happiest student body

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
D

dookbloo

Senior Member
7+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
20+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2002
Messages
304
Reaction score
1
which schools are known for having this?
Members don't see this ad.
 
Rochester Students are amazingly happy in my biased opinion. It was probably the number one thing that attracted me to the school.

Ed
 
UCONN and MSU students seem very content.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Vanderbilt--

The administrators respond to students; people seem to hang out not just with their class but with all classes; Nashville lifestyle is good; the students are really nice, well-rounded people.
 
Please don't try to get an impression of which schools have the happiest students from those who interviewed there. The situation when you interview somewhere and when you actually join are likely to be entirely different. A school and its students will always put its best foot forward (Spins? Lies?) when you interview.
 
Trust me, almost every school you interview at will show off just how "happy" their students are. It's happened to me on the interview trail. If I'd have bought into the hype, I'd think that unhappy students just don't exist at any school, because I was greeted by beaming faces wherever I went.

Generally, schools that have a low-stress P/F grading system have fulfilled and non-competitive students.
 
I think that the students that you meet on interview day or while touring all act like they are in love with their school. I think that med school, in general, requires so much expense, time, devotion, and energy that med students are committed to their institutions in order to validate their descision to attend school there. The school pride comes from the pride invested in their own hard work at the institution.
 
i agree w/ the last poster, but would just like to add that the school you attend chose you out of a pool of thousands, offers you guidance, and will ultimately make you a doctor. it's easy to see why almost any student might feel strongly abuot their school.
 
I bumped into two students at an interview that were just hanging out and had nothing to do with the interview process and they seemed really friendly and happy, and they weren't trying to convince me of anything. They just seemed like genuinely nice people. Maybe it's true that they convince themselves they're happy so they don't feel like they made the wrong choice, but I think that would get very tiresome after a while, especially to do it to complete strangers on whom you will have no influence.
 
Originally posted by ad_sharp
I think that med school, in general, requires so much expense, time, devotion, and energy that med students are committed to their institutions in order to validate their descision to attend school there.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but I imagine that adcoms look for students who will do the best job in promoting their schools.
 
the bitter ass kid who hates the med school he/she is at isn't going to show up to the admissions lunch.
 
Would it be fair to say that the only people who are unhappy in medical school, regardless of where they attend, either can't hack it or realize that they don't like medicine?
 
Originally posted by Panda Bear
Would it be fair to say that the only people who are unhappy in medical school, regardless of where they attend, either can't hack it or realize that they don't like medicine?
Click to expand...

in the same sense that one could say anyone who was unhappy with their college just couldn't hack it or didn't like learning, sure.

of course you can't make that assumption.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Originally posted by dookbloo
which schools are known for having this?
Click to expand...

No bias here cause I got a rejection from this school. But I've heard from many students going to other medical schools that DMS has one of the happiest student body in the nation. I believe there is a centralized national survey as well on this...check it ou!

-Harps
 
I honestly think the students at Yale are the happiest in the nation.

CCW
 
Originally posted by Mr Reddly
I have to say that I was able to find places where the students were not the happiest. I tried to find students outside of the tour (the computer lab and library are good for this) and talk to them... I really tried to probe. I also tried to find Cali students at each school so as to get the perspective of someone with similar perspectives. They do exist and give better / more encitefull answers than the tour guides... no offense to the tour guides.:horns:
Click to expand...

Stop dancing already Mr. Reddly...

Anyways, some tour guides are actually relatively honest and will tell you what they don't like. After hearing what they say, I still find that those are stuff I can tolerate.
 
Originally posted by Mr Reddly
<--- *stops dancing long enough to make a face at CalbeE* :p
Click to expand...


That's an awesome avatar, Mr. Reddly. I'm a big fan of Calvin & Hobbes. :D
 
Originally posted by Mr Reddly
<--- *stops dancing long enough to make a face at CalbeE* :p
Click to expand...

Oh my gosh I can't stop laughing, but Calvin (That's the boy right?) doesn't have red head though! ;)
 
Originally posted by Mr Reddly
arteest.gif

If you look at the big pic, there is a *little* bit of red there. But to change the hair like I did in the other one, I'd need to change the shirt also (too much red). I didn't have the heart cuz the pic is awesome. Besides, whad you expect in 10 minutes?

BTW, I think that's the second time I was able to make you laugh! Glad to be of service. :)
Click to expand...

When was the first time???

I spent so much time editing my avatar (It's from the show Alias) that I don't wanna change it anymore
 
I don't understand ... what happened to the big Calvin pic? I was gonna save it to use as the wallpaper on my desktop. :idea:
 
Sorry. I tend to delete pointless posts. I didn't think my conversation with CalbeE added much to the value of SDN. The topic of this thread is 'happiest student body' after all. It became more of a lounge topic...I was actually over 100 posts at one point!... Here ya go...
hobbs3.jpg
 
The show was good. I actually never watched it on TV, but picked up the DVD at Blockbuster. It blew me mind cause the plot's so good.

Anyways, I actually took the original image (High quality), and I did some sharpening, emphasize edge, then shrink it. Honestly I'm not good with those stuff so it become pixeled (I didn't even realize that, it looks fine to me). I also changed the hue myself cause blue looks weird when shrinked.

There we go, I updated my avatar with your version, thanks ;)

Oh and we're hijacking this thread here LOL
 
Originally posted by Cooper_Wriston
I honestly think the students at Yale are the happiest in the nation.

CCW
Click to expand...

I would be very happy if I was able to attend Yale.
 
From what I've noticed, students who go straight to med school from college tend to complain more, not matter which school it is. Students who've had to do post-bac work or are switching careers seem more able to make the best of the situation. It's almost as though the more smoothly the application process goes, the more you find to hate once you get there, regardless of the school.
 
when i interviewed at GW i partied with about 30+ first years... ALL but one of them was having the time of their life at the school... stress, yes... but not too much that they couldn't relax and enjoy life... and life is good in DC... its why GW was my top choice
 
freddydpt said:
when i interviewed at GW i partied with about 30+ first years... ALL but one of them was having the time of their life at the school... stress, yes... but not too much that they couldn't relax and enjoy life... and life is good in DC... its why GW was my top choice
Click to expand...

I had a similar experience when I was applying to med school. GW really showed me a good time. Their first years were a blast to hang out with and seemed like a fairly tight knit group. I didn't end up matriculating there, but it wasn't for lack of a good time. :)
 
Honestly, I think the more competitive the school, the less happy the student body. For someone to say Yale has the happiest students just makes me laugh. New Haven isn't exactly a nice place and with the amount of work an average student does at Yale Med <shudder>...
Seriously, intelligent people are more likely to be depressed, unhappy etc. You can b!tch and moan and pretend like this isn't the case, but at the same time, the smartest people i know are always the unhappiest (and there are plenty of psychology studies about this).

Ignorance is bliss, and a top 10 medical school is not where people are going to be known for their happiness.

Finally - to each their own. I don't think there's that big a difference between most schools besides the local area they're in.
 
People in my school claim they are happy..Don't give two s**t about them though...as long as I am happy..

The student body's pretty good as well

Anyway, anyone here from the UK med schools(most of them) as well as Dalhousie, and Calgary? Your dean's were at my school last week..really nice people
 
Panda Bear said:
Would it be fair to say that the only people who are unhappy in medical school, regardless of where they attend, either can't hack it or realize that they don't like medicine?
Click to expand...

No. In fact, anyone who likes the basic science years in medicine is probably nuts. You go into medicine to be a doctor. The first two years of med school are far from it.
 
this is just my story as an interviewee so you can take it for what it's worth :)


i received an interview at Vanderbilt, but wasn't going to go .. when i was on a plane going to UTSouthwestern after interviewing at WashU, i met a 4th year Vandy student who also interviewed at WashU for an orthopaedic surgery residency .. she raved about her school and really wanted me to at least check it out .. unfortunately my interview at Vandy was just a few days later, but i managed to book a flight, but was too late to arrange a place to stay .. when i got to Nashville, i called the girl i met on the plane (she gave me her #), but she was away at another interview .. she called her friends who drove all the way to the airport to pick me up .. took me back to their friend's place to watch football and have pizza ... and basically these ppl were fighting over who got to host me ..

i chose the place that had an extra room and bathroom and we spent our time together going through my host's costumes (she wore costumes to every exam) and pictures .. it really seemed to me that the class was cohesive and enjoyed a lot of activities together .. and i stayed with a student who wasn't part of the whole "student host" bit, but was still eager to have me at her place ..

even my interviewer told me how the students always watched out for each other .. having been an attending at UTSouthwestern and at Vandy, he noticed that the students at Vandy don't try to outshine another .. if an attending asks a 3rd year a question and he doesn't know the answer, another student won't try to answer the question for him and everyone lets the attending say the answer .. my interviewer said it was very admirable, but unlike any other interviewer i met, he didn't want to give me a biased opinion .. he had me go with him on rounds where i could meet his vietnamese 3rd year .. he felt that she would give me a more appropriate perspective since i'm vietnamese as well, and i noticed the student population at Vandy had little URMs and asians ...

thank god my interviewer set me up to speak with his student because she seemed fairly unenthusiastic about the place .. it lacked cultural diversity (which is important to me) .. i think what really matters is the kind of person you think you are, and if a student body at a school reflects that .. b/c even if Vandy has the happiest students (they say they are ranked #1 in that category), i might not be happy with them ...













someone else mentioned Yale .. i have to say that i met 3 students that were bitter about not being interviewed/accepted to UCSF so they've made the best of their opportunities at Yale .. the student i stayed with had some complaints about the student body, mainly that they didn't know how to party .. (and since i partied with them on two nights, i can say that if i had a choice of partying with them or go to NYC for the wkend, i'd go to NYC) ... i liked Yale b/c the students seemed to have a lot of free time, but i don't think that they're happy .........


i was even introduced to a student b/c she was known for being unhappy about the place .. it lacked zest and culture ... i guess you can see that i'm someone who finds that important, but another person may not care .. it all depends on who you are and what you're looking for .. as for me, i feel like i fit in with the students at UCSF and UCLA best, but there are other great programs that i like and may be too hard to pass up even if i may not fit in with the majority of the students ...
 
Neuronix said:
No. In fact, anyone who likes the basic science years in medicine is probably nuts. You go into medicine to be a doctor. The first two years of med school are far from it.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with this. I go to a school that has a reputation for having "happy students". But honestly, and yes, I do say this to tour groups, I'm pretty miserable right now. There is really nothing about sitting on my butt for hours on end trying to make sense of neuroanatomy that I find incredibly enjoyable. But that'd be true no matter where I was. However, I absolutely love my fellow classmates. They're the reason why I can honestly say that I am happy at my school.
 
imagine coming up w/ a concensus to a question like this. that'de be like everyone agreeing on a religion or something. ok, carry on..
 
Mr. Rosewater said:
imagine coming up w/ a concensus to a question like this. that'de be like everyone agreeing on a religion or something. ok, carry on..
Click to expand...

LOL, good point :laugh:
 
edmadison said:
Rochester Students are amazingly happy in my biased opinion. It was probably the number one thing that attracted me to the school.

Ed
Click to expand...
BoooYaaahhh!!!
 
Sweet Tea said:
I completely agree with this. I go to a school that has a reputation for having "happy students". But honestly, and yes, I do say this to tour groups, I'm pretty miserable right now. There is really nothing about sitting on my butt for hours on end trying to make sense of neuroanatomy that I find incredibly enjoyable. But that'd be true no matter where I was. However, I absolutely love my fellow classmates. They're the reason why I can honestly say that I am happy at my school.
Click to expand...
I cant agree with Sweet Tea and Neuronix more strongly. I honestly would rather have a root canal than study histology. I have learned some cool stuff in my first year (phys is easily my favorite subject), but I've also learned a lot of inane material that I can't imagine will ever be of practical use in the care of patients (such as the wonders of the "sonic hedgehog gene" and the fact that fascia changes names when it goes through different structures in the lower abdominal/inginual regions, its still f***ing fascia +pissed+). I dont find medical school particularly academically challenging...pretty much every non phys ed course I took during my last 2 years of college was infinitely more indepth and analytical than my first year of med school. Its just gruesome, insanely BORING, rote memorization of factoids, and I think I would not be enthralled by that aspect of med school anywhere I went. If you actually find ALL of the minutia of the first year entertaining, I would suggest you see a shrink.

That said, all in all I am very happy here at Cornell. Our curriculum I feel does a great job of allowing you to self direct your learning, and all the resources provided to us are usually superb and present the material in a "to the point" manner, and the small group stuff we do is a nice change of pace, but that doesnt work for everyone I'm sure. I thoroughly enjoy the clinical experiences I've been able to take part in, and my classmates are generally an amazing group of people (with a few glaring exceptions), and I've gotten to explore a great city in my short time here.
 
Peterock said:
Honestly, I think the more competitive the school, the less happy the student body. For someone to say Yale has the happiest students just makes me laugh. New Haven isn't exactly a nice place and with the amount of work an average student does at Yale Med <shudder>...
Seriously, intelligent people are more likely to be depressed, unhappy etc. You can b!tch and moan and pretend like this isn't the case, but at the same time, the smartest people i know are always the unhappiest (and there are plenty of psychology studies about this).

Ignorance is bliss, and a top 10 medical school is not where people are going to be known for their happiness.

Finally - to each their own. I don't think there's that big a difference between most schools besides the local area they're in.
Click to expand...

are you joking? besides my love of new haven. . . yale is one of the most low-stress med schools around! people who busted their butt to get into yale can relax a ton once they get there; at least in the first 2 years. no worry about rank or grades AT ALL.


oh yeah. . .and you can always go to NYC whenever you want. ..who could ask for more? :)
 
Bu and tufts have reps for being competitive.
 
care bear said:
are you joking? besides my love of new haven. . . yale is one of the most low-stress med schools around! people who busted their butt to get into yale can relax a ton once they get there; at least in the first 2 years. no worry about rank or grades AT ALL.

oh yeah. . .and you can always go to NYC whenever you want. ..who could ask for more? :)
Click to expand...

The type of people who get into Yale Med and Law do not know how to relax. I'm respect them for not ranking or even worse say they don't rank and have a conspicuous grading system like high pass / pass / low pass / fail.
 
Peterock said:
The type of people who get into Yale Med and Law do not know how to relax. I'm respect them for not ranking or even worse say they don't rank and have a conspicuous grading system like high pass / pass / low pass / fail.
Click to expand...

@ Yale, I've heard it's more like "Pass Now" or "Pass Later" ....shweeet :)
 
I think it's hard to compare levels of happiness at different schools. I think most people tend to be happy with the med school they pick. Maybe that's because schools are all the same at some level or maybe it's that once you've chosen a school, you want to be happy there, so you tend to be more forgiving when something goes wrong.

I can understand what happens when people give tours. One of my friends who's in med school complains about his school to his friends, but when he talks to prospectives he sells it like anyone else. I think the truth is that overall he is satisfied with the school, and complaining helps him deal with the inevitable negative stuff, but he knows if he says something negative to a prospective they will totally discount the school, and he really doesn't want that to happen, so he keeps it all positive.

As for Yale, they may or may not have the happiest students, but I think the fact that they brag about it indicates that they want their students to be happy, and this has to count for something.
 
There's a book that gives you a description of med schools from a former student's viewpoint. It's associated with U-Wire. If you're interested I'll post the title when I'm home if you can't find it with that much.

It's only one guy's opinion, but that's something.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

C
Happiest MD schools?
Replies
14
Views
5K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
2
Happiest med students
Replies
44
Views
15K
Matthew9Thirtyfive
Matthew9Thirtyfive
W
Worried About Being Overweight
Replies
10
Views
1K
jhmmd
jhmmd
findoc
“The Body: A Guide for Occupants” by Bill Bryson
Replies
1
Views
482
kritten
K
mariposas905
Ways to describe the human body
Replies
13
Views
1K
Matthew9Thirtyfive
Matthew9Thirtyfive
Top