lol, saw this thread earlier, decided not to comment. Thought it might be funny if I joined the "Support Group" (ignoring that it's an Applicant Support Group), but not funny enough. Besides, I have NOTHING to complain about right now.
So I will comment since I was called out. I have nothing against Penn. I don't see where the buzzkill is coming from me. My gripes are with systemic issues. The way science is funded and regulated, the way that graduate students and residents have no protection from abuse and those programs are more about work than training, the way that medicine is like an indentured servitude system due to debt, etc etc etc...
I think Penn's MSTP is a great place to be if you're going to do this MSTP sort of thing and they've backed me up in everything I've wanted to do almost 100%. When they haven't they have a good reason, and to be honest I've led such a screwy life, and academics is such a screwy world, that I'd have had issues no matter where I went. Yeah, I've watched a lot of my classmates turn from rah rah researchers to never doing research again, but this is big name big medical school academic research. You fit into this thing or you don't. A lot of what happens is research area specific, lab specific, person specific, and is really out of the MSTP program's hands. I like to talk about it, but what can the program do? It's graduate school. You're getting a PhD, and the PhDs live in their own strange world of high dropout rates, bad job prospects, hard-to-obtain funding, and "You must do X to be a REAL PhD". Are the investigators here REALLY any different than at any of the other big name places? I really doubt it. This is why so few people are heading to the 80/20 research/clinical split down the line, or at least think they are when they're done grad school, but that's reality. If we don't talk about why, we can just hide our head in the sand and say these generic things like "Their heart just wasn't in it", but that's never good enough for me and isn't going to fix anything. Sure, the PDs want to put a good spin on everything so their programs gets lots of money and great students, but I'm not a PD and I don't have to deal with the realities of actually fixing all the problems I talk about.
I don't always agree with the MSTP, but it's just a difference of opinion, and when I talk to applicants I try to give the MSTP's side and my side and try to get them to think about how they feel and about how other programs feel to get them to choose the right place for them. Maybe I'm not like the other students (mostly first years) in admissions who will just say RAH RAH RAH GO PENN!!!!!! But, I don't think my approach is bad? I think it's about helping applicants choose the right place for them. I came off the waitlist, and there are a lot of great people waiting on that waitlist if the people who are accepted don't come. Maybe Penn wants to keep their accepted-to-matriculated ratio as low as possible, but why should I share in that?
Penn Med was annoying at times, but what med school doesn't have its share of issues? There's a few graduate programs that I think should change for MD/PhDs. Our director can't say these sorts of things, but I sure as heck can when I feel like it. Does it dissuade people from coming here? Not really.
I think applicants can trust me to tell them everything about my school that bothers me and the other students when they ask (though now I do reserve this for students with acceptance in hand). I think most applicants appreciate that blunt honesty and begin to think about and suspect about other schools what they're NOT getting from the students there. Thus, our application rate has shot through the roof since I started this long string of SDN posts and our accepted-to-matriculated ratio has gotten much closer to one. How much of this is due to me specifically, who knows...
I view what I do as a public service. My experiences are not uncommon and thus should be shared. I try to be as moderate as I can with things and give all sides of the argument when I speak.
But don't get me wrong--when all went to hell with my PI and committee, the MD/PhD program stepped in to back me up. My coordinator listened to all my gripes and offered advice. While it enraged my PI and committee, my director had no problems with coming to my committee meetings to try to figure out what was going on that my committee couldn't come to a group conclusion on my progress. Overall if someone asked me how I'd rate the job the MSTP is doing, I'd give it a 9/10.
Oh, and finally, I like Philadelphia as a city and have always said nice things about it. I think it's far nicer and has a lot more to offer than say Baltimore, but is much cheaper than NYC or Boston. But if a student is looking for a suburban/rural medical school (happened to me with hosted students or applicants a few times), I'm the first to say this isn't the place.