People that got accepted to Top 20 schools, what were your ECs?

[bannie22]

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Seriously 99th percentile vs 100th...?

I wouldn't go around telling people I had a 100th percentile if I was 99.4. Just sayin.

 

[libertyyne]

I wouldn't go around telling people I had a 100th percentile if I was 99.4. Just sayin.

523 is within the confidence interval of 521 which also happens to be the 100th percentile. Just sayin.

 

[bannie22]

523 is within the confidence interval of 521 which also happens to be the 100th percentile. Just sayin.

That math too complex for me. Luckily they don't do that math on MCAT. I still stick with 99.4. Cant call a 100 unless I see that 100.

 

[mwsapphire]

Sorry to barge but I want to give my 2c here. MCAT and college courses are separate things. You can be good at one and not the other. In addition, schools and courses of study vary widely in rigor. So a 4.0 in basketweaving does not necessarily equate to a 517+ MCAT. While there are a lot of kids who are certainly capable of scoring high on the MCAT, the nature of the test is so different from college classes that it's more difficult than you'd think. Remember AP classes in high school? Ever make an A in the class but get a 2 or 3 on the exam? It's the same idea.
Like you, I'm not trying to mean or anything but you sound a little presumptuous. I suggest at least taking a practice MCAT before commenting on the test and how grades/scores relate.

You're right, and that wasn't barging in.I realize that post was a little naive/presumptuous , but its more that I'm hoping they could see it coming, because a sudden shock like that would really, really suck. Although, I did okay on the SAT/AP exams, so maybe I can at least do Ok on that MCAT ( like, an acceptable but not fantastic score) , unless something happens. It's more the thought of situations like this freak me out, so I'm hoping there's some ridiculous explanation rather than just " *shrug*"
Addendum: I also just thought that difference was a little too big. Yes, I know that 3.9+ at a top UGrad school ( iirc that's where he goes), doesn't necessarily mean 517+ MCAT, but I'd figure it at least means a 508. I just didn't realize how stark the differences you outlined were.

 

[Danny L]

Based upon my sampling of SDNers who have gotten into Top Schools (admittedly a small n), these seem to have great stats and hundreds if not 1000s of hours of volunteering or paid clinical exposure.

Some schools definitely are stats ****** (like WashU), and seem to tolerate cookie cutter ECs.

The requirement for research and/or research productivity seems to be all over the place.

Is the hundreds-1000s of hours of volunteering clinical volunteering or clinical+general volunteering?

 

[Goro]

Is the hundreds-1000s of hours of volunteering clinical volunteering or clinical+general volunteering?

It seems to be and/or

 

[bioboy23]

Seriously 99th percentile vs 100th...?

Well, technically there is no 100th percentile, so his correction was valid... if we're being technical.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

How does somebody make top grades but not be able to make a solid MCAT

Just wait until you take it. You'll see. I know more 3.9+/500 students than I have fingers and toes. My undergrad has some notoriously difficult classes (that I have also taken) so I know their GPAs aren't inflated.

but I'd figure it at least means a 508.

Nope, grades mean nothing to the MCAT. Getting an A really is more a measure of hard work, whereas the MCAT really does test your inate problem solving ability.

 

[Dr. Stalker]

I wouldn't go around telling people I had a 100th percentile if I was 99.4. Just sayin.

Nah, I respect that. I don't like to boast and say my scores are higher than what they are (even if it is super close).

Well, technically there is no 100th percentile, so his correction was valid... if we're being technical.

If we are being technical, 100th percentile scores do exist, and clearly, 521 is, as you correctly identified, 99th percentile. Tbh a score like that should only apply DO and carib (jk haha)

 

[lolpremed22]

Until the early 2000's all the Ivy League UG schools had formal linkages with the Ivy medical schools. The medical schools in turned had a strong network and culture that led to residency connections, which is very well entrenched in the system still.

This is interesting. What happened to this system?


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[kb1900]

Idk there's so few posts doing what op wanted

LM 76 definitely opened doors for interviews
ECs - more or less the standard shadowing/clinical exposure. But those didn't come up much.

I was very research oriented (no pubs/posters) but hasd strong letters and could talk about what I did and why very well.

I also worked at my schoools peer tutor center and that was a huge passion of mine that I took very seriously. It came up in all my interviews and I had the letters to demonstrate that I wasn't just embeleshing my experience.

Fwiw quality > quantity. Make a difference!

I only applied to about 6-8 top 20s and interviewed at 3 and got accepted at one.

 

[bioboy23]

Nah, I respect that. I don't like to boast and say my scores are higher than what they are (even if it is super close).


View attachment 219860
If we are being technical, 100th percentile scores do exist, and clearly, 521 is, as you correctly identified, 99th percentile. Tbh a score like that should only apply DO and carib (jk haha)

What the? I was taught wrong I guess. I stand corrected!

 

[numbersloth]

It should surprise no one that, for most of their existence , the elite Ivy League schools were bastions of "Blue-Bloods" and WASP students matching the elitist American upper class who sent their sons (daughters had their own school system) to such schools. These institutions have tried to limit and restrict certain religious, ethnic, and racial groups from their schools since their founding. There were formal quota systems in place for Jews and Catholics up through 1960s. The system first started breaking down after World War II when the GI Bill allowed millions of returning veterans to attend college. Up to that time, schools could keep most people out due to the expense of attending. This in turn led to the schools moving from an overtly racial/religious quota system to one of formal linkages from undergraduate schools to medical schools, thus filling every seat with mostly ivy league graduates. Brown University was perhaps that most egregious in this allowing only its own undergraduates and ones from linked schools even to apply, a system that remained until the early 2000s. The upheavals of the 1960, often led by the children of these Blue-Bloods as Bob Dylan said "Your sons and daughters are beyond your command". Columbia may have bee ground zero for this. Massive changes began in the 1970s, most notable of which was ending gender discrimination in medical schools. However, the elite schools keep this culture of restriction in informally in place for another 10-30 years, only slowly chipping away.

The result of the above was a flow of the graduates of the medical schools in the residencies of their associated hospitals. Here, the history of restrictions and elitist ideals are still enshrined in their names though most people dont give it a second thought. Did you ever wonder why Hospitals like Mount Sinai in New York, or Beth Israel in Boston or the many, many institutions of the Catholic Health Services came to be? Because places like New York Presbyterian and Mass General didnt allow those "other" patients in or their doctors to practice. Residency was easier to control in a sense as it was wholly based on personal networking and connections as NRMP didnt start coming into place until the 1980s I believe. Even then, the last schools joined in the early 2000s. Ironically, it was the first school to develop medical residency, Johns Hopkins that was one of the last to give all its slots to the NRMP in the early 2000s. This network still has strong ties is slowly dissolving but culture is the hardest thing to change. For a personal example, my research lab partner from undergrad, a brilliant MD/PhD, who in the early 2000s was faculty at Brown. He was the only one in his department who neither gone to Brown Medical School or Brown Residency. He referred to it as the most incestuous place he had ever been.

Since this was so recent, we can't seriously imagine that from one second to the next these barriers and biases disappeared, especially when many faculty and adcoms probably are still around from when they were in place and enforced. Have medical schools done anything to "purge" (for lack of a better word) this kind of mindset from its faculty and staff? Have there been initiatives, apart from affirmative action, that attempt to remedy this?

 

[lolpremed22]

It should surprise no one that, for most of their existence , the elite Ivy League schools were bastions of "Blue-Bloods" and WASP students matching the elitist American upper class who sent their sons (daughters had their own school system) to such schools. These institutions have tried to limit and restrict certain religious, ethnic, and racial groups from their schools since their founding. There were formal quota systems in place for Jews and Catholics up through 1960s. The system first started breaking down after World War II when the GI Bill allowed millions of returning veterans to attend college. Up to that time, schools could keep most people out due to the expense of attending. This in turn led to the schools moving from an overtly racial/religious quota system to one of formal linkages from undergraduate schools to medical schools, thus filling every seat with mostly ivy league graduates. Brown University was perhaps that most egregious in this allowing only its own undergraduates and ones from linked schools even to apply, a system that remained until the early 2000s. The upheavals of the 1960, often led by the children of these Blue-Bloods as Bob Dylan said "Your sons and daughters are beyond your command". Columbia may have bee ground zero for this. Massive changes began in the 1970s, most notable of which was ending gender discrimination in medical schools. However, the elite schools keep this culture of restriction in informally in place for another 10-30 years, only slowly chipping away.

The result of the above was a flow of the graduates of the medical schools in the residencies of their associated hospitals. Here, the history of restrictions and elitist ideals are still enshrined in their names though most people dont give it a second thought. Did you ever wonder why Hospitals like Mount Sinai in New York, or Beth Israel in Boston or the many, many institutions of the Catholic Health Services came to be? Because places like New York Presbyterian and Mass General didnt allow those "other" patients in or their doctors to practice. Residency was easier to control in a sense as it was wholly based on personal networking and connections as NRMP didnt start coming into place until the 1980s I believe. Even then, the last schools joined in the early 2000s. Ironically, it was the first school to develop medical residency, Johns Hopkins that was one of the last to give all its slots to the NRMP in the early 2000s. This network still has strong ties is slowly dissolving but culture is the hardest thing to change. For a personal example, my research lab partner from undergrad, a brilliant MD/PhD, who in the early 2000s was faculty at Brown. He was the only one in his department who neither gone to Brown Medical School or Brown Residency. He referred to it as the most incestuous place he had ever been.

Wow thank you. I knew to some extent that discrimination and elitism were far greater in the past, but I never knew it was this extreme. Really adds a lot of context to the topic of affirmative action.


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[Goro]

This network still has strong ties is slowly dissolving but culture is the hardest thing to change. For a personal example, my research lab partner from undergrad, a brilliant MD/PhD, who in the early 2000s was faculty at Brown. He was the only one in his department who neither gone to Brown Medical School or Brown Residency. He referred to it as the most incestuous place he had ever been.

An SDN attending once described Brown as being "more inbred than an Alabama trailer park".