high school useless?

[yowhatup]

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Is high school useless? I did very well on my SAT, but had a horrible hs GPA..... but am acing college and applying to med schoool rite now... the question arises now: does high school at all predict future success... it def did not for me

 

[DrMattOglesby]

you do well in high school (and said standardized test) and then you can get into a really fancy pants college.
this fancy pants college will look really good on your application to med school and impress the adcoms.
your 'success' (getting good grades) is something I would attribute more to motivation than a dormant intelligence.

 

[shaggybill]

does high school at all predict future success

It can, but it doesn't have to. I am living proof. I was the worst HS student of all time, academically speaking. It took me three years to compete Algebra 1. Granted, a B was the lowest passing grade at my school, but I still could not have cared less about my education during high school.

 

[veaselhaufen]

\

 

[MilkmanAl]

High school is more for social maturation and developing thought processes than for actual learning. That changes a bit senior year, but the first three years are just sort of elementary school+.

 

[littlealex]

HS success helps. Many med schools recruits heavily from fancy pants colleges.

-edit- recruit was a poor word choice. I meant many med schools have feeder schools that they're more likely to accept from. Many fancy pants colleges are proportionally very over-represented at top medical schools.

My point was simply that high school isn't useless. Doing well in high school gets you into a smancy college, where if you do well against the competition you'll have a better shot at med school.

-10 of comprehension for folks on this board.

 

[njbmd]

HS success helps. Many med schools recruits heavily from fancy pants colleges.

Sorry to burst your bubble but no allopathic medical schools in the United States are "recruiting" students from any colleges. We are trying to handle the heavy application load that came in this year. We have more than enough well-qualified applicants and have rejected more than a few folks who would have otherwise been accepted in a less-competitive year.

 

[TehDoc]

Barely.

 

[SiR99]

High school matters, if you do well and really learn all the information in AP Chemistry, AP Biology, AP Physics, AP Math and AP english, Then you will be starting with a very good foundation when you start your first year of college. So you will basically be relearning all your introductory classes.

Also the better you do in highschool, the more you can have a say in where you would like to go to college, and the better colleges usually have a better atmosphere and group of students.

Its important to have fun in highschool, but you have to take it seriously, its basically the foundation of your entire future.

 

[QuaerensIntelle]

I made about 15 k off of doing well in high school and chose not to go to a fancy pants school (I was told at the time that medical schools didn't care where you did your undergrad). *shrug* 15 k is pretty nice-paid for my study abroad etc.

 

[ChairmanMao]

Sorry to burst your bubble but no allopathic medical schools in the United States are "recruiting" students from any colleges. We are trying to handle the heavy application load that came in this year. We have more than enough well-qualified applicants and have rejected more than a few folks who would have otherwise been accepted in a less-competitive year.

Agreed. Trust me, even if you went to the most selective school in the world, no one's going to be knocking down the door to recruit you if you can barely graduate. Medical schools care more about what you did in college, what your GPA and MCAT scores are than what high school or college you went to.

While it might make a small difference when they choose between two equally qualified candidate with similar GPA and MCAT, don't make the mistake of thinking that a 3.0 at Harvard, Hopkins, or MIT is superior to a 3.7 at South Harmon Institute of Technology. So yeah, high school performance means nothing. You could have flunked out, been homeless, lived in the subways for a few years, and then gone to a community college and gotten a 4.0 and it would probably count more than a 3.5 at Princeton.

 

[calnation]

LOL. I love how the term, "fancy pants college", was used like 5 times in this thread.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I have a couple of friends (brother and sister) who thought highschool was a waste of time. So they dropped out and purposely got GEDs ecause they thought their highschool was not that great.

Erm...I don't exactly recommend this process. While I don't think high school is all that important in terms of what you learn, it's vital in instilling how you learn. Beyond that, there's the obvious functional difference between a GED and a high school diploma. A diploma will make getting into college and going about your business much easier. Dropping out is a poor option.

 

[Nanon]

Erm...I don't exactly recommend this process. While I don't think high school is all that important in terms of what you learn, it's vital in instilling how you learn. Beyond that, there's the obvious functional difference between a GED and a high school diploma. A diploma will make getting into college and going about your business much easier. Dropping out is a poor option.

As a hs dropout, I concur with most of this. It took me MUCH LONGER to get through college than it should have, and I really struggled initially. As in, struggled to get a C in beginning algebra.

However, there are options for people to go to pretty good colleges with a GED, via transferring from community colleges. And, IMHO, it's a financially smart move. Most community colleges cost hardly anything, and if you do well, you can transfer to top schools with very little debt. Then you only pay for a few years of regular college tuition. I graduated with no debt.

What I wish I would have done is transfered as a psychology major, taken my pre-reqs at the 4 year, (or even a post bacc). I would have had a much better ugrad gpa.

S.

 

[Zaibatsu]

As another viewpoint in the thread, for a good 15 minutes of my interview at IUSM I was asked about my activities in high school including GPA, extracurriculars, volunteering and my SAT score. It could be unique to the school I interviewed at but it caught me completely by surprise.

 

[tncekm]

High School won't make or break you (lucky for me). But, IMHO doing well in high school and going to fancy pants college can be helpful... as long as you're not $120k in debt before med school starts and end up with sub-par/mediocre GPA and MCAT

 

[tncekm]

Sorry to burst your bubble but no allopathic medical schools in the United States are "recruiting" students from any colleges. We are trying to handle the heavy application load that came in this year. We have more than enough well-qualified applicants and have rejected more than a few folks who would have otherwise been accepted in a less-competitive year.

I keep hearing about this insane app year... can you quantify it? I mean, are we talking 5%, 10%, 20% more applicants? I'm really curious 🙂

 

[p30doc]

Is high school useless?

Was for me, teachers were terrible, school was terrible, I basically learned nothing besides how to breeze my way through classes.

 

[MilkmanAl]

as long as you're not $120k in debt before med school starts and end up with sub-par/mediocre GPA and MCAT

2 outta 3 ain't bad. 😛

I keep hearing about this insane app year... can you quantify it? I mean, are we talking 5%, 10%, 20% more applicants? I'm really curious

As of early August, this year was up about 2% or so, if i remember correctly. That number might be much greater now. I haven't heard.

 

[tncekm]

2%? I'm not an ADCOM, but that really doesn't seem like much.... hmm... w/e 😀 And no, 2/3 ain't bad, especially when the 3rd one is no longer a concern for you! 👍

 

[MilkmanAl]

Well, I actually meant I have 2 of those things. That makes it significantly less cool.

 

[tncekm]

Well, I actually meant I have 2 of those things. That makes it significantly less cool.

Hmm.... I'm hoping that, for some strange reason, you think your MCAT score is "mediocre" b/c having $120k in debt before medical school would have to suck 😀

 

[MilkmanAl]

Why yes, yes it would. Just ask my friend here. His name is "me." So, me, how do you feel about Sallie Mae owning your soul? Well, me, it's pretty awesome. I can't wait to spend the first decade of my professional life paying off loans. Oh, so they chose the extra large butt plug for you? They did, indeed.

 

[tncekm]

Why yes, yes it would. Just ask my friend here. His name is "me." So, me, how do you feel about Sallie Mae owning your soul? Well, me, it's pretty awesome. I can't wait to spend the first decade of my professional life paying off loans. Oh, so they chose the extra large butt plug for you? They did, indeed.

Ouch! That sounds pretty "crappy" (lame pun intended). My $20k in debt includes me entirely paying off my base model honda civic, which will last me through my residency!

 

[45408]

While there can clearly be exceptions, if we took all the top students in college and looked at their high school records, you're not going to find that they were all pothead slackers that just scraped by. It's all about inertia. If you're lazy in high school, you're likely to stay lazy in college. Some manage to find motivation, but no one in my HS class who was a poor student in HS has become an excellent student in college (yes, I do know what all of them are doing - it was a small class).

 

[MilkmanAl]

Right...I wasn't insinuating that you endorsed dropping out of high school. There will always be a few people who see statements like that and think "Hey, I'm smart and don't like high school. I can do that too!" I was merely pointing out why staying in high school is smarter, no matter how much you might dislike it.

 

[chemolupusMD]

i think that high school success is useless, fine it will get u to some schools but it doesnt tell you how good you are going to do in college. I was number 600 in my 900 class, got a ~900 in my SAT, and now i accepted to some med schools. My high school "success" doesnt speak about my future.

 

[searun]

I excelled in high school - which got me an academic merit scholarship to a highly regarded liberal arts college - which translated into about $130,000 in tuition that I did not have to pay (or borrow). So working hard in high school was definitely not a waste of time for me. Oh, and all of those AP credits were nice too. And then I worked hard in college which opened the door to med school. The Prowler is right, all of the slackers I knew in high school are still slackers, sitting in their crummy apartments smoking pot and drinking cheap beer.

 

[silas2642]

Is high school useless? I did very well on my SAT, but had a horrible hs GPA..... but am acing college and applying to med schoool rite now... the question arises now: does high school at all predict future success... it def did not for me

No, the high school years were not useless because all the drama that was in high school comes back in med school. Oh, wait you were talking about ACADEMIC success... I have no idea.

 

[Chemist0157]

Success in high school is pretty meaningless. The requirements to get A's are just so low; teachers often don't really expect that much from you. I know people who had horrible high school GPAs, but they are doing great in college/grad. school. They had bad grades since they just didn't care. Success in college is partly psychological since we have a sense of purpose because we chose to come to college and wish to do well. No one chooses to go to high school.

 

[Chemist0157]

I actually went to a pretty good private high school, but I now think back to really how little we had to do compared to undergrad. It'll probably be the same way when we're in medical school looking back at undergrad., lol.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I'd say it's more like 3-4 weeks of one class in med school is an undergrad semester, but that's still pretty insane when you consider you'll have 2-3 classes at a time.

 

[gabem480]

I was forced to drop out of highschool because I had a kid young but I got a GED and am doing fine in undergrad.

 

[SlickNickMD]

don't think it really matters either. I basically flunked out of high school 4 or 5 years ago. Don't think there are really any ramifications as I have been invited for 17 md interviews now.

It's kind of funny how they make it seem like doing poorly in high school will make for a miserable life.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frGLMtGsotc/YOUTUBE]

 

[milliya]

actually i think undergrad is more useless than high school...

 

[littlealex]

actually i think undergrad is more useless than high school...

You either went to the wrong undergrad or selected the wrong major.

College not only prepared me for work and med school, it changed the way I think about the world.

 

[tncekm]

You either went to the wrong undergrad or selected the wrong major.

College not only prepared me for work and med school, it changed the way I think about the world.

x2

Specifically, I have learned to think critically and not assume what I read or learn is true. (And I developed work ethic.)

 

[potato head]

Is high school useless? I did very well on my SAT, but had a horrible hs GPA..... but am acing college and applying to med schoool rite now... the question arises now: does high school at all predict future success... it def did not for me

i think for the most part college success is the biggest factor for medical school. at least for the application.

my case is the opposite from many here in that i did stellar in high school, but mediocre at best in college, and i'm paying the consequences now as i apply.

doing well in high school may get you in a top university, which may (or may not) factor into your med school application. but as far as directly referencing anything you did in high school, i believe TMDSAS asks for you SAT scores and an interviewer once asked what what h.s. activities i had. but that's about it.

and from my personal past, both high school and college were rather profound learning experiences.

 

[bcat85]

Is high school useless?

Professionally... yes. But I had a pretty good time.

does high school at all predict future success... it def did not for me

Not necessarily. If you don't get into college at all.. then yes. Otherwise... no. I would submit that there is probably a correlation though.