What's wrong with MDApplicants?

[ilovescrubs]

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[DrBowtie]

I'm guessing Xaelia is making some changes from the suggestions thread.

 

[armybound]

I'm guessing Xaelia is making some changes from the suggestions thread.

critical thinking at its finest

 

[ilovescrubs]

I'm guessing Xaelia is making some changes from the suggestions thread.

Oh ok, good to know thanks...figured there was no better place to ask.

 

[Lshapley]

It is self reported, self selected and is more focused on numbers than the actual application process.

The problem with it being self reported? The gpa and/or mcat numbers may be fudged to make someone look good. People can make fake profiles.

Self selection means that perhaps people with lesser numbers don't enter their data into mdapplicants. This may be particularly true with SDN because many of us have links to our mdapplicants profiles. Maybe you don't want people to know your mcat so you never fill out a profile. As a result, your acceptance or rejection from medical school is never recorded on this site.

Finally, the actual process also takes into account our interview skills and essay writing capability. Someone could have a great gpa and mcats but send in an error riddled personal statement, interview poorly and/or have awful letters of recommendation. Than you see his/her mdapplicants profile and are sitting their scratching your head wondering why they didn't get into medical school.

All of that being said, I have gone there many of times to compare and contrast. My gut feeling is that the people with scores around average and lower are more reliable than those with upper range scores. Plus, it is really the only resource we have!

 

[armybound]

good analysis, L, just not what he meant.

The site is currently down

 

[ilovescrubs]

It is self reported, self selected and is more focused on numbers than the actual application process.

The problem with it being self reported? The gpa and/or mcat numbers may be fudged to make someone look good. People can make fake profiles.

Self selection means that perhaps people with lesser numbers don't enter their data into mdapplicants. This may be particularly true with SDN because many of us have links to our mdapplicants profiles. Maybe you don't want people to know your mcat so you never fill out a profile. As a result, your acceptance or rejection from medical school is never recorded on this site.

Finally, the actual process also takes into account our interview skills and essay writing capability. Someone could have a great gpa and mcats but send in an error riddled personal statement, interview poorly and/or have awful letters of recommendation. Than you see his/her mdapplicants profile and are sitting their scratching your head wondering why they didn't get into medical school.

All of that being said, I have gone there many of times to compare and contrast. My gut feeling is that the people with scores around average and lower are more reliable than those with upper range scores. Plus, it is really the only resource we have!

Lshapely, you are absolutely correct, its more of a recreational exercise in seeing who got in but should not be regarded as the absolute norm...however I was just wondering why the site was down.

 

[darkhope]

HOW CAn the site be down...i need to create my daily 3 profiles on mdapplicants for exercising my fingers... >=O

 

[jae9970]

 

[MossPoh]

Lshapely, you are absolutely correct, its more of a recreational exercise in seeing who got in but should not be regarded as the absolute norm...however I was just wondering why the site was down.

Well, we might as continue with the formed debate. I am thinking that if you compared the stats of people who are on SDN versus those that just apply, we'd have fairly large difference. It seems like everyone on this site has a 3.8 with a 33 mcat. Makes me really paranoid...I have to look at averages to make myself feel better.

 

[Lshapley]

I'm an idiot

It would be interesting to see an statistical analysis of mdapplicants broken down by year. There isn't a large enough sample size to do it by school, but I wonder what the average and median reported gpas and mcats would be from say 2000-2007? Then I would wonder how that would compare with the numbers in the MSAR for the same years? That might give us a better idea of how reliable it is...

 

[ilovescrubs]

I agree, I mean I have gpa's in the 3.40 range and an MCAT of 30. Not the top of the top by any standards but yeah on here sometimes I feel like a big time underdog. The important thing about medical school is that it isnt completely about numbers, just something to keep in mind. I'd be curious to see the number of ppl with my stats that actually get in cause I bet its higher than one would think given the stats of people on here. Well, I hope....

 

[Bacchus]

Well, we might as continue with the formed debate. I am thinking that if you compared the stats of people who are on SDN versus those that just apply, we'd have fairly large difference. It seems like everyone on this site has a 3.8 with a 33 mcat. Makes me really paranoid...I have to look at averages to make myself feel better.

I can assure you that is not the case for everyone.

 

[armybound]

just remember that most people who actively seek out SDN and mdapps are going to be the top of the class as far as MCAT and GPA go. they're also going to be applying to top 20s more frequently.

I feel TERRIBLE with a 31 MCAT due to SDN, but you have to remember that that's about the average accepted applicant has, so it's not terrible.

 

[xaelia]

The hosting provider was installing some new power management hardware and inadvertently knocked out a portion of their servers. MDapplicants was one of them, and it took awhile to come back up.