What's the overall premed atmosphere in your school?

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AxiomaticTruth

AxiomaticTruth

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Just curious if a lot of people actually do experience the stereotypical hypercompetitive, gunner premed or if it's just crazy people. At my school, everyone's cooperative and friendly. Most gunner-ish thing I've seen is choosing to do individual work rather than the optional group work, which frankly I can understand.
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Everyone at my school is super cooperative too. We're always studying together, even for the MCAT, and we are genuinely hopeful that the others will get accepted somewhere. Maybe that's because I go to a fairly small liberal arts school and there's only ~30 premeds in my year, so we don't have to worry about a ton of competition. But I definitely have not ever sensed any sort of cutthroat attitudes at all, which I truly appreciate. :)
 
I go to a really big school so i've seen it all... The super neurotic (study, study, study, no fun allowed), friendly (helps out, cool to chill with, does well in class), and the naive (party all the time, get D in gen bio, still premed).

I'd say it usually follow a normal curve with the friendly in the middle.
 
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I didn't go to a "top" school, so the pre-med atmosphere at my school was pretty chill. Most of the pre-meds there usually end up at DO schools, so it's not like there are an abundance of gunners. Aside from leading the pre-med organization on campus, I mostly hung out with pharmacy kids.
 
It was pretty relaxed at my school as well, which didn't tend to be a hypercompetitive school in general. I find that you get a lot more of that at the schools with the stressed out Type A students.
 
I'm pretty sure I'm the only premed at my school. I think I'm pretty cool
 
Super-neurotic. Half the entering class (~600 kids) every year is pre-med; only ~250 make it to applying; ~150 end up getting in.
 
AxiomaticTruth said:
Just curious if a lot of people actually do experience the stereotypical hypercompetitive, gunner premed or if it's just crazy people. At my school, everyone's cooperative and friendly. Most gunner-ish thing I've seen is choosing to do individual work rather than the optional group work, which frankly I can understand.
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The pre-med atmosphere at my school is actually very cooperative, and I think that's because my college doesn't attract the hypercompetitive kinds of kids. A good number of us cooperate and help each other out (but not as in academic dishonesty), and people really don't withhold knowledge about opportunities and stuff from each other. I'm actually thankful that I decided to go where I went instead of an Ivy.
 
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osprey099 said:
Super-neurotic. Half the entering class (~600 kids) every year is pre-med; only ~250 make it to applying; ~150 end up getting in.
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My undergrad was kind of like this. Although we're supposed to be a liberal arts school majority of the school is pre-professional. The pre-meds aren't necessarily competitive but definitely neurotic and very high stressed. I would say a good 2/3 of science majors (prob 1/3 of all undergrads???) who entered were premed but that number dropped significantly by the time we got to graduation.
 
osprey099 said:
Super-neurotic. Half the entering class (~600 kids) every year is pre-med; only ~250 make it to applying; ~150 end up getting in.
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Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas, but your school really typically sends 150 of their 1200 graduates on to medical school? That's 12.5% of the graduating class. Are there no nursing, business, journalism, ecology, fine arts, and/or engineering departments at your school? Can't forget about all those liberal arts and social science majors either. I feel like at even the most intense premed institutions having 12.5% of the graduating class go on to medical school would be an anomaly.
 
osprey099 said:
Super-neurotic. Half the entering class (~600 kids) every year is pre-med; only ~250 make it to applying; ~150 end up getting in.
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This is the same as my school--but we're known for being a premed factory.

Just to give a taste of the neuroticism, one guy had a seizure during our Orgo final. Yeah, it was fun.

P.S. Rumor has it the same guy received an A on that final.
 
Omppu27 said:
I go to a really big school so i've seen it all... The super neurotic (study, study, study, no fun allowed), friendly (helps out, cool to chill with, does well in class), and the naive (party all the time, get D in gen bio, still premed).

I'd say it usually follow a normal curve with the friendly in the middle.
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My school is pretty similar to this. It's a large state school and the intro bio classes that you can take in any order have 750 students each semester so each class has 1500 a year. There are people I know who stay up to 3am studying every day, even when there are no exams, and have 4.00s. I know people that study with 8 people at their table working together to get an A. I know people with below 3.00s and are taking the MCAT in July and August who plan on applying this cycle who know they'll get in.
 
I went to a tiny, highly non-selective school. I knew of like 2 other pre-meds by the time I was in my senior year. I'm not sure if they even applied.
 
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I went to a top 15 school known for having a lot of premeds and a pretty difficult curve in premed courses, but I didn't find the atmosphere to be hypercompetitive. Premed classes were huge, so helping someone else out wouldn't really make that much difference to the curve. I think the fact that it was difficult actually generated a lot of solidarity among premeds who made it through. People definitely tried to stay ahead of the curve in terms of studying a lot but no one tried to sabotage each other or anything like that, and were generally happy to share work with each other.
 
circulus vitios said:
I went to a tiny, highly non-selective school. I knew of like 2 other pre-meds by the time I was in my senior year. I'm not sure if they even applied.
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Gosh I couldn't even imagine... Everyone in my research lab is premed and almost all my friends in my science classes are premed (2 are pre dent). It's sorta stressful sometimes but they're cool dudes for the most part.
 
Omppu27 said:
Gosh I couldn't even imagine... Everyone in my research lab is premed and almost all my friends in my science classes are premed (2 are pre dent). It's sorta stressful sometimes but they're cool dudes for the most part.
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I don't think my school had research groups or labs. The majority of my professors hadn't published a paper in literally 5 or 10 years. It was definitely a poorly funded school.
 
pachewisc said:
Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas, but your school really typically sends 150 of their 1200 graduates on to medical school? That's 12.5% of the graduating class. Are there no nursing, business, journalism, ecology, fine arts, and/or engineering departments at your school? Can't forget about all those liberal arts and social science majors either. I feel like at even the most intense premed institutions having 12.5% of the graduating class go on to medical school would be an anomaly.
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That's only a bit higher than my school. Similar-ish size, 9-11% of students enroll in either an MD or DO program annually.
 
There's a surprisingly high number of insecure premeds at my state school. Lots of kids bragging about their connections to Harvard/Yale/etc, their 98.5% in Ochem (dead serious), stuff like that. I'm all for being proud of your accomplishments and whatnot, but don't be a loudspeaker.
 
went to a "top" undergrad school in cali... people rarely talked about grades but did sometimes give the impression they hardly studied when, in actuality, they put in a ridiculous amount of hours. whether or not its disingenuous or just typical of the "relaxed" atmosphere of the west coast, i don't know. there were no conspicuously douchey pre-meds, though. then again, practically no one in my circle was pre-med so i can't say for sure.
 
Cutthroat as hell. I remember in one of my labs the dude who was always the one in front of the computer would write down the required stats we needed and then move on to the next page. We'd always have to "remind" him to show us what he wrote, considering the monitor was always facing him.
 
I go to a public university in CA, so as you can imagine, there are a lot of pre-med students. I don't know the whole pre-med community and I'm sure we have the whole spectrum from super-neurotic to super chill. I usually just socialize with the ones in the middle.
 
SilverCat said:
This is the same as my school--but we're known for being a premed factory.

Just to give a taste of the neuroticism, one guy had a seizure during our Orgo final. Yeah, it was fun.

P.S. Rumor has it the same guy received an A on that final.
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We go to the same school because I have also heard of that story.

yehhhboiii said:
sounds too optimistic to be true
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It's approximately 150/250 first time applicants who get accepted so I don't actually know how many of these "first time" applicants are people applying the summer of junior year.
 
There are lots of different circles of friends and among the circle ppl are friendly but outside of it they're exclusive and will always try to one up you. My school has alot of pre meds
 
At my school, around ~150/600 of the entering freshman class states that they are interested in pre-health track. By the beginning of sophomore year, that number is around 70. By second semester, it's close to 40. By the beginning of junior year, it's about ~15-20. And we usually have 1-3 students apply straight out from undergrad, and maybe 1 that makes it in every year. I'm sure lots take gap years before applying, or apply multiple times, but it becomes hard to keep track of them after graduation.

Nobody in our small cohort is cut-throat or super competitive or anything like that. Most of the pre-health kids from my school are also rather uninformed, unfortunately, due to our lack of a pre-health program (despite recent valiant efforts). I think that that is a huge factor -- we don't have a lot of pre-health resources, but when we try and pilot programs and opportunities, students are completely indifferent. You can't make change if your crowd is apathetic! And I guess that's how I'd best describe our pre-health students, though they are definitely exceptions. As a general rule, though, they don't tend to be super passionate or involved in getting into med school -- most seem to be more interested in having a good college experience and enjoying themselves. Which, in all honesty, isn't a bad thing at all. I almost wish I was more that way. But I'm neurotic and obsessed with med school, so que sera sera.
 
I go to a small liberal arts college. But for a liberal arts college, there are a lot of preprofessional students. I would say anywhere between 100-150 students (out of ~800) start out as premed. How many follow through, I don't know. I try to avoid the premeds at my school. I find them so infuriating because they whine all the time. Other than that, I would say my school is not hypercompetitive, despite being a selective school.
 
I go to Michigan, and literally everybody I met freshman year was pre-med. I would have thought by Junior year many would have switched majors. And yet I'm still in classes of 300-400 full of pre-meds.

What I find frustrating is the vast majority of these pre-meds have poor reasons for wanting to be a doctor or clearly shouldn't become one. Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I know I wouldn't want many of these people to be my future health provider.

Anyway, it is pretty competitive (already annoying that Michigan professors make classes unnecessarily difficult); people are friendly and they help you out, but you know that they always underplay things or don't tell you all the necessary details because they don't want you to have the same advantages.
 
Seneschal said:
I go to Michigan, and literally everybody I met freshman year was pre-med. I would have thought by Junior year many would have switched majors. And yet I'm still in classes of 300-400 full of pre-meds.

What I find frustrating is the vast majority of these pre-meds have poor reasons for wanting to be a doctor or clearly shouldn't become one. Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I know I wouldn't want many of these people to be my future health provider.

Anyway, it is pretty competitive (already annoying that Michigan professors make classes unnecessarily difficult); people are friendly and they help you out, but you know that they always underplay things or don't tell you all the necessary details because they don't want you to have the same advantages.
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Man if that's what UMich Medical School is like, I'm gonna regret applying there :-\

Luckily it's all pass/fail until clinicals
 
osprey099 said:
We go to the same school because I have also heard of that story.



It's approximately 150/250 first time applicants who get accepted so I don't actually know how many of these "first time" applicants are people applying the summer of junior year.
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Stats for the 2012 entering class at my school indicate 153 accepted out of 174. 60 seniors, 83 alumni, 10 reapplicants. I figure this is a similar situation to osprey's case. No telling how far apart the alumni spread, but 10% of the graduating 1300 going to med school at some point postgrad isn't that far out of the question, though I think it's more likely 8% for us.
 
HYP here. We're silent gunners minus the ridiculousness. Everyone puts in a ton of work but never brags about doing so, and is often so humble (i.e., lies about not studying) that it's quite annoying sometimes (I am guilty as charged oops). Cooperating is the norm, but self-studiers are still the majority just because that's probably how most of us are used to studying. The classes are small since we're small at 1300 a class lol. Freshman orgo is around 70 people and regular orgo tops out around 120, and that's a big class already. Average bio class is around 60 people.

The classes are tough enough on average to give everyone some sort of trouble, but averages can still run high enough that people are pissed off. Also, it's a well-known fact someone always gets >95 on a test, no matter how hard or ridiculous it was. Curves take this into account, though, with the standard 40/40/20 A/B/C distribution, but some classes are also graded absolutely because there's no need for a curve to straighten things out. e.g., if everyone scores in the 85+ region, there's no reason to force anyone below a B+. I had a class like this, but the high grades weren't because it was easy; people just gunned lol.

We know the competition's there because grades are given on a competitive basis, but no one hurts others. We gun nicely, I like to say. That's both good and bad IMO.
 
AxiomaticTruth said:
Just curious if a lot of people actually do experience the stereotypical hypercompetitive, gunner premed or if it's just crazy people. At my school, everyone's cooperative and friendly. Most gunner-ish thing I've seen is choosing to do individual work rather than the optional group work, which frankly I can understand.
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I don't pay attention to premeds. But i'd guess they're either cool or super annoying. It's probably the latter.
 
When I was in undergrad I hung out more with the kids who wanted to do phds.

I ran into most premeds at my volunteering and got annoyed when they would constantly take off to study for exams that I also had and would check.their hours every week and not really like it or care. That is one of the things that actually pushed me to do it because I was nervous I was not good enough but I completely loved my volunteering!
 
AxiomaticTruth said:
Just curious if a lot of people actually do experience the stereotypical hypercompetitive, gunner premed or if it's just crazy people. At my school, everyone's cooperative and friendly. Most gunner-ish thing I've seen is choosing to do individual work rather than the optional group work, which frankly I can understand.
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I go to a fairly large state school(16000 students) so there were tons of pre-meds starting out!! After first gen chem test with prof running the average at a 55 all of a sudden people don't want to be doctors! lmao. So a bunch of kids switch majors--and then theres the kids that have sub 3.0 gpa but are still "pre-med.":laugh: The kids that stay with it and have high GPA's are really cool and well balanced, or just complete gunners! Because of size at my school the weeding process is a real thing (never seen a class average above a 70 in chem or bio classes). This creates lots of stress, and definitely makes many pre-meds become neurotic! In conclusion there are kids that will help and share notes when you miss a class, but then there are some that will literally refuse to share notes with you! :mad: The gunners can be amusing:naughty: lol
 
SilverCat said:
Just to give a taste of the neuroticism, one guy had a seizure during our Orgo final. Yeah, it was fun.

P.S. Rumor has it the same guy received an A on that final.
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Epileptic? That'd be my guess.
 
I'd take a seizure for an A on an Orgo final. As along as i was all good from there on out.
 
My school has a lot of premeds, but they aren't too competitive.
 
SilverCat said:
Can't tell if sarcastic or serious.
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If it guaranteed a seat in med school, I'm sure most of us would be willing to do almost anything (short of something completely immoral/destructive)

Poop hotdog?
 
inycepoo said:
Stats for the 2012 entering class at my school indicate 153 accepted out of 174. 60 seniors, 83 alumni, 10 reapplicants. I figure this is a similar situation to osprey's case. No telling how far apart the alumni spread, but 10% of the graduating 1300 going to med school at some point postgrad isn't that far out of the question, though I think it's more likely 8% for us.
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Wait...your school has an 88% matriculation rate?!?! That is freaking insane
 
burbbs said:
Wait...your school has an 88% matriculation rate?!?! That is freaking insane
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Yep. I didn't know that was impressive unless I checked out the average for most schools. Our average applicant MCAT is 34. And no, our committee doesn't screen; people still don't get in and 1 or 2 go DO every year as well. I can PM you the PDF if you wish, but won't do it publicly 'cause my identity would be revealed :p

For MD/PhD, it was 11 of 12 for the 2012 entering class. The loner just went MD, poor soul :rolleyes:

Told you HYP has silent gunners lol.
 
There's a bit of an MD/PhD "culture" at my school. I would estimate a good 3/5ths of the premeds here as gunning for that route, and we've had several seniors literally making a sales pitch for it right off the bat in freshman chemistry lectures. This also tends to be the same strain that brags about their research spots and posts pictures of their test grades all over facebook.

That said, everyone studies together. It isn't so competitive as to be what anyone would call cutthroat. The most neurotic we have is a guy who's been spending the summer up in the library studying for classes he doesn't take until next year.
 
AxiomaticTruth said:
Just curious if a lot of people actually do experience the stereotypical hypercompetitive, gunner premed or if it's just crazy people. At my school, everyone's cooperative and friendly. Most gunner-ish thing I've seen is choosing to do individual work rather than the optional group work, which frankly I can understand.
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Naive as to how difficult it actually is, and at the same time fake and out to get ahead of you if given the opportunity.
 
Urnathok said:
There's a bit of an MD/PhD "culture" at my school. I would estimate a good 3/5ths of the premeds here as gunning for that route, and we've had several seniors literally making a sales pitch for it right off the bat in freshman chemistry lectures. This also tends to be the same strain that brags about their research spots and posts pictures of their test grades all over facebook.

That said, everyone studies together. It isn't so competitive as to be what anyone would call cutthroat. The most neurotic we have is a guy who's been spending the summer up in the library studying for classes he doesn't take until next year.
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That's hilarious. I've actually thought about doing it. Not sure if it's effective.
 
People were obnoxious at my school (top 5) and classes were graded at a harsh curve (I remember our biochem final was 15 pages long and the average was in the 30s or something). We were under the quarter system so that made things even more hectic. Lots of people left the premed track but out of those that stayed the acceptance percentage was quite high.
 
Radon XP said:
That's hilarious. I've actually thought about doing it. Not sure if it's effective.
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Oh, it's effective, all right. I've done it thrice with great results.
 
GingerGirl27 said:
My undergrad was kind of like this. Although we're supposed to be a liberal arts school majority of the school is pre-professional. The pre-meds aren't necessarily competitive but definitely neurotic and very high stressed. I would say a good 2/3 of science majors (prob 1/3 of all undergrads???) who entered were premed but that number dropped significantly by the time we got to graduation.
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That was what my undergrad was like. There wasn't really a ton of competition or backstabbing, but a lot of premeds were almost overconcerned about their grades, studied a LOT, were very involved in research, were always stressed out, and generally displayed other neurotic pre-med behavior. In ways I think that's kind-of unavoidable in that you have to be really focused/determined to get into med school. And people were generally really nice, just often neurotic/stressed. (I'm sure I was like that at times, though I like to think I avoided some of it by virtue of being an English major. It's hard to compete against other people when most of your grades are based on papers. Anyway, our obsessive people were basically hipsters; they read the most obscure/difficult novels, were "in" with the best professors, wrote the most "literary" fiction [even better if you were a poet], etc. haha) But at the same time my med school is way more laid back which is nice.

We also had tons of pre-meds and other pre-professionals... it was funny, my roommate one year was a bio major and wanted to go to bio grad school, and the professors loved talking to her because she actually wanted to stay in the field instead of going to med/dental/etc school and that was kind-of unique at my school. lol
 
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