How does SDN compare with the real distribution of pre-meds?

[Lucca]

The idea that totally socially inept people can still be great Scientists is maybe true in mathematics or theoretical physics where lone wolves still exist and can do things. Not in any other discipline in the 21st century...things are too interdisciplinary and require too much collaboration, pooled capital, etc. When’s the last time you saw a single author Nature paper in the life sciences? DNA Origami like 2 decades ago? It’s a different world. If people don’t like you or can’t work with you, then your scientific career isn’t going anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely an abundance of uh, challenging personalities in modern science but introverted/quirky/neurodiverse folks =\= antisocial.

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[Dream of the Endless]

I understand what you mean and I worked hard to get a >99th percentile score, but because it's scaled the way that it is, half of the people who take it have to score 500 or below, regardless of how much "respect" people are giving it.

Here's my understanding of the MCAT, bases off my teacher who used to assist with that process. Before it's even given there is a rough scale already in place. After the exam is taken, there is a secondary scaling which occurs where they pit the percantage of people with certain scores who got X question correct to see where the "baseline" is. -There's some unknown magic that occurs here- than there is your score. The AAMC later adjusts what scaled score means what percentile after summing scores over X time period. (Just happened this past May 1st.) Is that correct?

There's also some talk about "experimental" passages with certain questions thrown out but I don't really understand that.

Also, not really sure what you mean about PhD candidates... people end up dropping out of PhD programs with masters degrees ("mastering out"), but they go in with the intention of finishing the PhD

That's what I'm talking about, but I didn't correctly phrase it. I.e I had an international friend who was getting a master's at the same time as his PhD. One was like in AI and the other was something like data analytica. He went into the PhD with no real intent of completing the PhD, just did it for tuition assistance. He told me that was a common thing for people to do, as he was actually given that idea by someone else. After receiving his master's, he went to work. Not sure what the progress of the PhD is. Last I heard he was part time, but wasn't intending to finish it.

 

[deleted972488]

but wasn't intending to finish it.

I think your friend is in the minority there. I have a PhD and I've known quite a few people who ended up mastering out, but it wasn't because they were trying to cheat the system to get a masters degree. It's because they changed their mind about their career trajectory or simply couldn't handle graduate school any more.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

I think your friend is in the minority there. I have a PhD and I've known quite a few people who ended up mastering out, but it wasn't because they were trying to cheat the system to get a masters degree. It's because they changed their mind about their career trajectory or simply couldn't handle graduate school any more.

That sounds far more likely. I remember hearing and thinking "that's a huge loophole!" I myself know hardly anything about PhDs, since I never intended to get one. Though in hindsight, I probably would have done CS integrated with biomedical sciences instead of economics and considered MD/PhD. But thank you for letting me know the deal!

 

[907914]

Here's my understanding of the MCAT, bases off my teacher who used to assist with that process. Before it's even given there is a rough scale already in place. After the exam is taken, there is a secondary scaling which occurs where they pit the percantage of people with certain scores who got X question correct to see where the "baseline" is. -There's some unknown magic that occurs here- than there is your score. The AAMC later adjusts what scaled score means what percentile after summing scores over X time period. (Just happened this past May 1st.) Is that correct?

There's also some talk about "experimental" passages with certain questions thrown out but I don't really understand that.

I believe that is the correct process ( or at least close enough). But even with the scaled scores, for every person who scores a 528 there is someone who scored a 472. It doesn’t matter about “respecting the test.” It isn’t that everyone can do well on the test, it is designed so that most people do poorly. It mostly works to the advantage of wealthy people who can afford test prep or knowledgeable people who know how to utilize different resources... this puts socioeconomically people at an inherent disadvantage but that is the current format of th system.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

There's also some talk about "experimental" passages with certain questions thrown out but I don't really understand that.

Almost every standardized exam has these. They are questions that won't be calculated into your score because the only reason they are in the test is so the organizations can gather data on them to know if they are a good question that could later be used as a scored question. The USMLE has them too.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

it is designed so that most people do poorly.

Wrong. They are designed to drive everyone to the mean.

 

[907914]

Almost every standardized exam has these. They are questions that won't be calculated into your score because the only reason they are in the test is so the organizations can gather data on them to know if they are a good question that could later be used as a scored question. The USMLE has them too.

I believe that is why there are 59 questions per section. 50 are scored and 9 are experimental

 

[907914]

Wrong. They are designed to drive everyone to the mean.

Let me rephrase: it is designed so that the scores fall neatly along the bell curve.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

I think my problem is I am just making an incorrect assumption here, so let me create an unrealistic/extreme thought experiment and you share your thoughts on how the scoring would work.

The year is 2020. For x1 month out of the year that the MCAT is offered, 90% of students scored 55/59 and 5% scored below that at 50/59 and 5% scored above that at near perfect scores.

If the MCAT is purely/mostly based on medians/averages (Which is what I assume you are saying based on your explanation) what would the score distribution be for this set of students? Would they set the confidence band at 124-126 for these groups? (Would they all get 125s) Do not extrapolate this data set beyond this "abnormal" group of students. You can only use prior data sets of students which follow typical AAMC trends.

 

[907914]

I think my problem is I am just making an incorrect assumption here, so let me create an unrealistic/extreme thought experiment and you share your thoughts on how the scoring would work.

The year is 2020. For x1 month out of the year that the MCAT is offered, 90% of students scored 55/59 and 5% scored below that at 50/59 and 5% scored above that at near perfect scores.

If the MCAT is purely/mostly based on medians/averages (Which is what I assume you are saying based on your explanation) what would the score distribution be for this set of students? Would they set the confidence band at 124-126 for these groups? (Would they all get 125s) Do not extrapolate this data set beyond this "abnormal" group of students. You can only use prior data sets of students which follow typical AAMC trends.

This is not even a plausible hypothetical. The reason they have the experimental questions is so that they know how many students will statistically get it wrong. Based on those statistics, they intentionally select a question set that will yield a particular curve. And they are rarely incorrect, a given individual test curve is almost always near identical to the 3 year master curve. When they are wrong, it is usually everyone does a LOT poorer on the real deal than their practice exams. Hence why some dates have a super forgiving curve. But rarely do we see a harsh curve.

If your situation (which does not and will not ever happen) occurs, then it will likely result in a steeply harsh curve. If 5% of people all scored above, they would likely get between a 515 and a 528 based on which questions you get wrong (because it is not based on total questions wrong, it is which questions you got incorrect compared to everyone else on that test day compared to everyone else who established the test day curve). Those 90% in the middle would likely be distributed between 486 and 514 (because again, it is which questions you get wrong not how many you get wrong) and the bottom 5 percent would receive less than a 486. In this case, it means it was a really easy test so the curve will be extraordinarily harsh.

This is why it takes a month to get scores back. There’s a lot of work involved in scoring the MCAT

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Just a technicality, but the MCAT is not curved. It's scaled to historical norms. With such a large testing population it effectively looks like a curve but theoretically everyone testing on the same day could get the exact same score.

 

[907914]

Just a technicality, but the MCAT is not curved. It's scaled to historical norms. With such a large testing population it effectively looks like a curve but theoretically everyone testing on the same day could get the exact same score.

You are correct, it is just simpler to think of it as a curve because of the large population. But the scales score system also plays in to the difficulty in scoring.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

This is not even a plausible hypothetical. The reason they have the experimental questions is so that they know how many students will statistically get it wrong. Based on those statistics, they intentionally select a question set that will yield a particular curve. And they are rarely incorrect, a given individual test curve is almost always near identical to the 3 year master curve. When they are wrong, it is usually everyone does a LOT poorer on the real deal than their practice exams. Hence why some dates have a super forgiving curve. But rarely do we see a harsh curve.

If your situation (which does not and will not ever happen) occurs, then it will likely result in a steeply harsh curve. If 5% of people all scored above, they would likely get between a 515 and a 528 based on which questions you get wrong (because it is not based on total questions wrong, it is which questions you got incorrect compared to everyone else on that test day compared to everyone else who established the test day curve). Those 90% in the middle would likely be distributed between 486 and 514 (because again, it is which questions you get wrong not how many you get wrong) and the bottom 5 percent would receive less than a 486. In this case, it means it was a really easy test so the curve will be extraordinarily harsh.

Okay! So I can see what my error was. I was anchoring on my assumption that going into an exam, there is already an idea of where a 125 would land, let's say 39/59. This is based on their models which typically hold true. From there they would make adjustments by referencing the bell curve of the day.

If that group of students did well, they would get a score that would fall around X based on their raw before adjustments. That's where a "curve" would come in. Okay, seems I was wrong.

Edit: Of course it couldn't happen lmao. If your statement is always true, than it can be applied to different scenarios.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The idea that totally socially inept people can still be great Scientists is maybe true in mathematics or theoretical physics where lone wolves still exist and can do things. Not in any other discipline in the 21st century...things are too interdisciplinary and require too much collaboration, pooled capital, etc. When’s the last time you saw a single author Nature paper in the life sciences? DNA Origami like 2 decades ago? It’s a different world. If people don’t like you or can’t work with you, then your scientific career isn’t going anywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely an abundance of uh, challenging personalities in modern science but introverted/quirky/neurodiverse folks =\= antisocial.

It’s possible in mathematics, but collaboration is not new in math. It is possible for a lone weirdo to do stuff independently, but people are more likely to collaborate because many of the problems in mathematics bridge into fields like physics. And even the ones that don’t are extremely complex.

Being an antisocial is detrimental in pretty much every field for most people. If you are a super genius who can handle the Navier-Stokes equations totally alone with no input, then I guess it would be less harmful.

 

[sargon2123]

A lot of today’s biggest trappers (e.g Lil Pump) started on SoundCloud before getting their big break

So I have a real life example to share with you. I currently work as a scribe for a company that contracts out to 4 major hospitals in my area. Upon working for this company I met another scribe who is a genius. He is currently applying this cycle as well. He has a 4.0 GPA, scored a 526 on the MCAT (I made him pull up his AAMC profile and prove it and he wasn't bull****ting me), and has a very good shot at any school he wants to go to. Well I started comparing ourselves (we even have the same first name LOL) and I noticed that the one thing I have that he doesn't is the ability to interact with others with no problem. He shuts down and is introverted and doesn't articulate anything he says well, BUT hes a genius so he will get in. The point of this rant is just because there are superstars out there like this guy stat wise, EVERYONE has a vice. Just do you and keep going until you get that acceptance.

Also just to clarify for everyone else, I’m willing to bet this guy’s social awkwardness is likely just a personality defect. It isn’t going to destroy his interviews unless it’s severe, and it isn’t going to prevent him from providing good care. Inb4 “he sounds like a loser, I bet he can’t empathize with patients because he spent so much time studying”

 

[sargon2123]

I think sdn makes it harder than it looks to get into an MD school. However, getting into a specific one you want or a relatively top tier one is in fact very hard. I don’t think sdn users have some special curse. My cycle went like that of a typical sdner: decent number of interviews, a couple of acceptances (luckily to a high-ish choice school), and majority waitlists. I see people from my undergrad in this past cycle, and the ones who weren’t super type A did in fact have worse outcomes. We also often forget that there’s a class of applicants so highly desired that they don’t even need to use SDN.

OP: yes you may be well-qualified for certain schools, and you’ll predictably get an interview. Whether you’ll get accepted or waitlisted is nearly impossible for anyone to predict.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

over 10% of those with 3.8+GPA/517+ MCAT do not get in per cycle. Often these are the ones who come off egotistical, arrogant, and entitled in the written application, only apply to the top 5-9 schools because of the it, or interview with inappropriate social, interpersonal, or communication skills. I recently had a near Sheldon-level genius who was on his third application cycle, who had multiple interviews in previous cycles, but did not present himself well, mainly because he never understood to share more personal aspects. He had multiple top acceptances now.

an aside, this year I had 7 advisees with 5 acceptances and 2 WL (one of the WL had an informal call yesterday "are you still interested as you are high up on the WL"). I am hoping to sweep all 7!

Lot of ORMs with those stats blame it on quota system and religiously advocating BSMD programs for ORM HS kids with high stats and justify spending upto 1/2 million to achieve the dream.

 

[907914]

Lot of ORMs with those stats blame it on quota system and religiously advocating BSMD programs for ORM HS kids with high stats and justify spending upto 1/2 million to achieve the dream.

Those same ORM kids seem to think that if a URM gets in then it was their spot that was taken. The applicant pool is 76% ORM and the matriculates pool is 78% ORM. If someone ‘took your spot,’ then it was most likely another ORM...

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

Those same ORM kids seem to think that if a URM gets in then it was their spot that was taken. The applicant pool is 76% ORM and the matriculates pool is 78% ORM. If someone ‘took your spot,’ then it was most likely another ORM...

I agree. We had same battles back home before coming to USA, but back home we have hard quotas mandated by constitution.

--ORM dad

 

[Walter Raleigh]

No they don't. Joining the military for selfish and idiotic reasons is beyond foolish. Someone that entitled deserves nothing from either the military or from medical schools.

No. Just...no. If you want to join the military to find yourself over the course of 4 years, cool. that is awesome. Good on you. You DO NOT do it with the viewpoint of "This will so boost my med school app." So literally just stop.

If our foolish hero is a good soldier, he might not have done anything morally wrong - at least not from the perspective of his commanding officers and fellow soldiers. However, if he is anything less than a good soldier? He deserves nothing, either from the military or from medical school; he's added incompetence to the military and possibly put lives at risk.

 

[907914]

If our foolish hero is a good soldier, he might not have done anything morally wrong - at least not from the perspective of his commanding officers and fellow soldiers. However, if he is anything less than a good soldier? He deserves nothing, either from the military or from medical school; he's added incompetence to the military and possibly put lives at risk.

Dude...like....just....i dont even...I can't....just...like...stop

 

[Walter Raleigh]

How would you feel if a guy was a good soldier, did his job well...but was in the Army for the purpose of boosting his medical school application?

 

[Goro]

I assumed there would come a point where your stats are so high that ADCOMs would be willing to budge on the social aspect. Especially if applying MD/PHD. Guess not? That's surprising, I guess I just have a hard time imaging these people.

I don't feel that they can budge regardless of stats when an applicant enters a room and the adcoms ask a simple question and the response is utter silence like the interviewee is just ignoring you. You know?

I was talking to an adcom member at one of my revisits, and they told me they have definitely encountered applicants who seemed absolutely perfect on paper but were so off in their interviews that they were rejected on that basis.

The problem isn't with being introverted. It's with being socially incompetent.

At my DO school, we have rejected 4.0/520+ candidates. Their social skills were pathological. As in, ask them a question and they stare at the floor while answering, if they bother answering.

4.0 automatons are a dime-a-dozen. This is why medical education, both pre-clinical and in GME, are moving to competency-based requirements. Knowledge is only 1/6 of those domains; the rest are all humanistic. In fact, while master of the former may get you an interview at residency, mastery the latter will get you hired.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

It's like GPA and MCAT: after a certain point, nothing's making up for deficits there. Goro's school would reject someone with the Medal of Honor and a 528 MCAT if they had a flat 2.3 GPA: you need a certain amount of some things in order to make it through medical school and be a decent physician.

 

[907914]

How would you feel if a guy was a good soldier, did his job well...but was in the Army for the purpose of boosting his medical school application?

If someone is the type of person that will join the military with the sole intent of boosting their medical school application then they are likely the same type of person who i incompetent enough to need that kind of boost which means they will not perform well. If the are competent, they are likely the kind of person who will brag about how they will be a doctor and not see consequences of actions etc etc. and they will not perform well. If they bypass those two factors and complete a good, productive and honorable term of service then why does it even matter why they joined?

This is a hypothetical question that I will not justify with a hypothetical answer. My real answer is it doesn't matter. Who cares? If you want to join the military,do it. But do it for the service, not to boost a med school application. I joined the military because I thought schooling was stupid and I wanted something more out of life. Now here I am wanting to pursue an extra 9 years of school while also giving my all to the very thing that gave me this passion (while in the military).

All of your hypothetical questions are simply idiotic. They serve absolutely no purpose. Who cares if Malala can get in to medical school? Who cares if a medal of honor recipient could get in to Harvard with a 515 MCAT? Like...it literally serves no purpose. All you are doing is psyching out both yourself and the students reading this. You contribute to the problem of SDN toxicity by making other students feel like they need to be superstars to even have a chance. Because they don't. You need to get that idea out of your head and stop propagating these fallacious notions.

 

[907914]

Medal of Honor and a 528 MCAT if they had a flat 2.3 GPA

As stated on another thread yesterday, it was not your stats or ECs that got you rejected post-ii...

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Ive noticed personally that SDN makes my anxiety about this process kinda worse. Itd hard to not think that every premed is an average 3.7/515 while browsing but the reality is that this process weeds our far more people then most realize. Just like with social media, people arent going to post about their failures.

 

[Walter Raleigh]

As stated on another thread yesterday, it was not your stats or ECs that got you rejected post-ii...

How might I remedy this?

 

[907914]

How might I remedy this?

Literally just git gud.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

How would you feel if a guy was a good soldier, did his job well...but was in the Army for the purpose of boosting his medical school application?

Get back on topic please.

 

[CaptainWEMT]

Ive noticed personally that SDN makes my anxiety about this process kinda worse. Itd hard to not think that every premed is an average 3.7/515 while browsing but the reality is that this process weeds our far more people then most realize. Just like with social media, people arent going to post about their failures.

I agree with you. I actually cut back on the amount of time i spend on SDN because I kept on comparing myself against the super star applicants on this forum.

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

I agree with you. I actually cut back on the amount of time i spend on SDN because I kept on comparing myself against the super star applicants on this forum.

My son outsourced SDN reading to me

 

[Dwan]

Having dealt with many high-stat reapplicants over the years, it isnt primarily the lack of social skills, communication or interpersonal interaction. Rather it usually arrogance and entitlement that keeps them from gaining acceptance. Many of these get multiple interviews from their high stats and either by modifying behavior and/or increased chances gain an acceptance somewhere.

I agree with this, as someone with no social skills or interesting hobbies (just videogames), without stellar #s, who made it into multiple med schools and into a competitive residency program. It's not an ideal app and some places/people will ding you for these reasons (because they can), but others know success on clinical rotations is more about your ability to be humble and helpful to the team, particularly when the day is busy and the residents' only goal is to finish their work, take proper care of their patients, and get home. That's what I did to get strong clinical evals/letters without ever engaging in much small talk, and I know other very socially awkward people who had a lot of success - the common theme was that they were smart, kind, helpful, and hardworking. You might not be the most fun to hang out with, but in the clinical world, many people will like you. (I'm biased, but I personally love these people over the outgoing ones with crazy egos) Also, if you are this type of person, you may not contribute much to the social aspects of med school (I never went to any social events), but it doesn't mean you can't contribute at all - instead, I helped many students through tutoring, research, and applications. Just wanted to provide some hope for people like me, who still want to get into med school and become good doctors.

 

[HopeP]

So How does SDN compare with the real distribution of pre-meds?

 

[907914]

Seems like a couple SD

 

[Ultimakey]

How would you feel if a guy was a good soldier, did his job well...but was in the Army for the purpose of boosting his medical school application?

Rather than being envious of advantages that you consider to be ‘unfair’, why don’t you go join the military, the peace corps, or TFA?

 

[HopeP]

The applicant pool is 76% ORM and the matriculates pool is 78% ORM. If someone ‘took your spot,’

source please.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Rather than being envious of advantages that you consider to be ‘unfair’, why don’t you go join the military, the peace corps, or TFA?

I have already warned people to stick to the topic of the thread, which is not military service wrt admissions. Don’t engage in the off-topic discussion please.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

source please.

Of the 21,000 applicants accepted, 16,000. Not even getting into the other subgroups.

But yes, SDN is filled with many top students.

 

[HopeP]

Of the 21,000 applicants accepted, 16,000. Not even getting into the other subgroups.

elaborate, as per AAMC only 21% are ORM applicants, am I missing something here?
Edit, see your attachment but that is still matriculation data and ORM is still ~22%.

 

[907914]

source please.

FACTS

Data on U.S. medical school applicants, matriculants, enrollments, and graduates; as well as data on MD-PhD students, residency, and residency applicants.

www.aamc.org

Play around with the numbers. This is widely known and accepted.

 

[Dream of the Endless]

elaborate, as per AAMC only 21% are ORM applicants, am I missing something here?

What groups are you considering as ORM?

 

[HopeP]

What groups are you considering as ORM?

Asians only

 

[907914]

Asians only

White is ORM as well. It stands for over represented in medicine, not over represented minority. Asian and white are ORM.

 

[965978]

Please don’t turn this into a URM/ORM debate

 

[HopeP]

White is ORM as well. It stands for over represented in medicine, not over represented minority. Asian and white are ORM.

thanks for educating another ORM dad :

 

[Dream of the Endless]

Edit: I got it answered in my DM. I guess I expected too much. Shrug*

 

[dr_kateb]

 

[Calizboosted76]

I don't feel that they can budge regardless of stats when an applicant enters a room and the adcoms ask a simple question and the response is utter silence like the interviewee is just ignoring you. You know?

Just to restate