How many "premed" classmates do you have?

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So I just started the spring semester and I'm taking a physiology class. The teacher asked how many people were planning on going to med school and nearly everyone rose their hand (120 students).

I'll admit, it's a little disheartening knowing so many people are trying to get into med school, because that's just extra competition... but on the bright side I usually break the curve on all the tests and I know my gpa is better than 99% of other students.


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[Nietzsche's Barber]

Out of the countless pre-med classmates/friends/acquaintances I had, I can count on one hand how many advanced to a US medical school. By the time you apply, over 100k students will probably be taking the MCAT.

Pre-med is just a status that many people hold to make themselves feel 'special'. The cold hard truth: a great majority will never even be invited to interview, let alone enroll in medical school.

Also, I've known many 4.0'ers who couldn't break a 50 percentile on the mcat.

Keep getting good grades and study hard. Never get too comfortable with your abilities.

 

[MareNostrummm]

Meh if you talk to the typical premed they have a very delusional idea of what being a physician actually entails. Many also lack the dedication or research ability to fully understand basic aspects of the application process, ex: all the people applying to out of state schools that only take instate applicants. Don't forget those that cannot break 50th percentile on the MCAT.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Added to the above, med school admissions is not a competition against your fellow premeds. You are not competing with them for seats.

I got my degree at a small liberal arts school and majored in math. I don't think anyone in my class was premed.

 

[NotASerialKiller]

100% of my classmates were premed. Coincidence? You decide

 

[fball22]

Large private university: just over 500 students apply to medical school each year. The school provides very specific details/stats after each cycle that are interesting to look through. Last cycle another 170 applied to dental school.

 

[Turkishking]

A lot.

 

[stickgirl390]

Almost everyone in my undergrad bio/chem courses was premed, and there were a few pre-pharm/vet/dental. Last cycle only 5 students from my university were accepted to medical school: 1 MD and 4 DO.

 

[BombsAway]

Less every semester.

 

[mimelim]

~700 when I started Freshman year. How many are physicians now? Maybe 150?

 

[Mad Jack]

So I just started the spring semester and I'm taking a physiology class. The teacher asked how many people were planning on going to med school and nearly everyone rose their hand (120 students).

I'll admit, it's a little disheartening knowing so many people are trying to get into med school, because that's just extra competition... but on the bright side I usually break the curve on all the tests and I know my gpa is better than 99% of other students.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

I had maybe 30 premeds I knew. I'm the only one I know of that made it in the end.

 

[Sardinia]

Also, I've known many 4.0'ers who couldn't break a 50 percentile on the mcat. Keep getting good grades and study hard. Never get too comfortable with your abilities.

This is why I believe that AAMC should introduce MCAT subject examinations at the end of every year for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics to make sure students are "on track" and to give a standardized metric for students to accurately gauge how much additional content they need to push themselves to understand beyond what their institution offers them.

 

[BoroPreMed92]

I had maybe 30 premeds I knew. I'm the only one I know of that made it in the end.

Same. I knew about 30 or so premeds who all seemed to take the mcat before me. I'm the only one I knew that actually made it to med school this far. Can't help but feel fortunate!

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[TehTeddy]

When I was in the biology department, most people were going the medical route, with some going into dentistry and other health-related fields. Now that I'm in the philosophy department, almost no one.

Also @Matthew9Thirtyfive could you elaborate on what you mean? I was under the impression that it was a competition.

 

[aldol16]

You're in a physiology class. That's like going into an intro to finance course and being surprised that most of the people in there want to work on Wall Street. That class will also have a mix of students who will be applying your year and students who will be applying in other years. So you're not competing against them all.

 

[MareNostrummm]

This is why I believe that AAMC should introduce MCAT subject examinations at the end of every year for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics to make sure students are "on track" and to give a standardized metric for students to accurately gauge how much additional content they need to push themselves to understand beyond what their institution offers them.

Most institutions already go above and beyond what the MCAT asks for. The MCAT has much less content than what you need to know for a typical undergrad bio/chem/physics/orgo class.

 

[Sardinia]

You're in a physiology class. That's like going into an intro to finance course and being surprised that most of the people in there want to work on Wall Street. That class will also have a mix of students who will be applying your year and students who will be applying in other years. So you're not competing against them all.

This is true. I never took anatomy or physiology for my major when it came to my undergraduate course work. Most of my classmates similarly didn't identify with being pre-med and had more interest in pursuing PhD and other graduate programs that were more research oriented and on the fringes of medicine.

 

[Sardinia]

Most institutions already go above and beyond what the MCAT asks for. The MCAT has much less content than what you need to know for a typical undergrad bio/chem/physics/orgo class.

Not all schools have the same standards as the UC system. If you scored in the upper % of the MCAT, but your GPA was less than the % expected then you and your program can be mutually considered to be rigorous assuming you are representative sample of the population that attends your university to which you are advocating that you are a representative sample.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

When I was in the biology department, most people were going the medical route, with some going into dentistry and other health-related fields. Now that I'm in the philosophy department, almost no one.

Also @Matthew9Thirtyfive could you elaborate on what you mean? I was under the impression that it was a competition.

Adcoms aren't comparing students for individual seats. If there is a seat available and student A and student B are interviewing, they are both capable of receiving an offer for that seat. If they both accept, a second seat is created (obviously there is the potential for the debacle that happened recently, but part of the adcoms' job is to estimate how many people need to be admitted to fill their seats, since many will go elsewhere).

You are competing against yourself to create a competitive package as well as against the larger body of matriculants (i.e., medians for GPA and MCAT, great ECs, etc), but you aren't competing against individual applicants.

 

[aldol16]

This is why I believe that AAMC should introduce MCAT subject examinations at the end of every year for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics to make sure students are "on track" and to give a standardized metric for students to accurately gauge how much additional content they need to push themselves to understand beyond what their institution offers them.

Interesting comment. I've said before on here that I expect my students to learn chemistry at a level that's much higher than what the MCAT requires - the bar is very close to what students would need if they wanted to go to graduate school. For gen chem, it's the material students need for taking any upper-level course. If I taught gen chem only to the MCAT, I could condense it into a semester and have two weeks left at the end for MCAT review. I think that MCAT-type subject exams at the end of the semester purely for the sake of practice for pre-meds is a good idea if administered independently by a health professions advising office. This would be entirely separate from the course itself and completely optional. It would give pre-meds a benchmark for themselves. But if I'm doing my job correctly, this would only measure how much extra stuff the course taught you that you didn't need to know for the MCAT.

This is true. I never took anatomy or physiology for my major when it came to my undergraduate course work. Most of my classmates similarly didn't identify with being pre-med and had more interest in pursuing PhD and other graduate programs that were more research oriented and on the fringes of medicine.

Yes, this is how I felt in most of my science courses as an undergrad. Most students were very interested in the science and not as interested in using the class only as a stepping stone to medicine. This of course would probably be different in a biological discipline.

 

[Lucca]

too many

 

[Sardinia]

Interesting comment. I've said before on here that I expect my students to learn chemistry at a level that's much higher than what the MCAT requires - the bar is very close to what students would need if they wanted to go to graduate school. For gen chem, it's the material students need for taking any upper-level course. If I taught gen chem only to the MCAT, I could condense it into a semester and have two weeks left at the end for MCAT review. I think that MCAT-type subject exams at the end of the semester purely for the sake of practice for pre-meds is a good idea if administered independently by a health professions advising office. This would be entirely separate from the course itself and completely optional. It would give pre-meds a benchmark for themselves. But if I'm doing my job correctly, this would only measure how much extra stuff the course taught you that you didn't need to know for the MCAT.

During my experience at a "Public Ivy" University I witnessed too many students getting spectacular 4.0s through subversive means. The professors were actively involved and blatantly participated in creating "specialized content material" and "updated exams" to be distributed to a few powerful policy groups that were frequently leaked to connected students who essentially got carbon copies of midterm and final examinations. I was distributed a copy of said "practice exam" from a close friend and only realized the ridiculousness in the lack of parity between this special copy and all the public copies distributed to all students when I realized the direct content correlation was around 92% whereas the other practice exams had a 25-39% direct content correlation for our Chemistry final. Direct content would be the exact same question with the exact same wording with the set variable being a non-factor to how the question was solved.

This essentially turned second, third, and fourth order questions into a test bank of first order questions for pre-meds to simply memorize or practice the day before the test. Although everyone will admit to cheating and inside information being a part of the college system, the fact is that adding in standardized examinations would have exposed many inadequacies that existed at my University due to the pervasive lack of academic integrity in the core pre-medical sciences. I saw none of this behavior after I finished my pre-medical requirements and was able to take on a full schedule of my specialty in the last two years simply because there is no way to cheat recombination of a kanamycin resistance marker or rote memorize a BLAST sequence from the NCBI.

 

[Brawndo2016]

Well, I studied at the Sally Struthers Upstairs College of Heating/Air Conditioning and Plumbing....so I kind of stood out as the only confirmed pre-med. I do suspect, however, that others had the same aspirations but were too timid to say as much.

 

[TheAppleJuice]

Depends on the year.\

Gen chem kills the first batch, then organic chem kills the rest. I also agree that their are >3.8's GPA's that are demolished by the MCAT, unfortunately.

My gen chem 1 class was ~500 kids, my orgo II class was ~160. Biochem was even smaller. some of those are pre-PhD or pre-pharm but the vast majority want to become doctors (only to be disappointed)

 

[sunshinefl]

Well, my school had the second highest AMCAS applicants, like 800-900 this cycle. So, A LOT.

 

[MareNostrummm]

Depends on the year.\

Gen chem kills the first batch, then organic chem kills the rest. I also agree that their are >3.8's GPA's that are demolished by the MCAT, unfortunately.

My gen chem 1 class was ~500 kids, my orgo II class was ~160. Biochem was even smaller. some of those are pre-PhD or pre-pharm but the vast majority want to become doctors (only to be disappointed)

Its weird that gen chem would weed so many people out, most premeds take the AP version in high school and already have a head start on the material (as well as AP physics and bio).

 

[MareNostrummm]

Well, my school had the second highest AMCAS applicants, like 800-900 this cycle. So, A LOT.

This is really unrelated but I'm surprised you didn't get any love from MD schools from your cycle based on your signature. It seems like you had an adequate MCAT and GPA...

 

[HopefulHardWorker]

A lot of people at my school started out as premed, and a lot of them are in the process of applying now. Anyone who says "everyone says they're premed, but so few actually make it" must not have ever gone to a top school.

Added to the above, med school admissions is not a competition against your fellow premeds. You are not competing with them for seats.

Haha, not competing for spots in a medical school class, that's funny. And wrong.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Most of my intro biology class was premed (70-80%)
Almost none of my intro physic class was premed (maybe 10%)

 

[sunshinefl]

This is really unrelated but I'm surprised you didn't get any love from MD schools from your cycle based on your signature. It seems like you had an adequate MCAT and GPA...

Me too haha.... I guess that's the problem, they're both just adequate. Didn't knock either one out of the park. I thought that combined with my life experiences it would be enough to at least get me one interview but it's okay.

 

[MareNostrummm]

Me too haha.... I guess that's the problem, they're both just adequate. Didn't knock either one out of the park. I thought that combined with my life experiences it would be enough to at least get me one interview but it's okay.

Congrats on the DO acceptance!!

 

[Nietzsche's Barber]

A lot of people at my school started out as premed, and a lot of them are in the process of applying now. Anyone who says "everyone says they're premed, but so few actually make it" must not have ever gone to a top school.

Sorry I went to a lowly state school....maybe if you get to medical school I can kiss your ring? Pretty please?

 

[holdthemayo]

Anyone who says "everyone says they're premed, but so few actually make it" must not have ever gone to a top school.

 

[WunderMay]

Almost everyone in my pre-req classes are premed, but when I talk to them, they almost always have no idea how to go about applying to med school. Half of them don't even know what the MCAT is and don't take their classes seriously. I think they like the idea of being able to say they are premed, but they don't realize that it doesn't mean anything when you don't do your research in order to get into med school.

In my major classes, I am the only one who is trying to go to med school. Everyone else wants to go PA, NP, or PT. I go to a small LAC, though so all of this is probably subject to that.

 

[altblue]

A lot of people at my school started out as premed, and a lot of them are in the process of applying now. Anyone who says "everyone says they're premed, but so few actually make it" must not have ever gone to a top school.



Haha, not competing for spots in a medical school class, that's funny. And wrong.

Lol where did you go to school? Unless the mean for your stem courses is a B+ or higher, a very very significant number of students will get low grades and be weeded out.

Doesn't generally change for top schools.

 

[Gilakend]

As a pre-med, I can say most pre-meds are not the type of people I want to hangout with to relax. So I don't really know any of them beyond a name and a face.

I know of a lot of people that are pre-med, but many of them have no clue what to expect or how the process works. The other day I was in the library and someone was bragging about how he was accepted to two medical schools and couldn't wait to start. AUA and St. George. Yikes. SDN should be a required pre-req.

 

[Seldon]

Out of the countless pre-med classmates/friends/acquaintances I had, I can count on one hand how many advanced to a US medical school. By the time you apply, over 100k students will probably be taking the MCAT.

Pre-med is just a status that many people hold to make themselves feel 'special'. The cold hard truth: a great majority will never even be invited to interview, let alone enroll in medical school.

Also, I've known many 4.0'ers who couldn't break a 50 percentile on the mcat.

Keep getting good grades and study hard. Never get too comfortable with your abilities.

I don't understand how people can get 4.0s but not break 500. What kind of classes do these people take? They must have done some higher level coursework before right?

 

[Nietzsche's Barber]

I don't understand how people can get 4.0s but not break 500. What kind of classes do these people take? They must have done some higher level coursework before right?

I believe it is far easier to obtain a 4.0 average than it is to do well on the MCAT. The MCAT teases out problems, such as:
-An inability to speed read.
-An inability to 'reason beyond the text'.
-An unwillingness to tackle one's weaknesses (e.g. "Oh that won't be on there! I'll just study what I'm good at")
-An inability to devote proper time to studying over the long-haul (hint: SES).
-A lack of endurance.

*And for some reason, I believe the test itself induces a fear in some that negatively impacts performance.

I know quite a few brains who just **** the bed every single time they sat for the exam.

 

[Seldon]

I believe it is far easier to obtain a 4.0 average than it is to do well on the MCAT. The MCAT teases out problems, such as:
-An inability to speed read.
-An inability to 'reason beyond the text'.
-An unwillingness to tackle one's weaknesses (e.g. "Oh that won't be on there! I'll just study what I'm good at")
-An inability to devote proper time to studying over the long-haul (hint: SES).
-A lack of endurance.

*And for some reason, I believe the test itself induces a fear in some that negatively impacts performance.

I can understand the test anxiety. But that and the other abilities should be tested in higher level coursework. Every student has at least one run-in with that professor who gives you less time than is necessary for an exam. Not getting a 520+ I get, but not getting above a 500 is weird.

 

[Nietzsche's Barber]

I can understand the test anxiety. But that and the other abilities should be tested in higher level coursework. Every student has at least one run-in with that professor who gives you less time than is necessary for an exam. Not getting a 520+ I get, but not getting above a 500 is weird.

I see where you are coming from, but it's not weird. I know far too many people who bombed to think that it is an anomaly. And upper-level coursework isn't a strong indicator...my sociology 101 course was more difficult than my sociology 550 course.

Quality of instruction and course content varies too greatly to think that high GPA = mcat success (especially when you consider people with horrendous GPA's who ace the test).

[edit] And if you think about it, if high GPA = mcat success, barely anyone who applies to medical school would have to study for the mcat.

 

[aldol16]

During my experience at a "Public Ivy" University I witnessed too many students getting spectacular 4.0s through subversive means. The professors were actively involved and blatantly participated in creating "specialized content material" and "updated exams" to be distributed to a few powerful policy groups that were frequently leaked to connected students who essentially got carbon copies of midterm and final examinations. I was distributed a copy of said "practice exam" from a close friend and only realized the ridiculousness in the lack of parity between this special copy and all the public copies distributed to all students when I realized the direct content correlation was around 92% whereas the other practice exams had a 25-39% direct content correlation for our Chemistry final. Direct content would be the exact same question with the exact same wording with the set variable being a non-factor to how the question was solved.

This essentially turned second, third, and fourth order questions into a test bank of first order questions for pre-meds to simply memorize or practice the day before the test. Although everyone will admit to cheating and inside information being a part of the college system, the fact is that adding in standardized examinations would have exposed many inadequacies that existed at my University due to the pervasive lack of academic integrity in the core pre-medical sciences. I saw none of this behavior after I finished my pre-medical requirements and was able to take on a full schedule of my specialty in the last two years simply because there is no way to cheat recombination of a kanamycin resistance marker or rote memorize a BLAST sequence from the NCBI.

This is definitely not how my colleagues or I run things. This is a disgrace. We give the exams to graduate student TAs before we give them to undergrads just to make sure the questions are fair. Under no circumstances do we make any part of exams available to undergrads unless they're practice exams from years before. That's how it's supposed to be done. I'm sorry that you had that experience at your university.

 

[Seldon]

During my experience at a "Public Ivy" University I witnessed too many students getting spectacular 4.0s through subversive means. The professors were actively involved and blatantly participated in creating "specialized content material" and "updated exams" to be distributed to a few powerful policy groups that were frequently leaked to connected students who essentially got carbon copies of midterm and final examinations. I was distributed a copy of said "practice exam" from a close friend and only realized the ridiculousness in the lack of parity between this special copy and all the public copies distributed to all students when I realized the direct content correlation was around 92% whereas the other practice exams had a 25-39% direct content correlation for our Chemistry final. Direct content would be the exact same question with the exact same wording with the set variable being a non-factor to how the question was solved.

This essentially turned second, third, and fourth order questions into a test bank of first order questions for pre-meds to simply memorize or practice the day before the test. Although everyone will admit to cheating and inside information being a part of the college system, the fact is that adding in standardized examinations would have exposed many inadequacies that existed at my University due to the pervasive lack of academic integrity in the core pre-medical sciences. I saw none of this behavior after I finished my pre-medical requirements and was able to take on a full schedule of my specialty in the last two years simply because there is no way to cheat recombination of a kanamycin resistance marker or rote memorize a BLAST sequence from the NCBI.

I went to a "public ivy" too, for what it's worth. At my school, as far as I can tell, nothing like this ever goes on. Occasionally, you'll have an extremely lazy professor who uses exact copies of old exams, but I've never heard of anything coming close to this. Wow

 

[SouthernGent]

At my school everyone stopped bragging about being premed as a status after Biochem or the MCAT. Those who made it through were just happy to survive. Let pre-reqs, the MCAT, and time whittle away at the numbers.

 

[Seldon]

At my school everyone stopped bragging about being premed as a status after Biochem or the MCAT. Those who made it through were just happy to survive. Let pre-reqs, the MCAT, and time whittle away at the numbers.

People actually brag about being premeds? At my school there's a tangible shame about being a premed (its a full major at my school). It's perceived as superficial and too cutthroat.

 

[RogueBanana]

As a freshman, there were probably about 100 of us

After Gen-Chem & Bio : 75

After Gen Chem II & Calc : 50

After Organic Chem: 30

After BCH: 25

After the MCAT, HPAC Committee interviews and GPA Cutoffs for Committee LORs : 10

My school's HPAC prides itself on having a 95% success rate for approved applicants, if only because they refuse to endorse candidates who don't stand a high chance of admission (our HPAC chair was an ADCOM at one of the Ivy leagues so he has high standards)

As a note, a lot of people liked to brag about being pre-meds since my school has a lot of *ahem* privileged children from the Connecticut/ New Jersey area. Many of them had parents who were doctors or lawyers, they think its an easy shot for them to follow in mom/dad's footsteps and make a lot of money.

Most of those kids end up in finance...

 

[JoaoMoutinho]

As a pre-med, I can say most pre-meds are not the type of people I want to hangout with to relax. So I don't really know any of them beyond a name and a face.

I know of a lot of people that are pre-med, but many of them have no clue what to expect or how the process works. The other day I was in the library and someone was bragging about how he was accepted to two medical schools and couldn't wait to start. AUA and St. George. Yikes. SDN should be a required pre-req.

Just saying, isn't "required pre-req" a wee bit redundant? 😉

 

[Gilakend]

Just saying, isn't "required pre-req" a wee bit redundant? 😉

It is just that important.

 

[TehTeddy]

Adcoms aren't comparing students for individual seats. If there is a seat available and student A and student B are interviewing, they are both capable of receiving an offer for that seat. If they both accept, a second seat is created (obviously there is the potential for the debacle that happened recently, but part of the adcoms' job is to estimate how many people need to be admitted to fill their seats, since many will go elsewhere).

You are competing against yourself to create a competitive package as well as against the larger body of matriculants (i.e., medians for GPA and MCAT, great ECs, etc), but you aren't competing against individual applicants.

Right, I think we understand it the same way. In my mind, it's competitive because the collective student body sets the standard for the various metrics you're judged on. So a more qualified student body could be said to create a more competitive atmosphere on the whole.

I think the distinction is important, though, in reducing the "cut-throat" attitude often present in largely pre-med classes, or at least in the minds of pre-meds who take comparison to an unhealthy degree.

 

[BunnyMan17]

I went to one of the top public schools/public ivies/whatever you call them as well and it seemed about 85% of the gen chem 1 class was pre-med. So ~1000 students total. There were a few pre-dental students but they never really talked about it. By second semester the class was down one section, so ~750 students total. After first year I started hearing chatter about other careers. I.e PhD, NP, PT,PA (...the guys who will make six figures before I start residency), business school, FBI, DIA, etc.

We declare spring of second year and I went biochem, ~50 students. I'd say there it's about 60% pre-med and 40% going for their PhD. As for med schools, everyone in my major who wants to go medical has gotten an acceptance or decided to take a gap year for fun despite their super high MCAT scores. I think the average with them is ~519.

I can't speak for the other majors but from listening to people at my pre-med society it seems to be 25% from those who started gen-chem.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Right, I think we understand it the same way. In my mind, it's competitive because the collective student body sets the standard for the various metrics you're judged on. So a more qualified student body could be said to create a more competitive atmosphere on the whole.

I think the distinction is important, though, in reducing the "cut-throat" attitude often present in largely pre-med classes, or at least in the minds of pre-meds who take comparison to an unhealthy degree.

Agreed. Many premeds think they are directly competing with their classmates, which they are not (at least not outside of a specific course with a curve).