Is Harvard really all they say it is?
Started by mac_kin
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Sir, we have a report of a breach in the URM defense shield!
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no doubt it did, but even my urm stats are on the lower side...so there was def other stuff. you can easily find urms with higher stats who don't get nearly as far for various reasons.
example...i actually got in touch with Penn and Baylor after I got my mcat...they basically told me not to even apply (on just stats...no secondaries, EC's, PS, etc). i did anyway, but they held to their advice. ha. oh well, it all worked out
there is a reason HMS has the highest interview/acceptance ratio, and doesn't make ANY decision till ALL interviews are done. they are really really picky and want to take everything into account.
LOL. This is not a URM defense shield offense and not meant to diminish jolt is anyway. He/she wouldn't have gotten those acceptances if he/she wasn't an awesome candidate with everything else going on. It's just not entirely fair to omit that Jolt is a URM (which does have at least somewhat of an affect on admissions).
I didn't go to undergrad at Harvard, but i spent last summer at the medical school in a program. I got to talk to a lot of people about the school and i heard mostly good things. Harvard has a beautiful campus (undergrad more than the medical school, but the buildings are very prestigious-looking). And of course, like any school, you have a spoiled brats and stuck up people at Harvard. But to even my surprise, there are a lot of down to earth people there.
I hear that the medical school acts a little cold to you until you are accepted. Once accepted, you are welcomed with open arms. And i got to know several medical students personally and they love their experience there. The dorm makes for a great place to bond and make relationship. If you are a people person, you will be fine at Harvard or anywhere else. 😉
THE DORM IS SO CRAZY
Vanderbilt Hall comes equipped an indoor basketball court (complete with the letters HMS as the logo at halfcourt), 2 workout rooms, an aerobics room, locker rooms, a wall-climbing room, 3 or 4 squashcourts, random lounges with tv's and pianos and places to study, and some quiet areas...all literally across the street from where classes are (literally...i can throw a rock from my room window to the building)
granted if you really love cooking a lot (common kitchens in each hallway) and hate dorm style bathrooms, then its not for you. but you can stay as long or as short as you want. great stuff to meet people.
Damn, that almost makes me want to take two semesters of calculus... almost.
D
deleted357625
I'm sorry, but i have to post this again for all you Harvard fanboys..This might make you think twice..
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Harvard = Boston.
Boston = way too much $$$ for what you get.
Boston = way too much $$$ for what you get.
say whaaaaaaaaat??
Harvard undergrad = Cambridge
Harvard med school = Boston
These are very different places based on what I saw on a daily basis, especially since Boston has a ton of little ethnic neighborhoods
granted it's an expensive city, but I think you get what you pay for: history, ocean summer fun, local vs. college vs. tourist attractions, a million pubs, good club scene if you're into that, reliable public transportation, doesn't have the crowded feel like NYC... man I could go on and on...
can you tell I loved living there?? 😀
meh, everything you put down (except the ocean) is there in Philadelphia at 2/3rd the cost of living. And this is coming from someone who isn't a native of either place (though admittedly I live in Philadelphia now, but I'll probably be moving west or south next year in residency).
At my interviews in Philly and Boston, I got the same feeling. They're both great cities, but boston constantly struck me as significantly expensive, while philly often seemed reasonable.
I really hate to take this thread down the wrong road, but what is the point of AA in medical school admissions? It doesn't matter what medical school people attend and if push comes to shove, one can always become a DO, and still be a doctor. So why is AA even necessary? It isn't as if minorities need to attend JHU for med school to become doctors. Any person could get into a MD or DO school if they worked hard enough.
This is important in case you forget which school you go to...
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Happens to me all the time. I put the school sticker on my car so I could remember where I need to drive in the morning.
I put my school sticker so people know I'm better than them. It's like the "My child made the honor roll" sticker.
It does have an effect. I've seen a URM (Princeton graduate) with underwhelming stats get in to Harvard med as well. But, Harvard will obviously only take very bright students. It's nice to see they gave Jolt a chance, and clearly his intelligence came through in the interview/personal statement.
Dbate: I see what you were trying to say, but I think you're missing the point.
lol. i can honestly say i've never done the sticker thing.
it's for the students and faculty, as well. with only ~145/class (some schools more, some even less), it's important to have a diverse, well-rounded class. life lessons come up while people are talking about medicine. a lot more often than you'd think. (especially at a place like HMS where we have problem-based learning...this means for every class we have a 6/7 person sub-group where we get together and discuss a case. it's called tutorial. our social med tutorial was all life lessons basically)
and this goes beyond AA. one of the things in my standard copy/paste to people who PM me for advice is to make your application and, more specificially, your PS say why you are different. Makes a difference in the end. That's what adcom's want to know after they get through the stats and everything.
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As one Penn faculty and former Harvard resident put it. "Harvard doesn't care about accepting the "best students." Everyone applying is one of the "best students." Harvard wants the former olympic gymnasts and the famous violin players."
What a representative statement of the egalitarian times we have the displeasure of finding ourselves in right now!
You do realize that medical school is exclusive?
