Important question about conselors!

[premedsux12]

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hey guys, i am a junior right now looking to apply to medical school in the summer. I already took the MCAT last summer and I acheived my goal. I also have maintained my gpa. I come from a big school where they barely pay attention to you. The pre med counselor is not that helpful, so I was wondering if anyone ever went through a private counselor that was very helpful. I don't care the cost.

if anyone knows a really good private pre med counselor, can you please help me out! It would be a perk if the counselor was from the Chicago Land area, but if not, its not a big deal.

 

[Vihsadas]

Welcome to SDN...
Easily the "mother of all pre-med counselors". Search to your hearts content...you can probably find the answer here.

 

[Concordia]

Umm...it is more that possible to get into a med school without the benefit of a counselor. Why would you want to spend unknown amounts of you hard-earned money for a private counselor? You will need that later when you are broke in med school.

 

[Jolie South]

i think you could get by without spending the money on a counselor by doing the following:

-using your pre-med counselor to help you write essays and finalize your app. chances are they do know some stuff.
-learning a lot on SDN. bouncing questions off people in here and reading general information posts.
-follow instructions about AMCAS on the AAMC website. they do include a lot of info.
-i know there are several good books out there about applying to med school. (if someone that has used one could chime in with a name, that would be great.) i used a Princeton Review Med School Application essay book. i found it pretty helpful.

 

[LikeClockWork]

I agree with everything said so far. The two biggest things I got from my pre-med counselor were mock interview advice and a letter of rec. Both of these were things I could've gotten elsewhere, but it was convenient to have someone who was set up to do both at my disposal. You can do mock interviews with any professor that you know well as well as get a LOR, so I wouldn't worry too much about dropping cash on a private counselor.

 

[TheMemoirist]

Well, even if money is no object, I still doubt that any fee-for-service counselor could help you more than your school's premed adviser supplemented with SDN. From what I can gather, most counselors will charge you exorbitant fees to do basically what you can do for yourself for free; you gain no real advantage from spending that money, so why waste it? The application process is costly enough to begin with--there's no need to start throwing money at unnecessary services.

If you utilize SDN wisely, you can gain access to pretty much everything you need: people to read your essays/personal statements; answers to pretty much every question imaginable, etc. Pretty much the only thing you can't get on SDN is a mock-interview and a committee letter. Your adviser might have to help you out with that. 🙄

Best of luck!!!

 

[DoctorDreamer]

My only premed counselor was the Kaplan book "Getting into Medical School."

 

[[pj]]

My only counselor was the SDN search button.

 

[RPedigo]

My only counselor was the SDN search button.

Ditto. My premedical adviser told me to apply to Princeton.

 

[lacrossefiend73]

i think you could get by without spending the money on a counselor by doing the following:

-using your pre-med counselor to help you write essays and finalize your app. chances are they do know some stuff.
-learning a lot on SDN. bouncing questions off people in here and reading general information posts.
-follow instructions about AMCAS on the AAMC website. they do include a lot of info.
-i know there are several good books out there about applying to med school. (if someone that has used one could chime in with a name, that would be great.) i used a Princeton Review Med School Application essay book. i found it pretty helpful.

I read a lot from the book "Get Into Medical School! A Guide for the Perplexed" by Dr. Kenneth Iverson. Pretty good info.

Ditto. My premedical adviser told me to apply to Princeton.

Man, I feel bad for you guys... ours actually know what they are talking about.

 

[Jolie South]

I read a lot from the book "Get Into Medical School! A Guide for the Perplexed" by Dr. Kenneth Iverson. Pretty good info.

That's the one I've heard good things about and was hoping someone would list.

 

[Mandek]

I can be a pre-med counselor!

 

[[pj]]

Ditto. My premedical adviser told me to apply to Princeton.

👍 🙄

 

[Mandek]

Ditto. My premedical adviser told me to apply to Princeton.

LOL!!!! I would've him/her since when did they open up a medical school?

 

[fireflygirl]

Maybe I'm the oddball here, but I actually liked the private counselor I hired. Had I had a better MCAT score, perhaps I would have been able to utilize her better but for the general application process, she was amazing. She did a lot of things that my advisor right now would never have even done. And while I did get some help from SDN, it was nice to have a former of director of admissions working with me and giving me the information straight from the horse's mouth.