Pre-med advisors

[NateG]

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While checking out universities to do my undergrad one of the recruiters told me that they did not have pre-med advisors and that they were just a marketing ploy some universities used. I had figured a qualified pre-med advisor would be an important thing to look for when choosing a university. How important are pre-med advisors?

Thanks
Nate

 

[jm192]

While checking out universities to do my undergrad one of the recruiters told me that they did not have pre-med advisors and that they were just a marketing ploy some universities used. I had figured a qualified pre-med advisor would be an important thing to look for when choosing a university. How important are pre-med advisors?

Thanks
Nate

Very.

I suppose you can get online and figure out all the pre-reqs. But having someone that's guided hundreds or thousands through the process is huge.

You don't just have to finish pre-reqs. You have to obtain a degree. They can help you pick a major/minor, and help you to choose classes that fit your schedule for a given semester that work towards your degree program.

You can post on SDN, how hard is it to take classes A, B, AND C in the same semester. And we can give you some general idea. But advisors have talked to students at their university. They have a better idea of how difficult the course actually is at THAT university.

If you're getting a comittee letter and don't have any pre-med advisors...you will probably end up working with people that haven't dealt with it much. Expereinced Pre-med advisors are 99.99% of the time going to write a better committee letter than someone who hasn't worked with it much/if at all.

Advisors can help you with the extra curricular stuff too. They recommend clubs, volunteer opportunities, and in some cases potential shadowing experiences.

You need a Pre-Med advisor.

 

[just one]

While my university has a wonderful pre-med advisor that gave me helpful sound advice, apparently many universities either don't have one or have bad ones. There is little information that a dedicated resourceful pre-med can't find out with research. I certainly wouldn't select a university based on advisors. What if the advisor leaves your freshman year?

Also while my university has a great advisor, not everyone used her and also not everyone agreed with her advice. Funny thing is most of the people I know that didn't like her or agree with her advice never made it to a health professional school. I think it was more of they didn't like what she told them because she told them the truth and it sometimes was a reality check.

As far as her advice to me, I always researched class schedule, pre-reqs, etc stuff beforehand and just double checked them with her. I always had picked out the same stuff she recommended. Where I did get advice that I may not have done so well on my own was with the personal statement and application process.

 

[seelee]

A pre-med advisor is not necessary, and (in many cases) can send you down the completely wrong path. In any case I would double-double check anything your pre-med advisor says with the MSAR, and to be perfectly honest, SDN is about the best resource for answering those specific questions. I have yet to see misinformation posted that wasn't rapidly corrected by someone more knowledgeable.

 

[FrkyBgStok]

A pre-med advisor is not necessary, and (in many cases) can send you down the completely wrong path. In any case I would double-double check anything your pre-med advisor says with the MSAR, and to be perfectly honest, SDN is about the best resource for answering those specific questions. I have yet to see misinformation posted that wasn't rapidly corrected by someone more knowledgeable.

agreed. i would say a good premed advisor is awesome, but there are a lot of horrible ones out there as well.

 

[foofish]

agreed. i would say a good premed advisor is awesome, but there are a lot of horrible ones out there as well.

Agreed. A great pre-med advisor is crucial, but there are bad ones that might lead you astray. In terms of what one school told the OP about premed advisors being marketing ploys, that is BS...and frankly sounds like a marketing ploy in itself by the school you were talking to.

Many universities have legit, invaluable premed advisors. They tell you which classes do and do not qualify for med school and guide you through the process...they also help you pick schools so that you apply realistically and broadly (although I think this is the point where advisors sometimes go awry, in that they sometimes undershoot so as not to set up a student's expectations). At my undergrad, there is an entire office devoted to career advising (which you had access to both as a student and alum). Their advisors are specialized by field, and so the premed advising was a subset of that career advising office...and definitely an absolute lifesaver.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I think they're mostly pretty useless and I wouldn't pick a college based on their availability. My premed advisor was a former dean of admissions, and her advice was still pretty generic (do the prereqs, volunteer, shadow, research is nice, the process is a crapshoot).

Now she charges thousands of dollars for her generic advice.

 

[docelh]

If the premed adviser is not so key, how unimportant is a premed committee letter?

 

[lord_jeebus]

If the premed adviser is not so key, how unimportant is a premed committee letter?

Many schools lack a committee (including mine) and med schools understand this. You just submit individual letters of rec instead.

 

[NickNaylor]

If the premed adviser is not so key, how unimportant is a premed committee letter?

Following with the above post, however, many schools also require committee letters if a committee is present. If you use a committee, you bet it's going to be important. Even if you include other letters to be sent with your committee letter, the committee letter will more than likely be read first since it usually serves as a cover letter.

 

[BrainBuff]

Some universities have extremely well organized and fully staffed Health Careers Advising Departments - a few of the ivies come to mind. I have found more private universities (compared to publics) that have these very structured departments. Some schools have ONE premed counselor only and he is in charge of writing the Committee Letter.

It may all be a matter of resources...

 

[TexasPhysician]

A good pre-med advisor is PRICELESS! I wouldn't have traded mine for anything. That said, not all pre-med advisors are useful. Friends at other schools found them useless.

You need to do the research at EACH individual school to see how happy the pre-meds are with the advisors.

 

[Narmerguy]

I think they're mostly pretty useless and I wouldn't pick a college based on their availability. My premed advisor was a former dean of admissions, and her advice was still pretty generic (do the prereqs, volunteer, shadow, research is nice, the process is a crapshoot).

Now she charges thousands of dollars for her generic advice.

This. Almost anything you want from an advisor can be found here or elsewhere online with less bias and greater collective experience. The only benefit I can see from a really good advisor is specific advice about professors to take or labs you could get in but this is seldom useful enough to care if you have an advisor or not.

 

[Poliscidoc]

So I had to meet with my advisor today since i'm a senior and on track to graduate this year. She told me my business degree was useless for medical school, I should have majored in bio or chem. I should start another major ASAP. Also she told me that I could take the MCAT around December and apply in January because "that is still about 4 months before school starts". Just the crap she told me I was amazed at. The whole time I'm thinking this woman is an idiot.

 

[getright]

Are you sure she's really an advisor lol. That sounds beyond ridiculous.

 

[cfx]

It depends on what you make of it.

My school has multiple pre-health advisors. The first one gave me terrible advice. For example, the first time I met with her, she began chastising me because I had a shorter list of ECs (all were very meaningful and extensive), and she believed that I should have a laundry list of worthless ones ("one of my students has dozens of things he does because he wants to go to Johns Hopkins. You really need more."). Her take? It is absolutely vital that I join several clubs 🙄.

I switched to a new advisor, who has been a tremendous resource. He's a great person to bounce questions and ideas off of, and offers well thought out guidance whenever I need it.

I think it was quite helpful having him but, honestly, I met with him maybe once per semester, and anything he told me I could have figured out for myself.

It's a nice service to have, but not at all necessary. I wouldn't let it determine what school you go to.