What makes a good advisor?

[prehealthadvisor55]

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The topic has come up in several posts I've been reading, most recently the "Would you recommend SDN to your kids?" thread. Several posts reference their pre-med advisor & their lack of help in the process.

I'm curious...what makes a good pre-med advisor? What do you really want from someone who's primary job responsibility is to meet with undergrad pre-meds & assist with the process?

There are plenty of academic "best practices" out there, but I want to know from you, the current or former pre-meds.

 

[ChillDawg]

# of SDN posts 😉

But seriously, the majority are very uninformed and/or out of date.
A way to 'vet' them might be to compare the conventional wisdom on basic pre-med knowledge found on SDN to what the advisor says. If they say something different, they are probably not going to be very useful.

 

[Glandzburg]

A good advisor keeps up with the changing environment of medical school admissions. I think the issue with many advisors is that things have changed a great deal since they started. A decade ago, most of the emphasis was placed on high GPA and MCAT. While these are still arguably the most important factors for admission, a greater emphasis is now placed on extracurriculars and life experience.

SDN is a great resource to keep up with these changes.

 

[whatever5]

A good advisor keeps up with the changing environment of medical school admissions. I think the issue with many advisors is that things have changed a great deal since they started. A decade ago, most of the emphasis was placed on high GPA and MCAT. While these are still arguably the most important factors for admission, a greater emphasis is now placed on extracurriculars and life experience.

SDN is a great resource to keep up with these changes.

Completely agree. My advisor told me I should feel comfortable applying to MD schools with an MCAT of 29-30, when that hasn't been the case in years. Honestly, your best advisor is someone who sits on the adcom of the school you're interested in, and SDN is a close second.

 

[prehealthadvisor55]

Thanks for the input. Honestly I think getting advisors to come over to SDN is unlikely, so I'm trying to find ways to get advisors the info in ways they'll actually use. Staying up to date seems to be the key. Any other suggestions welcomed!

 

[Dr Tony T. Chopper]

A good adviser would be able to predict with general accuracy the goodness of an applicant on WAMC. Most of the complaints come from students who were competitive for med school but were unjustifyably dismissed.

 

[Yellow_Elephant]

I only met with my pre health advisor my freshman year of college after finishing with a not so great GPA. I met with her because I was concerned that with my GPA (and a C in a class) that I could no longer pursue medical school. She told me to give up basically. I was so upset after meeting with her that I decided to never talk to her again and do the rest on my own. Ended with a decent GPA and now two MD acceptances 🙂
As an advisor don't judge people too harshly early on, I can understand her telling me that it would be difficult had I kept my low GPA. However, at that point I was still a freshman and had 6 semesters to raise it! And I heard from many others at my undergrad that the advisors were too harsh or gave out inaccurate info. And aside from that..our committee letters weren't released until August....

 

[NotaCop]

I had a pretty good advisor, but I will list some complaints about him/her as a way to show what makes an unhelpful advisor at times:

- coddling too much, being unrealistic about stats (soph year my advisor told me I was competitive at Emory with my 3.3c/3.1s, etc)
- being unreachable, mine would reply to emails 2-3 weeks later usually and was impossible to get a meeting with
- related to the above, picking favorites. Only way I was able to get quick responses and facetmie with mine was because I made a constant effort to befriend him/her early on. Many other students complained about being largely ignored which is unfair
- not being realistic about how important it is to get application done early, prepare or prewrite PS/secondaries ahead of time, etc
- poorly organized committee process or one that takes forever to send out the packet

That's all for now, happy to elaborate if you want and will add more as it comes to mind