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Just wondering for those of you filling out the Wake Forest secondary - are you putting in your SAT score?? Why the hell do they need it?? Man, this school is wack!
Wake Forest - SAT score???!!
- Thread starter premed2
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maybe they're running out of ways to reject people...
on another note, do you see an address there that we can send the recommendations to?
on another note, do you see an address there that we can send the recommendations to?
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I am not applying to wake, but I was wondering something. Would it be wrong to call Wake Forest and ask them whether those students filling out the secondary have to fill in their SAT/ACT scores and whether or not they use these numbers in their decision to give you an interview or not. I think it is completely unfair to judge on how well a student will do in medical school based on their SAT scores or anything they did in high school. I didn't really care about grades in high school and so ended up with a B average and about 1050 on the SAT. Does this mean that if I have a good GPA in college and good MCAT scores that I shouldn't get an interview based on the fact that my high school numbers are below par. I think a previous post was correct in saying that the schools that ask for these type of things have just run out of things to ask. Why can't they just have you sign your name and put down that you have never been arrested and give them $100 to "process" your application like some of the other schools.
Just a thought.
dmitri
Just a thought.
dmitri
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almost all of the apps I've filled out asked for SAT and/or ACT score. I thought it was pretty weird and useless. I mean, we've taken the frickin' MCAT. How can the SAT possibly mean anything in comparison to that monster of a test? Not a big deal, though. I took the SAT and ACT about 5 times each in high school (it was sort of a requirement at my school). So by the end, I got really good at standardized testing. 😀
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I think that Med schools should REQUIRE HS standardized tests for their primaries too. I can't speak for the ACT, but the SAT is much more of a "raw intelligence" test then the MCAT. I don't remember EVER hearing about a single person in my HS talk about preparing for the SAT in any way whatsoever. Everybody just showed up and took the test. On the other hand, people seem to spend countless hours and big $$ getting ready for the MCAT, which, despite what some claim, is more a test of info regurgitation then anything else (minus the verbal section...). Some claim the science sections are only about being able to comprehend the passages...BS. If that was true then nobody would bother studying for the exam (except the exceptionally neurotic). It seems like pure intelligence/reading comprehension could probably put someone in the high 20s without studying, but anything 30+ in general requires a lot of memorizing of trivial facts/ many practice exams.
So by including SAT scores med schools would be able to have a better idea of actual ability. I could be completely wrong here, but take this for example. Pretend student A had a 29 (didn't study until the week before the test) on his MCAT and student B (took a class, spent hundreds of hours taking practice tests and studying) had a 32. It seems to me that A's 29 is much more impressive then B's 32. But how could the med schools see this? If person A had a 1500 SAT while B had an 1100, I think the med schools would be justified in assuming that person A probably didn't study 1/10 as much for the MCAT as B (A's SAT score indicates more raw intelligence...if they had both studied just as much for the MCAT, A's score would more then likely be higher then Bs) A would then be the MUCH, MUCH better applicant (in my opinion). I don't want to hear any BS about B has a better work ethic and his dedication to studying is better then lazy As...
I know this is a crappy example, but some schools probably realize that the MCAT is a test of PREPARATION more then anything else. I personally would rather have a really, really smart doc then one of mediocre intelligence who studies all the time (okay, if I really had the choice I would take the really, really smart doc who studies all the time, but let's be real...the smartest people I know tend to be relatively lazy, while people who study non-stop tend to be less sharp). I think the really smart doc would be able to think for himself and problem solve better then the dedicated one. So while the dedicated doc is running to his books to look up an answer, the smart doc has already saved my life. Until the MCAT becomes more like the LSAT, it seems like schools really should ask for SAT/ACT scores. That's just my opinion though...for whatever that is worth.
So by including SAT scores med schools would be able to have a better idea of actual ability. I could be completely wrong here, but take this for example. Pretend student A had a 29 (didn't study until the week before the test) on his MCAT and student B (took a class, spent hundreds of hours taking practice tests and studying) had a 32. It seems to me that A's 29 is much more impressive then B's 32. But how could the med schools see this? If person A had a 1500 SAT while B had an 1100, I think the med schools would be justified in assuming that person A probably didn't study 1/10 as much for the MCAT as B (A's SAT score indicates more raw intelligence...if they had both studied just as much for the MCAT, A's score would more then likely be higher then Bs) A would then be the MUCH, MUCH better applicant (in my opinion). I don't want to hear any BS about B has a better work ethic and his dedication to studying is better then lazy As...
I know this is a crappy example, but some schools probably realize that the MCAT is a test of PREPARATION more then anything else. I personally would rather have a really, really smart doc then one of mediocre intelligence who studies all the time (okay, if I really had the choice I would take the really, really smart doc who studies all the time, but let's be real...the smartest people I know tend to be relatively lazy, while people who study non-stop tend to be less sharp). I think the really smart doc would be able to think for himself and problem solve better then the dedicated one. So while the dedicated doc is running to his books to look up an answer, the smart doc has already saved my life. Until the MCAT becomes more like the LSAT, it seems like schools really should ask for SAT/ACT scores. That's just my opinion though...for whatever that is worth.
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i dont buy the "raw intelligence" argument fully, because otherwise SAT scores would not be heavily correlated to family income, as they are.
also, i think a majority of college-bound high schoolers do take the SAT seriously, more now than ever before. they may not all take courses and have tutors, but im pretty sure most dont walk into the test blind.
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Maybe my school was an exception (being a rich school...ahhaha), but pretty much all the top students in my HS went into the test blind (and my school was, at least at the time, top 10 in the state for SAT scores).
Here is a theory for the family income/SAT correlation (I had never heard of that before). Intelligence has a large genetic component (what do you know...two of the top schools in the state happen to be in the towns with our two giant state universities. Mainly profs' kids attend..). I understand that this is controversial, but I have a feeling most of the controversy comes from those who would like to (wrongly) believe that EVERYONE has the potential to be a physician/lawyer/PhD and claiming that IQ has a big genetic component isn't favorable for that. All people are created equally in regards to inherent human worth, but let's be honest, intelligence/drive/talent are NOT equally distributed. In GENERAL, people with the most wealth tend to be of above average intelligence/talented because they have the top jobs (I don't care if you know someone who flunked out of HS and is making 800k/year...overall distribution is important, not outliers). So, if intelligence is largely heritable, of course the offspring of smart, wealthy people would TEND to be of above average intelligence and hence do well on the SAT. I doubt wealth plays much of a direct role at all.
Once again, maybe my HS was an exception, but since nobody really studied for the SAT how else would you explain the wealth/SAT correlation? SAT doesn't test over anything that is directly taught, so the slightly better schools that come with a wealthy community can't really explain the higher scores.
What could you even really do to prepare for the SAT? The verbal section is all about how well you can read/vocab. You can't study for that. It is something that comes from years of reading/ability. The math section, if I remember correctly, didn't require anything beyond a rudimentary understanding of geometry/algebra. Most of it was being able to think your way through problems (something that can not be taught).
Those skills (reading comprehension/ problem solving) can't be taught in a Kaplan course. Sure, Kaplan could probably give you general test taking tips, but that doesn't mean you are any better at reading/problem solving, it just means you know how to work the system to pull your score up a few points.
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What would you assume about a student who got a 1050 on SAT and B average in High school and 3.9 GPA in college and 39 on mcat. This are not my stats (though I wish they were).
dmitri
dmitri
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I would assume they worked their butt off in college (which is great and I have complete respect for that), but STATISTICALLY I would dare wager that they do not have the raw intelligence of the person with a 1500 who had a 3.7/30 MCAT. I would also dare say that they probably worked 100X harder then the 1500 student to get those scores. Maybe the hypothetical student you made up is actually a super-genius and his HS stats aren't representative of that, but 1 person (or 1000) who are exceptions to an overall trend do not mean the trend should be ignored.
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I don't know about anybody else, but the last time I took the SAT was well over ten years ago. I don't really remember what I got. So I guess I'm just going to leave it blank...
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I would have to respectfully disagree with mattorama, with the, quite frankly unsubstantiated generalizations he has made in his posts. The primary purpose of the SAT, is as a predictor of academic achievement during the first year of college; not second or third nor all four years. It is hardly an innate intelligence test or raw intelligence test, but a standardized test assessing vocabulary, reading comprehension, and mathematical problem solving ability. Several studies have shown it to be culturally biased and not exactly ideal criterion as a factor in college admissions. The fact is that it has become a huge DEAL for high school students who shell out big bucks for prepping, leading to an 250 million dollar industry.
"A kid who can afford $3,000 in test prep is going into the test with a huge advantage: she knows what's on the test, how to use her time, and is probably armed with a (temporarily) massively enlarged vocabulary. The kid with no test prep must use his time to read the directions, and has to re-adjust each time he sees a new type of question" (http://www.youthradio.org/education/020508_sat.shtml)
"Exactly how does vocabulary measure reasoning? It would seem that vocabulary is a skill entirely dependent on how much one is taught in school and how much one reads. If you have no clue as to the meaning of the word "mendicant," is there any way for you to reason it out? Moreover, isn't it easy to prepare for a vocabulary test? If the SAT was a true test of reasoning, it would not be dependant on preparation" (http://www.youthradio.org/education/020508_sat.shtml)
The example with "pretend student A and B" seems rather ridiculous to me, how can one deem student A "smart doc" by a disparity of 400 points on the SAT. Would it matter if it was 100VR, 300MR or 300VR, 100MR?
"the smartest people I know tend to be relatively lazy, while people who study non-stop tend to be less sharp"
This seems rather against common sense, but it is your opinion.
"So while the dedicated doc is running to his books to look up an answer, the smart doc has already saved my life"
It would seem more logical to assume the dedicated doctor would attend the latest symposiums and read all about the latest noninvasive techniques and procedures. I dare say, that it would be quite unlikely to find your life in such dire straits that the split second decision of one doctor would be lifesaving while a second doctor who consulted a second opinion would resolve in death.
"A kid who can afford $3,000 in test prep is going into the test with a huge advantage: she knows what's on the test, how to use her time, and is probably armed with a (temporarily) massively enlarged vocabulary. The kid with no test prep must use his time to read the directions, and has to re-adjust each time he sees a new type of question" (http://www.youthradio.org/education/020508_sat.shtml)
"Exactly how does vocabulary measure reasoning? It would seem that vocabulary is a skill entirely dependent on how much one is taught in school and how much one reads. If you have no clue as to the meaning of the word "mendicant," is there any way for you to reason it out? Moreover, isn't it easy to prepare for a vocabulary test? If the SAT was a true test of reasoning, it would not be dependant on preparation" (http://www.youthradio.org/education/020508_sat.shtml)
The example with "pretend student A and B" seems rather ridiculous to me, how can one deem student A "smart doc" by a disparity of 400 points on the SAT. Would it matter if it was 100VR, 300MR or 300VR, 100MR?
"the smartest people I know tend to be relatively lazy, while people who study non-stop tend to be less sharp"
This seems rather against common sense, but it is your opinion.
"So while the dedicated doc is running to his books to look up an answer, the smart doc has already saved my life"
It would seem more logical to assume the dedicated doctor would attend the latest symposiums and read all about the latest noninvasive techniques and procedures. I dare say, that it would be quite unlikely to find your life in such dire straits that the split second decision of one doctor would be lifesaving while a second doctor who consulted a second opinion would resolve in death.
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dimsum888,
🙂 🙂 🙂
I know I was talking out of my bum... I am really starting to think that my HS and college experience have not been the norm.
In HS I never even knew that SAT prep courses existed (now there are whole SDN threads about teaching these). I, and my close friends who were all at the top of our class went in blind and all scored at minimum 1300 (I am starting to feel a whole lot better about my blind 1450 if everybody else and their brother outside of my school took courses and really prepared for the exam). I just don't think our school thought the test was a big deal. They encouraged everyone to take it (something like 80%+ do), but didn't encourage anything beyond that.
In college, my friends and acquaintances all seemed to fit the "if you are really smart, you don't have to (and won't) study as much". The smartest guy I know spent his entire undergrad playing computer games all the while taking only grad lvl math classes since 2nd semester sophomore year. He ended up with a 3.7 or so without even really trying and is now heading off to a top grad school. I know a lot of people with similar and higher GPAs who aren't nearly as innately intelligent and had to study their butts for their grades. I honestly can't think of a single highly intelligent person I know who studies a lot. If someone is able to pull an A- with a 2 hour review before an exam while others need to study 3 hours a day for the week before the exam to get the same (or even the full A), what is the motivation for the first person to study that much more? How is this again common sense? These people are also less likely to study for standardized tests (especially those that purport, like the MCAT to be about reasoning ability, but really aren't). I know a guy who went into the MCAT pretty much blind and scored like 28 or 29 (he also had a 1590 SAT). I also know a person who studied incessantly for the exam and had a 32 (with far lower SAT scores). Once again, maybe my experiences are highly unique and can't be generalized past the people I know/have met. I am more and more willing to accept that.
As far as GPA is concerned
Reward = log(effort) some people's curves are just shifted along the X-axis more then others...
SAT has been shown to be very closely correlated to IQ (and I don't buy the cultural bias thing...since when was reading comprehension and math problem solving a cultural issue? I don't know, but would guess that some minority group scored subpar as a whole and reflexively cried "discrimination"...everybody is a victim these days... ).
I still say that the MCAT is more closely correlated to effort put in then intelligence. The point of a standardized test is to be able to easily compare lots of different people's cognitive abilities. Ideally everything should be able to be controlled (prep time and preparedness especially). That is why IQ tests are only valid the first time you take them as a kid (before you learn the secrets of multiple choice tests or have seen similar questions). As a med school wouldn't you want to know who can reason well and learn quickly? In med school you won't have nearly as much time to study for each test as in undergrad. In my opinion it seems like those that had to study non-stop as an undergrad are going to crash and burn in med school when their course load is bumped up an order of magnitude and they don't have "unlimited" time to study.
I am probably talking out of my bum again though.... 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂
I know I was talking out of my bum... I am really starting to think that my HS and college experience have not been the norm.
In HS I never even knew that SAT prep courses existed (now there are whole SDN threads about teaching these). I, and my close friends who were all at the top of our class went in blind and all scored at minimum 1300 (I am starting to feel a whole lot better about my blind 1450 if everybody else and their brother outside of my school took courses and really prepared for the exam). I just don't think our school thought the test was a big deal. They encouraged everyone to take it (something like 80%+ do), but didn't encourage anything beyond that.
In college, my friends and acquaintances all seemed to fit the "if you are really smart, you don't have to (and won't) study as much". The smartest guy I know spent his entire undergrad playing computer games all the while taking only grad lvl math classes since 2nd semester sophomore year. He ended up with a 3.7 or so without even really trying and is now heading off to a top grad school. I know a lot of people with similar and higher GPAs who aren't nearly as innately intelligent and had to study their butts for their grades. I honestly can't think of a single highly intelligent person I know who studies a lot. If someone is able to pull an A- with a 2 hour review before an exam while others need to study 3 hours a day for the week before the exam to get the same (or even the full A), what is the motivation for the first person to study that much more? How is this again common sense? These people are also less likely to study for standardized tests (especially those that purport, like the MCAT to be about reasoning ability, but really aren't). I know a guy who went into the MCAT pretty much blind and scored like 28 or 29 (he also had a 1590 SAT). I also know a person who studied incessantly for the exam and had a 32 (with far lower SAT scores). Once again, maybe my experiences are highly unique and can't be generalized past the people I know/have met. I am more and more willing to accept that.
As far as GPA is concerned
Reward = log(effort) some people's curves are just shifted along the X-axis more then others...
SAT has been shown to be very closely correlated to IQ (and I don't buy the cultural bias thing...since when was reading comprehension and math problem solving a cultural issue? I don't know, but would guess that some minority group scored subpar as a whole and reflexively cried "discrimination"...everybody is a victim these days... ).
I still say that the MCAT is more closely correlated to effort put in then intelligence. The point of a standardized test is to be able to easily compare lots of different people's cognitive abilities. Ideally everything should be able to be controlled (prep time and preparedness especially). That is why IQ tests are only valid the first time you take them as a kid (before you learn the secrets of multiple choice tests or have seen similar questions). As a med school wouldn't you want to know who can reason well and learn quickly? In med school you won't have nearly as much time to study for each test as in undergrad. In my opinion it seems like those that had to study non-stop as an undergrad are going to crash and burn in med school when their course load is bumped up an order of magnitude and they don't have "unlimited" time to study.
I am probably talking out of my bum again though.... 🙂
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Your a dork..."raw intelligence" my big fat booty. Have you been so frickin pampered all your life that you come up with that!
Let me tell ya something it really pisses me off when I see people trying to throw themselves up on a petal stool of **** talking about freakin "raw intelligence". I will tell you right now my 1000 SAT score was a result of having the **** beat out of me by my MOM...spending two weeks in a roach infested runaway shelter and a freakin year in court testifing against my mother as she sobs in the court room. MAYBE MY SUB PAR STUPIDITY SAT SCORES were due to the fact that sleeping on the streets was my reality RATHER THAN reading some f#@%&* verbal passage.
Mattoramo get a life and STOP TRYING TO OVER ANALYZE YOUR BRILLIANT THOUGHTS.
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Hmm, last I checked, Kaplan offers prep classes for both the MCAT AND the SAT. Therefore, the SAT, just like every other standardized test, can be studied for to a certain extent.
Also, last I checked, the MCAT has a Verbal Reasoning section that requires no outside knowledge. VR on the MCAT requires only reasoning ability to decipher passages many magnitudes tougher than their SAT Verbal counterparts. Combining this with the fact that only cream-of-the-crop premeds take the MCAT (versus virtually all high school seniors taking the SAT) points to the conclusion that it is much, much, much more difficult to achieve 80th percentile on the MCAT than 80th percentile on the SAT. If anything, the MCAT is the more rigorous indicator of your capability amongst your fellow students.
Whether a test measures intelligence is a moot point. IMHO, what standardized tests really measure is your motivation to succeed. They can be studied for, and they can be conquered with determination.
deez
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one of my hs buddies had trouble breaking 1300 on the sat. he took over $1000 of sat prep classes and on his next try, he got 1500.
ditto for me. i couldn't get more than 1120 so i would read tons of passages and do practice problems from books. on my final try i got 1330.
make of that what you will.
ditto for me. i couldn't get more than 1120 so i would read tons of passages and do practice problems from books. on my final try i got 1330.
make of that what you will.
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mattorama -
First you make an assumption that jobs that pay the most money are also the ones with the generally smartest people. Afterall, all smart people want to make the most money. This is an illogical conclusion. Say I am smart, wouldn't I want to make a lot of money and not work at all? Wouldn't this make professional athletes and entertainers very smart by definition? I'm just trying to show you where your logic breaks down. (cough cough.. George W Bush) <-- not a smart man people - "EVIL-DOERS" did he get that out of a comic book?!
Moving on..
Everything I have read (bio books, stuff by Stephen Gould etc) would say that intelligence is not highly inheritable. Common sense would tell you that your child will most likely be the average or close to it, if we are assuming that "intelligence" is distrubted like a bell curve throughout a population. This is even teh case for characteristics as simple as height, my parents are 6'5 and 5'9 - I'm 6'1. I am still within a single standard deviation of average male height though both of my parents are outside of one deviation.
Intelligence and education are too very different things. Only people with wealth can really actively focus and pursue an educatoin. Us "commoners" have to figure out where our next check is coming so we can eat. If person X and Y are both of the same intelligence, yet person Y has to work a job and take the MCATs/SATs etc against person X... Y will always lose b/c he has less resources to invest. Yes, both are easily studied for. This is common sense. Just because your high school did not tell you to study them did not mean it wasn't training you in its classes for the tests. By definition, a person with great wealth has the resources to pursue education while those who are poor do not.
An intelligence test is in fact impossible to study for therefore both the SAT, MCAT, GRE, and every other test do not directly show intelligence - though if you get a 45 without studying for the MCAT you got my stamp of approval for genius status.
First if you're gonna start talking about IQ and SAT tests you really need to read who has been making these things. Start with Alfred Binet and his IQ tests.. you can see that most "intelligence" tests have been culturally biased for the past ~80 years. Personally, I can't beat a person of equal skills if I'm workign 40 hours a week and studying for the MCAT... I only have so much to give and my rich doppleganger is gonna hammer me hard if he even puts in an extra 20 hours/ week. Same goes for the SAT I. Why is it that poor people are always told to "work harder." If we all worked our hardest none of us would ever move up or down considerably b/c everyone else would be working their hardest. Then everything would be decided and inside connections and previous resources.
I appreciate your even-handed tone but the majority of my peers in college have your viewpoint. This is rather upsetting b/c you guys will be heading the country one day (cough cough.. George W Bush). You think that having the luxury of an education is somehow equivalent to innate superiority and that is why people call you self-entitled. I really believe it is because you are from similar, insular background. You are quick to point out your personal experience, but you don't seem to mention how you know a lot of people who are say in the bottom 20% of the socioeconomic ladder. This would kind of create a large bias in your viewpoint and you do hint at it - so why don't you do somethign about it? This is not an attack.. but if you don't know people from all walks of life and lots of them, your personal opinions are highly limited and any conclusion you draw will not hold water.
Honestly, you'd think that people would tear you apart for saying something like that but that may just be that SDNers are from well to do backgrounds and simply beleive what you say, time will tell. I do want you to know that NO, I don't think that everyone is equal in emtional or analytical intelligence but wealth distribution has nothing to do with how intelligence is distrubted. What you are discussing is very similar to eugenics and ethnic inferiority arguments that have been made for centuries. Do you think that hispanics are less intelligent because they are not rich? Blacks?Are you willing to go that far and make an ethnic stereotype? Hispanic people are on average less wealthy... you know better than to jump on this one.
Hitler was a strong advocate of eugenics, your argument is bordering on it anyway. It's not a place you really want to go. Yes we are not born equal, but as a future physician you need to realize why people don't end up in the same place.
First you make an assumption that jobs that pay the most money are also the ones with the generally smartest people. Afterall, all smart people want to make the most money. This is an illogical conclusion. Say I am smart, wouldn't I want to make a lot of money and not work at all? Wouldn't this make professional athletes and entertainers very smart by definition? I'm just trying to show you where your logic breaks down. (cough cough.. George W Bush) <-- not a smart man people - "EVIL-DOERS" did he get that out of a comic book?!
Moving on..
Everything I have read (bio books, stuff by Stephen Gould etc) would say that intelligence is not highly inheritable. Common sense would tell you that your child will most likely be the average or close to it, if we are assuming that "intelligence" is distrubted like a bell curve throughout a population. This is even teh case for characteristics as simple as height, my parents are 6'5 and 5'9 - I'm 6'1. I am still within a single standard deviation of average male height though both of my parents are outside of one deviation.
Intelligence and education are too very different things. Only people with wealth can really actively focus and pursue an educatoin. Us "commoners" have to figure out where our next check is coming so we can eat. If person X and Y are both of the same intelligence, yet person Y has to work a job and take the MCATs/SATs etc against person X... Y will always lose b/c he has less resources to invest. Yes, both are easily studied for. This is common sense. Just because your high school did not tell you to study them did not mean it wasn't training you in its classes for the tests. By definition, a person with great wealth has the resources to pursue education while those who are poor do not.
An intelligence test is in fact impossible to study for therefore both the SAT, MCAT, GRE, and every other test do not directly show intelligence - though if you get a 45 without studying for the MCAT you got my stamp of approval for genius status.
First if you're gonna start talking about IQ and SAT tests you really need to read who has been making these things. Start with Alfred Binet and his IQ tests.. you can see that most "intelligence" tests have been culturally biased for the past ~80 years. Personally, I can't beat a person of equal skills if I'm workign 40 hours a week and studying for the MCAT... I only have so much to give and my rich doppleganger is gonna hammer me hard if he even puts in an extra 20 hours/ week. Same goes for the SAT I. Why is it that poor people are always told to "work harder." If we all worked our hardest none of us would ever move up or down considerably b/c everyone else would be working their hardest. Then everything would be decided and inside connections and previous resources.
I appreciate your even-handed tone but the majority of my peers in college have your viewpoint. This is rather upsetting b/c you guys will be heading the country one day (cough cough.. George W Bush). You think that having the luxury of an education is somehow equivalent to innate superiority and that is why people call you self-entitled. I really believe it is because you are from similar, insular background. You are quick to point out your personal experience, but you don't seem to mention how you know a lot of people who are say in the bottom 20% of the socioeconomic ladder. This would kind of create a large bias in your viewpoint and you do hint at it - so why don't you do somethign about it? This is not an attack.. but if you don't know people from all walks of life and lots of them, your personal opinions are highly limited and any conclusion you draw will not hold water.
Honestly, you'd think that people would tear you apart for saying something like that but that may just be that SDNers are from well to do backgrounds and simply beleive what you say, time will tell. I do want you to know that NO, I don't think that everyone is equal in emtional or analytical intelligence but wealth distribution has nothing to do with how intelligence is distrubted. What you are discussing is very similar to eugenics and ethnic inferiority arguments that have been made for centuries. Do you think that hispanics are less intelligent because they are not rich? Blacks?Are you willing to go that far and make an ethnic stereotype? Hispanic people are on average less wealthy... you know better than to jump on this one.
Hitler was a strong advocate of eugenics, your argument is bordering on it anyway. It's not a place you really want to go. Yes we are not born equal, but as a future physician you need to realize why people don't end up in the same place.
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Standardized test scores..blah blah blah!! Ok so I didn't make a 1200, 1300, or 1400 on the SAT, but once I got into the college that accepted me based on my score of 1100, which isn't bad, I excelled in many ways. I finished high in my class, posted numerious leadership positions, and graduated suma cum laude. Even though they say that these "TEST SCORES" are a huge prediction of your success in college, I know many that scored 1400's and came close to failing out of college. Remember this, its what you do once you get to where you are going that truly matters. However, these scores will still be taken seriously. I would list them, what have you got to lose? What matters is what you did during your undergraduate years.
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I have two things to say about this. Due to poverty issues, I didn't even really go to high school. I went the community college route when I was in my late 20s (and could afford it), and now attend Cal. So I didn't even take the SAT. But I do know that had I sat for the SAT some 16 years ago, at the age that many of my friends took the SAT, I would have scored abysmally. Not only did I not have the educational background, I was working about 60 hours a week as a waitress and in coffee houses so I could eat. Were I to take it now, I'd probably do pretty well on it. In fact, I'd probably rock it even if I didn't study over-much. I now have the educational background, and just as importantly, I'm financially comfortable without having to work 60 hours a week.
The second thing is that it isn't raw intelligence that gets you through something like medical school. It's hard work, integrity and the absolute need to become a doctor. Intelligence helps, but there are many, many brilliant people who haven't applied to medical school because it would take too much out of them (time, emotional and physical fatigue, etc). Most of my friends in medical school right now are brilliant, but you wouldn't have guessed it by looking at their HS transcripts or their SATs. And more importantly, they've worked their butts off to get into medical school, and they're working even harder to stay in medical school. And none of them come from wealthy families.
Nanon
The second thing is that it isn't raw intelligence that gets you through something like medical school. It's hard work, integrity and the absolute need to become a doctor. Intelligence helps, but there are many, many brilliant people who haven't applied to medical school because it would take too much out of them (time, emotional and physical fatigue, etc). Most of my friends in medical school right now are brilliant, but you wouldn't have guessed it by looking at their HS transcripts or their SATs. And more importantly, they've worked their butts off to get into medical school, and they're working even harder to stay in medical school. And none of them come from wealthy families.
Nanon
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It seems silly that a med school admissions committee is requesting SAT (or ACT) scores. I really don't think that your academic performance in high school or on old, standardized tests has any sort of a bearing on whether or not you make it into medical school.
I had a bud who messed up his first attempt at COLLEGE - literally, flunked out - and as you know, that cannot be hidden from admission committees. Nevertheless, he got some work experience, decided that he wanted to become a doctor, and then went back to school and outperformed his classmates in the sciences and on the MCAT. He got into a very selective school that's probably high on all of our lists.
The predominant argument in favor of divulging SAT scores to adcoms seems to be that if two people do equally as well on the MCAT, the one who did better on the SAT is more intellegent and should be ranked above the individual with the inferior SAT score.
Here's another way of looking at it: both of the applicants performed equally as well on the MCAT, meaning that they are equally as capable of performing well on the exam (and probably equally as capable of doing well in their preclinical years). Now, the student with the LOWER SAT score must have WORKED HARDER than the student with the higher SAT score in order to do as well on the MCAT (assuming that lower sat score means lower intelligence - which is wrong, but for the sake of argument). Isn't hard work, motivation, and drive the sort of thing admission committees are looking for in an applicant after they've made the cut for GPA and MCAT? 😉
What it comes down to is this: do you really care about what kind of an SAT score YOUR doctor had back in high school? Are you really that concerned about his or her IQ score, or are you more concerned about how much effort he or she is willing to invest in helping you get better?
After all, I think most med school applicants are SMART enough to be doctors. If a particular school wanted geniuses, they could just hand-out the Wechsler to everyone who walked through their door for an interview.
I had a bud who messed up his first attempt at COLLEGE - literally, flunked out - and as you know, that cannot be hidden from admission committees. Nevertheless, he got some work experience, decided that he wanted to become a doctor, and then went back to school and outperformed his classmates in the sciences and on the MCAT. He got into a very selective school that's probably high on all of our lists.
The predominant argument in favor of divulging SAT scores to adcoms seems to be that if two people do equally as well on the MCAT, the one who did better on the SAT is more intellegent and should be ranked above the individual with the inferior SAT score.
Here's another way of looking at it: both of the applicants performed equally as well on the MCAT, meaning that they are equally as capable of performing well on the exam (and probably equally as capable of doing well in their preclinical years). Now, the student with the LOWER SAT score must have WORKED HARDER than the student with the higher SAT score in order to do as well on the MCAT (assuming that lower sat score means lower intelligence - which is wrong, but for the sake of argument). Isn't hard work, motivation, and drive the sort of thing admission committees are looking for in an applicant after they've made the cut for GPA and MCAT? 😉
What it comes down to is this: do you really care about what kind of an SAT score YOUR doctor had back in high school? Are you really that concerned about his or her IQ score, or are you more concerned about how much effort he or she is willing to invest in helping you get better?
After all, I think most med school applicants are SMART enough to be doctors. If a particular school wanted geniuses, they could just hand-out the Wechsler to everyone who walked through their door for an interview.
