How many "premed" classmates do you have?

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Nietzsche's Barber said:
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.
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I get what you're saying, but isn't someone with a high gpa more likely to score well on the MCAT? I think it's rare to see someone with a low gpa ace the MCAT outside of SDN. The students getting 30+ at my school usually know what they're doing
 
There was an info session in one of our largest lecture halls during orientation, which holds around 90 people (because liberal arts school) and it was pretty packed. But there's definitely a lot of weeding. There are people describe themselves as premed despite disliking and doing poorly in gen chem and bio.

MareNostrummm said:
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).
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Even elite colleges can have a lot of people who got a 2 or a 3 on the exam but didn't report it, or who took AP Bio but got a B in Honors Chem, never took the AP, but set themselves on pre-med since it's probably the most high-status path associated with biology.
 
cactusman said:
There was an info session in one of our largest lecture halls during orientation, which holds around 90 people (because liberal arts school) and it was pretty packed. But there's definitely a lot of weeding. There are people describe themselves as premed despite disliking and doing poorly in gen chem and bio.



Even elite colleges can have a lot of people who got a 2 or a 3 on the exam but didn't report it, or who took AP Bio but got a B in Honors Chem, never took the AP, but set themselves on pre-med since it's probably the most high-status path associated with biology.
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Also depends on where you're from. The high schools in my area growing up sucked. I knew a lot of smart kids who should have been in AP courses who weren't because of how the school was run. I know a number of premeds who never took honors or AP chem in HS.
 
I honestly haven't noticed too much weeding out, at least in the sense where my peers leave the sciences entirely. What happens more often instead is that the poorer students see the writing on the wall GPA wise after orgo 1/2 and switch to pre grad school, PA, PT, OH or dental. Others switch to engineering, which while challenging doesn't necessitate a high GPA for a solid outcome...
 
I would say many more people at my school were looking into research/PhD. I went to a ~30 person "pre-med" club once and was surprised to find zero pre-meds (Everyone was pre-dental/PA/nursing).

Of the people I did know a handful quit being pre-med after getting their MCAT score, a few just vanished, a few more applied to med school riding on only application advice from older doctors they knew from their jobs. Last I saw one of them was ranting on facebook about having 0 IIs, but I'm not closely in touch with any of them.

I did know the other strong preforms in my Biochem major, and none of them were premed except me.

I've only ever med 1 pre-med who knew of SDN, although a good number were aware of the r/premed

EDIT: A bit skewed because I never paid attention to the people in the huge 300-500+ person gen chem/bio/ochem classes.
 
A lot of people, especially in my major (biochemistry). There are loads more in biology, neuroscience, and public health. However, according to the statistics my premed advisor gave me, it looks like only about 135 (if I remember correctly) applied last cycle. My guess is that the MCAT, GPA, and life get in the way for a solid majority of students. Our MD admit rate seems to fall around 40%, which makes sense since anyone who applies in time will get a committee letter, so there's no weeding out in terms of experience, MCAT, or GPA.
 
I go to a top public school/public ivy and rumor has it there are about 7000 pre-meds at any given time. I'd say about a 1000 actually apply.
 
My school has ~50,000 students. I would say that there are at least a a few thousand at any given time. I bet a less than 1000 apply, given how brutal some of our weed-out classes can be ( one class had a curve of 35%).
 
Seldon said:
My school has ~50,000 students. I would say that there are at least a a few thousand at any given time. I bet a less than 1000 apply, given how brutal some of our weed-out classes can be ( one class had a curve of 35%).
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lol every chem class at my UG had at least a 25% scale.

40 average was considered a good passing grade :scared:
 
I go to a small private university (~2,000 students). In all of my science classes combined there are only about 15 total pre-med kids that I can think of. The pre-pt/pre-dent people outnumber us greatly.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Gilakend said:
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.
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Schools having competent pre-health advisors, and students being required to see them, should be the requirement IMO.
 
My student counts are similar...A LOT of freshmen, fewer sophomores, even fewer juniors, and the number who actually apply even smaller than that.

I'm at a different, much smaller institution now and wow...what a difference. I can reasonably keep track of everyone applying in a cycle. Which is much different than my previous school. But the percentages year to year have probably stayed the same.
 
CharlieBillings said:
My adviser said a 3.5 is a solid GPA to shoot for, I'm sure other premeds they talked to believed them.
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Which is why I specified competent. I realize many are not. I'm here to try and erase some damage that may have been done.

Also, 3.5 will get you in to some med schools. Not "top" ones obviously, but I've had many students with a 3.5/3.6 and decent MCAT score get into the school of their choosing.
 
altblue said:
I honestly haven't noticed too much weeding out, at least in the sense where my peers leave the sciences entirely. What happens more often instead is that the poorer students see the writing on the wall GPA wise after orgo 1/2 and switch to pre grad school, PA, PT, OH or dental. Others switch to engineering, which while challenging doesn't necessitate a high GPA for a solid outcome...
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I think the "weeding" out is a myth. I did an engineering degree and I'm doing a DIY post-bacc and I've never seen classes that were designed to make students fail. I have seen professors that have high failure rates that were not class specific so I guess you could argue that professors might take it upon themselves to fail students who shouldn't be there but as far as the "weedout" classes, they are just a myth. Schools are not actively seeking to fail students out of their courses.
 
bears1992 said:
I think the "weeding" out is a myth. I did an engineering degree and I'm doing a DIY post-bacc and I've never seen classes that were designed to make students fail. I have seen professors that have high failure rates that were not class specific so I guess you could argue that professors might take it upon themselves to fail students who shouldn't be there but as far as the "weedout" classes, they are just a myth. Schools are not actively seeking to fail students out of their courses.
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"Weeding out" doesn't refer to an active effort by UGs to fail students; they couldn't care less about limiting med school applicants, and they want to keep students in their school because more classes=more $$$$. Weed out refers to the difficulty of the first science classes you take in college that are inherently difficult for freshman and sophomores, which cause people at get bad grades and are weeded out of the premed track due to a bad gpa/loosing motivation. Or at least that's how I understand it.
 
bears1992 said:
I think the "weeding" out is a myth. I did an engineering degree and I'm doing a DIY post-bacc and I've never seen classes that were designed to make students fail. I have seen professors that have high failure rates that were not class specific so I guess you could argue that professors might take it upon themselves to fail students who shouldn't be there but as far as the "weedout" classes, they are just a myth. Schools are not actively seeking to fail students out of their courses.
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Another way to interpret it is that schools don't seek to "fail" students per se, but rather ramp up the workload and difficulty above what might reasonable be expected in introductory courses, such that only students who are truly dedicated continue on the pre-med track.
 
TehTeddy said:
Another way to interpret it is that schools don't seek to "fail" students per se, but rather ramp up the workload and difficulty above what might reasonable be expected in introductory courses, such that only students who are truly dedicated continue on the pre-med track.
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I went to a middle of the pack University and I'm doing my post-bacc at a small state school so maybe the "weedout" phenomenon is used at larger schools. In my experience, every class, regardless of difficulty, had roughly the same percentage of students pass and it was entirely professor dependent, not class specific. My chem II class had 1/3rd D or F but my orgo I class with a different professor easily had 90% pass rate. Just like my statics class (easiest engineer course) had a 25% D or F rate but my advanced computation fluid dynamics class had 100% pass rate. I think pass/fail rates are just a product or the professor and not the class. At least that was my experience. Students that dropped usually did so after a tough professor, it didn't really matter which class it was.
 
ChymeofPassion said:
"Weeding out" doesn't refer to an active effort by UGs to fail students; they couldn't care less about limiting med school applicants, and they want to keep students in their school because more classes=more $$$$. Weed out refers to the difficulty of the first science classes you take in college that are inherently difficult for freshman and sophomores, which cause people at get bad grades and are weeded out of the premed track due to a bad gpa/loosing motivation. Or at least that's how I understand it.
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Second this, it's what I've observed in my UG and the other small state schools near home where I've taken summer classes. I've seen very few pre-med students straight up fail a class during UG but there are plenty of C's to go around. People seem to get pretty discouraged after a few of those and decide to switch tracks.
 
BunnyMan17 said:
Second this, it's what I've observed in my UG and the other small state schools near home where I've taken summer classes. I've seen very few pre-med students straight up fail a class during UG but there are plenty of C's to go around. People seem to get pretty discouraged after a few of those and decide to switch tracks.
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Absolutely. I've only been with my pre-med classmates in my post-bacc for their freshman year so I haven't seen anyone get enough C's yet to change their med school ambitions but I imagine it will get to a point where they realize that those Cs add up. I do get a laugh out of students lecturing me on how my 3.17 cGPA isn't going to get me into any DO school but then talk about how the 3.0 they have is just freshman year and nobody cares.

As for my undergrad, nobody cared about Cs, everyone was happy to pass. During our exit interview with the dean of engineering, he told us that engineering companies call him for references all the time and nobody asks about GPA and nobody cares. Kind of funny having a professor tell us that C students are just as competitive as A students in the job industry and that grades are pretty meaningless. Of course unless you are trying to go to med school.
 
ChymeofPassion said:
"Weeding out" doesn't refer to an active effort by UGs to fail students; they couldn't care less about limiting med school applicants, and they want to keep students in their school because more classes=more $$$$. Weed out refers to the difficulty of the first science classes you take in college that are inherently difficult for freshman and sophomores, which cause people at get bad grades and are weeded out of the premed track due to a bad gpa/loosing motivation. Or at least that's how I understand it.
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I'd rather have this than get by in my lower levels and be outright weeded out with cruddy grades at the junior/senior level.

Oftentimes junior/senior classes aren't much more difficult or are easier than these weeders, so the weeder classes give you an idea of difficulty. Although my school seems to be the exception here. Like here upper level molecular bio or neuroscience is harder than intro bio or even other intros like calc 1 or 2, it's insane.
 
CharlieBillings said:
My adviser said a 3.5 is a solid GPA to shoot for, I'm sure other premeds they talked to believed them.
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I know all people on SDN apply with a 4.0 and 528 *sarcasm* but a 3.5 is .1 below the average GPA of an accepted student to an MD school in the USA. A 3.5 is solid, especially combined with a strong MCAT. The difference after a 3.5 is not huge unless you're shooting for a top 20. What really matters at that point is MCAT and the whole package that your application presents you as. Don't get so caught up on a .1 difference in GPA. Have fun and just do well in the MCAT! 🙂 I believe in you!

*also, n=1 but I did get acceptance to medical WITH a 3.5, so I'm not just trying to lie and be a mean person. 🙂
 
A lot of people who really don't have a passion for medicine will say that they're "pre-med" because it appeases their parents and requires no further elaboration. The number of pre-mesds who actually intend to go to medical school and are sufficiently familiar enough with the process to do so is, in my experience, considerably less.
 
Futuredoctor1234 said:
I know all people on SDN apply with a 4.0 and 528 *sarcasm* but a 3.5 is .1 below the average GPA of an accepted student to an MD school in the USA. A 3.5 is solid, especially combined with a strong MCAT. The difference after a 3.5 is not huge unless you're shooting for a top 20. What really matters at that point is MCAT and the whole package that your application presents you as. Don't get so caught up on a .1 difference in GPA. Have fun and just do well in the MCAT! 🙂 I believe in you!

*also, n=1 but I did get acceptance to medical WITH a 3.5, so I'm not just trying to lie and be a mean person. 🙂
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From Table 24 for White Applicants:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321518/data/factstablea24-4.pdf

The 3.4 - 3.6 range is 35% acceptance
The 3.6-3.8 range is 51% acceptance
The 3.8-.40 range is 69% acceptance

That's a big deal!


Also by looking at the SDN graph you can see that your odds rise by about ~5% every time you increase your GPA by 0.1 (with more % rise at lower MCATS, and less at outstanding scores). If you look at the 30 MCAT line the chances rise about 10% per 0.1 GPA increase. That's huge, and 3.5 GPA by this graph doesn't even hit 70% acceptance until you score 93rd+ percentile on the MCAT.
https://forums.studentdoctor.net/th...with-your-cgpa-and-mcat.888650/#post-12107997
 
I'd be careful about taking those AAMC tables too literally... It's literally just a grouping by GPA range. There are about a thousand other factors at play and that data is really only good for putting yourself in the "No, Meh, and Probably" categories.
 
HopefulHardWorker said:
Haha, not competing for spots in a medical school class, that's funny. And wrong.
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Didn't get a notification that someone had quoted me. It's always fun to see someone so arrogantly post something incorrect. I said you're not competing directly for seats because that is how ADCOMs on this site have explained it. If you know better than the ADCOMs, you should probably message them so they stop giving out wrong information about med school admissions.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Didn't get a notification that someone had quoted me. It's always fun to see someone so arrogantly post something incorrect. I said you're not competing directly for seats because that is how ADCOMs on this site have explained it. If you know better than the ADCOMs, you should probably message them so they stop giving out wrong information about med school admissions.
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Love this.
 
Not sure on exact numbers.
I'm from a small state college, every year we have over 100 incoming science majors. On a great year, 30 graduate ( this includes 5th years). We probably start with 20 premeds, 5 of them have an auto in to the state med school if they keep their grades up. On a good year 2/5 make it without losing their in.

I graduated in December, with 10 other science majors, one other person and myself graduated with a biology degree; that other person was pre-vet.

So in the class of 2016 (including December grads,) there are 3 that have been accepted (or are attended) medical school, myself and two that kept their auto in.
 
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