......well....i had a friend once.........

hErP dErPp

 

[Tapepsi]

I wouldn't be too surprised if the prof he TA'd for actually hurt him with the LOR. I mean... the attitude and [lack of] character it would show the prof when his TA repeatedly says nasty things about his friend (even in a "joking" manner) behind his friend's back... I bet the prof didn't exactly help his TA much considering what he was hearing from this TA's mouth.

Actually I never thought about that! The professor wrote LOR's for both of us so that could very well be the case.

 

[CaliGirl14]

Oh hell yea CaliGirl! Get after it!

Well, I mean when it comes time to decide whether or not he's fit for medical school, he's not going to get cookie points for helping his friend land research and volunteer positions. I'm not saying he shouldn't help the guy, but at the end of the day it's your butt you need to look after.

Besides great picture 👍

 

[Sailor Senshi Dermystify]

Op it is a competition no matter what. Also your friend is not contributing to your learning experience. That is not fair in my opinion. I don't help anyone who won't take the time to help themselves. My close friend whose a big sister to me had to tell me to stop making people take advantage of you. What is wrong with them that they can't find out their own opps. If they want medical school they can find out what they need to do to get there. He's not proactive enough

I will tell him somethings I am doing BUT i will not tell him everything.
You ever heard the saying "What ever your right knows don't make your left hand know"