What is a good indicator that you will do well in med school?

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I don't think that GPA and MCAT are that good indicators, because people generally binge 3 month studies for mcats and sometimes take easier professors. However, my logic could be totally wrong.

What are good indicators that undergrad students will be able to survive med school and perform at a decent level? (if there are any indicators)
Do 98%+ med students graduate med school within 4 years? If you can get through undergrad well, does that have any impact on whether or not you can make it through med school in one piece?

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A 4.0 GPA from MIT and a 40 MCAT virtually guarantees that the applicant will be able to survive the preclinical years.
 
If you can get into medical school, you probably got what it takes
 
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Sustained success across all three or four years of undergrad. Solid mcat. Evidence of passion and commitment shown by long term involvement in extra curricular activities. Showing a positive attitude and genuine interest in medicine at interviews. I would think all of these are good predictors of doing well in medical school.
 
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getting accepted has proven to be a pretty good indicator for US medical school graduation. The completion rates are very high
 
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Sustained success across all three or four years of undergrad. Solid mcat. Evidence of passion and commitment shown by long term involvement in extra curricular activities. Showing a positive attitude and genuine interest in medicine at interviews. I would think all of these are good predictors of doing well in medical school.
Lol and this is exactly how one gets accepted! I agree with Mr. Zero, if you can get in, you likely have what it takes.
 
First two years of medical school:
1) Working hard

Second two years:
1) Working hard
2) Playing well with others
3) Ability to handle stress
4) Good communication skills
 
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Why do people say that the last 2 years are harder?
For me personally, i would think that the preclinical years are the hardest 2 due to the material and Step 1.
The final 2 years involve patient interaction, and out of classroom, so wouldn't that intuitively be "easier" for people who like to interact with others?
 
Why do people say that the last 2 years are harder?
For me personally, i would think that the preclinical years are the hardest 2 due to the material and Step 1.
The final 2 years involve patient interaction, and out of classroom, so wouldn't that intuitively be "easier" for people who like to interact with others?
Is it usually easier to study a book and take an exam in a low-stakes environment, or to apply information in diverse dynamic situations with oral exams, under time constraints and social pressure, when you know that your evaluations will affect your residency options?
 
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Why do people say that the last 2 years are harder?
For me personally, i would think that the preclinical years are the hardest 2 due to the material and Step 1.
The final 2 years involve patient interaction, and out of classroom, so wouldn't that intuitively be "easier" for people who like to interact with others?

The preclinical and clinical years are just very different. I personally found MS1 and MS2 to be fairly simple and I spent a great deal of time on other hobbies when I wasn't in lecture. In contrast, certain MS3 rotations will dominate your life in terms of sheer hours and it can be challenging to make time for friends and family in a way that wasn't a problem earlier in medical school. Clinical evaluations also tend to be far more unpredictable and you can work tirelessly and still be blindsided by lower-than-expected evaluation.

To be clear, I've actually enjoyed third year more than my earlier medical school years, but it is far more exhausting. I have also found my social skills to be far more important this year than they have ever been before, and I see a number of my classmates struggling because this new skill set is now important for their grades.
 
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Just knowing myself and everything I've heard about pre-clinical versus clinical years, I suspect I will find the clinical years to be a lot harder, but a lot more fun. It sounds exhausting but frequently very interesting.
 
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Why do people say that the last 2 years are harder?
For me personally, i would think that the preclinical years are the hardest 2 due to the material and Step 1.
The final 2 years involve patient interaction, and out of classroom, so wouldn't that intuitively be "easier" for people who like to interact with others?

I'm not in med school, but I think it is because the real stuff is never as cut and dry as it seems to be in the textbook. Have you ever played football, or a sport that involves "plays" that you plan out ahead of time? It's one thing to know what the play looks like drawn out on a whiteboard, but when you try to execute it on the field it is TOTALLY different and way more nuanced, with complications that make it much more difficult. I would imagine it is the same for clinical medicine.
 
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Medical school isnt that bad, and I honestly thought undergrad was harder. Atleast to me it seems very rare for someone to do poorly in med school if they had a decent GPA/MCAT (barring personal problems)
 
Are the <2% who don't make it through med school (attrition rates on websites) due to prior mental issues, incompetence/difficulty, or something else?
 
As others have said, getting into med school is a very good indicator that you'll be able to make it through med school, so really if you have a good GPA and a solid MCAT, you'll be fine. ECs, leadership positions, and all that other fluff on an application don't mean much towards competency.

Of the individuals in my class that dropped out or were kicked out (5 total), I believe all had obvious undiagnosed personality disorders or mood disorders. So I would say not being a weirdo or struggle with depression is also important in order to get through med school.
 
I don't think that GPA and MCAT are that good indicators, because people generally binge 3 month studies for mcats and sometimes take easier professors. However, my logic could be totally wrong.

What are good indicators that undergrad students will be able to survive med school and perform at a decent level? (if there are any indicators)
Do 98%+ med students graduate med school within 4 years? If you can get through undergrad well, does that have any impact on whether or not you can make it through med school in one piece?
What do you mean by "doing well" in medical school? Are we talking about just passing or doing well academically?
 
Are the <2% who don't make it through med school (attrition rates on websites) due to prior mental issues, incompetence/difficulty, or something else?
I think the answer to that is complicated. Realize medical schools are very reluctant to fail students out. This is likely to change though now with match realities as far as total number of spots and number of med school grads.
 
I'm not in med school, but I think it is because the real stuff is never as cut and dry as it seems to be in the textbook. Have you ever played football, or a sport that involves "plays" that you plan out ahead of time? It's one thing to know what the play looks like drawn out on a whiteboard, but when you try to execute it on the field it is TOTALLY different and way more nuanced, with complications that make it much more difficult. I would imagine it is the same for clinical medicine.
BINGO. :clap::clap:
 
As someone who hasn't really been in school for more than 5 years, I have to have confidence that being accepted means that I have what it takes. Otherwise I start to panic!
 
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getting accepted has proven to be a pretty good indicator for US medical school graduation. The completion rates are very high
More by no choice to turn back than anything else.
 
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Anything else? Would the rate be as high with a random sample of the population?
Realize the reason why the attrition is low is for 2 reasons: students have gone thru a huge filtration and weeding out process in order to get to medical school, and that the tuition is so high that if you decide in the middle of MS-3 that you hate medicine or that this just isn't for you, you can't turn back. You're so much in debt to your eyeballs at that point you have no choice but to go forward and enter residency so you can eventually pay it off. If debt was much less, I guarantee a lot more people would quit.

Realize that we don't really have good metrics in the med school admissions process. GPA and MCAT are objective metrics, but they don't give a picture of the necessary characteristics to be successful in medicine in the United States. Hence why some med schools are doing **** like the MMI, but even that is not perfect.
 
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Realize the reason why the attrition is low is for 2 reasons: students have gone thru a huge filtration and weeding out process in order to get to medical school, and that the tuition is so high that if you decide in the middle of MS-3 that you hate medicine or that this just isn't for you, you can't turn back. You're so much in debt to your eyeballs at that point you have no choice but to go forward and enter residency so you can eventually pay it off. If debt was much less, I guarantee a lot more people would quit.

Realize that we don't really have good metrics in the med school admissions process. GPA and MCAT are objective metrics, but they don't give a picture of the necessary characteristics to be successful in medicine in the United States. Hence why some med schools are doing **** like the MMI, but even that is not perfect.

I think the metrics are fine, I'm not sure what else you'd want. And what exactly are these "necessary characteristics"? Ask 10 different practicing physicians and you'll get 10 different answers. There is no cookie cutter model for a doctor. I appreciate colleagues that have differing perspectives on the practice of medicine.
 
Aside from the things mentioned, there was some data that said people who scored higher on verbal performed better after.
 
I think the metrics are fine, I'm not sure what else you'd want. And what exactly are these "necessary characteristics"? Ask 10 different practicing physicians and you'll get 10 different answers. There is no cookie cutter model for a doctor. I appreciate colleagues that have differing perspectives on the practice of medicine.
Didn't say there was but there are more metrics that are needed to measure things like resiliency, ability to take constructive criticism, etc. Just being able to fill in bubbles on a Scantron sheet and study are not the only metrics that are necessary in order to be successful in medicine. Better to find that out now, before you shell out 6 figures in nondischargeable student debt.

Medical educators have said these things, so this is nothing new.
 
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Interest in the material and a burning desire to memorize reams of information. I thought my high GPA and strong work ethic would carry me through. I was wrong.
 
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Interest in the material and a burning desire to memorize reams of information. I thought my high GPA and strong work ethic would carry me through. I was wrong.
Yeah, but you can't keep interest in everything. There will be some parts of medicine that you hate learning.
 
How about hearing from attending physicians that you will do well? :p
 
Yeah, but you can't keep interest in everything. There will be some parts of medicine that you hate learning.
I guess it's more of a work ethic thing, now that I think about it. I absolutely hate the insane volume of material, and as a consequence I'm leaving med school at the end of the semester.
 
Anecdotally, my undergrad was more difficult than medical school. In medical school you simply have to sacrifice more time to memorize a lot of minutiae.

The best indicator for success in medical school is simply being accepted. The pass rate for medical school is consistently in the upper 90% range across the nation.
 
Doing well in medical school is easy. As others have said, get in.

The more interesting question is, "What is a good indicator that you will be a good physician?" That is far more important, harder to answer and relevant.
 
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Doing well in medical school is easy. As others have said, get in.

The more interesting question is, "What is a good indicator that you will be a good physician?" That is far more important, harder to answer and relevant.
I disagree.
 
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Can you get through preclinical without pulling all-nighters?

Depends what he means by 'doing well.'

Passing? Easy. Just put in the work and you will pass.

Top scoring everything? Not so much...
/QUOTE]

What kinds of residencies does merely "passing" land you? Does "passing" vs top scoring have a determinant on Step 1, or can either do well on Step 1?
 
I guess it's more of a work ethic thing, now that I think about it. I absolutely hate the insane volume of material, and as a consequence I'm leaving med school at the end of the semester.
It's a lot of belief in the system also. You almost have to "convince" yourself that no matter how monotonous the information is, that it will be of used to you to learn. Everyone gets burned out mentally sometime during the 4 years of medical school, so attributing it to someone being lazy or not having a work ethic isn't entirely accurate . Obviously quitting early on and cutting your losses, if you're 100% sure, is a much better decision financially than in year 3 or 4, when it's too late.
 
Depends what he means by 'doing well.'

Passing? Easy. Just put in the work and you will pass.

Top scoring everything? Not so much...



"Wow, the cardiovascular system is so awesome!"

Nailed it.
Just putting in the work can be challenging, too -- long hours, or challenging simply because it's so uninteresting that studying for an hour feels like pulling teeth.
 
Doing well in medical school is easy. As others have said, get in. The more interesting question is, "What is a good indicator that you will be a good physician?" That is far more important, harder to answer and relevant.
I very much disagree with this, but I also realize you and I are very different, as well as you being 2 standard deviations above the mean in many respects. Part of the problem with metrics in medical school is that med students tend to aim for the metric itself and think that's the endpoint. It's not. A "good physician" is very hard to define and many times, med school metrics don't really predict that very well.
 
Just putting in the work can be challenging, too -- long hours, or challenging simply because it's so uninteresting that studying for an hour feels like pulling teeth.
Medical school is a LOT of delayed gratification in terms of financially, emotionally, mentally, doing things normal people do like buying a house, getting married, etc. It is very challenging somewhere along the line for everyone.
 
Medical school is a LOT of delayed gratification in terms of financially, emotionally, mentally, doing things normal people do like buying a house, getting married, etc. It is very challenging somewhere along the line for everyone.
Funnily enough, that didn't really bother me until recently. It was mostly the pace of the material that killed my desire to continue along this path, and then the delayed gratification thing started creeping into my mind.
 
Can you get through preclinical without pulling all-nighters?

Yes, I have never been up all night to study. Ever. On call is a different story, of course.
 
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I very much disagree with this, but I also realize you and I are very different, as well as you being 2 standard deviations above the mean in many respects. Part of the problem with metrics in medical school is that med students tend to aim for the metric itself and think that's the endpoint. It's not. A "good physician" is very hard to define and many times, med school metrics don't really predict that very well.

I know you like saying this, but it is not hard to get through medical school once you are in. Yes, just passing through will limit you going into a couple of specialties and some of the most competitive programs in others. But, for 95%+ of applicants this is completely irrelevant. And yes, just passing medical school is easy. There is a reason that the vast majority get through just fine.

Comparing doing well in medical school and being a good doctor is apples and oranges. 98%+ will succeed in medical school far FAR fewer will actually become good doctors.
 
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Can you get through preclinical without pulling all-nighters?

Yes. I tend to get 8 hours of sleep a night. I have never pulled anything close to an all-nighter. To be fair, I'm only an MSI, but I don't feel like this will change.

What kinds of residencies does merely "passing" land you? Does "passing" vs top scoring have a determinant on Step 1, or can either do well on Step 1?

Depends on what you're asking. If you have a "true" pass/fail curriculum you can just barely pass and it has no effect on you. Class rank/grades in preclinical years do have some impact, but they are not as important as things like Step I, Clinical Grades, Recommendations, etc. Generally, material you are taught in preclinical translates to Step I, so doing better obviously makes that easier, and a higher Step I certainly defines your competitiveness in many respects. Clinical grades are much more important, and 'just passing' those is far from ideal.

Funnily enough, that didn't really bother me until recently. It was mostly the pace of the material that killed my desire to continue along this path, and then the delayed gratification thing started creeping into my mind.

Sounds like you're just sick of studying. I feel ya, brother. But this is what I want to do, even if the preclinical years aren't my favorite material, nor my strength (rote memorization of minutiae).
 
I know you like saying this, but it is not hard to get through medical school once you are in. Yes, just passing through will limit you going into a couple of specialties and some of the most competitive programs in others. But, for 95%+ of applicants this is completely irrelevant. And yes, just passing medical school is easy. There is a reason that the vast majority get through just fine.

Comparing doing well in medical school and being a good doctor is apples and oranges. 98%+ will succeed in medical school far FAR fewer will actually become good doctors.
You said "doing well in medical school". For me, there is a HUGE difference between "doing well" in medical school (which gives you more options even in "noncompetitive" specialties), and just "passing" medical school. I would say even just passing in med school takes more work (compared to undergrad). It's not at all easy to be in highest segment of your class on your Dean's letter and that is hard. There will be a miniscule minority that this comes easily to them, however.
 
Funnily enough, that didn't really bother me until recently. It was mostly the pace of the material that killed my desire to continue along this path, and then the delayed gratification thing started creeping into my mind.
This is very common actually. A lot of lowered empathy as you progress from MS-1 to MS-4.
 
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