Subform School Choice

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libertyyne

libertyyne

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The individual school subform does not work for this function as people go there for specific schools rather than talk about decisions regarding multiple schools. Can we get a subform for this purpose or be allowed to debate the merits in the main pre-allo form?
 
libertyyne said:
The individual school subform does not work for this function as people go there for specific schools rather than talk about decisions regarding multiple schools. Can we get a subform for this purpose or be allowed to debate the merits in the main pre-allo form?
Click to expand...

getting rid of that SGU subforum and replacing it with a School X vs School Y subforum would be a very useful measure
 
libertyyne said:
Yes. Those threads get buried in the activity on the 150+ individual school threads, plus most people use the search function on that subform to find the particular school they are interested in.
Click to expand...

Prior to us starting to actually enforce that rule, we would have massive influxes of these types of threads in the last weeks of April that would clog up the regular pre-allo forum for quite some time. Thus, we started moving over threads to the SSD forums so that the regular forums could still function normally. We also created a sticky that redirects people (both people asking the questions and people looking to give advice) to the SSD forum so they know where to look.

Additionally, if one is posted accidentally in pre-allo proper and it gets moved, you'll notice that a redirect exists for a non-insignificant period of time in the forum it is leaving to direct people to that thread in the destination forum; however, the redirect doesn't get bumped to the top of the list when a new post is made, so active threads will be bumped up above it and there is no clogging.

For most of the rest of the year, the number of threads of this sort are manageable, but to keep everything consistent and in one place for easy searching, we move them to SSD anyway.

However, if there is substantial community support for this change, I can bring it up with the people who actually control this stuff (not me) for discussion.
 
Lawper said:
getting rid of that SGU subforum and replacing it with a School X vs School Y subforum would be a very useful measure
Click to expand...
That subform pays the bills. But School X Vs School Y would be nice or just allow the discussion in this form. Just by briefly looking at the SSD and the School X vs School Y threads they have minimal replies and or minimal views.
 
libertyyne said:
That subform pays the bills. But School X Vs School Y would be nice or just allow the discussion in this form. Just by briefly looking at the SSD and the School X vs School Y threads they have minimal replies and or minimal views.
Click to expand...

i think there are numerous different ways to pay the bills, but even if the SGU subforum is necessary (and i doubt it is), that forum can be transferred to the Caribbean main forum.

School X vs School Y subforum containing current and past threads would be helpful. also useful is having some sort of a decision making spreadsheet comparing two or more schools based on user-defined priority ratings for each attribute (e.g grades, research, clinical quality etc.)

looks like @voteknope and c/o 2021 friends have the right idea! https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/official-class-of-2021-thread.1230313/page-23#post-18637949
 
libertyyne said:
yes, yes I am working on the data. One point does not represent the median.
Click to expand...

Very true. I looked back a few pages and I did find one with no replies, but most had several replies and 500+ views (n~5 or so from a cursory glance). Additionally, OPs with more fleshed out deliberation processes tend to get more responses than those with only brief thoughts.
 
I didnt realize what a PITA it is to scrape SDN.
 
Would a thread that talks about where people got in and what their stats/EC"s/MCAT was, etc, be useful? You know how in WAMC, somebody would list their stats and try to come up with a school list, but they never mention where they got in with those stats/EC's and that always frustrates me. Is it just me? Like
I had a 3.8/519/ blah blah EC"s and I got into Yale, Columbia, BU, Sinai,....etc..
Yay?Nay?
 
mwsapphire said:
Would a thread that talks about where people got in and what their stats/EC"s/MCAT was, etc, be useful? You know how in WAMC, somebody would list their stats and try to come up with a school list, but they never mention where they got in with those stats/EC's and that always frustrates me. Is it just me? Like
I had a 3.8/519/ blah blah EC"s and I got into Yale, Columbia, BU, Sinai,....etc..
Yay?Nay?
Click to expand...
Its called MDApps
 
upload_2017-2-19_23-41-29.png

upload_2017-2-19_23-42-8.png

upload_2017-2-19_23-42-56.png

upload_2017-2-19_23-43-23.png
 
libertyyne said:
The individual school subform does not work for this function as people go there for specific schools rather than talk about decisions regarding multiple schools. Can we get a subform for this purpose or be allowed to debate the merits in the main pre-allo form?
Click to expand...
libertyyne said:
Yes. Those threads get buried in the activity on the 150+ individual school threads, plus most people use the search function on that subform to find the particular school they are interested in.
Click to expand...
libertyyne said:
That subform pays the bills. But School X Vs School Y would be nice or just allow the discussion in this form. Just by briefly looking at the SSD and the School X vs School Y threads they have minimal replies and or minimal views.
Click to expand...
Subforum*

But great ideas, I'm definitely on board!
 
Yeah that would be a great idea because those threads always feel out of place in the SSD and that's also not a place where I just browse. I always go straight to the specific school I want to see.
 
Nice data!

First impression: mean responses increases when you include threads not started in SSD could indicate that threads have more activity when not in SSD. But further investigation is needed to understand if those responses occur before or after the move.
 
lpp06 said:
Nice data!

First impression: mean responses increases when you include threads not started in SSD could indicate that threads have more activity when not in SSD. But further investigation is needed to understand if those responses occur before or after the move.
Click to expand...
Just eyeballing it, a large number of the last responses on those threads is the admin saying they are moving the thread. I feel pretty confident saying that pre allo main has more traffic.maybe these threads dont deserve the traffic of pre-allo main,however, I do believe that these types of threads don't deserve the wasteland they currently inhabit in SSD though.
 
Last edited:
WedgeDawg said:
Prior to us starting to actually enforce that rule, we would have massive influxes of these types of threads in the last weeks of April that would clog up the regular pre-allo forum for quite some time.
Click to expand...
But why does that justify moving them? Final decision is a big part of the premed process, it makes sense to have a spike in the topic at that time. We get inundated every year in certain times with certain types of questions (e.g. tons and tons and tons of stuff about filling out AMCAS in June) but that's fine, it's what SDN is here for. Discussions of pros/cons between types of schools are a far cry from school-specific discussions. There is usually good interesting stuff in the former while the latter is pages and pages of primary/secondary/II/decision, sent/received dates, stats, and other stuff totally uninteresting to anyone but a current applicant to that exact place.
 
I actually love school X vs School Y threads.. I like seeing the pros/cons of each school and what certain people consider important in making a school choice
 
Is there a request process to institute this change or will we receive a yay or nay from someone?
 
Do we think that a new subforum just for comparisons would be any more trafficked than the SSD forum? I'm skeptical of that. If the goal is to give these threads more visibility, perhaps simply allowing them in PreAllo proper is the better option?

I think @efle makes a good point that SDN is expected to be somewhat cyclical (the application cycle is, of course, cyclical). Changes have been made to make this less of a problem in terms of clogging the forum, and most of them have been good changes (endless AA / URM policy politicking being moved to SPF, etc.).

Thanks for the data. Some questions about it: "Responses excluding moved" does this mean: responses to the thread excluding the moderator's "Moved" message? Views are a pretty coarse way to represent thread activity. I suspect many views are not actual humans but bots, page refreshes, SDN's spam detector, etc. But I'm not entirely sure how our forum counts those views. A better -- albeit still coarse -- way to measure "traffic" might be a ratio of responses to views.
 
@Lucca I think that a subforum with comparisons would get more traffic than being put into the SSD forum... There is too much movement in there and they get often overlooked. I think it would be pretty similar to the WAMC subforum.
 
I would prefer to leave it in pre-allo proper but a subforum would also be better solution then being lumped into the SSD forum.
 
YES please!
 
Could we get a decision on this from the mods. I am itching to submit a school x vs y thread and would love a broad perspective and some input.
 
Can't we just switch the name of the subforum by @WedgeDawg that says "Please post School X vs Y threads in the SSD forum" to "School X vs Y thread"???

Edit: Just saw it was a sticky, not a subforum

@Lucca @gyngyn
 
libertyyne said:
I would prefer to leave it in pre-allo proper but a subforum would also be better solution then being lumped into the SSD forum.
Click to expand...
efle said:
I'd be a lot more likely to visit XvsY subforum every one in a while than to dig through SSD. Leaving it in pre-allo would be the most visible by a mile but a subforum would be better than nothing
Click to expand...

School X vs School Y is not unique to preallo. This applies for preosteo as well. Having a subforum specifically for School X vs School Y threads will account for both, and will essentially be similar to the WAMC forums that merge the traffic from both preallo and preosteo.
 
Lawper said:
School X vs School Y is not unique to preallo. This applies for preosteo as well. Having a subforum specifically for School X vs School Y threads will account for both, and will essentially be similar to the WAMC forums that merge the traffic from both preallo and preosteo.
Click to expand...
But I love traffic!!
 
Frogger27 said:
Can't we just switch the name of the subforum by @WedgeDawg that says "Please post School X vs Y threads in the SSD forum" to "School X vs Y thread"???

Edit: Just saw it was a sticky, not a subforum

@Lucca @gyngyn
Click to expand...
How many schools do you have it narrowed down to?
 
libertyyne said:
How many schools do you have it narrowed down to?
Click to expand...

I am pretty set on where I will be going, but would still love the School X vs Y threads for hypotheticals/helping others make decisions
 
Lawper said:
getting rid of that SGU subforum and replacing it with a School X vs School Y subforum would be a very useful measure
Click to expand...
FWIW, the sponsored forums are contractually locked-in through the end of the year. We're changing our sponsorship options for 2018 and this option will no longer be available.
 
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