Why are incompetent Pre-Med advisors allowed to officially advise students?

[AlfonsTheGuru]

The stigma for Pre-Med advisors is well known (at least on SDN) in the fact that they are incompetent. Why would any university allow a Pre-Med advisor to officially give unhelpful or even damaging advice to a student?

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[WedgeDawg]

It's a carefully constructed artificial system designed to raise the stock value of SDN

 

[Runner500]

Probably because anybody that knows anything about getting into med school is a doctor now.

 

[deleted407021]

It weeds out those premeds who don't know how to use google and look into their career their own d*mn selves.

 

[Flashfan]

My school has a good advisor, and they brag about their high acceptance rate to med schools. It would be interesting to see if those on SDN with good advisors also advertise their acceptance rates.

 

[StudyLater]

The stigma for Pre-Med advisors is well known (at least on SDN) in the fact that they are incompetent. Why would any university allow a Pre-Med advisor to officially give unhelpful or even damaging advice to a student?

A lot of people are really bad at the job they were somehow allowed to do.

Welcome to real life.

 

[takeurmeds02]

I've learned exponentially more from this website than I would have ever learned from my advisor. The first time I met with him, he told me that I couldn't accomplish the goals I had set forth for myself within a year and here I am with multiple II's.

 

[SteveRope123]

My advisor is actually really good. I go to a fairly mediocre state tier university but she really propelled me. She does have family that attended top 10 med schools though so maybe that's why.

The other pre-med advisors are garbage at my university.

 

[allantois]

You elect to seek advising and it is not your advisor's responsibility to get you into a med school.

 

[deleted407021]

Too true. You can say "damn" here btw.

I've been a member for a while and I tread lightly with mods.

 

[Spector1]

so much of premed advising (especially undergraduate peer advising, yes that is a thing) is a lot of blind leading the blind.

 

[takeurmeds02]

It is up to you to elect to seek advising while it is not advisors' responsibility to get you into a med school.

But it kind of is though..otherwise what's the point of their position? I mean, obviously you have to seek them out in the first place but I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with that much

 

[StudyLater]

I've learned infinitely more from this website than I would have ever learned from my adviser. The first time I met with him, he told me that I couldn't accomplish the goals I had set forth for myself within a year and here I am with multiple II's.

Fixed.

Also he was probably right. The IIs are obviously flukes and you should be expecting rejections.

I've been a member for a while and I tread lightly with mods.

Dude....just got my normal-colored letters back.

Feelsgoodman.

You elect to seek advising and it is not your advisor's responsibility to get you into a med school.

This. Hence the obvious solution is to fire all advisors and use monies for better educational purposes.

Like bribing med schools with donations to let in more of the students at your UG institution.

 

[StudyLater]

But it kind of is though..otherwise what's the point of their position?

And we get to the center of the matter....

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Sometimes they absolutely kill me. The other day our advisor brought an ALTERNATIVE medicine doctor to speak to the pre-med club.... I was like The killer part is the hordes of pre-med students who eat it all up. Who knows, it might just be a huge conspiracy to weed out those who aren't smart enough to even use google.. All set up by the med schools themselves of course.

 

[Dr. Death]

Why are incompetent hospital administrators allowed to officially run hospitals?

 

[deleted407021]

Yeah, our chief premed advisor guy told us to "just take the MCAT to see how you do", as if it were a "what is your spirit animal?" online quiz or some sheit.

 

[md-2020]

Why would any university allow a Pre-Med advisor to officially give unhelpful or even damaging advice to a student?

Why are incompetent hospital administrators allowed to officially run hospitals?

Why are idiotic a**holes allowed to officially run the United States of America?


Find out all that and more, on the next episode of Student Doctor.

 

[Dr. Death]

Why are idiotic a**holes allowed to officially run the United States of America?


Find out all that and more, on the next episode of Student Doctor.

Like x 1000000

 

[samac]

My school has a good advisor, and they brag about their high acceptance rate to med schools. It would be interesting to see if those on SDN with good advisors also advertise their acceptance rates.

I'm with you there. My pre med advisor was awesome.
We only had 2 kids out of ~20 not get in my cycle. And the pre med advisor told them they wouldn't.
One kid I talked to didn't even know the names of the school he's applying to (I didn't even know he existed until my senior year?) and the other took the MCAT 3 times, capping at a 23.

 

[f4reignbeauty]

My pre-health advisor was dope! One thing I appreciate about my advisor is that he made sure we were aware of our options whether that meant an allopathic, osteopathic, P.A. Etc. He also encouraged us to really do our research about the different pathways which helped us all to make the best decisions for us.

 

[cantankerous]

Why are idiotic a**holes allowed to officially run the United States of America?

I don't think they're idiots; they just have to pander to the dumb masses.

__

Most of my premed advisors suck. The only good one is the director, but she only cares about the accelerated track people.

 

[Turkishking]

Yeah, our chief premed advisor guy told us to "just take the MCAT to see how you do", as if it were a "what is your spirit animal?" online quiz or some sheit.

That made me lol

 

[El-Rami]

I've heard of pre-med advisers arguing with advice given by people from the deans offices of medical colleges just because they thought it conflicted with something they had in their own personal "pre-med advising" notes... Fortunately, I had a competent adviser in college (MD). If there was something he didn't feel 100% sure about, he was pretty honest about it.

I've also heard about people being told by their pre-med advisers to just take the MCAT for a "baseline" score. That is the single most idiotic thing someone can do...

One of the biggest issues I think is university politics. Most unis are probably too cheap to pay a salary to someone with a medical background/teaching experience at a medical college. Sadly, it's those type of people who either 1) experienced the pre-med "thing" first-hand or 2) have a good knowledge of what medical colleges look for because they were former adcoms or at least have a good network.

 

[CCMDOC9254]

Actually at my undergrad the Pre-Med advisor was very very competent and spot on with her recommendations. Naturally...she got a better job and left my junior year, only to be replaced by the typical incompetent pre-med advisor who would direct all my questions to the AAMC website lol.

So I have a gut feeling that if they're qualified enough to be a great pre-med advisor, they can usually find better jobs.

 

[lalex]

My school's advisers are pretty good, but nothing more than I couldn't learn on SDN in half the time.

Plus they gave me the secondaries from previous years, average numbers for students at my school, etc.

 

[El-Rami]

My school's advisers are pretty good, but nothing more than I couldn't learn on SDN in half the time.

Plus they gave me the secondaries from previous years, average numbers for students at my school, etc.

While SDN is a good source of knowledge about applications in general, I can say from personal experience that some of the things I have heard should not be taken too literally. For example, I read that not having clinical work/volunteering (just lots and lots and lots of shadowing) basically makes it hard if not impossible to get an acceptance despite an applicant's other stats, but I know this is not always an issue for certain schools. Simply put, schools have different definitions of what they look for in "clinical experience/exposure." Some want both shadowing and volunteer/work in a clinical setting while others will accept students who shadowed but did a LOT of it (i.e., they actually have rich clinical experiences). The general idea is that you need to be able to answer "Why medicine?" -- the entire basis for this requirement in the first place.

That isn't to say that in general shadowing is not enough. Most students shadow for a few weeks, and they are very unlikely to prove adequate exposure from that alone. Thus, the idea is that they get those experiences from working or volunteering. However, if students somehow get those experiences and also see how medical staff interact as a result of said activity, then they should be able to make a convincing case for their exposure to medicine in their application. If they have a truly meaningful experience, I doubt an adcom will think "Okay, but they didn't work or volunteer in a clinical setting, so we will not accept this person based on that fact alone."

 

[Terry Toma]

Probably because anybody that knows anything about getting into med school is a doctor now.

Pretty much this. If you're qualified to be an advisor, you're probably also qualified to do something more lucrative than advising.

Seems to me that it would provide more value to cut back on the hours of advising, but to use medical faculty or physician consultants for the job. Take the $40K that you'd pay for the annual salary of a premed advisor, and use it to pay for a few hundred hours from people who are experienced with the other side of the admissions process instead. I don't get much value out of having an advisor available 40 hours per week. I might get some value out of an adcom member hosting an occasional group advising session or from a physician being available for one-on-one meetings a few hours per month.

 

[NotYou20]

I have never met with a premed advisor. Google, sdn, and an ability to spot bs is all you need.

 

[Law2Doc]

... And the pre med advisor told them they wouldn't.
One kid I talked to didn't even know the names of the school he's applying to (I didn't even know he existed until my senior year?) and the other took the MCAT 3 times, capping at a 23.

Some might argue that the better evaluation of your premed advisor's worth would actually be the value of the advice/help to these two that actually needed advising. Did the advisor tell them to keep taking the MCAT despite being unprepared? Or were they advising the guy who knew nothing about the schools? Most premeds already know the ropes to some degree from SDN or elsewhere. It's the others where an advisor can distinguish themselves and their real worth...

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

Sometimes they absolutely kill me. The other day our advisor brought an ALTERNATIVE medicine doctor to speak to the pre-med club.... I was like The killer part is the hordes of pre-med students who eat it all up. Who knows, it might just be a huge conspiracy to weed out those who aren't smart enough to even use google.. All set up by the med schools themselves of course.

I'm going with your conspiracy.

 

[samac]

Some might argue that the better evaluation of your premed advisor's worth would actually be the value of the advice/help to these two that actually needed advising. Did the advisor tell them to keep taking the MCAT despite being unprepared? Or were they advising the guy who knew nothing about the schools? Most premeds already know the ropes to some degree from SDN or elsewhere. It's the others where an advisor can distinguish themselves and their real worth...

I can only speak from personal experience, but knowing those 2 I would never want to have them as a doctor. I know he told one of them they needed to change career paths and they got offended and didn't talk to him.
He was very helpful in my opinion. Helped direct me toward DO schools I hadn't heard of, helped me put the letters of rec together. Gave me a stern talking to about some of my grades earlier and told me to get my act together.
On a state level he's known for producing great doctors. With a friend of mine she was given an interview I. January, Our premed advisor have the school a ring and her interview got moved to the next week in October.
I was placed on hold at a school. The moment my fall grades were released he was in contact with the school and then I was accepted.
He's a great guy.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'm just saying a lot of the time an advisor will be great or poor based on the end results of the one posting. I can envision your same advisor getting negative reviews from the two he failed.

 

[SnakeDoc9497]

It weeds out those premeds who don't know how to use google and look into their career their own d*mn selves.

As much as you may be joking, I agree with you 100%. The real ones are not those who simply go to a couple school-sponsored seminars and look at pamphlets from the Pre-Med office. The real ones who succeed find things on their own and do the footwork at their own depth and pace.

 

[Goro]

If you find out the answer, we definitely can write an article for JAMA or Medical Education!

The stigma for Pre-Med advisors is well known (at least on SDN) in the fact that they are incompetent. Why would any university allow a Pre-Med advisor to officially give unhelpful or even damaging advice to a student?

 

[SnakeDoc9497]

With this in mind...does anyone else think that "pre-med clubs" are just one giant-a$$ scheme to pad the resume's of the executive boards?

Other than a little bit of service involvement and a good speaker here and there, they are pretty much unanimously worthless to pre-meds. At least in my experience.

I mean seriously my pre-med club has OVER 70 elected positions....WTF why does there need to be that many and what can that really mean on an application?? "Yeah myself and the 8 other Service Committee leaders helped organize several events for the members".....

 

[DokterMom]

Would you want to advise a bunch of arrogant, neurotic pre-meds?

 

[Spinach Dip]

With this in mind...does anyone else think that "pre-med clubs" are just one giant-a$$ scheme to pad the resume's of the executive boards?

Other than a little bit of service involvement and a good speaker here and there, they are pretty much unanimously worthless to pre-meds. At least in my experience.

I mean seriously my pre-med club has OVER 70 elected positions....WTF why does there need to be that many and what can that really mean on an application?? "Yeah myself and the 8 other Service Committee leaders helped organize several events for the members".....

"I was the Assistant Vice President of Community Relations"

Translation: "I fell into a position which was vacant solely because someone else graduated."

 

[El-Rami]

"I was the Assistant Vice President of Community Relations"

Translation: "I fell into a position which was vacant solely because someone else graduated."

Translation: I was the VP of Community Relation's secretary.

 

[deleted407021]

With this in mind...does anyone else think that "pre-med clubs" are just one giant-a$$ scheme to pad the resume's of the executive boards?

Other than a little bit of service involvement and a good speaker here and there, they are pretty much unanimously worthless to pre-meds. At least in my experience.

I mean seriously my pre-med club has OVER 70 elected positions....WTF why does there need to be that many and what can that really mean on an application?? "Yeah myself and the 8 other Service Committee leaders helped organize several events for the members".....

I've never had anything to do with them aside from one meeting I audited where they had a speaker from some dumbfuq Caribbean school. It felt like an Amway pitch.

The worst part is the club president was a manipulative dude with obvious antisocial trait who stole Rx pads and some medical instruments from the clinic where I work, wrote fake scripts for Dilaudid (hilariously with a non-existent dosage), all so he could *quote* feel like a doctor.

So, I'm not overly impressed with my school's weird pre-pre-occupational therapy club.

 

[El-Rami]

Honestly, when I was leader of my pre-med club, I felt like a debt collector when giving my pitch about the oh-so-wonderful benefits of joining us and reminding people they better pay their dues. It was always the same group of aspiring neurosurgeons attending our meetings, but at least there were free snacks!

Pre-med student: I want to be a neurosurgeon.
One year later...
(former) Pre-med: Actually I decided being a doctor wasn't the career for me. I mean, I shadowed nurses and I think their type of care is superior to MDs anyway. (I literally heard this before.)

 

[Conflagration]

@J Senpai, I'll have you know that I took one of those fabulous life-changing 15-minutes-of-Google-fame quizzes and I got a butterfly because I'm just the most God-damn speshul snowflake there is and I've had to go through srs life changes to become my SUPAH SPESHUL self, tyvm.

Kidding aside, both pre-med and pre-pro in general is pretty awful advising. When I was a pre-pharm, I had to explain to the secretary of the pre-pharm club that getting a 16th percentile overall score was actually not at all competitive (she thought it meant she was in the top 16% instead of the bottom 16%) and I wanted to go into toxicology, which my pre-pharm adviser had no earthly clue about the pathways one could go into as a Pharm.D interested in toxicology. D:

The few people who I knew were pre-meds were freshmen in my required health class. You would have thought Jesus Christ Himself walked out of the projector screen when we covered that, yes, there are four chambers of the heart.

 

[deleted407021]

@J Senpai, I'll have you know that I took one of those fabulous life-changing 15-minutes-of-Google-fame quizzes and I got a butterfly because I'm just the most God-damn speshul snowflake there is and I've had to go through srs life changes to become my SUPAH SPESHUL self, tyvm.

Kidding aside, both pre-med and pre-pro in general is pretty awful advising. When I was a pre-pharm, I had to explain to the secretary of the pre-pharm club that getting a 16th percentile overall score was actually not at all competitive (she thought it meant she was in the top 16% instead of the bottom 16%) and I wanted to go into toxicology, which my pre-pharm adviser had no earthly clue about the pathways one could go into as a Pharm.D interested in toxicology. D:

The few people who I knew were pre-meds were freshmen in my required health class. You would have thought Jesus Christ Himself walked out of the projector screen when we covered that, yes, there are four chambers of the heart.

Gorram milennials thinkin' they're special. With their raps and injecting their marijuanas.

The bolded is adorable. Bless her little heart.

My GF is pre-PT. She's had people in her classes say, "I just want to be a PT." when asked if they're going for their DPT degree and another guy didn't know what the GRE was.

Misinformed EVERYONE!

 

[Conflagration]

Gorram milennials thinkin' they're special. With their raps and injecting their marijuanas.

The bolded is adorable. Bless her little heart.

My GF is pre-PT. She's had people in her classes say, "I just want to be a PT." when asked if they're going for their DPT degree and another guy didn't know what the GRE was.

Misinformed EVERYONE!

Are you a Southerner? I'm a transplanted Yankee and that means something completely different here than it does where I'm from.

In SC, it means one of the three options: "Aww, you didn't have to do that", "Wow, you're an absolute ***** (but I love you anyway, optional)", or "I'm saying this for the marginal amount of goodwill it will give me socially while simultaneously talking crap about you".

My fiancee, who was born here, told me the 'proper' way to bless people's hearts: "Think of the most distasteful thing in your life, then smile a little bit because you're right with Jesus."

 

[deleted407021]

Are you a Southerner? I'm a transplanted Yankee and that means something completely different here than it does where I'm from.

In SC, it means one of the three options: "Aww, you didn't have to do that", "Wow, you're an absolute ***** (but I love you anyway, optional)", or "I'm saying this for the marginal amount of goodwill it will give me socially while simultaneously talking crap about you".

My fiancee, who was born here, told me the 'proper' way to bless people's hearts: "Think of the most distasteful thing in your life, then smile a little bit because you're right with Jesus."

I'm from Jawjuh, and that's def. a polite way of saying someone is stupid lol.

 

[Conflagration]

I'm from Jawjuh, and that's def. a polite way of saying someone is stupid lol.

Oh, Lord, my soon to be in-laws met in Jawjuh.

For at least 6 years, I didn't understand that "bless your heart" was an insult, so I would say all chipper and happy, "Aww, bless your heart too!"

 

[El-Rami]

The few people who I knew were pre-meds were freshmen in my required health class. You would have thought Jesus Christ Himself walked out of the projector screen when we covered that, yes, there are four chambers of the heart.

That's better than the student I met who sincerely thought the human penis has a bone in it.

 

[deleted407021]

That's better than the student I met who sincerely thought the human penis has a bone in it.

For whatever reason, that's a common myth. I guess it comes from the "boner" colloquialism.

 

[Conflagration]

For whatever reason, that's a common myth. I guess it comes from the "boner" colloquialism.

A lot of animals do have penile bones, though. But I don't know why they didn't like, notice based on the texture of their dick that there probably wasn't a bone in there. Not meaning to sound stupid or anything.

 

[deleted407021]

A lot of animals do have penile bones, though. But I don't know why they didn't like, notice based on the texture of their dick that there probably wasn't a bone in there. Not meaning to sound stupid or anything.

Yeah, I know raccoons do, at least. Oddities collectors collect them sometimes lol.


Google "turtle penis".