Frustration with hard work vs. intelligence

[bluelover656]

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Hello, wise SDN people.

I am posting this thread because I have felt really, really frustrated.
I am a pre-med going to a small private liberal arts college and because my school is relatively unknown, I figured that doing better on my MCAT would help me get a competitive edge over MD applicants who come from a well known/ prestigious schools (mind you, I am not saying that GPA does not matter, but in my opinion, I feel like it counts less because of the different reputations of the schools).
While going into this unknown school, I focused extremely hard on my GPA (3.9, science 3.89) and never forgot that I needed to "kill" my MCAT in order to be competitive.

So, after looking at various strategies on SDN for long amounts of time (I would look at study strategies as a freshman before even looking at any exams), I prepared myself to study for the MCAT for 6 months. (I started july and ended in January). I had felt pretty encouraged because the general consensus of the SDN MCAT takers was that being a "genius" was not necessary to well on the MCAT. My first practice test score was a 26, which I did not think was too bad.

After all of this, I am extremely frustrated because my scores ended up not reflecting my hard work.
I honestly felt I had tried my very hardest (studied during the week, took only 1 day off for months).
My MCAT score was a 30 12/9/9.

One of the worst feelings of this after receiving this score, was NOT the reality of my score, but rather that my hardest work and effort did not reflect my score. All of my family and friends had reassured me that I had done extremely well (before checking) because of the hard work they had seen me through the months studying.

This is all background info, and I am thinking about taking it again, but one of main things that really discourages me is that at this moment in time, I feel like regardless of how much effort I put in, it's not going to get me what I want because I feel like I am at "fixed" intelligence.

I this point, I don't know what I am going to do. I am at a loss and this has taken a big toll on my self-esteem and motivation.

 

[solartheda85]

i think it all comes down to hard work, regardless of being smart or not

 

[gyngyn]

30 is a good score. Depending on your state of residence and your application strategy you may well be fine.

The MCAT is not a referendum on your value. It's a data point and thus, an important factor in your strategy.

 

[medguy24]

Many people think it's all about hard work and smartness to do well. Truth is-at least in my opinion- that what you really need is to be "studying the right way". My college professor always says "practice dosent make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect." Meaning you need to study the right way to succeed. Now each person is different and has there own ways of studying, so you need to find out what your "perfect" way is and you'll be able to succeed!
P.s. A 30 on the mcat is amazing. With your gpa and mcat you'll get into a good medical school. Maybe not Harvard but a decent well reputable medical school. So you should take a moment to pat yourself in the back for all your hard work!
Good job!

 

[deleted407021]

You're being neurotic. A 30 coupled with the GPAs will get you in the door. Well done.

 

[GomersGoToGround]

You've got the "fixed" mindset: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy...y-harder-and-some-kids-give-up_b_5826816.html
Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck wrote a book about this, called mindset. Check it out.

In response to your post:

Working hard does not necessarily result in outstanding performance, or even higher performance than those who worked "less hard". This is due to a number of factors, including cognitive abilities (at that point in time, because they are not fixed), type of preparation, phase of the moon, performance anxiety, resources used, etc.

Now, you may work hard, and believe that you are going in the right direction because you are doing so. But keep in mind that the Hindenburg was also going in the correct direction, but it was on fire. Studying for months with a single day of relaxation leads to burnout. Your brain probably could not function at full adequacy.

As I stated in another post: the quandary of these situations is that people confuse not knowing the correct way to learn, with not being able to learn. You're concern in extremely common, especially among people in our field. It's right up there with imposter syndrome, and can be extremely detrimental if you don't clear away the brush surrounding what's actually going on.

Hard work and outcome do not have a perfectly linear relationship. In fact, it's often such that after a certain amount of work, you don't really get anywhere. Thus, you have to start throwing in external variables, like new study methods, breaks, hobbies, and anything that lets your brain relax, process information, recharge, and proceed without getting burnt out. You didn't reach your "maximum" level of intelligence; you reached a maximum amount of success given your hard work at that particular point in time. You don't live in a vacuum, and your intelligence is not that easy to measure, nor do we really understand what our actual "limits" are. Yes, people will be able to memorize or conceptualize more quickly than you, but that doesn't mean that you (or they, for that matter), are "stuck" at that level.

 

[mimelim]

Hello, wise SDN people.

I am posting this thread because I have felt really, really frustrated.
I am a pre-med going to a small private liberal arts college and because my school is relatively unknown, I figured that doing better on my MCAT would help me get a competitive edge over MD applicants who come from a well known/ prestigious schools (mind you, I am not saying that GPA does not matter, but in my opinion, I feel like it counts less because of the different reputations of the schools).
While going into this unknown school, I focused extremely hard on my GPA (3.9, science 3.89) and never forgot that I needed to "kill" my MCAT in order to be competitive.

So, after looking at various strategies on SDN for long amounts of time (I would look at study strategies as a freshman before even looking at any exams), I prepared myself to study for the MCAT for 6 months. (I started july and ended in January). I had felt pretty encouraged because the general consensus of the SDN MCAT takers was that being a "genius" was not necessary to well on the MCAT. My first practice test score was a 26, which I did not think was too bad.

After all of this, I am extremely frustrated because my scores ended up not reflecting my hard work.
I honestly felt I had tried my very hardest (studied during the week, took only 1 day off for months).
My MCAT score was a 30 12/9/9.

One of the worst feelings of this after receiving this score, was NOT the reality of my score, but rather that my hardest work and effort did not reflect my score. All of my family and friends had reassured me that I had done extremely well (before checking) because of the hard work they had seen me through the months studying.

This is all background info, and I am thinking about taking it again, but one of main things that really discourages me is that at this moment in time, I feel like regardless of how much effort I put in, it's not going to get me what I want because I feel like I am at "fixed" intelligence.

I this point, I don't know what I am going to do. I am at a loss and this has taken a big toll on my self-esteem and motivation.

#1 First and foremost, a 30 coupled with a 3.9 and an 'average' application will do perfectly fine if you apply early, smart and broad. Big picture wise, this will not affect you very much. It is easy to understand how disheartened you must feel, and only time will fix that.
#2 Despite #1, I think that there are several lessons to be learned here and things that may impact you in the future.
#3 "Working hard" is meaningless if you are a bad at working. You can sit down and memorize your heart out, but if you are studying something that is problem solving oriented, you are going to do worse than someone who spent their time and energy learning how to solve problems rather than memorizing tables. For the students that I advise, this is probably the most common thing that we have to work on. They assume that because they spent more time studying than others (They will say, "I spend on average 4+ hours a day in the library in undergrad studying!" as a pride point.) that they are doing better, when in reality, almost all of them are doing worse than a good number of people. There are very few things that require studying for many hours every single day to do well on, especially before medical school. Being able to study efficiently is incredibly important. If I had to simply ballpark the average undergrad, they are only 30-40% efficient and would the vast majority benefit from tutoring/study coaching.
#4 The biological science section of the MCAT is fairly memorization intensive. You need to know a fair amount of content, but then apply that content. If you study 'enough', you should be able to do well on it.
#5 The physical science section of the MCAT has very little by the way of memorization. The sum total of what you really need to know fits onto an index card. The section is about problem solving. The only way to get better (if you haven't done a ton of problem solving in the past in other disciplines) is to do tons of problems with a focus on how to set the problem up, not on actually solving it.
#6 The verbal section of the MCAT is very difficult to improve by simply, 'studying'. I haven't done the study myself, but I'd be willing to put a lot of money that one of the biggest factors is how much reading you did in middle school, high school and early undergrad. Being able to read efficiently and understand what you read without needing to reread repeatedly is a skill and a desirable one at that. People that read for pleasure and have for a while, tend to be able to do this without much difficulty. Even in an extended period of time, it is very difficult to improve your verbal score. You can improve your test taking skills and get used to the types of passages that are given, but you really aren't going to be able to get past a certain point if you are starting behind the 8 ball.

And lastly, and most important. I am trying to be helpful, I am not trying to discourage. (I swear!)

#7 As someone who reads applications, people that end up in these positions are the scariest applicants. If someone says, "I did everything I could have possibly done and got the most help that I could and I got a 30." What does that mean? Most likely, they needed better/smarter help. They needed someone to coach them on how to study better. They needed someone to make sure that they were being efficient with their time. But, what if this is their peak? What if truly this is the best that they can do? The problem is, the MCAT is just the first test. They get longer and harder from here on out. I'm NOT just talking about the standardized tests. I'm talking about shelves, exams, boards, problem solving on the wards, interpersonal problems, interdisciplinary problems, etc. If someone is peaking at '30 on the MCAT', it leaves room for concern. The people that struggle (or fail out, which almost never happens) in medical school for academic reasons are generally NOT the people with low scores coming in. They are almost universally the people that have poor study habits or are simply inefficient studiers. The main reason we even look at MCATs/GPAs is because we think that if you can demonstrate that you are a good student/reasonably intelligent that you will be able to survive medical training. In short, if you think that you should have done better given the amount of effort invested, you need to figure out where you could have improved your studying. It isn't about time. It is about studying well. Working on that between now and starting medical school, even in the absence of a specific test to study for, will save you a lot of headache later.

 

[drdoom12]

I had similar stats, applied fairly late, and ended up with > 5 interviews and multiple acceptances to mid and high tier schools. You'll be fine if you decide to keep that mcat score and apply intelligently.

 

[justadream]

Like it or not, innate intelligence matters. I think hard work can increase your score but only up to a certain point. Just like some people might not be as tall as Yao Ming or be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt, some people are just innately smarter than others.

Even when you talk about "hard work," you need to consider studying efficiency. Studying 3-4 months efficiently might be better than studying 6 months inefficiently (I have no idea if the OP studied efficiently but it's a consideration).

All of this being said, with your GPA, I think you should still be competitive at many MD schools (and DO schools).

 

[NonTradJp]

Hello Blue,

The common response you are getting is that your score is good and with that gpa you will get in if you apply smartly. So obviously that should encourage you not discourage you. The next most common comment is studying smart is important. Mimelim's post is amazing. He also has plenty of other posts to help you maximize your abilities if you go through some of his advice threads.

I want to add another dimension not spoken of. If you are retaking it again, have you considered the logistics. Is the test site near your home? Are you taken it during the day when you are most alert and productive? Are you arriving early or late? Did you bring healthy and reinvigorating snacks. These may seem trivial. But life is about preparation and details. Knowing how to take care of these things will free you to do your best. Lets say you do not want to be distracted by other test takers and do your best thinking after lunch and live 30 minutes away. See if an afternoon test is available, eat a good balanced lunch (I would say 2 parts carbs 1 part protein 1 part veggies if it was me). Either arrive early and take the test before most other students arrive. (You can find out ahead if this is possible). Or arrive after the big wave of test takers arrive so you are not distracted by their personalities and can relax.

The above isn't cheating or gimmicks. It involves understanding yourself, recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, resource management, attentive preparation, steady follow through, and appreciation of your motivations.

 

[swolebrah]

#1 First and foremost, a 30 coupled with a 3.9 and an 'average' application will do perfectly fine if you apply early, smart and broad. Big picture wise, this will not affect you very much. It is easy to understand how disheartened you must feel, and only time will fix that.
#2 Despite #1, I think that there are several lessons to be learned here and things that may impact you in the future.
#3 "Working hard" is meaningless if you are a bad at working. You can sit down and memorize your heart out, but if you are studying something that is problem solving oriented, you are going to do worse than someone who spent their time and energy learning how to solve problems rather than memorizing tables. For the students that I advise, this is probably the most common thing that we have to work on. They assume that because they spent more time studying than others (They will say, "I spend on average 4+ hours a day in the library in undergrad studying!" as a pride point.) that they are doing better, when in reality, almost all of them are doing worse than a good number of people. There are very few things that require studying for many hours every single day to do well on, especially before medical school. Being able to study efficiently is incredibly important. If I had to simply ballpark the average undergrad, they are only 30-40% efficient and would the vast majority benefit from tutoring/study coaching.
#4 The biological science section of the MCAT is fairly memorization intensive. You need to know a fair amount of content, but then apply that content. If you study 'enough', you should be able to do well on it.
#5 The physical science section of the MCAT has very little by the way of memorization. The sum total of what you really need to know fits onto an index card. The section is about problem solving. The only way to get better (if you haven't done a ton of problem solving in the past in other disciplines) is to do tons of problems with a focus on how to set the problem up, not on actually solving it.
#6 The verbal section of the MCAT is very difficult to improve by simply, 'studying'. I haven't done the study myself, but I'd be willing to put a lot of money that one of the biggest factors is how much reading you did in middle school, high school and early undergrad. Being able to read efficiently and understand what you read without needing to reread repeatedly is a skill and a desirable one at that. People that read for pleasure and have for a while, tend to be able to do this without much difficulty. Even in an extended period of time, it is very difficult to improve your verbal score. You can improve your test taking skills and get used to the types of passages that are given, but you really aren't going to be able to get past a certain point if you are starting behind the 8 ball.

And lastly, and most important. I am trying to be helpful, I am not trying to discourage. (I swear!)

#7 As someone who reads applications, people that end up in these positions are the scariest applicants. If someone says, "I did everything I could have possibly done and got the most help that I could and I got a 30." What does that mean? Most likely, they needed better/smarter help. They needed someone to coach them on how to study better. They needed someone to make sure that they were being efficient with their time. But, what if this is their peak? What if truly this is the best that they can do? The problem is, the MCAT is just the first test. They get longer and harder from here on out. I'm NOT just talking about the standardized tests. I'm talking about shelves, exams, boards, problem solving on the wards, interpersonal problems, interdisciplinary problems, etc. If someone is peaking at '30 on the MCAT', it leaves room for concern. The people that struggle (or fail out, which almost never happens) in medical school for academic reasons are generally NOT the people with low scores coming in. They are almost universally the people that have poor study habits or are simply inefficient studiers. The main reason we even look at MCATs/GPAs is because we think that if you can demonstrate that you are a good student/reasonably intelligent that you will be able to survive medical training. In short, if you think that you should have done better given the amount of effort invested, you need to figure out where you could have improved your studying. It isn't about time. It is about studying well. Working on that between now and starting medical school, even in the absence of a specific test to study for, will save you a lot of headache later.

This is very important advice. I remember when I used to work for long periods of time without deep focus or really maximizing the efficiency of the work.

I wish I had the work smarter, not harder mindset in my first 2 years of undergrad. I could have saved so much time and would have had a lot more free time.

 

[bc65]

I agree with all the above posts.

1. Your numbers are fine. If you have appropriate volunteering, clinical experience, letters of recommendation, apply early, etc, you should do fine in your application cycle.

2. Get used to no longer being #1. The MCAT is scored on a curve, and med school is scored on a curve. Step 1 is scored on a curve. All these numbers are based on standard deviations and percentile scores. At every step of the way from now on, you will competing in an environment that is more and more selective. Your relative performance will decrease. I was told that in medical school, most med students will fail at least one test. Remeber, these are students who never failed at anything before.

If they gave the MCAT to all the Noble prize winners in medicine, one of them would finish last.

3. All the advice above about "studying smart, not hard", or changing your study habits, assumes that you're not studying well already. I have no reason to think that's the case. Not everyone can be above average. Not everyone can be # 1. You certainly might want to evaluate your study habits, but not everyone taking the test can score a 35, or a 40, or a 45. That being the case, if the score that you got on the exam accurately reflected the practice scores you were getting, you need to just accept the results. Just work on finding the study method that works best for you in med school.

Just beware: If a 30 MCAT sends you into depths of depression and self-doubt, brace yourself for medical school, residency, USMLE exams, and board certification exams.

 

[intangible]

Understand what you did wrong, and fix it. There's no need to go into a pit of existential despair. You are wasting your time complaining, when there is only one obvious solution. If you feel you can do substantially better with more practice, do what you need to do.

 

[Omppu27]

#6 The verbal section of the MCAT is very difficult to improve by simply, 'studying'. I haven't done the study myself, but I'd be willing to put a lot of money that one of the biggest factors is how much reading you did in middle school, high school and early undergrad. Being able to read efficiently and understand what you read without needing to reread repeatedly is a skill and a desirable one at that. People that read for pleasure and have for a while, tend to be able to do this without much difficulty. Even in an extended period of time, it is very difficult to improve your verbal score. You can improve your test taking skills and get used to the types of passages that are given, but you really aren't going to be able to get past a certain point if you are starting behind the 8 ball.

Sooooo true... During middle school and high school, I probably read only 1 or 2 books from front to back. If I hadn't picked up reading as a hobby in undergrad, my verbal would've been even worse than it already was.

 

[Law2Doc]

Like it or not, innate intelligence matters. I think hard work can increase your score but only up to a certain point. Just like some people might not be as tall as Yao Ming or be able to run as fast as Usain Bolt, some people are just innately smarter than others.

Even when you talk about "hard work," you need to consider studying efficiency. Studying 3-4 months efficiently might be better than studying 6 months inefficiently (I have no idea if the OP studied efficiently but it's a consideration).

All of this being said, with your GPA, I think you should still be competitive at many MD schools (and DO schools).

Mcat score is not a measure of innate intelligence. I seem to recall stories that Einstein struggled with standardized tests. There will always be extremely smart people who struggle on multiple choice tests -- everyone's input and output of information is wired a bit differently. That being said, fair or not, there are a lot of standardized tests on this path. If you OP are not innately a good multiple choice test taker (regardless of intelligence which is a very different analysis) you may just have to deal with putting in more hours than your peers with worse results to show for it. But let's not confuse high mcat score with intelligence -- I promise you I know a few very dim people who broke 40.

 

[Lil Mick]

Mcat score is not a measure of innate intelligence. I seem to recall stories that Einstein struggled with standardized tests. There will always be extremely smart people who struggle on multiple choice tests -- everyone's input and output of information is wired a bit differently. That being said, fair or not, there are a lot of standardized tests on this path. If you OP are not innately a good multiple choice test taker (regardless of intelligence which is a very different analysis) you may just have to deal with putting in more hours than your peers with worse results to show for it. But let's not confuse high mcat score with intelligence -- I promise you I know a few very dim people who broke 40.

Exactly. Divergent thinkers are not going to score as well on standardized tests as on essay/research-oriented tests. Some questions legitimately have more than one correct answer, and a person has to select the "right" one according to the test makers. This is particularly true of the verbal section, as it isn't based on formula application or memorized organic chemistry. Do all of our literary critics agree on the interpretation of a work?

If the 12 is in biology, you're probably okay for medical school. There's definitely reasoning involved in exams you'll take from here on out, but a lot will be based on memorization. There was actually a meta-analysis done to try to determine which sections of the MCAT best predict success in medical school based on a few different measures of success:

http://www.internationalgme.org/Resources/Pubs/Donnon et al (2007) Acad Med.pdf

There's a correlation, particularly with BS and PS, but the correlations are not strong correlations.

Figure out how you study best, and don't worry how you compare to anyone but yourself. As you go through school, the population gets smarter and smarter. An IQ of 130 is going to be less above average in medical school than in undergrad (maybe minus Caltech), just as 130 is less above average in undergrad than in high school. All that will matter is that you were accepted into medical school and finished it.

 

[Captain Toad]

Just beware: If a 30 MCAT sends you into depths of depression and self-doubt, brace yourself for medical school, residency, USMLE exams, and board certification exams.

This 1000x.

I can imagine the op's first score on their final in med school.

 

[xffan624]

This 1000x.

I can imagine the op's first score on their final in med school.

OTOH, it's good to get this out of the way now. By the time I got to medical school, I knew the stink of failure well and that I was a little fish in a big pond. It makes disappointment so much easier to deal with. That and a true pass/fail pre-clinical curriculum.

 

[KnuxNole]

I'm the minority, but I'm someone who is a workhorse, but is terrible at the "intelligence" stuff..

 

[swindoll]

i think it all comes down to hard work, regardless of being smart or not

He/she got banned, but I do agree with his/her post ^

 

[Jay11jayjay]

Save yourself some sanity and don't retake. Just start your essays soon and apply super early and broadly and you will be fine. Good luck!

 

[NYCdude]

6 months is an insanely long time to study for the MCAT. You probably reached the equilibrium between learning and losing information somewhere around month 4 or 5.