How competitive do you get with your pre-med friends?

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Quester

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I tell all my buddies about my summer plan (research, volunteer, school, etc...) but I find that some of them are very hesitant to even share the fact that they got research positions for the summer.

I guess my question is, how open are you guys about your typical "pre-med" activities? Am I just being too friendly and blabber mouth; hence, losing the "edge"? To what extent do you share your med school-related activities?
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Pre-meds don't have friends.
 
BS. We do. We have friends in the pre med field and motivate eachother. Idk about you...I have friends. We all push each other.
 
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GiladJaffe said:
BS. We do. We have friends in the pre med field and motivate eachother. Idk about you...I have friends. We all push each other.
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Same, the majority of my friends who are also pre-med discuss the research and programs they are trying to get into. They also offer to let me apply to them as well.
We generally help each other out when we can, or at least maintain friendly conversations.

I really don't know where this typical pre-med stigma comes from. We do get a little competitive sometimes but it's more just to see who's working harder or being more productive. I have yet to see the neurotic and unsocial pre-med that most people describe, maybe I just haven't been in college long enough yet.
 
GiladJaffe said:
BS. We do. We have friends in the pre med field and motivate eachother. Idk about you...I have friends. We all push each other.
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*shudder* don't push me





also, if you pushed me and i pushed you, wouldn't we not really get anywhere?



5013%20WDYBT%20pushing%20bookends%20450_2.jpg
 
We play around about competition, but really we help each other out a lot. I'm more competitive than any of my friends, but the competition isn't fierce. The worst is just poking fun when I beat someone on a test or they tease me if they beat me. Other than that we're always on the lookout if someone needs a volunteering position or research position we always let each other know.
 
I have a few pre-med friends, I think most of them spend too much studying and complain about the wrong classes. I mean they complain about not liking history while they are completely crazy for chemistry. I mean sometimes I feel that these people are so dull that they won't need anesthesia.
But then I'm the type who would without a doubt go into psychology of history if it paid some cash. To bad we live in a world where the humanities don't pay as much as sciences do... *SIGH*

But other then that I have one pre-med friend who's pretty nice, the majority of my friends are mostly humanities/ teaching.
 
I don't really hang out with pre-med kids. The MCAT and coursework are intense enough, so I use the time I spend with my buddies as a way to escape from it. Most my friends are engineers or going into the ministry.
 
I don't have any close pre-med friends, but even when I did, I was hardly competitive with them. Never really cared about what others were doing.
 
Well, I had a "friend" who was not doing well in physics classes, so I helped him out. I helped him out in hw, quiz preparation, and I even gave him my biochem old exams to prepare. The more I help him the more he gets jealous of me. After my junior year, I was suffering from depression, because I realized that I don't have a green card, so I cannot apply to any in state schools, so I couldn't study for MCAT and did tons of research instead. When I told him about this, he was the happiest man in the entire world.

Another "friend" of mine, I helped him out in organic chemistry classes. I advised him how to do well in orgo, let him borrow my orgo kit and textbooks and even showed him my orgo lab reports. As a friend, I helped him out when he was moving too. But he still cannot hide his burning jealousy towards me, and I can tell that he dislikes me so much.

Another "friend" of mine, before he met me, he was not the most stellar premed getting straight Bs in orgo, chem and others. I helped him out in biochem and advised him to do volunteering and research which he never did until his junior year. I don't know why, but this advise and encouragement gave him an intense, competitive feeling against me, and his GPA exceeded mine by 0.05. Now he is talking as if he is better than me in every way. He is still foolish and perverse enough to think that doing 100 hours in volunteering is a lot. I am just too disappointed at him and am not going to help him out anymore.
 
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i am competitive by nature. but not with my pre-med friends. for I have already taken care of them. hehe

kidding, no most of my pre-med friends are very friendly and care-free hippies.

<3
 
to be honest i don't think those people are you friends so much as your acquaintances. I mean I never shared my activities unless I was asked about them with people who I was even on good terms with but didn't hang out with outside of class that often. i'm by nature a doom and gloom guy, so i usually ended up confiding in my friends all my problems like when i thought I failed the MCAT or I thought I was going to do poorly in a class. However, none of them were bio majors...

i think even in that case though people aren't trying to one up each other so much as trying not too brag. applying to medical school is a really arduous process, so you don't really want to end up giving the impression that you're rubbing other peoples faces in your accomplishments. plus there's always someone better than you...
 
I am not competitive with my premed friends. those who have applied, we discuss what schools we're interviewing at and compare notes etc. those who haven't, i give advice freely. I don't tell everyone EVERYTHING, but if someone asks I tell.

And the "burning jealousy" comments from libraryismyhome made me :laugh: hard!
 
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I didn't major in biology/chemistry, so I have lots of great friends. :laugh: While this is a really funny generalization (I think), it really just depends on the individual person.

I do have premed friends, but we just don't really like talking about it (as if it's not stressful enough). We're not competitive at all, it's not like anyone's success needs to come with anyone else's failure.

In fact, I went with one of them to take the MCAT together... fun times.
 
libraryismyhome said:
Well, I had a "friend" who was not doing well in physics classes, so I helped him out. I helped him out in hw, quiz preparation, and I even gave him my biochem old exams to prepare. The more I help him the more he gets jealous of me. After my junior year, I was suffering from depression, because I realized that I don't have a green card, so I cannot apply to any in state schools, so I couldn't study for MCAT and did tons of research instead. When I told him about this, he was the happiest man in the entire world.

Another "friend" of mine, I helped him out in organic chemistry classes. I advised him how to do well in orgo, let him borrow my orgo kit and textbooks and even showed him my orgo lab reports. As a friend, I helped him out when he was moving too. But he still cannot hide his burning jealousy towards me, and I can tell that he dislikes me so much.

Another "friend" of mine, before he met me, he was not the most stellar premed getting straight Bs in orgo, chem and others. I helped him out in biochem and advised him to do volunteering and research which he never did until his junior year. I don't know why, but this advise and encouragement gave him an intense, competitive feeling against me, and his GPA exceeded mine by 0.05. Now he is talking as if he is better than me in every way. He is still foolish and perverse enough to think that doing 100 hours in volunteering is a lot. I am just too disappointed at him and am not going to help him out anymore.
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Please explain your Mendelssohn stamp/profile picture thing!! :D

I don't share ANY info with them about my pre-med related extracurricular activities... It's sad... I know... But true.
 
I've found that being close friends with (and in my case, living with) science majors helps ease a lot of the stress. If all of your friends are always going out when you have an o chem test to study for, it's kind of depressing. For the most part, the pre-meds at my university all help one another out. We recommend one another for research programs we've been in in the past, etc. There is of course always one person who gets a little competitive (I have been called at 11 PM 10 min. after grades were posted for an exam)

However, when you're applying to med school, it's kind of a different story. Two friends and I applied this season. Although we answered one another's questions and shared resources, it was an unspoken rule between us that we wouldn't discuss secondary invites, interviews, or acceptances. It wasn't so much because of competition but because we didn't want to rub a success in the other's face or be made more anxious by finding out that one received a secondary/interview/acceptance when we did not. This helped keep me semi-sane during apps.
 
girlofgrace7 said:
I've found that being close friends with (and in my case, living with) science majors helps ease a lot of the stress.
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I disagree, actually. Most of my good friends are business/English/humanities majors, and I like this because it forces me to stay in touch with the real world and actually go out. Truth be told, I'd be an English major if I could do it over.
 
I dont really have any pre-med friends. I try to avoid them actually. :D
I would prefer to spend my free time with people who are interested in and can pursue fun. The few I have to be associated with I'm not competitive at all. I tend to be a pretty secure person so I dont mind yelling at the top of my lungs my bad MCAT score, or how I forgot most of my biochem after the final, or even that I think there is much more to life than medicine. Those usually all gets stares and snickers (not the candy bars). That being said, I'm going to med school, so whats to be competitive about?

I do hate those uptight mofos that are like, "I dont share grades". what a load of crap. In fact, most of these are med students so thats even worse. Smug bastards. :cool: Usually I find out they are the ones who took MCAT 3 times, applied 3 or 4 times and are struggling in their classes. Maybe if you "shared" a bit more you might get some help and support. I've got no sympathy for this type.

Ok, calm down.....whoosah..... Ok I'm cool now.
 
nuneyah said:
Please explain your Mendelssohn stamp/profile picture thing!! :D
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Well, Mendelssohn is currently my fav composer, because I love his chamber music especially quartets.+pity++pity++pity++pity+It's sounds like he is solving a complex math problem with intense excitement, joy, tension and sometimes anger. Then he always resolves it at the end.

I thank Beethoven so much for influencing him to be the romanticist and freeing his mind from gay classical era.
 
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My friends who tried to compete with me irritated me to the point where I didn't want to hang out with them. Not because they were doing better (they weren't), but because it became the only thing they'd ever talk about.

This is much the same reason why I don't go to lunch with the people I work with. I don't want to talk about work, it's lame.
 
I'm not competitive. I don't care to hear other people gloating, and I don't tend to gloat. My undergrad forced us to cooperate, not compete. I often shared my activities and experiences when I thought my friends might be interested in similar activities.

Edit: And I sound like a profound as*hat in this post. Just call me The Future Dr. McDingus.
 
every pre-med I ever knew in undergrad only wanted to talk about "what is your GPA", or "how did you do on that last test?". They were pretty much all anal-retentive, and obsessive compulsive, especially when it came to studying. nothing wrong with that, but it's not the crew I liked.

I devoted myself to sports, so thankfully I didn't have to deal with my class' premeds too much.


*edit* plus, gotta love all the kids freshman year who listed themselves as "pre med" as their major--when no such major existed at my school. So basically anyone who touted themselves as a pre med was very unlikeable by me. And yes I am a jerk.
 
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osteohopeful09 said:
every pre-med I ever knew in undergrad only wanted to talk about "what is your GPA", or "how did you do on that last test?". They were pretty much all anal-retentive, and obsessive compulsive, especially when it came to studying. nothing wrong with that, but it's not the crow I liked.

I devoted myself to sports, so thankfully I didn't have to deal with my class' premeds too much.


*edit* plus, gotta love all the kids freshman year who listed themselves as "pre med" as their major--when no such major existed at my school. So basically anyone who touted themselves as a pre med was very unlikeable by me. And yes I am a jerk.
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Answers: It's alright. I did alright.
 
:thumbup:

Good move. GPA and test scores are so personal. That reminds me, I need to nuke my "what are my chances" thread. :eek:
 
Is there anyone here who has disliked 90% of the pre-meds they met?

Hopefully medical students are more interesting.
 
i don't really talk about that stuff with other pre-meds i am friends with. I don't like to mix business with pleasure ;-)
 
TooMuchResearch said:
Answers: It's alright. I did alright.
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This was my answer too when that *one* annoying premed kept asking about my grades and MCAT scores. He even asked my dad about every secondary I got and if I got any UC interviews or acceptances. He ALWAYS talks about school. I hate it when people do that. I have a couple of rules including that after the test I don't want to talk about the test no matter how good/bad I felt I did. He always talks to me after the test. argh.

Needless to say, anytime I see him approaching, I quite literally run in another direction. I wonder if he got it yet...
 
Hifey said:
I hate it when people do that. I have a couple of rules including that after the test I don't want to talk about the test no matter how good/bad I felt I did. He always talks to me after the test. argh.
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Haha... I feel the exact same way. It's over. Let it be... and no, I don't want to tell you when we get the tests back whether my grade was higher or lower than your 96% bc you will either gloat or get super competitive (one guy told everyone at an interview we were at that "[I am his] nemesis... but [I don't] realize it").

I laughed when you were all whining about the cut-throat pre-meds. Since I go to a small university, there are very few of those types. For the most part, we study hard, but we all help each other out and are friends (go on trips together, etc.).
 
Ever since I got into medical school, I've sensed awkwardness from everyone (but my family and close friends). I swear I am going to stop telling people b/c they act weirdly
 
We are in a cohort of 18 people. For the most part I see all the re-meds together at least once a day. 16 of us are women, and making friends we go to visit med schools together. Many of us are from disadvantaged backgrounds in some way. So we have a common threa among us. All of us kind of cling to one another and have friends all over campus. Some of my best friends are Education and Ministry Majors. It's an intereting mix/group.

All the majors push on each other to perform well. We're all after the sme thing doing what we feel our purpose in life is. Getting into the pre-med program is pretty rough, and the pre-med program itself is rigourous.

I failed one test in a class, and I kept on the class doing the homework and going. I got a text that was incredibly encouraging, begging me not to give up, and talking about how she wouldn't let me fail.

I haven' run up on competition, I am sure it's there, but nothing like the stereotypes I've heard. All the pre-meds are pretty social, and attend a lot of school events, Ie sports events, we all try to make 1 - 5 events a month depending on workload.

A
 
I don't talk about pre-med stuff with the few pre-med friends I have. You end up comparing yourself to others whether you mean to or not, so I just avoid all of that from the start. They do their thing and I just do my own thing.
 
Quester said:
I tell all my buddies about my summer plan (research, volunteer, school, etc...) but I find that some of them are very hesitant to even share the fact that they got research positions for the summer.

I guess my question is, how open are you guys about your typical "pre-med" activities? Am I just being too friendly and blabber mouth; hence, losing the "edge"? To what extent do you share your med school-related activities?
Click to expand...

Haha, been there, done that. I helped out this one sucker a TON, giving him advice on so many things and helping him study (even though he was a year ahead) and one day, when I told him something untoward, he got so flared up that he wrote me this long email with a sentence that basically stated that he would get into HMS, and I would go to the "worse" school. Haha. Talk about immature. This guy can't even spell "steal" correctly-I still have this email where he wrote "steel". Stupid FOBs and premeds- gotta love them!
 
I compete against myself. The only time I've directly considered anyone my competition was in our competitively-graded ochem lab. Top 10%ish was mandatory for an A, regardless of whether the whole class had ~95%s. However, for the most part, I'm not around premeds -- I'm around other engineers and only a few of us really care a lot about our grades (one is prelaw, I'm premed, the other is preawesome). To be totally frank, the other premeds I know are not nearly as ambitious as I am with my plans =\. Would be nice to have someone to chat with about stuff off the internet =P
 
not competitive at all, for the most part. we struggle together and work together like a team. when one of us gets into med school, we're all happy and vice versa. we vent about rough exams and our anxieties and concerns because we know we understand each other. sure, i've known a few competitive people but for the most part, we treated each other like brothers and sisters.

then again, i went to a pretty good but certainly not uber-competitive school to begin with.
 
My best friend/roommate and I are both pre-med and enrolled in all the same classes. We study together all the time and usually ill score higher than him on a chem exam, but then he will score higher on the next one. We're not ever competitive at all. I find that where I go to school(Nebraska) everyone is extremely willing to help out other pre-meds with classes or labs or just school in general. Its really nice to have such a big support group.
 
I wish I had other pre-med friends. I just transferred and I live in a house with people who aren't even majoring in a science. It was really hard on me first semester when I was taking organic 1 because nobody understood how much studying had to be done with that class. On top of that I was always grouchy so they eventually stopped asking me to hang out with them :(
 
curbye said:
*shudder* don't push me





also, if you pushed me and i pushed you, wouldn't we not really get anywhere?



5013%20WDYBT%20pushing%20bookends%20450_2.jpg
Click to expand...

Agreed, also if we pushed each other the same amount, we'd never get any work done!
 
well back when i was in undergrad. my friends were most of my friends were premeds. We all took the same classes and did well. When we were around each other make it a big deal to not talk about grades, school and just enjoyed ourselves.

we never really tried to compete with one another because we'd realize that there is no absolute winner among each of us because we were all good / winners in our own right. thus we got a long pretty well.
 
My pre-med friends and I really helped eachother out- shared notes, studied together, etc. I had maybe 2-4 friends in each class to study with and 2 really good friends that I studied with multiple times a week even if our classes weren't the same. My friends knew I hated to go to lecture so I would get notes from them regularly.

Currently I am the only 1 in my group in med school but I hope they will be following soon.
 
Unfortunately, most of my friends at school are pre-meds. We're graduating and I'm applying a year later, so I'm not "competing" with anyone who gets in this year. My group (from my major) is great in terms of working together and being supportive of each other, but I'm tired of two things: 1.) those who are accepted giving pep talks to those who are wait-listed when they don't really mean it, and 2.) those who are accepted at top med schools still gunning for A's, even though their grades are basically irrelevant now.

I like studying with competitive students, and as a non-trad, I've learned great and very efficient study techniques from them. But some people need to give it a rest! Save that excess pride and energy for med school and residency when you'll really need it.
 
Just say your grade. E'[ROGIHJESR
 
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Ugh....my ex was premed too....bad combination. Why did we break up? "Work load is too hard" We're taking the same classes!! :p My school's tiny though. So the only premeds who are really competitive are the freshmen who have no clue what they've gotten themselves into. All the upper classmen are nice and helpfull :)
 
I don't. I treat them the same as everyone else.
 
Ill be completely honest. I am super competetive. Just today I met this 7 year old, played him in a game of HORSE and kicked his butt with no remorse. I don't know what to say except that its literally wired into me. I am not shovenistic about it and I certainly do not rub it into anyones face if I do succeed. I know that my friends do not appreciate my intend but I try to be a good sport about everything.

As for pre-med friends, its hard not to compete with people that are, hether anyone likes it or not, competing with you. For instance I have a friend who is in her early 30s and coming back to school to go to med school. She is a mom, a great student with an excellent GPA, and one of the nicest people I have ever met. We study together and help eachother out as much as possible but we let eachother know, if it came down to it, its every man for themselves. We keep this light hearted and on a friendly level but the competitive edge definitely helps us keep motivated to do better.

Just my opinion though.
 
riverjib said:
Unfortunately, most of my friends at school are pre-meds. We're graduating and I'm applying a year later, so I'm not "competing" with anyone who gets in this year. My group (from my major) is great in terms of working together and being supportive of each other, but I'm tired of two things: 1.) those who are accepted giving pep talks to those who are wait-listed when they don't really mean it, and 2.) those who are accepted at top med schools still gunning for A's, even though their grades are basically irrelevant now.

I like studying with competitive students, and as a non-trad, I've learned great and very efficient study techniques from them. But some people need to give it a rest! Save that excess pride and energy for med school and residency when you'll really need it.
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i dont know if there will ever be a shortage of pride in med school lol
 
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