UCLA undergrads: Do we have a pre-med advisor?

Started by balopathic45
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balopathic45

balopathic45

Full Member
7+ Year Member
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Hi guys,

I'm getting ready to apply this cycle and though I think everything is falling into order, I would like a professional to look through everything (LORs, transcript process, etc.) and make sure it's clean. Do we have any good advisors for this purpose?

Thanks
 
I think that the career center does mock interviews and PS editing, but because your LORs are supposed to be confidential, no one can tell you if they're good or bad or whatever. You can order a transcript to send to yourself (this is really helpful for inputting grades into AMCAS also)
Edit: Also to answer your original question, there is no pre-med advisor or committee
 
mrowmrow said:
I think that the career center does mock interviews and PS editing, but because your LORs are supposed to be confidential, no one can tell you if they're good or bad or whatever. You can order a transcript to send to yourself (this is really helpful for inputting grades into AMCAS also)
Edit: Also to answer your original question, there is no pre-med advisor or committee
Click to expand...

How unfortunate for the university with the highest number of entering pre-meds in the country right?

Thanks for the info 🙂
 
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balopathic45 said:
Hi guys,

I'm getting ready to apply this cycle and though I think everything is falling into order, I would like a professional to look through everything (LORs, transcript process, etc.) and make sure it's clean. Do we have any good advisors for this purpose?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Nope
 
As a UCLA alum, I can confirm that they really leave you out to dry as a pre med. I botched my first attempt at applying to med school, and while I'm not going to put all blame on the school, it certainly hurt not having any direction on when to apply, not having any help with letters, etc. and I had to rely solely on SDN (which I did not really know about until my 2nd time applying). Fortunately I was accepted the following year as a reapplicant, but they didn't do me any favors. Great school in some respects but in others you really do feel like a fish in the ocean. The fact that you're already here and positioning yourself for a solid application cycle is a good sign. Good luck to you!
 
gyngyn said:
961 last year alone. No one else came close.
Click to expand...
961 applicants (not accepted), right? It's possible the reason so many apply is many are just blindly applying and don't realize they don't have an application worthy of an acceptance...and no guidance to tell them otherwise.

@gyngyn do you see a lot of UCLA applicants where you seriously wonder why the heck they even turned in an application?
 
Toutie said:
961 applicants (not accepted), right? It's possible the reason so many apply is many are just blindly applying and don't realize they don't have an application worthy of an acceptance...and no guidance to tell them otherwise.

@gyngyn do you see a lot of UCLA applicants where you seriously wonder why the heck they even turned in an application?
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That's right, applicants. The ones I see are really good, though.
 
I cant comment on UCLAs advising in anyway at all but they are generous enough to publish specific data on how well their grads fair in med school admission and give people an idea of what schools specifically their grads place into frequently, particularly OOS(hint Saint Louis).

Many schools, even with top advising, either dont collect such thorough data or dont report it publicly.
http://www.career.ucla.edu/Students/Resources-Reports-and-Media/Med-School-Stats
 
GrapesofRath said:
I cant comment on UCLAs advising in anyway at all but they are generous enough to publish specific data on how well their grads fair in med school admission and give people an idea of what schools specifically their grads place into frequently, particularly OOS(hint Saint Louis).

Many schools, even with top advising, either dont collect such thorough data or dont report it publicly.
http://www.career.ucla.edu/Students/Resources-Reports-and-Media/Med-School-Stats
Click to expand...
This data only represents a small number of their total applicants, though.
 
GrapesofRath said:
I cant comment on UCLAs advising in anyway at all but they are generous enough to publish specific data on how well their grads fair in med school admission and give people an idea of what schools specifically their grads place into frequently, particularly OOS(hint Saint Louis).

Many schools, even with top advising, either dont collect such thorough data or dont report it publicly.
http://www.career.ucla.edu/Students/Resources-Reports-and-Media/Med-School-Stats
Click to expand...
While that data is interesting, it is not a complete picture. For the most recent year listed...2013...only 165 out of 900+ students provided their information.
 
gyngyn said:
This data only represents a small number of their total applicants, though.
Click to expand...

This is true but why exactly? Is it just UCLA applicants who volunteer this info?

It would make sense if UCLA had a pre-med committee and hence they kept track of all data from people who applied through the comitteee. But it sounds like they dont which is why I dont get how they only have data for 10-15% of their applicants.
 
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GrapesofRath said:
This is true but why exactly? Is it just UCLA applicants who volunteer this info?

It would make sense if UCLA had a pre-med committee and hence they kept track of all data from people who applied through the comitteee. But it sounds like they dont which is why I dont get how they only have data for 10-15% of their applicants.
Click to expand...
This is self-volunteered.
The reporting bias makes it very difficult to interpret.
 
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GrapesofRath said:
This is true but why exactly? Is it just UCLA applicants who volunteer this info?

It would make sense if UCLA had a pre-med committee and hence they kept track of all data from people who applied through the comitteee. But it sounds like they dont which is why I dont get how they only have data for 10-15% of their applicants.
Click to expand...
Here's what it says at the top of the page...Note: The reported information is drawn from the American Association of Medical Colleges, 2013 and based solely on students who give permission to share data. Therefore, not all 2013 graduates who applied are represented.
 
gyngyn said:
These is self reported to the Career Center.
The reporting bias makes it very difficult to interpret.
Click to expand...

I find it interesting that despite the self reporting that goes on, the acceptance rate for the UCLA grads that report is only 50-55%. I would have thought with self reporting bias it would be much higher.

While the data has limitations, I still think there are certain trends that can be picked up even with such a small sample. There are schools that pop up every single year that take lots of OOS UCLA grads on that list.

UCSD publishes similar data, only it includes more applicants. I see a number of schools OOS UCLA applicants have succes with appear here with frequency as well. https://career.ucsd.edu/_files/Medicine admits 2010-12.pdfdy
 
Toutie said:
Here's what it says at the top of the page...Note: The reported information is drawn from the American Association of Medical Colleges, 2013 and based solely on students who give permission to share data. Therefore, not all 2013 graduates who applied are represented.
Click to expand...
I have way more data on UCLA grads than appears in the Career website!
 
gyngyn said:
I have way more data on UCLA grads than appears in the Career website!
Click to expand...
4820628-7785444489-TEase.gif
 
gyngyn said:
I have way more data on UCLA grads than appears in the Career website!
Click to expand...

Not to bombard you with questions(you mentioning this has at least 3 other people asking questions as well!) but does the data you have show UC grads having repeated success with any OOS schools in particular?

From the UCSD, UCLA and UC Berekley data I see Saint Louis, Medical College of Wisconsin, Rosalind, U of Arizona, SUNYs and UIC come up repeatedly as schools people in CA have alot of success with OOS, are there other ones youve seen that Im missing?
 
Toutie said:
Any ball park numbers as to how many of those ~900 applicants are typically accepted?...30%, 50%, 75%???
Click to expand...
Only 2,438 CA applicants matriculated anywhere the year UCLA had 961/6520 of the CA applicant pool.
The overall CA pool success is about 37%. I'm going to say UCLA might be a bit higher than that.
 
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GrapesofRath said:
Not to bombard you with questions(you mentioning this has at least 3 other people asking questions as well!) but does the data you have show UC grads having repeated success with any OOS schools in particular?

From the UCSD, UCLA and UC Berekley data I see Saint Louis, Medical College of Wisconsin, Rosalind, U of Arizona, SUNYs and UIC come up repeatedly as schools people in CA have alot of success with OOS, are there other ones youve seen that Im missing?
Click to expand...
I haven't done a report on undergrad-specific outcomes the way you have described.
I do have an annual internal report on where students we have interviewed get in.
 
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gyngyn said:
Only 2,438 CA applicants matriculated anywhere the year UCLA had 961/6520 of the CA applicant pool.
The overall CA pool success is about 37%. I'm going to say UCLA might be a bit higher than that.
Click to expand...
So probably in the range of 40%... maybe 50% max. Interesting.

So basically although there are a lot of good applicants coming out of UCLA, there are also a lot of kids coming out of UCLA with less than impressive applications (or poor school list). I wonder how much of that is due to a lack of an adviser.

My guess is much of the problem is the choice of schools applied to. If you look at those 165 applicants from 2013, 75% of them applied to most of the CA schools. Without an adviser, they may not know they'd stand a much better chance going OOS.
 
Toutie said:
So probably in the range of 40%... maybe 50% max. Interesting.

So basically although there are a lot of good applicants coming out of UCLA, there are also a lot of kids coming out of UCLA with less than impressive applications (or poor school list). I wonder how much of that is due to a lack of an adviser.

My guess is much of the problem is the choice of schools applied to. If you look at those 165 applicants from 2013, 75% of them applied to most of the CA schools. Without an adviser, they may not know they'd stand a much better chance going OOS.
Click to expand...
I agree completely.
 
Toutie said:
So probably in the range of 40%... maybe 50% max. Interesting.

So basically although there are a lot of good applicants coming out of UCLA, there are also a lot of kids coming out of UCLA with less than impressive applications (or poor school list). I wonder how much of that is due to a lack of an adviser.

My guess is much of the problem is the choice of schools applied to. If you look at those 165 applicants from 2013, 75% of them applied to most of the CA schools. Without an adviser, they may not know they'd stand a much better chance going OOS.
Click to expand...
My advisor at UCLA told me that the UC med schools don't even look at OOS applications until they fill as many in-state seats as possible!

So, honestly I'd rather the students get no advice than bad advice.
 
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Toutie said:
So probably in the range of 40%... maybe 50% max. Interesting.

So basically although there are a lot of good applicants coming out of UCLA, there are also a lot of kids coming out of UCLA with less than impressive applications (or poor school list). I wonder how much of that is due to a lack of an adviser.

My guess is much of the problem is the choice of schools applied to. If you look at those 165 applicants from 2013, 75% of them applied to most of the CA schools. Without an adviser, they may not know they'd stand a much better chance going OOS.
Click to expand...

UCSDs acceptance rate hovers around 40%
Berekleys is a bit over 50% historically

My rough guess is UCLAs is probably around Berekleys

https://career.ucsd.edu/undergraduates/consider-grad-school/pre-medical-data.html
https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national
 
Derivations said:
As a UCLA alum, I can confirm that they really leave you out to dry as a pre med. I botched my first attempt at applying to med school, and while I'm not going to put all blame on the school, it certainly hurt not having any direction on when to apply, not having any help with letters, etc. and I had to rely solely on SDN (which I did not really know about until my 2nd time applying). Fortunately I was accepted the following year as a reapplicant, but they didn't do me any favors. Great school in some respects but in others you really do feel like a fish in the ocean. The fact that you're already here and positioning yourself for a solid application cycle is a good sign. Good luck to you!
Click to expand...
Honestly, I think pre-med advisors are a "grass is always greener on the other side" scenario. When you don't have one, you really wish you had one to guide you. When you do have one, you really wish you didn't have one so you didn't have to deal with the misinformation they're spouting.

(This obviously excludes the very, very small minority of pre-med advisors who know what they're doing and do it well)
 
UCSD alum here, all the premeds I know from UCI, UCR and UCLA are just a single entity known as "cali premed", drinking boba, smoking hooka, playing Dota/League, and being neurotic. 😳
 
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