Hi all 🙂
I'm an M3 at an MD school who has gotten a lot of good advice and have gotten a lot from this website. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts in a gesture to give back a little....some are things I wish I knew when I was a premed and some are things I that may help once you get into med school.
Which med school to go to?
Of course there are a lot of factors to consider....location, cost, prestige etc....one of the things I didn't know as a pre-med that I wish I knew is that prestige of your med school matters somewhat when trying to get into a prestigious residency. If you are coming from a low tier school trying to match into UCSF or Harvard IM .....well it most likely will not happen. People in our school say things like "you need to look at where our school graduates have matched into if you want to get into very competitive specialties or top programs in any specialty". Think about why they say that. This also applies when you apply for fellowship for subspecialty. The prestige of your residency program matters where you will/will not match. Don't just listen to "it doesn't matter which school you go to as long as you work hard." Well, that's true only to certain extent. Why do you think there is always a talk amongst the DO students "Which radiology program is DO friendly?" If you have the choice you want to put yourself at the best position to achieve what you want. Why put yourself at a position where you'll have to work uphill if you don't have to? Of course there are exceptions.
How to take advice from people on how to study, what books to buy/not buy, whether to goto classes or not etc.....
This all depends on how you work best. I suggest you listen to what people say and analyze them with how you are as a person. For an example, many people have told me not to buy this book or that book since there are printed notes/power points that'll take enough time to get through and you'll never have time to read books anyway. Well, I bought almost all books and some I've used extensively while some I looked at once every 2 weeks. Spending money on books wasn't a big deal since I ended up selling many of them on Amazon and got some money back. Also, I liked having resources at my disposal. If I spent $75 on a book and it helped explain 5 concepts I had hard time with, for me that was worth it. I prefer to have the convenience and sufficient resources rather than relying on power points alone or doing online search. Many times professors' power points are not very good and don't explain concepts well. Realize that these professors are good at topics they know and not how to teach people. I've found that people who write books tend to explain things better than professors in their power points. Many others will disagree. But, that's just me.
Whether you should go to classes or not is another thing I recall pre-meds wondered about in terms of what med students do in med school. I went to almost all classes during my M1 year and probably helped me over the edge for an A in about 2 classes because professors mentioned things in classes to really emphasize what will likely be on exams. During my M2 year I only went to about 1/2 of classes and missed an A in one class because I didn't get credit for attendance. I'm not advocating going to classes. But, each person needs to look at him/herself carefully and take advices that are relevant to him/her while letting go of the ones that do not pertain to him/her.
If you can go to a school with its own teaching hospital. This is important in many cases but it became an issue for me which I didn't foresee as a pre-med. I have several specialties I'm interested in which are not a part of 3rd year core rotations. This means I have to experience them as electives in July and August of my 4th year. ERAS for residency application opens September 1st. So, if you are still uncertain what specialty to go into by the end of 3rd year because you just haven't had the exposure you really only have 2-3 months to get exposure, get letters of recommendations and submit them to ERAS. So, my point is that if your school has its own teaching hospital it'll be easier to get someone in that department to at least give you a few weekends of exposure while if you go to a school without its own teaching hospital you are basically knocking on doors who have nothing to do with you or your school. Even if you contact the hospitals your school has connections with they are still not a part of your school. Having said this, getting people in your own school's teaching hospital to give you some exposure to a specialty not in your 3rd year core clerkship may not be all that easy. But, it's easier than if your school didn't have a teaching hospital. One more thing about this.....schools without its own teaching hospital may have more difficulty getting requests met from school to hospitals. I'll give you an example. Our school has had a new policy since July of this year for 3rd year clerkships that affect how you get graded. Until November of this year one of the hospital wasn't even aware of this change. I'm sure there was a memo handed to the person in charge of grading at this hospital. But, my point is that your own school's hospital workers have more of a responsibility to you if you are one of their own.
One myth I wish I didn't believe....I used to think that if someone said "this school's faculty is so open, friendly and is willing to work with students". Don't listen to that kind of b.s.. A school doesn't dictate how open professors are to students. Individual professors' personality dictates that. I'm sure there are really good professors and professors who don't care all the way from top school to the bottom tier school. Quality of professors matter less in my opinion in terms of choosing a med school. One more myth....schools that have no grading system. Well, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But, from what I hear these school still keep track of class ranking. When you apply for residency, the residency programs don't care about your GPA but will look at your class ranking....top 25%, top 50% etc..... And even these schools with no grade policy, there will still be class ranking that is sent to the residency program you apply to from your school.
I thought I had more stuff to share. But if I remember perhaps I can add them later. Again, this is just my opinion and others may disagree. But, as I mentioned in one of my paragraphs, listen and read many different opinions and see what applies to your own need.
Good luck!
I'm an M3 at an MD school who has gotten a lot of good advice and have gotten a lot from this website. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts in a gesture to give back a little....some are things I wish I knew when I was a premed and some are things I that may help once you get into med school.
Which med school to go to?
Of course there are a lot of factors to consider....location, cost, prestige etc....one of the things I didn't know as a pre-med that I wish I knew is that prestige of your med school matters somewhat when trying to get into a prestigious residency. If you are coming from a low tier school trying to match into UCSF or Harvard IM .....well it most likely will not happen. People in our school say things like "you need to look at where our school graduates have matched into if you want to get into very competitive specialties or top programs in any specialty". Think about why they say that. This also applies when you apply for fellowship for subspecialty. The prestige of your residency program matters where you will/will not match. Don't just listen to "it doesn't matter which school you go to as long as you work hard." Well, that's true only to certain extent. Why do you think there is always a talk amongst the DO students "Which radiology program is DO friendly?" If you have the choice you want to put yourself at the best position to achieve what you want. Why put yourself at a position where you'll have to work uphill if you don't have to? Of course there are exceptions.
How to take advice from people on how to study, what books to buy/not buy, whether to goto classes or not etc.....
This all depends on how you work best. I suggest you listen to what people say and analyze them with how you are as a person. For an example, many people have told me not to buy this book or that book since there are printed notes/power points that'll take enough time to get through and you'll never have time to read books anyway. Well, I bought almost all books and some I've used extensively while some I looked at once every 2 weeks. Spending money on books wasn't a big deal since I ended up selling many of them on Amazon and got some money back. Also, I liked having resources at my disposal. If I spent $75 on a book and it helped explain 5 concepts I had hard time with, for me that was worth it. I prefer to have the convenience and sufficient resources rather than relying on power points alone or doing online search. Many times professors' power points are not very good and don't explain concepts well. Realize that these professors are good at topics they know and not how to teach people. I've found that people who write books tend to explain things better than professors in their power points. Many others will disagree. But, that's just me.
Whether you should go to classes or not is another thing I recall pre-meds wondered about in terms of what med students do in med school. I went to almost all classes during my M1 year and probably helped me over the edge for an A in about 2 classes because professors mentioned things in classes to really emphasize what will likely be on exams. During my M2 year I only went to about 1/2 of classes and missed an A in one class because I didn't get credit for attendance. I'm not advocating going to classes. But, each person needs to look at him/herself carefully and take advices that are relevant to him/her while letting go of the ones that do not pertain to him/her.
If you can go to a school with its own teaching hospital. This is important in many cases but it became an issue for me which I didn't foresee as a pre-med. I have several specialties I'm interested in which are not a part of 3rd year core rotations. This means I have to experience them as electives in July and August of my 4th year. ERAS for residency application opens September 1st. So, if you are still uncertain what specialty to go into by the end of 3rd year because you just haven't had the exposure you really only have 2-3 months to get exposure, get letters of recommendations and submit them to ERAS. So, my point is that if your school has its own teaching hospital it'll be easier to get someone in that department to at least give you a few weekends of exposure while if you go to a school without its own teaching hospital you are basically knocking on doors who have nothing to do with you or your school. Even if you contact the hospitals your school has connections with they are still not a part of your school. Having said this, getting people in your own school's teaching hospital to give you some exposure to a specialty not in your 3rd year core clerkship may not be all that easy. But, it's easier than if your school didn't have a teaching hospital. One more thing about this.....schools without its own teaching hospital may have more difficulty getting requests met from school to hospitals. I'll give you an example. Our school has had a new policy since July of this year for 3rd year clerkships that affect how you get graded. Until November of this year one of the hospital wasn't even aware of this change. I'm sure there was a memo handed to the person in charge of grading at this hospital. But, my point is that your own school's hospital workers have more of a responsibility to you if you are one of their own.
One myth I wish I didn't believe....I used to think that if someone said "this school's faculty is so open, friendly and is willing to work with students". Don't listen to that kind of b.s.. A school doesn't dictate how open professors are to students. Individual professors' personality dictates that. I'm sure there are really good professors and professors who don't care all the way from top school to the bottom tier school. Quality of professors matter less in my opinion in terms of choosing a med school. One more myth....schools that have no grading system. Well, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But, from what I hear these school still keep track of class ranking. When you apply for residency, the residency programs don't care about your GPA but will look at your class ranking....top 25%, top 50% etc..... And even these schools with no grade policy, there will still be class ranking that is sent to the residency program you apply to from your school.
I thought I had more stuff to share. But if I remember perhaps I can add them later. Again, this is just my opinion and others may disagree. But, as I mentioned in one of my paragraphs, listen and read many different opinions and see what applies to your own need.
Good luck!
