** How useful is your advisor? Advice for applicants. Discuss!

[britishmafia]

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So... I've seen a lot of people complain about pre-med advisors and how much they do or don't know. Some are really useful, and others are not. This also varies from school to school and upon the size of the school. Tell us about your pre-med office/advisor and any stories or advice for future applicants when dealing with premed offices and committee packets if available.

To start...

School or School Type/Size: Anonymous, Public, Very Large
How I'd Rate It: Knowledgeable, but really overwhelmed
Description: Our premed advisor is a really great guy, but with so many premeds in a 40,000 student campus, he gets really overwhelmed. Also, our system is a bit older, so the new AMCAS LOE service is kind of confusing for the advisor. He is super-friendly, but it takes up to a week or more to get emails returned. I once contacted a staff assistant, and it took almost two weeks to get a response.
Advice: Try to speak with your advisor in person.

😎 We're best pals now.

 

[Lynkeus]

School or School Type/Size: Anonymous, Public, Very Large
How I'd Rate It: Knowledgeable once you get past your sophomore year.
Description: Well, we actually have two pre-med advisors due to the large number of prospectives, one for freshmen/sophomores, and the other for juniors/seniors. They're both well meaning, but it's very obvious to anyone semi-informed that the freshmen/sophomore advisor only knows the very basics (i.e. take one year bio, gen chem, orgo, physics, etc.). On the other hand, the junior/senior advisor is actually extremely knowledgeable on the entire application process and can give specific insights into the medical schools in the area where students from my school tend to apply.
Advice: The advisors like you a lot more when you do the basic research yourself, giving them the opportunity to give more specific advice both to you and about schools you're interested in. I get the feeling they get tired of saying the same thing day-in day-out.

 

[tiedyeddog]

School or School Type/Size: Public, very large
How I'd Rate It: Knowledgeable, but really overwhelmed
Description: We have many pre-med advisers. The honors adviser is the best but I opted to not do honors so I can't see him. None of the advisers know much about MD/PhD programs so that is weak. Nice lady, generally very helpful.
Advice: Don't take your advisers work as gospel truth. If you can, verify his/her response with at least one more source.

 

[MilkmanAl]

UNC didn't have a premed adviser or committee, so I did it all on my own. I would've done it that way anyway and just gone to an adviser for advice to fill in the gaps. I wouldn't trust any adviser for anything other than the most basic of information, and even that I'd confirm with another source. I know far too many people who've been completely screwed by faulty advice from well-meaning counselors.

edit: In retrospect, I'm willing to bet I would've been one of those people getting screwed. Nobody would've told me to apply with a 3.1 and sub-3.0 BCMP.

 

[rockydoc]

School or School Type/Size: Private / Very, very, small
How I'd Rate It: Very friendly and re-assuring but not very useful
Description: No official pre-med advisor/committee but I do have an academic advisor who also advises for many science majors
Advice: I did it all on my own and since you should take an advisor's info with care anyway, might as well do it on your own even if you have one....ultimately you are the one responsible for the info you get...do your research, dont be lazy.....on a side note, my advisor is an awesome guy and actually has become a mentor to me (i just dont use him much for med school advise🙂)

 

[icarus8]

School or School Type/Size: Private / About 6500 Undergrads
How I'd Rate It: Very friendly and useful
Description: We have a group of four advisors, and they are pretty much all great.
Advice: If you are fortunate enough to go to a place with a good group of advisors, or anywhere where you need a cover letter or a committee letter, meet with a premed advisor frequently. It really helps when they are writing your letter if you've actually talked to them before.

 

[lol.psych]

School or School Type/Size: Private / Small (under 3,000 undergrads)
How I'd Rate It: Friendly, helpful, structured
Description: 1 main pre-med advisor, but she's got a committee behind her
Advice: She's unreasonably helpful - she'll respond to your emails, even if you send her a billion. If she notices at the last minute that your file could be a tiny bit stronger, she'll let you know and extend some deadlines for you. She's kind of rough, but honest. With situations like these, it helps to be in contact with the pre-med advisor on a regular basis, to make sure you're on top of things. I managed to somehow end up not on the pre-med mailing list, so I heard about everything at the last minute from some friends. The pre-med advisor helped me catch up on everything that I was late on.

 

[RockWhisperer]

School or School Type/Size: University of Colorado
How I'd Rate It: Structured but an often disappointing knowledge depending on the adviser (feel free to pm if you go here and I can tell which adviser of the two main ones you should avoid)
Description: 2 main pre-med advisors with 1 freshman adviser
Advice: Anything related to advice on school lists and general advice related to how to improve your chances should be directed here. They are totally worthless when it comes to that. However, they are organized when it comes to committee letters, and understanding of basic facts about schools (albeit you can get anything they know from MSAR). My main advice would be to not listen really at all to them and stick with the advice here. For any of you at CU, don't be fooled into wasting your time becoming an EMT unless you really want to. God, if I had a penny everytime they brought up being an EMT...

 

[soisauce]

School or School Type/Size: SUNY Stony Brook University, Public, Very Large
How I'd Rate It: Very friendly, not so informative, disappointing
Description: There are two pre-med advisors, a male and a female. The male knows his stuff but it is so hard to get in contact with him. The female, though she is a great person and is extremely friendly, she doesn't quite know enough about the process. Pretty disappointed, I have been asking my friend who goes to Columbia University to ask her pre-med advisor things for me. Her advisor is extremely helpful and gets back to her within minutes.
Advice: Try to speak with the advisor EARLY so that you can find out if he/she is bad. If so, you need to work that much harder lol.

 

[DrYoda]

I personally don't trust advisors. I met with one( not a pre-med one) my freshman year to declaire my major and I have not spoken to nor do I have any plans to speak to another one again.

 

[rowerlauren]

School or School Type/Size: Private / About 6500 Undergrads
How I'd Rate It: Very friendly and useful
Description: We have a group of four advisors, and they are pretty much all great.
Advice: If you are fortunate enough to go to a place with a good group of advisors, or anywhere where you need a cover letter or a committee letter, meet with a premed advisor frequently. It really helps when they are writing your letter if you've actually talked to them before.

Do you go to my school? Since this sounds incredibly similar to what I would say at my university.

 

[p30doc]

I've dealt with advisors at 3 schools(private top 20 to public), some pre-med some in other disciplines. They have ranged from incompetent to negligent (one ruined an opportunity for me because they forgot to sign something before mailing it, long story). Being my own advisor worked out best for me in the end, I would not trust an advisor at all after my experiences.

 

[britishmafia]

I personally don't trust advisors. I met with one( not a pre-med one) my freshman year to declaire my major and I have not spoken to nor do I have any plans to speak to another one again.

Could I ask... Did something awful happen?
🙁

 

[chad5871]

School or School Type/Size: Public, Largest in the state (over 30,000 total students)
How I'd Rate It: A good place to start, organized and friendly
Description: Our premed office has several advisors. I was fortunate in that my last name fell so that I was with our head advisor. I found him to be quite helpful when asking general questions, getting encouragement, etc. I never had any experience with the other advisors, but I heard not-so-great things about them. Our pre-med committee is excellent - extremely fast and organized. Also, I always got quick responses from my advisor, and he was pretty up-to-date with new happenings (MCAT stuff, AMCAS LOE program, etc.) The office was a good resource although I used SDN far more and found that to be quite helpful.
Advice: Get input from many different sources - several advisors, friends in med school, doctors, and SDN. Then you can figure out what advice is good and what isn't.

 

[link2swim06]

what is the moss test?

 

[DrYoda]

Could I ask... Did something awful happen?
🙁

I've seen a few give advice that I saw as being more in the schools' interest than the student's. I entered college with this opinion, and I've had it reinforced a couple times (nothing bad has really happened to me though, I just think they often give poor advice). I would rant on this more, but I'm leaving on vacation in 10 minutes so i must go. Bye.

 

[Neuro415]

School size: 6700
How I'd rate: Pretty good school with a lot of research opportunities and a great reputation
How I feel: I feel like she doesn't care and just wants to get past our meeting so she's closer to going home?

 

[Neuro415]

School or School Type/Size: Private / About 6500 Undergrads
How I'd Rate It: Very friendly and useful
Description: We have a group of four advisors, and they are pretty much all great.
Advice: If you are fortunate enough to go to a place with a good group of advisors, or anywhere where you need a cover letter or a committee letter, meet with a premed advisor frequently. It really helps when they are writing your letter if you've actually talked to them before.

What school do you go to? Its around same size as mine, wonder if its same one.

 

[britishmafia]

what is the moss test?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCAT#The_Moss_Test:_1928.E2.80.931946