Funny quotes from "less informed" premeds

Started by TheGloaming
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TheKDizzle said:
I would occasionally mention that I was "planning on attending medical school" when people asked what my major was (whether in a classroom or a social setting) because my major isn't related to medicine at all, so just telling them my major wasn't giving the whole picture - which is sort of the point of an introduction, isn't it? I don't see what the big deal with saying that you're a microbiology/communications/whatever major and pre-med is :shrug:
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Agreed; I referred to myself as a pre-med (was a bio major). I wanted to go to medical school. I didn't talk about it with other folks very much but there's nothing wrong with that.

Jesus christ, I forgot what a weird place pre-Allo is.
 
greatnt249 said:
I didn't do any volunteering or have any clinical experience other than shadowing, and I honestly can't think of any extenuating circumstances that got me in.
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For one, I'm pretty surprised you did no volunteering besides shadowing and got in, regardless of whether you're in US or Canada. GJ.

I'd be even more surprised if you did that in QC, though. The schools are adamant on community service and/or development. If you did manage that here, you would be the needle in the haystack.
 
Domenic said:
For one, I'm pretty surprised you did no volunteering besides shadowing and got in, regardless of whether you're in US or Canada. GJ.

I'd be even more surprised if you did that in QC, though. The schools are adamant on community service and/or development. If you did manage that here, you would be the needle in the haystack.
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Speaking solely from the US, I've heard multiple stories about people getting in without volunteer experience. If they have something else on their application that stands out/is interesting/they showed in some other way that they do care for people.. then it's not necessary.

Kind of like how someone will be accepted without ever having officially shadowed a doctor, but they had extensive clinical experience whether it be CNA/EMT to show they definitely know what their getting into so they still slid by
 
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Lollygag said:
Speaking solely from the US, I've heard multiple stories about people getting in without volunteer experience. If they have something else on their application that stands out/is interesting/they showed in some other way that they do care for people.. then it's not necessary.

Kind of like how someone will be accepted without ever having officially shadowed a doctor, but they had extensive clinical experience whether it be CNA/EMT to show they definitely know what their getting into so they still slid by
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I don't really find these stories particularly surprising if you come at it from Admissions' perspective. They want someone who:

  • Knows what they want to do with their life
  • Fully understands what medicine is and still wants to enter it
  • Has the personal qualities necessary to be a successful physician
  • Has other personal qualities that make him/her a desirable candidate for that program
  • Is adaptable, flexible, and self-aware enough to learn new things and to do things "their way"
  • Has the requisite academic and intellectual skills to successfully complete the program
  • "Fits" the mission, goals, and culture of the program

Since there is no cut-off pass/fail line for any of those criteria, they go with people who are the strongest in those areas that they are looking at. Further, there are almost always many ways to demonstrate each of those criteria (or whatever the school is using). It is simply that there are some things that thousands of premeds have done before you that supposedly demonstrate those attributes, so others mimic prior success (or at least try). People think of Admissions as a "black box" but in reality it's only a black box b/c you're a pre-med looking in at the program. I'd say from within the program, I have a pretty good idea what our Admissions people are looking for and it makes sense given the nature of our program.
 
Domenic said:
For one, I'm pretty surprised you did no volunteering besides shadowing and got in, regardless of whether you're in US or Canada. GJ.

I'd be even more surprised if you did that in QC, though. The schools are adamant on community service and/or development. If you did manage that here, you would be the needle in the haystack.
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Go ahead and be surprised; I worked during my summers off and didn't have time to volunteer. The point I'm trying to make is that my experience isn't entirely out of the norm for my lack of volunteering to be an "easy weed-out."
 
greatnt249 said:
Go ahead and be surprised; I worked during my summers off and didn't have time to volunteer. The point I'm trying to make is that my experience isn't entirely out of the norm for my lack of volunteering to be an "easy weed-out."
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Go back and read my post then. There's you circumstance, you didn't have time to volunteer because you needed to work.

ADCOMS in Quebec look for volunteering, unless circumstances such as a need to work or otherwise prevent a qualified individual from doing so. If you're REALLY interested in knowing what i'm talking about (which I doubt anyone is), look at the lovely quebec universities requirements. I don't know why you're being so persistent about this; I'm not talking globally about med schools nor am I referring anything about your circumstances.

Good job on having to work instead of volunteering 👍. It's completely irrelevant to the girl who had 0 extracurriculars going for her and wanted to pursue medicine in quebec.

We only pay a FRACTION of some of the med tuition fees i've seen in the states. It's only natural that our uni's are going to be picky as **** when deciding who will fill the 80 seats.
 
from the twitter:

#FunFact I have no feelings because I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 4, and feelings get in the way of treating people coherently.

:boom:
 
O Grady said:
This thread needs a good ol bump.

Me: "So what prep materials are you using? You're taking it in January, right?"

Pre-med: "Yeah, I've been using the testkrackers books..."
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Obviously, they haven't been studying. Probably heard it from somewhere and forgot the exact name of the test prep company...:laugh:
 
"If you have to debate going into the field, then being a physician isn't right for you"

and

"IMG MD > DO"
 
My friend just moved into a new place.
Her: You should talk to my neighbor. He's in med school at (local school).
Me: That would be great. Do you know what year he's in?
Her: I think he's in his second year... Yeah, it is his second year because he said he'll be done in the spring.
Me: Huh? (Looking confused)
Her: (acknowledging my confusion) No, that's not right. He said the PA program is done in the summer.
 
Classmate in cancer cell class who is an undergraduate biology major: "I don't think medical school will be so bad. We're basically taking all of the same classes [as those in medical school] now."


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halethsonofhama said:
I thought I got to use a calculator too. But thats because my only study material for the MCAT was Kaplans 5 volume set. The "practice problems" in that series was completely unlike the MCAT

Ex.
you have 2.3 moles of hydrogen and combust it in 5.14 moles Oxygen to form how many moles of water?

Now how the hell am I supposed to do that without a calculator? use my mind!?!?


ALSO kaplan sucks because I didn't even know the MCAT was passage based until halfway through my studying once I finally took on of those "official MCATs"

...I'm not the smartest pre-med out there
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That's really just a logic problem
Hydrogen is the limiting reactant and since there are two molesof hydrogen for one mole of water, it's 1.15 moles. Cmon man, you don't need a calculator!
😉
 
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Lysilegluleu said:
Classmate in cancer cell class who is an undergraduate biology major: "I don't think medical school will be so bad. We're basically taking all of the same classes [as those in medical school] now."


Sent from my SGH-T769 using SDN Mobile
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Admittedly a good amount of ppl on here have stated that a few Ugrad classes are pretty similar to their med school version, i.e Immunology.

Edit: not my view, the view of a lot of people on here who took Immuno and said they barely studied for it in med school.
 
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awbond said:
That's really just a logic problem
Hydrogen is the limiting reactant and since there are two molesof hydrogen for one mole of water, it's 1.15 moles. Cmon man, you don't need a calculator!
😉
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It's a little bit harder to do when you're 2+ years out of gen chemistry 1 lol.
 
Lol I could see that.

Recently I was talking to one of my buds on Xbox live and he had invited a friend to play with us. We were talking about our college plans and the guy said, "Yeah I'm going to school for 4 years to be an anesthesiologist."

......
 
serenade said:
Admittedly a few Ugrad classes are pretty similar to their med school version, i.e Immunology.
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And how, my pre-med friend, would you have any idea about this? (Second-hand from med students who attended one med school and one UG?) Sure, some courses have similarities -- I mean they ARE studying the same general subject -- however, the difference in focus is pretty major. Further, what Immunology entails at a given UG will deffer from other UGs as you cannot possibly cover all of intro Immuno in one semester. I would say my UG Biochem course + UG Adv Cell Bio course probably surveyed about 60% of the content we had in M1 Biochem; however, it went into much greater detail and a solid 1/3 to 1/2 of the material was completely new (i.e., not even touched at the UG level, not even a little bit).

serenade said:
It's a little bit harder to do when you're 2+ years out of gen chemistry 1 lol.
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That concept is pretty much at the core of chemistry and will remain at the core for Biochem and Phys. I hope it's something you can recall pretty effortlessly. If not, the first day of M1 Biochem will be one rude awakening....
 
music2doc said:
And how, my pre-med friend, would you have any idea about this? (Second-hand from med students who attended one med school and one UG?) Sure, some courses have similarities -- I mean they ARE studying the same general subject -- however, the difference in focus is pretty major. Further, what Immunology entails at a given UG will deffer from other UGs as you cannot possibly cover all of intro Immuno in one semester. I would say my UG Biochem course + UG Adv Cell Bio course probably surveyed about 60% of the content we had in M1 Biochem; however, it went into much greater detail and a solid 1/3 to 1/2 of the material was completely new (i.e., not even touched at the UG level, not even a little bit).

You made a really long post for something that was obviously implied.


That concept is pretty much at the core of chemistry and will remain at the core for Biochem and Phys. I hope it's something you can recall pretty effortlessly. If not, the first day of M1 Biochem will be one rude awakening....
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Chances are if I had stopped you in the street and asked you to do this problem a year out of chemistry you'd probably have trouble answering it. Sorry, but it's a use it or lose it thing.
 
serenade said:
Chances are if I had stopped you in the street and asked you to do this problem a year out of chemistry you'd probably have trouble answering it. Sorry, but it's a use it or lose it thing.
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Nope. I'd actually do just fine on it and I haven't directly used it since the MCAT two years ago. That said, concepts based upon it occasionally come up in life, so I have had some ongoing exposure to having to determine how much, say, Peach Cobbler I can make given 10 cans of peaches.... Also, these concepts come in med school too (but more often when cooking/baking). 😉
 
"I can't believe you're going to be a physician..." in response to SDN comments.

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MedPR said:
"I can't believe you're going to be a physician..." in response to SDN comments.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using SDN Mobile
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I seriously can't believe you're [hoping to] be a physician!

Also, you posted this, so you'd make a terrible doctor. :laugh:
 
phnerd1105 said:
At my MCAT two days ago:

Student 1: I mean, I haven't studied at all but I think I'll do well.
Student 2: Oh that's a good idea! Even if you don't do well, you don't have to send your scores when you apply.
Student 1: Yeah thats true. I'm sure I'll get a 35+ though.

:scared:😱
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We thank these people for lowering the curve.
 
rhesuspieces said:
No way--he was far too entertaining! He claimed to have turned down grad school offers from MIT and Stanford along with a job from Google because he wanted to stay at his state U and get a math minor. 😕 He pretended to be teaching a couple classes. It was epic.
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I actually knew a guy who lied about his SAT scores in high school. He was in Gr. 10 and went around saying he had already finished his SAT and got a 2400. He said that his dad graduated from Harvard so he was for sure going to get into Harvard. I tested him on a few words common SAT words and he didn't know a single one of them.
 
Medstart108 said:
I actually knew a guy who lied about his SAT scores in high school. He was in Gr. 10 and went around saying he had already finished his SAT and got a 2400. He said that his dad graduated from Harvard so he was for sure going to get into Harvard. I tested him on a few words common SAT words and he didn't know a single one of them.
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In his defense, the SAT is a multiple choice test and the options tend to be very different. Process of elimination and guessing can yield some luck point.
 
To the immunology comments above: I had a friend who had his B.S. in immunology who just passed the medical school immunology course. Obviously he knew his stuff or he wouldn't be in med school so arguing he didn't do well in his major doesn't really fly. The thing thats different is the pace of the material thrown at you and the focus which varies I'm sure from UG to UG but also from UG to med school. And I also think I could handle a gen chem problem or 2 I did tutor it up into my senior year of college. Organic, yeahh thats all gone lol
 
doxycycline said:
To the immunology comments above: I had a friend who had his B.S. in immunology who just passed the medical school immunology course. Obviously he knew his stuff or he wouldn't be in med school so arguing he didn't do well in his major doesn't really fly. The thing thats different is the pace of the material thrown at you and the focus which varies I'm sure from UG to UG but also from UG to med school. And I also think I could handle a gen chem problem or 2 I did tutor it up into my senior year of college. Organic, yeahh thats all gone lol
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This. There is also the integration of information and the 3rd order testing, something that most non-med students don't even understand. My GF has a friend in ND school (So... let's just go with still pre-med 😉 ) who just posted something to the effect of "after 2 weeks of finals if anyone ever tells me that naturopathic school isn't real med school I will dropkick them". A quick look at their curriculum and finding some online test materials says.... no... not real medical school. Investing "hours" into a subject doesn't mean you know it to the same degree as someone else. Med courses are very fast and very deep and you need to know every detail to confidently take an exam, not just the big picture ideas. Pattern recognition alone will get you right up to the pass line. To cross it you need to actually know something.
 
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BABSstudent said:
In his defense, the SAT is a multiple choice test and the options tend to be very different. Process of elimination and guessing can yield some luck point.
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I don't remember whether or not it was the reading or the writing section, but some of the answers were practically the same thing with simple chances like being slightly more active tense and thus more grammatically correct in a you pick the best answer question.
 
doxycycline said:
To the immunology comments above: I had a friend who had his B.S. in immunology who just passed the medical school immunology course. Obviously he knew his stuff or he wouldn't be in med school so arguing he didn't do well in his major doesn't really fly. The thing thats different is the pace of the material thrown at you and the focus which varies I'm sure from UG to UG but also from UG to med school. And I also think I could handle a gen chem problem or 2 I did tutor it up into my senior year of college. Organic, yeahh thats all gone lol
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Eh this is probably true. I'm just repeating ad nausuam what I've heard from a few people on here. Also gen chem is boring algebra, I mean honestly I probably wouldn't be able to calculate molality a week after the mcat.
 
Ansar said:
I think it's more of a very competitive student quote than a less informed premed quote.

Sounds like they are scoffing at students who only appear at the library for finals week.
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This was me this past semester. 🙁
I felt so lazy all semester
 
Chops369 said:
😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

CerealSpitting.png


You can't be cereal. A monkey could get an 8 just by selecting random answers!!!
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I'm offended. As a monkey, I'd like to inform you that we are much smarter than the average bear. I scored in the 20s.
 
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