What do you hate most about the pre-med process?

[Mednight]

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Being a premed is expensive and long. Most people pay for classes to be certified so they can obtain clinical experiences and that's not the bad part it's the money that will be involved when applying to med schools. You have to pay for the MCAT, the applications, travel expenses when interviewing. Also finding leaderships roles is difficult for me. The competitiveness is intimidating as well.


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[mayonnaisetheinstrument]

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[battie]

No other graduate schools train people to save lives

Nursing school, PA school, PT/OT, Paramedic school directly teach medicine.

Law school graduates we can also argue save lives though in quite a different manner.

Engineering school teaches you to not make mistakes that could kill people.

Veterinarians 😉 But the application you guys go through is so much worse than ours. Whenever I sneak over here, I thank my lucky stars that I didn't want human med

I don't like the concept that pursuing medical school for the paycheck that comes from being a doctor is looked down upon as "inappropriate" motivation. If someone's sole reason for wanting to attend med school is "doctors make a lot of money", then they obviously will struggle getting an acceptance. However, I feel it is perfectly fine if someone's 4th, 3rd, or even 2nd reason for applying is the pay. Anyone willing to commit 12+ years and put themselves $100,000+ in debt for their career BETTER get compensated at the end of it, or no one would choose this path!

Long story short: I wish their wasn't such a negative stigma surrounding the draw of med school for the money.

Over in pre-vet when we get the "Vet school vs med school" question, we point people straight to the money if they think they'd be happy any where that isn't vet med. Lol. As you said, people putting in that time and effort should be getting the big bucks.

 

[DOCzilla15]

Veterinarians 😉 But the application you guys go through is so much worse than ours. Whenever I sneak over here, I thank my lucky stars that I didn't want human med



Over in pre-vet when we get the "Vet school vs med school" question, we point people straight to the money if they think they'd be happy any where that isn't vet med. Lol. As you said, people putting in that time and effort should be getting the big bucks.

Fair play to veterinarians although I've always heard it was more difficult to get in because of the lack of schools.

 

[battie]

Fair play to veterinarians although I've always heard it was more difficult to get in because of the lack of schools.

Meh, I don't really think so. We have something like 35 or 37 accredited schools (30 actually in the US), but we also only have 7,000 applicants/cycle. If you're exactly average, I believe the chances of acceptance are 2/3 (I would have to double check that, though).

 

[Skydive Fox]

The countless times I was studying while the rest of my acquaintances were out having fun and living their lives, the self-doubting and endless existential crisis spurred by my MCAT, the uncertainty of the application process...

But y'know, if I could go back in time to 4 years ago, I would do it all over again without giving it a second thought 🙂 I had fun being a premed and I will certainly miss it.

 

[chickpeagoals]

I don't get to spend a lot of time with my family, because I'm either studying or doing things for my ECs. I doubt my boyfriend knows my name anymore

 

[Eleithyia]

Premed friends are a toss-up--sometimes it's good to have someone to vent to and to hear that someone else is having the same problem, but when you find out you're applying the same cycle? Yikes.

I know conventional wisdom is that you're not competing against each other, you're competing against yourself, but realistically, I know I have that nasty little voice in my head that says "anywhere s/he gets in is one less opportunity for you." I want to be able to root for my friends but it can be difficult when it feels like rooting for someone else is the same as not rooting for yourself. Sometimes it's easier to avoid other premeds than deal with that, because you think the same thing must be going through their heads.

 

[miniman]

Premed friends are a toss-up--sometimes it's good to have someone to vent to and to hear that someone else is having the same problem, but when you find out you're applying the same cycle? Yikes.

I know conventional wisdom is that you're not competing against each other, you're competing against yourself, but realistically, I know I have that nasty little voice in my head that says "anywhere s/he gets in is one less opportunity for you." I want to be able to root for my friends but it can be difficult when it feels like rooting for someone else is the same as not rooting for yourself. Sometimes it's easier to avoid other premeds than deal with that, because you think the same thing must be going through their heads.

Wow.... Maybe I don't want to get into a pre-med society... lol. You bring up a great point, one which I wish didn't have to exist, but one which I would imagine is very real and painful.

 

[Eleithyia]

Wow.... Maybe I don't want to get into a pre-med society... lol. You bring up a great point, one which I wish didn't have to exist, but one which I would imagine is very real and painful.

I wouldn't want to discourage you from that, because it can be so helpful to be around people who understand what's up! To be clear, no one has ever said any such thing to my face, it's more of an undercurrent that I feel. But I do admit I have found it much simpler to be friends with people who were applying in different cycles than me.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I know conventional wisdom is that you're not competing against each other, you're competing against yourself, but realistically, I know I have that nasty little voice in my head that says "anywhere s/he gets in is one less opportunity for you."

It's not a zero-sum game. There's no reason to not root for someone else to get in.

 

[coffeeandcodeine]

I know conventional wisdom is that you're not competing against each other, you're competing against yourself, but realistically, I know I have that nasty little voice in my head that says "anywhere s/he gets in is one less opportunity for you." I want to be able to root for my friends but it can be difficult when it feels like rooting for someone else is the same as not rooting for yourself. Sometimes it's easier to avoid other premeds than deal with that, because you think the same thing must be going through their heads.

It's really important to fight that voice, because we should all be rooting for each other. We're hopefully all going to be colleagues and teammates one day, and this is the kind of stressful profession where we all will need to rely on each other for support. It's much harder to get through med school if you view your classmates as competitors for residency slots, rather than friends and peers. I know sometimes it can be hard to shake the competitive mentality, but I think it's kind of crucial.

Something I noticed on the interview trail was that most applicants seemed incredibly helpful and supportive of each other. Everyone seemed to genuinely hope for each other to succeed, even though in theory we were competing for limited spots. That was really awesome, and made be want those people to be my classmates.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

The lack of uniformity among grading systems at schools.

This is just a general issue I have with college though. The grading scales even between majors can be so disparate that it strongly discourages people from taking any class that may be graded roughly.

 

[Eleithyia]

It's not a zero-sum game. There's no reason to not root for someone else to get in.

It's really important to fight that voice, because we should all be rooting for each other. We're hopefully all going to be colleagues and teammates one day, and this is the kind of stressful profession where we all will need to rely on each other for support.
...most applicants seemed incredibly helpful and supportive of each other. Everyone seemed to genuinely hope for each other to succeed, even though in theory we were competing for limited spots. That was really awesome, and made be want those people to be my classmates.

I genuinely do want others to succeed, but you know what? I'm going to be honest and say I genuinely want myself to succeed, too. Telling me that it's not a zero-sum game doesn't change the fact that the majority of people who apply don't get in; everyone cannot "win." And I can hope that my friends and classmates and I are all on the winning side, but that would also mean someone else--some other premed somewhere--isn't. I'm not at all saying I accept the idea that I shouldn't root for my friends and be helpful and supportive. I do those things. But it would be dishonest to say it's never crossed my mind that I could very well be rooting for and supporting them while I don't make it.

EDIT: To clarify my original post, the problem/uneasiness goes both ways: when I root for my friends I sometimes feel like I'm rooting against myself, but also when I root for myself, it sometimes feels like I am rooting against my friends, which is equally sh***y.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I genuinely do want others to succeed, but you know what? I'm going to be honest and say I genuinely want myself to succeed, too. Telling me that it's not a zero-sum game doesn't change the fact that the majority of people who apply don't get in; everyone cannot "win." And I can hope that my friends and classmates and I are all on the winning side, but that would also mean someone else--some other premed somewhere--isn't. I'm not at all saying I accept the idea that I shouldn't root for my friends and be helpful and supportive. I do those things. But it would be dishonest to say it's never crossed my mind that I could very well be rooting for and supporting them while I don't make it.

EDIT: To clarify my original post, the problem/uneasiness goes both ways: when I root for my friends I sometimes feel like I'm rooting against myself, but also when I root for myself, it sometimes feels like I am rooting against my friends, which is equally sh***y.

That's still a zero-sum mentality. The idea that your payoff equals the negative of someone else, or A_ij = -B_ij. That's not how it works. Only ~40% of applicants are accepted (or whatever the number is), but that's not because they only have a finite number of spots and the more people who get them the less spots there are for your and your friends. It's a more complicated system then that.

Yes, you are indirectly competing with other students because where you fall in relation to the schools' medians affects your chances, but you're not gunning for some finite number of seats that you have to compete with your friends or premed society or even all of SDN for. You guys are really all on the same side.

Now it's different when you start talking about residency, as they really do have a finite number of spots to fill. But med school admissions isn't like that (outside of Texas--not super familiar with how it works down there).

 

[Dagrimsta1]

No Uniform GPA system... I know students that have higher GPA than I, only because they kissed ass well.
CARS is stupid.
The lack of stricter regulations to protect the students actually spending money vs the governments money on the app cycle.
How Marijuana is looked down upon
The fact that volunteering and research don't cut it anymore as EC, you need at least 10 more
How competitive this bull**** is.

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

That's still a zero-sum mentality. The idea that your payoff equals the negative of someone else, or A_ij = -B_ij. That's not how it works. Only ~40% of applicants are accepted (or whatever the number is), but that's not because they only have a finite number of spots and the more people who get them the less spots there are for your and your friends. It's a more complicated system then that.

Yes, you are indirectly competing with other students because where you fall in relation to the schools' medians affects your chances, but you're not gunning for some finite number of seats that you have to compete with your friends or premed society or even all of SDN for. You guys are really all on the same side.

Now it's different when you start talking about residency, as they really do have a finite number of spots to fill. But med school admissions isn't like that (outside of Texas--not super familiar with how it works down there).

It's the Wild West down here 😉

 

[Gruka]

Definitely the cost of everything. I'm estranged from my mother and because she makes past the cut-off for funding, I couldn't get any money to help me apply

 

[jcorpsmanMD]

Definitely the cost of everything. I'm estranged from my mother and because she makes past the cut-off for funding, I couldn't get any money to help me apply

I feel you. I'm not estranged from my parents but neither of them helped me with the application costs. You wouldn't want to look at my credit card debt though.. thank god im working and I been chipping away at it.

 

[Eleithyia]

Yes, you are indirectly competing with other students because where you fall in relation to the schools' medians affects your chances, but you're not gunning for some finite number of seats that you have to compete with your friends or premed society or even all of SDN for. You guys are really all on the same side.

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. I know you're just trying to be helpful and clear up my misconceptions, but this isn't about what I know or don't know. Intellectually I know all the things you're saying to me (a point on which it seems I should have been more clear). But have you ever encountered a fact that doesn't feel true? They're hard to shake.
Knowing that feeling doesn't necessarily reflect reality doesn't change the fact that the feeling is there. I can and do remind myself that it's not all a competition, but there are times when that feels like a lie, even thought I know it isn't. And for me, that's the thing I hate most about the pre-med process: this admittedly illogical feeling that it is a big competition that I can lose even if I do everything I'm supposed to do.

 

[SouthernGent]

How the application process feels like a long, stress inducing, drawn out game.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. I know you're just trying to be helpful and clear up my misconceptions, but this isn't about what I know or don't know. Intellectually I know all the things you're saying to me (a point on which it seems I should have been more clear). But have you ever encountered a fact that doesn't feel true? They're hard to shake.
Knowing that feeling doesn't necessarily reflect reality doesn't change the fact that the feeling is there. I can and do remind myself that it's not all a competition, but there are times when that feels like a lie, even thought I know it isn't. And for me, that's the thing I hate most about the pre-med process: this admittedly illogical feeling that it is a big competition that I can lose even if I do everything I'm supposed to do.

Yeah I get what you're saying. It seemed like you were somehow still under the belief that it is a zero sum situation. I can see how sometimes you might have a moment where it feels like that, but for me, reminding myself that it's not is enough to help those moments pass.

Course in my situation, it really is zero sum so that doesn't really help haha.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Oh forgot to mention. URM/ORM. Such absolute nonsense honestly.

 

[begoood95]

Oh forgot to mention. URM/ORM. Such absolute nonsense honestly.

I don't really want to get into this, but URM is definitely not "absolute nonsense."

Minorities are not favored, per se, in the way that is commonly thought. Rather, adcoms recognize that minorities oftentimes have to jump through many more hurdles (cultural, socioeconomic, etc. etc.) than your usual WASP. Therefore, an URM with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT is viewed as having gone through "more" than the WASP with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT.

And yes, I know, you can have much lower stats as an URM and basically get in wherever. I don't think that's nonsense though. Usually, URMs do have more hardships than do non-URMs. I furthermore believe that some affirmative action is justifiable given their past treatment -- doesn't matter if we presently had anything to do with it. This favoring of URMs is in virtue of a recognition that they are disproportionately selected against and disfavored in many aspects of life, and in order to "level the playing field," in a sense, they are favored.

I don't mean to attack you personally in anyway, but I do think it's kind of petty and perhaps shows a lack of empathy on the part of those who think that such practices are nonsense. They're perfectly sensible. Adcoms aim to build a diverse class, representative of the population in general; I don't need to go over the benefits of diversity here. So I disagree with you, I don't think URM (or ORM) is absolute nonsense.

There are many other things that warrant annoyance in this process. That is not one of them, in my opinion.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

I don't really want to get into this, but URM is definitely not "absolute nonsense."

Minorities are not favored, per se, in the way that is commonly thought. Rather, adcoms recognize that minorities oftentimes have to jump through many more hurdles (cultural, socioeconomic, etc. etc.) than your usual WASP. Therefore, an URM with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT is viewed as having gone through "more" than the WASP with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT.

And yes, I know, you can have much lower stats as an URM and basically get in wherever. I don't think that's nonsense though. Usually, URMs do have more hardships than do non-URMs. I furthermore believe that some affirmative action is justifiable given their past treatment -- doesn't matter if we presently had anything to do with it. This favoring of URMs is in virtue of a recognition that they are disproportionately selected against and disfavored in many aspects of life, and in order to "level the playing field," in a sense, they are favored.

I don't mean to attack you personally in anyway, but I do think it's kind of petty and perhaps shows a lack of empathy on the part of those who think that such practices are nonsense. They're perfectly sensible. Adcoms aim to build a diverse class, representative of the population in general; I don't need to go over the benefits of diversity here. So I disagree with you, I don't think URM (or ORM) is absolute nonsense.

There are many other things that warrant annoyance in this process. That is not one of them, in my opinion.

Like it or not, hardship comes from socioeconomic class, then why not set affirmative action to work on income? Set the family's income cap mean at $100k. Sure diversity is important, but not when it outright discriminates and chooses not to includes Asian minorities. The whole classification of who is considered an ORM or URM is pretty nonsense. Statistically an Indian American immigrant family makes a lot more money than a Vietnamese American family. Yet they are bundled in the same category. How is that considering their socioeconomic status? Americans treated Chinese laborers like trash, and had internment camps for Japanese. I see where you are coming from, but I believe that making medical school admissions artificially easier or harder for certain students is unfair to them.

It's not my lack of empathy that makes me think that the whole thing is unfair, it's my empathy for my Asian American friends who artificially have a harder time getting into schools because of something they have no control over. I am of opinion that URM/ORM policies cannot be anything BUT racist. They are the definition of racism.

 

[all things possible]

Like it or not, hardship comes from socioeconomic class, then why not set affirmative action to work on income? Set the family's income cap mean at $100k. Sure diversity is important, but not when it outright discriminates and chooses not to includes Asian minorities. The whole classification of who is considered an ORM or URM is pretty nonsense. Statistically an Indian American immigrant family makes a lot more money than a Vietnamese American family. Yet they are bundled in the same category. How is that considering their socioeconomic status? Americans treated Chinese laborers like trash, and had internment camps for Japanese. I see where you are coming from, but I believe that making medical school admissions artificially easier or harder for certain students is unfair to them.

It's not my lack of empathy that makes me think that the whole thing is unfair, it's my empathy for my Asian American friends who artificially have a harder time getting into schools because of something they have no control over. I am of opinion that URM/ORM policies cannot be anything BUT racist. They are the definition of racism.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Nice counterargument.

 

[freak7]

Nonononono, let's not do this in this thread. I like this thread.

 

[begoood95]

(1)Like it or not, hardship comes from socioeconomic class, then why not set affirmative to work on income? Set the family's income cap mean at $100k. Sure diversity is important, but not when it (2) outright discriminates and chooses not to includes Asian minorities. The whole classification of who is considered an ORM or URM is pretty nonsense. (3) Statistically an Indian American immigrant family makes a lot more money than a Vietnamese American family. Yet they are bundled in the same category. How is that considering their socioeconomic status? Americans treated Chinese laborers like trash, and had internment camps for Japanese. I see where you are coming from, but I believe that making medical school admissions artificially easier or harder for certain students is unfair to them.

1. I know you're not saying that all hardship really boils down to is socioeconomic class, because that would be very myopic at best. Hardship in the form of discrimination can come from any number of avenues, be it socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, gender, or any combination of discrimination. To say that we ought to base it solely off of socioeconomic class is much worse than the current system you're taking issue with right now.

2. I'm starting to feel a personal connection to this issue. You're right, however, to point out that as it currently stands, URM classifications lump together all of Asia, which I agree is incorrect. I've been to India and Korea; those cultures are very different from each other! Nevertheless, I still don't think it "outright discriminates" against Asian minorities. Indeed, many east Asian ethnicities are "overrepresented" in medicine, especially on the west coast. You (literally) win some and lose some. However, just because there is this (incorrect, I agree) artifact in the system as it stands today, doesn't mean that the whole thing is rendered "absolute nonsense." Rather, it seems like we ought to modify it slightly.

3. Medical schools do in fact take into account socioeconomic status, by the way. If you're a family making <$XX,XXX, you can be sure they're going to notice, or at least take it into account, however so slight it may be. Furthermore, if your socioeconomic status did indeed affect you so much, then talk about it in your personal statement! Again, your issues don't really seem to do much in the way of rendering the whole of issue of URM defunct. You seem to have a personal grudge with it, which is fine, but remember that this problem is multifaceted and includes people beyond the scope of individual grievances.

Oh, and racism in the colloquial sense of the word is not what URM status in medicine is. C'mon. Taking broad, harsh, and negative actions against a race is racism proper. Actively selecting those who are disadvantaged is not racist as you paint it to be, my internet colleague.

Nonononono, let's not do this in this thread. I like this thread.

I'm sorry, the sociology student in me had to😳

 

[all things possible]

For me, I really hated the length of the application cycle. It's like 90% waiting.

Take MCAT....wait, score comes....wait, interviews...wait, etc.

×3 for me since I applied 3 TIMES!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Let's puh-leeze not get into a URM/AA argument in this thread.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

1. I know you're not saying that all hardship really boils down to is socioeconomic class, because that would be very myopic at best. Hardship in the form of discrimination can come from any number of avenues, be it socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, gender, or any combination of discrimination. To say that we ought to base it solely off of socioeconomic class is much worse than the current system you're taking issue with right now.

2. I'm starting to feel a personal connection to this issue. You're right, however, to point out that as it currently stands, URM classifications lump together all of Asia, which I agree is incorrect. I've been to India and Korea; those cultures are very different from each other! Nevertheless, I still don't think it "outright discriminates" against Asian minorities. Indeed, many east Asian ethnicities are "overrepresented" in medicine, especially on the west coast. You (literally) win some and lose some. However, just because there is this (incorrect, I agree) artifact in the system as it stands today, doesn't mean that the whole thing is rendered "absolute nonsense." Rather, it seems like we ought to modify it slightly.

3. Medical schools do in fact take into account socioeconomic status, by the way. If you're a family making <$XX,XXX, you can be sure they're going to notice, or at least take it into account, however so slight it may be. Furthermore, if your socioeconomic status did indeed affect you so much, then talk about it in your personal statement! Again, your issues don't really seem to do much in the way of rendering the whole of issue of URM defunct. You seem to have a personal grudge with it, which is fine, but remember that this problem is multifaceted and includes people beyond the scope of individual grievances.
I'm sorry, the sociology student in me had to😳

Honestly I can even understand African Americans and certain Latin American groups having preferred admissions, but why Bangladeshi Americans who on average make very little, have the same disadvantage as Indian American families who make much more, makes little sense to me. My argument for socioeconomic based admissions is because I am a firm believer that if we have an African American patient who is on the left side of the income curve, a physician who was in his shoes at some point would know more about his/her specific hardships than a physician who is simply the same color of skin as the patient is.

I am as white as a white person may be. The only "URM"ish thing about me is being a first gen immigrant at the age of 12. It's just frustrating knowing how much harder some of my Asian American classmates have to work to be accepted.

TO PRESERVE THREAD+SANITY:
This will be my last post on the topic. Please do post a followup, I will certainly read but not respond to keep it on topic.

 

[begoood95]

Honestly I can even understand African Americans and certain Latin American groups having preferred admissions, but why Bangladeshi Americans who on average make very little, have the same disadvantage as Indian American families who make much more, makes little sense to me. My argument for socioeconomic based admissions is because I am a firm believer that if we have an African American patient who is on the left side of the income curve, a physician who was in his shoes at some point would know more about his/her specific hardships than a physician who is simply the same color of skin as the patient is.

I am as white as a white person may be. The only "URM"ish thing about me is being a first gen immigrant at the age of 12. It's just frustrating knowing how much harder some of my Asian American classmates have to work to be accepted.

TO PRESERVE THREAD+SANITY:
This will be my last post on the topic. Please do post a followup, I will certainly read not respond to keep it on topic.

Yeahhh we'll cap it at this! Good discussion🙂

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

So how about that ****ty on campus dining huh

 

[Toutie]

So how about that ****ty on campus dining huh

Should have gone to UCLA. They have great campus dining. Been voted best college food in the country a few times.

 

[Dr. Slimthick]

Oh forgot to mention. URM/ORM. Such absolute nonsense honestly.

I don't really want to get into this, but URM is definitely not "absolute nonsense."

Minorities are not favored, per se, in the way that is commonly thought. Rather, adcoms recognize that minorities oftentimes have to jump through many more hurdles (cultural, socioeconomic, etc. etc.) than your usual WASP. Therefore, an URM with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT is viewed as having gone through "more" than the WASP with a 3.6 GPA/515 MCAT.

And yes, I know, you can have much lower stats as an URM and basically get in wherever. I don't think that's nonsense though. Usually, URMs do have more hardships than do non-URMs. I furthermore believe that some affirmative action is justifiable given their past treatment -- doesn't matter if we presently had anything to do with it. This favoring of URMs is in virtue of a recognition that they are disproportionately selected against and disfavored in many aspects of life, and in order to "level the playing field," in a sense, they are favored.

I don't mean to attack you personally in anyway, but I do think it's kind of petty and perhaps shows a lack of empathy on the part of those who think that such practices are nonsense. They're perfectly sensible. Adcoms aim to build a diverse class, representative of the population in general; I don't need to go over the benefits of diversity here. So I disagree with you, I don't think URM (or ORM) is absolute nonsense.

There are many other things that warrant annoyance in this process. That is not one of them, in my opinion.

Like it or not, hardship comes from socioeconomic class, then why not set affirmative action to work on income? Set the family's income cap mean at $100k. Sure diversity is important, but not when it outright discriminates and chooses not to includes Asian minorities. The whole classification of who is considered an ORM or URM is pretty nonsense. Statistically an Indian American immigrant family makes a lot more money than a Vietnamese American family. Yet they are bundled in the same category. How is that considering their socioeconomic status? Americans treated Chinese laborers like trash, and had internment camps for Japanese. I see where you are coming from, but I believe that making medical school admissions artificially easier or harder for certain students is unfair to them.

It's not my lack of empathy that makes me think that the whole thing is unfair, it's my empathy for my Asian American friends who artificially have a harder time getting into schools because of something they have no control over. I am of opinion that URM/ORM policies cannot be anything BUT racist. They are the definition of racism.

1. I know you're not saying that all hardship really boils down to is socioeconomic class, because that would be very myopic at best. Hardship in the form of discrimination can come from any number of avenues, be it socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, gender, or any combination of discrimination. To say that we ought to base it solely off of socioeconomic class is much worse than the current system you're taking issue with right now.

2. I'm starting to feel a personal connection to this issue. You're right, however, to point out that as it currently stands, URM classifications lump together all of Asia, which I agree is incorrect. I've been to India and Korea; those cultures are very different from each other! Nevertheless, I still don't think it "outright discriminates" against Asian minorities. Indeed, many east Asian ethnicities are "overrepresented" in medicine, especially on the west coast. You (literally) win some and lose some. However, just because there is this (incorrect, I agree) artifact in the system as it stands today, doesn't mean that the whole thing is rendered "absolute nonsense." Rather, it seems like we ought to modify it slightly.

3. Medical schools do in fact take into account socioeconomic status, by the way. If you're a family making <$XX,XXX, you can be sure they're going to notice, or at least take it into account, however so slight it may be. Furthermore, if your socioeconomic status did indeed affect you so much, then talk about it in your personal statement! Again, your issues don't really seem to do much in the way of rendering the whole of issue of URM defunct. You seem to have a personal grudge with it, which is fine, but remember that this problem is multifaceted and includes people beyond the scope of individual grievances.

Oh, and racism in the colloquial sense of the word is not what URM status in medicine is. C'mon. Taking broad, harsh, and negative actions against a race is racism proper. Actively selecting those who are disadvantaged is not racist as you paint it to be, my internet colleague.
I'm sorry, the sociology student in me had to😳

Honestly I can even understand African Americans and certain Latin American groups having preferred admissions, but why Bangladeshi Americans who on average make very little, have the same disadvantage as Indian American families who make much more, makes little sense to me. My argument for socioeconomic based admissions is because I am a firm believer that if we have an African American patient who is on the left side of the income curve, a physician who was in his shoes at some point would know more about his/her specific hardships than a physician who is simply the same color of skin as the patient is.

I am as white as a white person may be. The only "URM"ish thing about me is being a first gen immigrant at the age of 12. It's just frustrating knowing how much harder some of my Asian American classmates have to work to be accepted.

TO PRESERVE THREAD+SANITY:
This will be my last post on the topic. Please do post a followup, I will certainly read but not respond to keep it on topic.

 

[Dr. Slimthick]

Now that the horse is confirmed to be dead, I hate all the money I spent on schools who rejected me, some only days after submitting my secondary. As you can I have been relegated to eating Ramon noodles while wearing an expensive dress in my avatar. The indignity!

 

[freak7]

I have been relegated to eating Ramon noodles

You killed my buddy Ramón?? 😱

 

[814965]

The wildly specific and varying recommendation letter requirements schools have. Especially things like needing X science letters and Y non-science letters, yet for some schools letters from people like PIs, military commanders or employers don't hold any value. I get that they think it will lead to them having more well-rounded candidates but it's like really, how the hell is a letter from a French/psychology/basket weaving professor that I talked to maybe four or five times going to tell you more about me than one from my PI who I worked under, taught for, and held conferences with for 2+ years, who knows me extremely well and can comment extensively on my personality, character, work ethic, public speaking and leadership skills, etc.????

 

[MyOdyssey]

This
Having to be so, so above average to even be moderately competitive for med school makes me so upset.
Pre meds get a lot of **** for being nuerotic, both on this website and in the real world but the thing is, you need to be somewhat nuerotic to maintain a 3.7+ gpa, a 510+ MCAT score, and do some resume building ( clinical experience, non clinical volunteering, shadowing, research, and something else interesting). In no other grad program is a 3.5 a weak gpa.
I literally cried yesterday because of stress.( Yes, really). But I can't talk to any non pre-med about b/c they'll just think I'm crazy.

Also, @efle does't everybody embelish their app to some degree?Did you enjoy every resume-building thing you did? I mean , yeah, totally faking it is an issue but everybody does do something they don't necessarily enjoy.
Edit: OP, I get the feeling you're at a grade-deflating school.That sucks. It must be really hard to do well there ( if that's the case).

A 3.5 GPA is considered low for law school admissions and for business school admissions.

 

[Lucca]

Closing since we have another very similar thread going