javert said:
I just discovered all of these posts and felt compelled to reply. While certain people in this thread are spending hours trying to explain to you all of the bad things about penn and talking about how admissions only sells the good parts, you gotta realize they're being hypocritical by only selling the bad points... in general, if people complain soo much about little things than i would conclude that they're just unhappy in med school in general...
I wasn't that unhappy for most of my med school time. There's sometimes when I was happy and sometimes when I wasn't. The times I was unahppy had little to do med school, usually. What I've been saying is, the school sells itself as a whole different med school animal when I don't see how. Still, I fail to see how I'm being "hypocritical" in pointing that out, and I think it's really sad for you to resort to personal attacks in this discussion.
the same is true of the block we're currently in : Brain and Behavior...
B&B wasn't too bad, though when I got pneumonia I was told I'd have to write 2-3 pages of make up homework for each section that I missed, despite having been a neuroscience undergrad. I just went and tried not to cough on anyone. Being told I'd have lots of makeup homework for missing sections for things like serious illness, my dad's second and third organ transplants, my grandmother's funeral, and medical mission work abroad is what made me probably the most angry at the school's administration. I guess that's complaining soo much about "little things"? I'll leave that to those reading the forum to decide.
And let me tell you, I got way more study guides for this block than I've ever gotten during pass/fail almost to the point of I didn't want to check my e-mail any more cuz there were sooo many things... people have class pride and everyone wants our class to do well... As far as tons of "stupid classes" this of course, is an opinion driven thing.. for example, every week right now we have an afternoon which ends by 3 or 4 (and not during our three afternoons off a week which we STILL have at least now) called health care systems.. i happen to find this class extremely interesting and useful because its all about the stuff I never knew (how insurance works, how doctors get paid etc) that I find essential to learn about to understand the dynamics of my career. Now if you already know all about these things, you may find it boring and useless... this all depends.... I could go on and on but whats the point
Maybe your class is less competitive than mine? One thing that changed is that they no longer give students access to last year's exams for module 2 classes, so we have some old exams but they're getting older and older each year. Maybe this has the strange side effect of fostering cooperation due to anxiety as to what will be on the exams increases?
No, it does sound like they improved HCS quite a bit. They did add a test, a huge final paper, and made everything required, but at least it doesn't seem as completely useless as when I took it. This is what I was saying before: my main gripe is with the sheer volume of the new added classes, not a major gripe with any one class. The administration pledged to fix the 8-5 coursework that my year had, and while I didn't think they did for last year's class, maybe they have now? I don't know, opinions vary.
Aside: To applicants bitching about Penn only going on stats, let me tell you... Penn was the only top 20 school to interview me (I have a 30 MCAT) (while schools like Tufts and Mt. Siani were like peace out) and I know of at least 5 other people who had either a 30 or 31 who are in our class and not to mention and MD/PhD who had a 31 MCAT... so i think anyone who says Penn tends to go on stats more than other schools doesn't really know what they're talking about... I will say that the average age in our class is 23 and the oldest people starting out were 29 so as far as comparing to like G-town where when I interviewed, the oldest 1st year was 47, yea u're not gonna find that here... but that doesn't mean they hold non-trads in disfavor... at least 20% of our class are non-trads...
Since I started, the average MCAT score has been going steadily upwards (your class was what... 34.6?) and the average admitted age has been going steadily downwards. I don't know how 20% of your class can be non-trad when the average matriculating age was 22.4 and the oldest was... what? 29? There's alot of third and fourth years who think this is a disturbing trend fueled by changes in the administration.
But, what can I say, the nail that sticks out gets hammered so I'll stfu now. Maybe you'll really continue to like it here and I hope you do. I'll still continue to tell all applicants that you should be choosing med school based on 1) Where you get in, 2) Financial aid offers, and 3) Location in that order. Indeed, that's what I think most people choose on, but alot of people are sold by that Penn name... In any case, overall, I'm happy I came here, though my decision was based more on research and location being an MD/PhD. For the poster above me, I'm sure Penn was the right choice for her based on the things I mentioned above.
This gets back to my original point. Penn was the right choice for me and while there are many things I don't like, there are many things I do like. People often want to hear what I don't like, so I tell them how I feel about things when other people who don't like things won't say how they feel. I hear frequently that I'm the only one who will give people the full picture or that I'm the only one who is completely frank and honest with them.
The problem is, when you say anything negative, you're portrayed as a really negative person in general and you tend to get in trouble for saying negative things with important people. I'm sick of the polarization. "Look at what a happy person I am and how great everything is and what an unhappy over-critical person he is... Ignore him." I challenge people to go back and read my posts and UCLA2k's posts and decide for themselves if they're really negative, down on medical school type posts. I don't think they're unjustly or even mostly negative. They're just critical appraisals about things we do and don't like. That being said, the poster above me has every right to be very happy with the school, and I hope everyone gets all sides of all the issues and decides for themselves. That's what I love about SDN.
This is medicine. If you're critical of things around you, you'll be in deep crap. If you say anything to an applicant about something you don't like, another student will jump to defend against whatever you just said even if they agree with you or have no idea about the topic because they aren't in your year (i.e. defend clinics when they aren't there yet, defend cirriculum changes done years after they were there). I've said alot of negative and positive things about the school, but people know me for being negative because I'm the only one who will say ANYTHING negative. It's not the culture I expected, but that's life. That's bad, as the things that are bad or broken in medicine don't get fixed because there's so much pressure to keep your mouth shut. I find it really hard to believe the poster above me hasn't found things she doesn't like, but if she has she'll be like most medical students (and residents, and attendings, on up) and not share them in any public forum.
Thanks
The email only served to remind (and further annoy) me that I got no love from my alma mater! 
