Medical school choice algorithm

[bacamat]

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I've been working on a tool to help me make big life decisions, like which medical school to choose. The genesis is that I'm a lawyer (my wife is a physical therapist), and I've been thinking through possibilities for my career. Also thinking about things like where to live. Here's the website, which has been helpful for me in figuring out what factors really matter:http://decidealgo.com/

And here's an example for picking an undergrad: http://decidealgo.com/?page=dec&algo_id=62&view=cfa684190233

The site is a totally free labor of love--hope it's useful to someone out there.

 

[NotAnotherPreMed]

I like the UI! snazzy looking. But as for the actual product, current its a weighted averaging system right or am I missing something? What other features are you looking to add also?

 

[darkjedi]

Interesting concept, but I'm not sure deciding where to go to med school can be boiled down into a number. Definitely a good start for those who work well with hard numerics though.

 

[Glandzburg]

Obviously this can help you decide where to apply, but ultimately many (probably a majority) applicants must go to the school that accepts them.

 

[bacamat]

I like the UI! snazzy looking. But as for the actual product, current its a weighted averaging system right or am I missing something? What other features are you looking to add also?

Thanks! Yeah, it's just a weighted averaging system—nothing fancy. I used to make spreadsheets to do the same thing, but I wanted something you could quickly plug any problem into and share. Surprisingly, I don't see anything else out there like it.

In terms of other features, I'll probably want to keep it pretty slim. Very open to ideas though. I was thinking of adding some templates (e.g. where should I live, which school should I choose, what car should I buy, what dog breed should I get) with pre-populated factors, but of course how much to weight everything always comes down to personal preference.

It's also fun with silly/geeky things like arguing with friends about the best superhero, but I don't know what to do with that: http://decidealgo.com/?page=dec&algo_id=90&view=0fac90fdbb5e

Thanks for checking it out!

 

[bacamat]

Interesting concept, but I'm not sure deciding where to go to med school can be boiled down into a number. Definitely a good start for those who work well with hard numerics though.

Totally agree. I want to say something like "it's not about the numbers, the answer was always within you" or some similar cheesball such because, yeah, it doesn't tell you the answer. But for me the process of tinkering and refining the factors and weights has helped reveal what I care about most in the decision. Thanks for checking it out!

 

[honeydude]

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing.

 

[bacamat]

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing.

Glad to hear it, thanks! Just hoping it's helpful!

 

[bacamat]

A bunch have people have used this--hope it's helped! For anyone who has a moment to give feedback by replying here, I'd be really grateful because I can change it to make it more useful.

A couple specific questions:

1) Would it be helpful to have a template that includes things like cost, academic reputation, climate, etc.--things everyone cares about to some extent?

2) Did you understand that some factors are inverted? That is, for cost to be a 10/10 would mean the school is free or cheap since 10/10 is perfect in the algorithm (analogously, 10/10 academic reputation is obviously a perfect score, but this is not an inverted factor). Many people are confused about this and give more expensive schools a higher rating (thinking higher price means higher number in the algorithm) on the cost ten-point scale.

Thanks all!

 

[NotAnotherPreMed]

A template would definitely be useful. Especially since its customizable anyway. As for the factor inversion: maybe you can have a sentence describing what a 1 is and a 10 is for confusing things like 'cost' so that people don't mess up.

 

[bacamat]

A template would definitely be useful. Especially since its customizable anyway. As for the factor inversion: maybe you can have a sentence describing what a 1 is and a 10 is for confusing things like 'cost' so that people don't mess up.

Yes, that's a great idea about adding a sentence—maybe when you hover over the weight or on the initial walkthrough. Thanks for trying it!

 

[flyingeagle]

I've been working on a tool to help me make big life decisions, like which medical school to choose. The genesis is that I'm a lawyer (my wife is a physical therapist), and I've been thinking through possibilities for my career. Also thinking about things like where to live. Here's the website, which has been helpful for me in figuring out what factors really matter:http://decidealgo.com/

And here's an example for picking an undergrad: http://decidealgo.com/?page=dec&algo_id=62&view=cfa684190233

The site is a totally free labor of love--hope it's useful to someone out there.

I like the website! I don't know if you did this on purpose but the website name has a nice double meaning. Decide algo as in algorithm, which I presume you intended, and also decide "algo" where "algo" means "something" in Spanish, so it means "Decide Something". Absolutely genius.

 

[bacamat]

I like the website! I don't know if you did this on purpose but the website name has a nice double meaning. Decide algo as in algorithm, which I presume you intended, and also decide "algo" where "algo" means "something" in Spanish, so it means "Decide Something". Absolutely genius.

Thanks! That was all intended, and you were the first person to notice—well done! And thanks for checking out the site.

 

[parachichi]

Actually very helpful, thanks!

 

[whatever5]

Am I the only one who doesn't really get the point of this?

 

[bacamat]

Actually very helpful, thanks!

Glad to hear it, thanks!

 

[Lucca]

I like the website! I don't know if you did this on purpose but the website name has a nice double meaning. Decide algo as in algorithm, which I presume you intended, and also decide "algo" where "algo" means "something" in Spanish, so it means "Decide Something". Absolutely genius.

I thought this same thing, I read it in Spanish first in my head, pretty cool double entendre.

 

[Lawpy]

Im curious how this fares with @WedgeDawg algorithm

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/wedgedawgs-applicant-rating-system.1131149/

 

[Sgucci]

Here's a med school choice algorithm: If you're in california, add at least 30 more schools or you're toast.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Im curious how this fares with @WedgeDawg algorithm

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/wedgedawgs-applicant-rating-system.1131149/

They're made for different purposes

 

[Lawpy]

They're made for different purposes

Right but i'm trying to match the purpose to its importance. If i understand correctly, the algorithm in the OP is really just deciding what school you would like to attend after getting accepted. But... i mean, that's what happens in SSD Forums in much more detailed fashion

 

[WedgeDawg]

Right but i'm trying to match the purpose to its importance. If i understand correctly, the algorithm in the OP is really just deciding what school you would like to attend after getting accepted. But... i mean, that's what happens in SSD Forums in much more detailed fashion

True. It's a quantitative cost benefit analysis which is useful if you know how you want to weight each factor and know which factors to look at in the first place.

However, I think a lot of people who post school vs school threads are looking for subjective opinions in addition to objective data.

 

[Dandine]

I think explaining the ranking (1 being highest, 10 being greatest) would be helpful. Interesting. Might have to play around with it a bit!

 

[deleted393595]

I've been working on a tool to help me make big life decisions, like which medical school to choose. The genesis is that I'm a lawyer (my wife is a physical therapist), and I've been thinking through possibilities for my career. Also thinking about things like where to live. Here's the website, which has been helpful for me in figuring out what factors really matter:http://decidealgo.com/

And here's an example for picking an undergrad: http://decidealgo.com/?page=dec&algo_id=62&view=cfa684190233

The site is a totally free labor of love--hope it's useful to someone out there.

Good effort, but if I may critique your work, it suffers the same problem that econometrics does:

It is true the empiricists reject [a priori] theory; they pretend that they aim to learn only from historical experience. However, they contradict their own principles as soon as they pass beyond the unadulterated recording of individual single prices and begin to construct series and to compute averages. A datum of experience and a statistical fact is only a price paid at a definite time and a definite place for a definite quantity of a certain commodity. The arrangement of various price data in groups and the computation of averages are guided by theoretical deliberations which are logically and temporally antecedent. The extent to which certain attending features and circumstantial contingencies of the price data concerned are taken or not taken into consideration depends on theoretical reasoning of the same kind. Nobody is so bold as to maintain that a rise of a per cent in the supply of any commodity must always—in every country and at any time—result in a fall of b per cent in its price. But as no quantitative economist ever ventured to define precisely on the ground of statistical experience the special conditions producing a definite deviation from the ratio a : b, the futility of his endeavors is manifest. (Human Action p. 351)

tl;dr: It's a good tool, but reducing a decision to a simple numerical score cuts out other real-world complexities

 

[bacamat]

Good effort, but if I may critique your work, it suffers the same problem that econometrics does:



tl;dr: It's a good tool, but reducing a decision to a simple numerical score cuts out other real-world complexities

Yep, agreed. And that's why I've tried to stress that the best thing this tool can do is help you sort out what factors matter most to you. It's really not about giving an objective numerical score. What I've found is that as I go through a decision, I start rooting for one to come out ahead, which tells me something important. Or, I expect one to come out ahead that doesn't, and that makes me take a look at how much I really value each of the factors and question whether there's something more to the decision than what I've been thinking about. Thanks for taking a look!