SDN called outWhich ADCOM is he talking about! Thoughts on this?

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FlavivirusProtease said:
****! Nobody told me it would only take 21 days for me to go from having 1 acceptance in a lower tier school (granted I love the school I’m going to) to getting accepted to Stanford.

The course is only $16 too... Jesus Christ.
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Ya, the only catch is you have to give him your credit card number.
 
In order to make this a less "toxic" environment, for $1 I will "like" your post. For $5 I will quote your post and reply "QFT." For $10 I will call out a mod on your behalf and get put on probation as a martyr for your cause. Money orders only.
 
FlavivirusProtease said:
****! Nobody told me it would only take 21 days for me to go from having 1 acceptance in a lower tier school (granted I love the school I’m going to) to getting accepted to Stanford.

The course is only $16 too... Jesus Christ.
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I don’t get his pricing. That one course is $16 on how to get into the likes of Stanford, but he has a class on studying more efficiently that’s $549 and an MCAT prep course that is advertised as helping you get a good MCAT score without an expensive prep course...and it costs ~$250.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
I don’t get his pricing. That one course is $16 on how to get into the likes of Stanford, but he has a class on studying more efficiently that’s $549 and an MCAT prep course that is advertised as helping you get a good MCAT score without an expensive prep course...and it costs ~$250.
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The one course for $16 is to lure you in, and probably say you need good GPA (study more efficiently) and good MCAT to get into Stanford. That’s how they get you.
 
Microbug said:
The one course for $16 is to lure you in, and probably say you need good GPA (study more efficiently) and good MCAT to get into Stanford. That’s how they get you.
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Which they can help you with for the low, low price of $549.
 
Microbug said:
The one course for $16 is to lure you in, and probably say you need good GPA (study more efficiently) and good MCAT to get into Stanford. That’s how they get you.
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Which they can help you with for the low, low price of $549.
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Well it's just blatantly misleading, because it says that you can do it in 21 days. There's no way to get a good GPA in 21 days. I guess you could do all your MCAT studying in 21 days (I did 5ish weeks of dedicated studying but that's still almost 2x as much). Also, there's no time to get any extracurriculars in 21 days.
 
I stopped the video when he said:

“People who actually know this stuff don’t have TIME to be answering pages of questions!”

This maladroit is saying that in a 20 minute freaking video. I’ve never posted anything on SDN that took 20 minutes.

My guess is he’s butthurt that every piece of his advice is available for free on the Internet. Also, never trust someone like this who has to wear surgical gear in the video to convince you he is legit.

And his beard is janky as all heck. Seriously, dude. If you’re going to be a schiester you need to look slick. Trim and edge that crap.
 
RNthenDoc said:
I stopped the video when he said:

“People who actually know this stuff don’t have TIME to be answering pages of questions!”

This maladroit is saying that in a 20 minute freaking video. I’ve never posted anything on SDN that took 20 minutes.

My guess is he’s butthurt that every piece of his advice is available for free on the Internet. Also, never trust someone like this who has to wear surgical gear in the video to convince you he is legit.

And his beard is janky as all heck. Seriously, dude. If you’re going to be a schiester you need to look slick. Trim and edge that crap.
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He records his videos during his breaks or when he is on call.
 
An important thing to point out is that Dr. Andre Pinesett was an URM applicant throughout the application phase. While he does dish out some relevant things and loading it with BS to sell his services, many aspects of his personal experiences will not be applicable to the non-URM applicants.

With his educational background of a bachelor's at UC Irvine and 3 gap years, 2 of which was spent on an MPH, followed by an acceptance at Stanford Med, his URM background played a part, if not a big part, in his acceptance to Stanford Med.

Again, if you choose to listen to him and even pay him for his services, take them with a huge grain of salt, followed by taking furosemide STAT
 
Windom Earle said:
He records his videos during his breaks or when he is on call.
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So his argument is that attendings don’t have time to post on SDN, yet he has the time for selfie videos when he’s between cases?

So why couldn’t a different physician have time between cases or during call just log into SDN and help newbies like me out, if they so desired?

Answer: they can and do.
 
Why would anyone trust someone who basically said anyone who’s a real physician making real differences in the world would not be spending time to help premeds (completely false to begin with) AND that’s EXACTLY what he’s doing except he’s ripping people off for it. It’s blatantly obvious he’s in it for the money and not out of the kindness of his heart or whatever. What a load of crap.
 
Robin-jay said:
Seems way too scripted to me...

I bet he pretends to be on call or during a break when he makes these videos. It's probably a lot more prepped then you think.
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His pager goes off sometimes during his videos. Unless you think that's also faked.
 
RNthenDoc said:
So his argument is that attendings don’t have time to post on SDN, yet he has the time for selfie videos when he’s between cases?

So why couldn’t a different physician have time between cases or during call just log into SDN and help newbies like me out, if they so desired?

Answer: they can and do.
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I only work ~200 days a year.
I’m out before 4 most days, sometimes 1.
I take about 1 call a month, and often give away call and late shifts for the $$.
I’ve got nothing but time.


--
Il Destriero
 
Great post made nearly a year ago by a member here.

Screenshot_20180321-174137.jpg

This individual summed up everything we said here well.
 
bananafish94 said:
The crazy thing is that people actually do spend money on this stuff. I've heard of people spending enormous amounts of money so that people of questionable credentials can read their personal statements and review their application and such. I'll never understand why...
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there is a whole cottage industry dedicated to this. Its actually quite surprising, must be in the millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues.
 
libertyyne said:
there is a whole cottage industry dedicated to this. Its actually quite surprising, must be in the millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues.
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I think for medical students/practicing physicians to charge such a ridiculous price for these "mentorship" indicate to me compromised ethics.
 
Microbug said:
I think for medical students/practicing physicians to charge such a ridiculous price for these "mentorship" indicate to me compromised ethics.
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i dont think there is an ethical issue here. You dont need to get an admissions consultant to go to medical school or to find a mentor. Plus this is not really mentorship this is a business transaction.
 
libertyyne said:
i dont think there is an ethical issue here. You dont need to get an admissions consultant to go to medical school or to find a mentor. Plus this is not really mentorship this is a business transaction.
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yeah but where is the mentality of being of service to others and giving back to the community. what about mentoring and educating the younger generation of medical professionals. these are things I would do for free and to profit off students' vulnerability would suggest to me an ethical issue.
 
libertyyne said:
there is a whole cottage industry dedicated to this. Its actually quite surprising, must be in the millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues.
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Undergraduate students are the easiest market to exploit. There are reasons why businesses build around college campuses. There are reasons why college campuses build themselves into Disney Land resorts with the option for students to live in a penthouse or have a jacuzzi. When you know that there is stable financial capital (parents) who are funding students, you adopt similar strategies like toy companies. You target the children and have them convince their parents that they need the Kaplan interview advisor option for $500 in order to get into medical school.

Let me caveat this so I'm not detested by everyone in a college program. As a student you are conditioned to consume and spend as your sense of income balance becomes distorted especially if you pursue academic heavy fields like the sciences. Distortion of financial balance leads to students naturally overestimating their prospective human wealth (wealth of knowledge, skills) and underestimating their actual financial balance (student debt, immediate income). Because you are constantly incentivized to go all-in on the former, there are many different businesses that benefit from feeding into this, "spend now earn later" sort of cycle that is exploitative on students and lucrative for concerned businesses.
 
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Select All That Apply said:
Undergraduate students are the easiest market to exploit. There are reasons why businesses build around college campuses. There are reasons why college campuses build themselves into Disney Land resorts with the option for students to live in a penthouse or have a jacuzzi. When you know that there is stable financial capital (parents) who are funding students, you adopt similar strategies like toy companies. You target the children and have them convince their parents that they need the Kaplan interview advisor option for $500 in order to get into medical school.

Let me caveat this so I'm not detested by everyone in a college program. As a student you are conditioned to consume and spend as your sense of income balance becomes distorted especially if you pursue academic heavy fields like the sciences. Distortion of financial balance leads to students naturally overestimating their prospective human wealth (wealth of knowledge, skills) and underestimating their actual financial balance (student debt, immediate income, and job opportunities). Because you are constantly incentivized to go all-in on the former, there are many different businesses that benefit from feeding into this, "spend now earn later" sort of cycle that can be incredibly lucrative.
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I would say college campus expansion has more to do with the way our country finances UG and Graduate education in terms of endless loans. But I do agree with you that UGs are easy marks. Thats why credit card companies and other predatory places try to target that exact market.
 
Microbug said:
yeah but where is the mentality of being of service to others and giving back to the community. what about mentoring and educating the younger generation of medical professionals. these are things I would do for free and to profit off students' vulnerability would suggest to me an ethical issue.
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there are plenty of physicians who do this for free, most are not very good with it because they stop tracking what is hot in terms of admissions trends and forget what good gpa and mcats look like because once you are in you kinda dont care. If a person is providing a service it is perfectly ok for them to charge for it. The problem tho is that in this case it is not a very good or necessary service. different things motivate different people. Physicians like the general public have varying degrees of civic and community involvement and different motives. This dude is probably trying to pay off some of his 500K worth of loans with his side hustle.
 
@libertyyne I think there is something intrinsic in the American mentality that drives hospitals, universities, & businesses to expand their nether regions into places unknown rather than focusing on internal quality control and sustainability. Perhaps a "loan first pay later" mentality is culturally ingrained in how we think about financial success. We built this new expansion off of venture capital loans! Look at this growth, don't you want to invest in us too?
 
Mwooster said:
An important thing to point out is that Dr. Andre Pinesett was an URM applicant throughout the application phase. While he does dish out some relevant things and loading it with BS to sell his services, many aspects of his personal experiences will not be applicable to the non-URM applicants.

With his educational background of a bachelor's at UC Irvine and 3 gap years, 2 of which was spent on an MPH, followed by an acceptance at Stanford Med, his URM background played a part, if not a big part, in his acceptance to Stanford Med.

Again, if you choose to listen to him and even pay him for his services, take them with a huge grain of salt, followed by taking furosemide STAT
Click to expand...

Wait, how much does being a URM play when it comes to med school?
 
Mwooster said:
his URM background played a part, if not a big part, in his acceptance to Stanford Med
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Does he tell you his grades/MCAT? Yeah, being URM does make a difference, but if his grades, MCAT, and ECs were all top notch, being URM just gave him a guaranteed acceptance at a top school.
 
libertyyne said:
there are plenty of physicians who do this for free, most are not very good with it because they stop tracking what is hot in terms of admissions trends and forget what good gpa and mcats look like because once you are in you kinda dont care. If a person is providing a service it is perfectly ok for them to charge for it. The problem tho is that in this case it is not a very good or necessary service. different things motivate different people. Physicians like the general public have varying degrees of civic and community involvement and different motives. This dude is probably trying to pay off some of his 500K worth of loans with his side hustle.
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I mean let's keep it real he caters to wealthy applicants who are too lazy to do the research.

It's sad that he's not really contributing anything of value in his side job, but hey residency won't be paying off that Stanford MD.
 
Mad Jack said:
TBR+EK+/-TPR+/-Kaplan, boom, I just saved someone thousands
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Tangent but do you recommend prep courses? I paid for one back in highschool for the ACT and I regretted it because I learned nothing, I feel like it'll be the same for the MCAT.
 
Sunbodi said:
Tangent but do you recommend prep courses? I paid for one back in highschool for the ACT and I regretted it because I learned nothing, I feel like it'll be the same for the MCAT.
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I didn't use a prep course and got a 35 on the old MCAT first try, but I'm just very good at self-study so YMMV. I remember using Kaplan for my respiratory boards back in the day and how I learned nothing from the class but found the books useful, and just kind of extrapolated that a prep course would be a waste of time.
 
Sunbodi said:
Tangent but do you recommend prep courses? I paid for one back in highschool for the ACT and I regretted it because I learned nothing, I feel like it'll be the same for the MCAT.
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We have a Kaplan course provided to us as part of our linked postbacc. I think it's pretty decent. I'm already just a good test taker, but they elucidate some of the things that I just do naturally, which makes me able to do them more consistently. So even as someone who typically scores very highly on standardized exams, I thought it was worth it. Of course, I didn't have to pay for it, so that's something to consider.
 
Sunbodi said:
Tangent but do you recommend prep courses? I paid for one back in highschool for the ACT and I regretted it because I learned nothing, I feel like it'll be the same for the MCAT.
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I did fine without one. If you are a self motivated person capable of following a set schedule rigorously then you will do well with this approach. If you are an amazing test taker or brilliant and didn’t need to study all that much to begin with, just take some practice tests then you will do well.

If you are 1000miles from either of those two groups, a test course *might* help you.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
We have a Kaplan course provided to us as part of our linked postbacc. I think it's pretty decent. I'm already just a good test taker, but they elucidate some of the things that I just do naturally, which makes me able to do them more consistently. So even as someone who typically scores very highly on standardized exams, I thought it was worth it. Of course, I didn't have to pay for it, so that's something to consider.
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So with the disclaimer that I took the MCAT on a scantron sheet with a #2 pencil, I do think the 4 or 5 practice tests were hugely important for me when I took Kaplan.
 
WingedOx said:
So with the disclaimer that I took the MCAT on a scantron sheet with a #2 pencil, I do think the 4 or 5 practice tests were hugely important for me when I took Kaplan.
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You know what they say nowadays, age is just a display of pure wisdom.
 
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