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Here is an analogy I came up with a friend who has his first medical school interview in two weeks. He is an applicant with below average GPA/MCAT who, despite being invited to interview at a well-established school, still thinks he has no chance of being accepted based solely upon his numbers.
Feel free to bust out the flamethrowers and let me have it. I thought it was a relatively ingenious analogy I came up with in the impromptu style especially since he is a huge baseball fan. Tell me what you think.
Baseball Tryouts & Medical School Interviews: An Analogy by the cbrons
If a team invites you and invests a whole day in seeing whether or not you can play ball, you better damn well be ready to step up to the plate at game time. If its an open file interview, this is especially true. The people who interview you are going to read over your file and immediately begin to wonder whether or not you can handle the big leagues when your minor league stats were just average. But you can use this to your advantage.
Teams are looking to make their roster well-rounded. You don't win championships with nine homerun hitters if you can't play defense. Likewise, you can't win with a powerhouse bullpen if your starting rotation is so awful you consistently have relief pitchers going for five plus innings.
In your case, you might not be a homerun hitter or have a Cy Young-worthy ERA. But if you can be a reliable setup pitcher or pinch run for the overweight designated hitter in the 8th inning with the game on the line, you still add value in that you increase the number of potential situations in which the team can win.
If the player was invited to spring training, the coaching staff believes there is potential. If they didn't believe they had a shot, they wouldn't waste a pre-season roster spot, time, money, effort, etc. A player with average minor league stats shows up at spring training to do two things. First, he shows the coaching staff that is he able to compete in the big leagues. Second, he tries to develop a niche in some area of the game and excel at this one particular aspect above all of the other players.
But you can't really have the first without the second. Major league rosters are limited to a certain number of players. No team will accept a guy who can run a 4.1 second 40-yard dash if he can't catch a baseball or hit a generic big league fastball. If all the player adds is speed, the team will simply justify cutting them by retaining someone who might be just as fast but also has all of the other aforementioned skills. Hell, if all they needed was a kid who was fast, why not recruit some poor track star from the third world?
So back to interviewing with lower stats. If a school invites a below-average applicant to interview, they may wonder whether or not you can handle the rigorous coursework. But for whatever reason, the committee reviewed your application materials and saw something other than GPA/MCAT (homeruns, ERA) that could potentially make their school more well-rounded. Schools want diversity; it allows them to produce doctors who can service a widely diverse patient population in various areas of the country. It also adds satisfaction to the student base in that people of varying backgrounds will bring different life experiences, viewpoints and talents to the table.
The reality of the situation is that applicants with lower stats must work hard to stand out in some way. And if they accomplish this, they must also give the admissions committee confidence that they'll be able to keep up with their peers. If they can't keep up, then whatever other characteristics you might add to the student body won't matter.
Schools are primarily concerned with GPA/MCAT because it is a generally reliable predictor of a.) ability to complete the curriculum and b.) scores on board/licensing exams. Just like minor league ERA is a predictor of big league ERA and minor league RBIs/homeruns are a predictor of big league RBIs/homeruns. There are obviously examples of when things dont pan out this way but for the most part, they are the most reliable indicators of future success short of a crystal ball.
Feel free to bust out the flamethrowers and let me have it. I thought it was a relatively ingenious analogy I came up with in the impromptu style especially since he is a huge baseball fan. Tell me what you think.
Baseball Tryouts & Medical School Interviews: An Analogy by the cbrons
If a team invites you and invests a whole day in seeing whether or not you can play ball, you better damn well be ready to step up to the plate at game time. If its an open file interview, this is especially true. The people who interview you are going to read over your file and immediately begin to wonder whether or not you can handle the big leagues when your minor league stats were just average. But you can use this to your advantage.
Teams are looking to make their roster well-rounded. You don't win championships with nine homerun hitters if you can't play defense. Likewise, you can't win with a powerhouse bullpen if your starting rotation is so awful you consistently have relief pitchers going for five plus innings.
In your case, you might not be a homerun hitter or have a Cy Young-worthy ERA. But if you can be a reliable setup pitcher or pinch run for the overweight designated hitter in the 8th inning with the game on the line, you still add value in that you increase the number of potential situations in which the team can win.
If the player was invited to spring training, the coaching staff believes there is potential. If they didn't believe they had a shot, they wouldn't waste a pre-season roster spot, time, money, effort, etc. A player with average minor league stats shows up at spring training to do two things. First, he shows the coaching staff that is he able to compete in the big leagues. Second, he tries to develop a niche in some area of the game and excel at this one particular aspect above all of the other players.
But you can't really have the first without the second. Major league rosters are limited to a certain number of players. No team will accept a guy who can run a 4.1 second 40-yard dash if he can't catch a baseball or hit a generic big league fastball. If all the player adds is speed, the team will simply justify cutting them by retaining someone who might be just as fast but also has all of the other aforementioned skills. Hell, if all they needed was a kid who was fast, why not recruit some poor track star from the third world?
So back to interviewing with lower stats. If a school invites a below-average applicant to interview, they may wonder whether or not you can handle the rigorous coursework. But for whatever reason, the committee reviewed your application materials and saw something other than GPA/MCAT (homeruns, ERA) that could potentially make their school more well-rounded. Schools want diversity; it allows them to produce doctors who can service a widely diverse patient population in various areas of the country. It also adds satisfaction to the student base in that people of varying backgrounds will bring different life experiences, viewpoints and talents to the table.
The reality of the situation is that applicants with lower stats must work hard to stand out in some way. And if they accomplish this, they must also give the admissions committee confidence that they'll be able to keep up with their peers. If they can't keep up, then whatever other characteristics you might add to the student body won't matter.
Schools are primarily concerned with GPA/MCAT because it is a generally reliable predictor of a.) ability to complete the curriculum and b.) scores on board/licensing exams. Just like minor league ERA is a predictor of big league ERA and minor league RBIs/homeruns are a predictor of big league RBIs/homeruns. There are obviously examples of when things dont pan out this way but for the most part, they are the most reliable indicators of future success short of a crystal ball.
