How do you decide what advice to take and let go?

[2025hopeful]

It's been very difficult to gauge what sort of advice I should use and what I shouldn't.

Almost everyone, from advisors to admissions officers to medical students to SDN staff, seem to have wildly different opinions on how to construct a primary application, how many hours are "necessary", how competitive an applicant is, etc, etc.

It is nice to know that there are many ways to arrive at the same destination, but on the other hand, it's really confusing to receive (oftentimes) conflicting advice from different sources. I don't want to blindly listen to people, but it's also hard to critically sift through advice when I'm doing this for the first time myself.

Any advice?

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[wysdoc]

It's been very difficult to gauge what sort of advice I should use and what I shouldn't.

Almost everyone, from advisors to admissions officers to medical students to SDN staff, seem to have wildly different opinions on how to construct a primary application, how many hours are "necessary", how competitive an applicant is, etc, etc.

It is nice to know that there are many ways to arrive at the same destination, but on the other hand, it's really confusing to receive (oftentimes) conflicting advice from different sources. I don't want to blindly listen to people, but it's also hard to critically sift through advice when I'm doing this for the first time myself.

Any advice?

So far you have disagreed with every suggestion and then deleted your WAMC information.
Maybe you don't want any advice on SDN?

You mainly want to listen to people who are familiar with the modern medical school application criteria, and not people who applied 1 or 2 generations ago as things have changed quite a bit.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

It's been very difficult to gauge what sort of advice I should use and what I shouldn't.

Almost everyone, from advisors to admissions officers to medical students to SDN staff, seem to have wildly different opinions on how to construct a primary application, how many hours are "necessary", how competitive an applicant is, etc, etc.

It is nice to know that there are many ways to arrive at the same destination, but on the other hand, it's really confusing to receive (oftentimes) conflicting advice from different sources. I don't want to blindly listen to people, but it's also hard to critically sift through advice when I'm doing this for the first time myself.

Any advice?

Do you have any examples? You only have one thread so far, and the advice wasn't contradictory.

Of course, being a professional is all about sifting through information and figuring out which bits you should pay most attention to in making a decision. And this skill is not limited to just the physicians.

Furthermore, all applicants are not the same. The advice is going to be different, though the thresholds are fairly consistent.

It's up to you to follow/weigh the advice of experts against your hunches. Stop fishing for confirmatory advice, which may often be completely wrong.

 

[Hollow Knight]

This is why it's good to crowdsource advice.

Eventually you start to see patterns (shadowing is a must-have for example)

 

[LizzyM]

I hate to say this but it often seems that undergrad pre-med advisors are very ill-informed followed closely by the older generation who were admitted to medical school 30+ years ago and who have not been involved in the process more recently.

 

[xNinjaBurrito1]

As someone that has also been struggling a lot with this, my only advice is to accept advice that adds on to your application. I've seen conflicting advice on school lists and activity hour benchmarks, so I always go with the most conservative school lists and the highest activity hour benchmarks I find. For instance, Faha will recommend 150+ hours of clinical and non-clinical, while MrSmile12 will recommend 300+, so im shooting for 300+. If Faha is right, then great! I will have passed the actual minimum. If I listen to Faha and they're wrong, though, then I've undershot. The same is true for school lists: My school list from Faha contains only a few top schools, while my list from Rabbit tells me to shoot for the stars. That's why my school list is 44 schools long and contains every school from both lists, because no matter who is right, I should have a successful cycle.

If you take the harshest or most difficult advice, you won't find yourself disappointed. Hope that helps.

 

[joer123]

I will add that you should find a recent med student mentor. Someone who exemplifies the success you want. And I agree with @Mr.Smile12, gather all the information you can and make your own assessment. I had an 80ile mcat, and the consensus online is that I am not competitive for top-20. But I bet on myself. I trusted my app and my storytelling and it made up for deficiencies elsewhere and I got into 2.

 

[candbgirl]

I’ve noticed that some (many) posters take umbradge with advice because they don’t have that activity and have no interest in getting it. For instance, when a poster is told they have limited nonclinical volunteering experience, they immediately respond but I have this and that and my advisor(who probably never applied to med school or hasn’t applied in many years or doesn’t know the nuances of applying) told me this isn’t important. Of course it is up to you whether you consider the posted advice but always remember, you asked for advice . And on SDN, you are getting current and appropriate advice.