Why do school reject people with above average stats?

[Med Ed]

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Nah. People can fake interviews easy for a day. I know plenty of psychopaths who pit on a good face for a day.

This is why we read rec letters.

 

[Goro]

What adcom hurt you? Lol
I disagree completely on the interview portion. That is the most critical part of figuring out if someone should be a physician, not “if he has the stats, he should be in med school.” Not everyone with a 520 mcat and X amount of hours will make a good physician. Many people can take exams but are completely socially and emotionally inept.
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The Adcom who rejected his daughter at their state school, despite her having< avg stats, but went to a good UG school.

 

[Goro]

HAHAHA. Stop. As much as you think you know what you are doing, you don't. You are not the saviors you think you are. Your process is flawed. Time to wake up.

And your experience with admissions is exactly what as an OMSIV?

Your 36 MCAT score was NOT the reason you got waitlisted. Looking at your post history, I can why, though.

Saying "I've been through the whole process" makes you just as much as an expert on admissions as a patient has on Medicine.

 

[LBJLA23]

And your experience with admissions is exactly what as an OMSIV?

I've been through the whole process and personally experienced it. Don't try and belittle me from your fake high horse.

 

[Goro]

As a citizen and a taxpayer.

You look at this OP and you can see in a flash two basic problems. First, nobody knows what admissions committees want. Everything is stated in generalities. What counts as clinical volunteering? What counts as research? It is all terribly vague. No one could ever manage any kind of organization in a competitive market this way. Everything is just a whim. It's straight out of Kafka.

Second, including osteopathic schools, there are now over 170 medical schools in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Why haven't they pooled their resources to create a data base and an algorithm to normalize transcripts to predict medical school success? The data, including undergraduate GPAs, MCATs, average SAT and ACT scores, Step 1 and Step 2 scores, already exist.

Instead of actually using the data they have, adcoms waste their time reading personal statements that are often ghost written. They then put people through these nonsensical interviews that are a happy hunting ground for sociopaths. I'm sure the adcoms all get a big ego rush while they dangle acceptance letters in front of salivating applicants.

The OP has a perfect right to be frustrated. If he has the stats he claims, he should be in medical school next fall. There's a good chance he won't get in and he still won't know the reason.

Med schools are rather up front as to what they want. It's just that most pre-meds, despite even having 1000s of research hours, are too lazy to lift a finger to research the admissions websites of med schools. Here's just one as an example that tells you EXACTLY what this school wants.
Admissions Recommendations - U of U School of Medicine - | University of Utah

There are no magic predictors to med student success. I could take the entire class at Western or PCOM and dump them into Harvard, and they'll do fine. Will they sail through? Maybe not all of them, but graduate and make good doctors.

There are, however, red flags that indicate high risk of doing poorly.

Trying to standardize med school admissions is as much of a fool's errand as trying to standardize college admissions.

 

[LBJLA23]

This is why we read rec letters.

Don't make me laugh again. Everyone knows LORs are BS. They are usually embellished ("This is the best student I've ever had" or "top 5%) OR they are incredibly average ("good student, works hard blah blah").

 

[Goro]

But pass those folks up in favor of Christopher Duntsch types on the regular. 😉

Even the Nobel Prize committee makes mistakes. Witness Kary Mullis

 

[Med Ed]

Don't make me laugh again. Everyone knows LORs are BS. They are usually embellished ("This is the best student I've ever had" or "top 5%) OR they are incredibly average ("good student, works hard blah blah").

Approximately how many AMCAS applications have you reviewed in your time?

 

[Goro]

Approximately how many AMCAS applications have you reviewed in your time?

Or AACOMAS apps?

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Don’t feed the troll....


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[chemdoctor]

Don’t feed the troll....


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It’s so damn frustrating tho. Don’t you ever just wanna roast these trolls? They’re annoying and spread negativity. Then again, it IS the internet so

 

[Med Ed]

Don’t feed the troll....

I prefer to think of it as turning on the light and seeing if the cockroaches scatter.

 

[Med Ed]

It’s so damn frustrating tho. Don’t you ever just wanna roast these trolls? They’re annoying and spread negativity. Then again, it IS the internet so

You will be dealing with people like this your whole life. Obnoxious Dad is a great example. He's basically a Salzman in accounting who found some AAMC data tables and an old publication or two, and now wants to proclaim the Emperor has no clothes. The occasional valid point he makes is completely obscured by the chip on his shoulder. The remainder is just too embarrassingly absurd to get worked up over.

Alexander Pope nailed it in 1711: "A little learning is a dangerous thing;"

 

[LBJLA23]

The negativity comes from you all. You think you're so much better than everyone cuz ur some fake ADCOM or whatever. No one cares. Doesn't change the fact that you suck at your job. You call me a troll yet somehow I got by your "admissions standards" lmao. I got into TWO MD SCHOOLS total. Rejected from everywhere else. Guess what? 250 STEPs. All honors on every single rotation. You guys suck at your job. Just a fact.

 

[LBJLA23]

I feel bad for all these Pre-Meds who listen to you guys. So sad....

 

[PeleHonuaMea]

The negativity comes from you all. You think you're so much better than everyone cuz ur some fake ADCOM or whatever. No one cares. Doesn't change the fact that you suck at your job. You call me a troll yet somehow I got by your "admissions standards" lmao. I got into TWO MD SCHOOLS total. Rejected from everywhere else. Guess what? 250 STEPs. All honors on every single rotation. You guys suck at your job. Just a fact.

I hope that's NOT the way you sound when you show up for your residency interviews 😕, we can see right through your step scores and your honors , all that will only take you so far. Remember: your attitude determines your latitude. 🙂

You will have to learn to interact more professionally with people (pt, staff, families..etc) who draw your ire.

So just relax 😀! Life's a b!+ch, and then you die. There's no need to be so bitter. 😎

 

[deleted787552]

Lol
I disagree completely on the interview portion. That is the most critical part of figuring out if someone should be a physician, not “if he has the stats, he should be in med school.” Not everyone with a 520 mcat and X amount of hours will make a good physician. Many people can take exams but are completely socially and emotionally inept.


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What does that even mean? About 60% of applicants are rejected every cycle. There’s no way all of them “won’t make a good physician”, Even if you take out the people who have no bussiness applying (maybe around 20% but that sounds high) then there’s still almost half the applicant pool left.
I’m betting The vast majority of applicants can keep it together for an interview but even if you want to use a higher estimate of maybe 10-20 % who have no social/emotional skills then what’s wrong with the remaining percent of people?

You’re step Scores are used to basically determine what field you can go into for residency. Why can more weight not be placed on mcat scores? If anything, this whole process sounds like it’s very subjective, based on how adcoms feel about an applicant. For some schools, it also seems like all they care about is applicant demographics

 

[Goro]

The negativity comes from you all. You think you're so much better than everyone cuz ur some fake ADCOM or whatever. No one cares. Doesn't change the fact that you suck at your job. You call me a troll yet somehow I got by your "admissions standards" lmao. I got into TWO MD SCHOOLS total. Rejected from everywhere else. Guess what? 250 STEPs. All honors on every single rotation. You guys suck at your job. Just a fact.

Whao!!! Getting a massive whiff of one of these: And no use wasting any more time with you, so onto the Ignore list you go. You'll feel some slight pressure.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

What does that even mean? About 60% of applicants are rejected every cycle. There’s no way all of them “won’t make a good physician”, Even if you take out the people who have no bussiness applying (maybe around 20% but that sounds high) then there’s still almost half the applicant pool left.
I’m betting The vast majority of applicants can keep it together for an interview but even if you want to use a higher estimate of maybe 10-20 % who have no social/emotional skills then what’s wrong with the remaining percent of people?

You’re step Scores are used to basically determine what field you can go into for residency. Why can more weight not be placed on mcat scores? If anything, this whole process sounds like it’s very subjective, based on how adcoms feel about an applicant. For some schools, it also seems like all they care about is applicant demographics

Nothing is wrong with the remainder, there just aren’t enough spots. I’m talking about the importance of interviews in weeding out those who shouldn’t be there.


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[libertyyne]

1. Without OPs state of residence and school list it is hard to say what went wrong.
2. OPs stats are good but they come with a 3/4 chance of being admitted not a 4/4 chance.
3. In some competitive states OP is average matriculant which would make it more difficult.
4. IF OP received no interviews with a good school list it is safe to assume there is a torpedo in a LOR or PS . (if I was a betting man, and the general gist of the post points towards this)
5. Med school process is not perfect, but it works even with the exceptions mentioned above of outliers that are disasters.


Stats are not everything as is obvious from this table. Since even with a 517+and 3.8+ there is still a 1/10 chance of being rejected.

\

If you come across as entitled , arrogant or immature you bet that ADCOMS will wont care about your stats. No one owes you an admission.

 

[Goro]

Nothing is wrong with the remainder, there just aren’t enough spots. I’m talking about the importance of interviews in weeding out those who shouldn’t be there.
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As gonnif wisely points out, this process is Olympian in nature.

 

[RNthenDoc]

Even the Nobel Prize committee makes mistakes. Witness Kary Mullis

This is true, I’m just ribbing you. 😉

No process is going to be exact.

 

[Goro]

This is true, I’m just ribbing you. 😉

No process is going to be exact.

Oh, you kidder you!

 

[Lucca]

The negativity comes from you all. You think you're so much better than everyone cuz ur some fake ADCOM or whatever. No one cares. Doesn't change the fact that you suck at your job. You call me a troll yet somehow I got by your "admissions standards" lmao. I got into TWO MD SCHOOLS total. Rejected from everywhere else. Guess what? 250 STEPs. All honors on every single rotation. You guys suck at your job. Just a fact.

>gets two acceptances
>does well in med school
>is going to be a doctor
>proclaims the process is crap and there’s no rhyme or reason to anything


????????

 

[GypsyHummus]

OP, I think its time to look into Podiatry school.

 

[RNthenDoc]

>gets two acceptances
>does well in med school
>is going to be a doctor
>proclaims the process is crap and there’s no rhyme or reason to anything


????????

This logic isn’t the cleanest, though. I’ve done a fair bit of nursing education, and there are absolutely parts of it that were crap.

I still graduated and had a great career as an RN, but that doesn’t mean QI should cease!

That schools are using a standardized test to try to do part of their interviewing for them (CASPer) is a symptom of that process!

 

[Min:))]

What adcom hurt you? Lol
I disagree completely on the interview portion. That is the most critical part of figuring out if someone should be a physician, not “if he has the stats, he should be in med school.” Not everyone with a 520 mcat and X amount of hours will make a good physician. Many people can take exams but are completely socially and emotionally inept.


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Most crucial part? As far as I know, most nations on this planet do not even make applicants go through 4 years of undergrad, which I (along with medical schools across the world) believe are a complete waste of time for an aspiring physician.

I've talked to so many doctors about this and they agree. Talking with someone for 30 minutes, who has practiced the crap out the answers he will orate, is not an indicator of how compassionate/"good" of a physician they'll become in like a decade.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but it's time that changes are made in the pre-med process if you actually care about having good doctors come through the door.

 

[Goro]

Most crucial part? As far as I know, most nations on this planet do not even make applicants go through 4 years of undergrad, which I (along with medical schools across the world) believe are a complete waste of time for an aspiring physician.

I've talked to so many doctors about this and they agree. Talking with someone for 30 minutes, who has practiced the crap out the answers he will orate, is not an indicator of how compassionate/"good" of a physician they'll become in like a decade.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but it's time that changes are made in the pre-med process if you actually care about having good doctors come through the door.

Once you actually are part of the process (and I do not mean being an interviewee), then you understand the import of the process. We're the last barrier between you and patients. The people who bitch about the process never seem to teach med students.

And don't compare the US with other nations in terms of medical education...it's an apples and elephants type of comparison.

The one thing I'd change about the process is to require a year's worth of employment. And not in mom and dad's dry cleaners or medical office either.

 

[Blanky]

Just jumping in because this thread is fantastic! It’s awesome that people think MCAT/GPA is the entire puzzle.

#BlankydeservesDerm

 

[Biochemistry69]

This is why we read rec letters.

What if a professor is actually the psychopath, and is dishing out negative LOR's?

On a more serious note, has a letter ever said "this student is a psychopath"? IMO, the only part of my application that I'm not completely comfortable with is the LOR portion. I assume that most people are reasonable people, but I always fear that I rubbed someone the wrong way, or perhaps my actions were taken in a negative light by some professor. One would hope that the professor would straight up say "no" to the LOR if they didn't like you, but you never know who you're truly dealing with...

 

[hurtem&healem]

What if a professor is actually the psychopath, and is dishing out negative LOR's?

On a more serious note, has a letter ever said "this student is a psychopath"?

I believe the phrase is, "Death by faint praise." That's probably much, much more common.
Although, in a very different capacity than med school admissions, I have contacted someone's personal reference who was extremely explicit in explaining they agreed to be a personal reference because they absolutely did NOT think the person was fit for the thing and gave me a compelling, detailed reason.

 

[Stagg737]

However, there are a lot of people out there who despise Notre Dame and there may be *****s in admissions offices who think of ND as a football factory.

No one hates ND because they're supposedly a football factory (maybe true 30 years ago but not anymore), they despise ND because their student body has a higher level of arrogant entitlement than almost any other school in the country. The old joke about "How do you know someone went to Notre Dame?" isn't just a joke...

Nah. People can fake interviews easy for a day. I know plenty of psychopaths who pit on a good face for a day.

I don't think you know the definition of "psychopath" (like everyone else on this site apparently...).

I've been through the whole process and personally experienced it. Don't try and belittle me from your fake high horse.

Yea, and patients who have had major surgeries have experienced what it's like to be operated on, I'm not about to hand any of them a scalpel though. Experience =/= knowledge or ability. Only perspective, which is not enough for true comprehension or a greater understanding of a process.

 

[RogueUnicorn]

The negativity comes from you all. You think you're so much better than everyone cuz ur some fake ADCOM or whatever. No one cares. Doesn't change the fact that you suck at your job. You call me a troll yet somehow I got by your "admissions standards" lmao. I got into TWO MD SCHOOLS total. Rejected from everywhere else. Guess what? 250 STEPs. All honors on every single rotation. You guys suck at your job. Just a fact.

y u so mad

 

[Goro]

What if a professor is actually the psychopath, and is dishing out negative LOR's?
On a more serious note, has a letter ever said "this student is a psychopath"? IMO, the only part of my application that I'm not completely comfortable with is the LOR portion. I assume that most people are reasonable people, but I always fear that I rubbed someone the wrong way, or perhaps my actions were taken in a negative light by some professor. One would hope that the professor would straight up say "no" to the LOR if they didn't like you, but you never know who you're truly dealing with...

Keep in mind that bad LORs are RARE! I see one maybe once an admissions cycle.
There have been times over the years we have seen a single bad LOR that was just so at odds with the other glowing LORs that we felt the issue was with the LOR writer, not the candidate.

y u so mad

I suspect that someone is cracking under the stress of trying to land a residency. Those personality skills trump Board scores for landing rankings and interviews, after all.

 

[Biochemistry69]

Keep in mind that bad LORs are RARE! I see one maybe once an admissions cycle.
There have been times over the years we have seen a single bad LOR that was just so at odds with the other glowing LORs that we felt the issue was with the LOR writer, not the candidate.


I suspect that someone is cracking under the stress of trying to land a residency. Those personality skills trump Board scores for landing rankings and interviews, after all.

This makes me feel better.

I believe the phrase is, "Death by faint praise." That's probably much, much more common.
Although, in a very different capacity than med school admissions, I have contacted someone's personal reference who was extremely explicit in explaining they agreed to be a personal reference because they absolutely did NOT think the person was fit for the thing and gave me a compelling, detailed reason.

This makes me feel worse. Was it a work reference?

 

[Med Ed]

Most crucial part? As far as I know, most nations on this planet do not even make applicants go through 4 years of undergrad, which I (along with medical schools across the world) believe are a complete waste of time for an aspiring physician.

That's a whole different thread.

I've talked to so many doctors about this and they agree. Talking with someone for 30 minutes, who has practiced the crap out the answers he will orate, is not an indicator of how compassionate/"good" of a physician they'll become in like a decade.

You are operating with a mistaken assumption. Most of the application process is about negative selection. Most interviews are perfectly fine (although if you practice your answers too much you sound rehearsed, which will ding you). At that point it's not about divining how good a physician the applicant might be in a decade. It's about identifying and excluding the subset of people who look okay on paper but would generate deep regret if admitted.

The narcissists. The robots. The painfully immature. The people who are incapable of holding a conversation. The ones who show up utterly unprepared. The ones who treat the administrative staff like garbage. They exist. We see them every year.

I am guessing none of the doctors you talk to so much have been very engaged in medical school admissions, and therefore probably have not sifted through thousands of AMCAS applications and hundreds of interviews. When folks step through the looking glass they generally realize that the process, while imperfect, is less arbitrary than they previously assumed.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I believe the phrase is, "Death by faint praise." That's probably much, much more common.
Although, in a very different capacity than med school admissions, I have contacted someone's personal reference who was extremely explicit in explaining they agreed to be a personal reference because they absolutely did NOT think the person was fit for the thing and gave me a compelling, detailed reason.

Yes. When we see letters, especially from people we know (the Ortho world is small), and the letters are shorter than usual, we make a phone call to ask if this is really someone they support.


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[hurtem&healem]

This makes me feel worse. Was it a work reference?

No, that would be illegal. Not saying it doesn't happen, but illegal nonetheless. All you can say about a former employee is, "Yes I would hire them again," or "No, I would not hire them."
Long story short, the guy was trying to adopt a dog, but was not a fit owner. Not in a malicious/cruelty way, but careless to the point of harm.

So, as long as you haven't done anything that egregious, you should be fine.

 

[deleted787552]

Keep in mind that bad LORs are RARE! I see one maybe once an admissions cycle.
There have been times over the years we have seen a single bad LOR that was just so at odds with the other glowing LORs that we felt the issue was with the LOR writer, not the candidate.

If bad LORs are rare, the just about all of them are great right? Then what is the point of making applicants get them if they’re all basically going to say “ this guy would be a great doctor”

 

[PeleHonuaMea]

I've talked to so many doctors about this and they agree. Talking with someone for 30 minutes, who has practiced the crap out the answers he will orate, is not an indicator of how compassionate/"good" of a physician they'll become in like a decade.

It kind of does actually...
There are many things you can tell about an individual from an interview. When you interview long enough, you can weed out the rehearsed and the "fake" answers.

When these individuals come out to the real world (either as residents or to be a part of the medical group), no one really says: "it's ok if he/she is a narcissist, of course the STEP scores will make up for it!!". Absolutely not. Too much liability, too much risk.

We will pick the teachable candidates over the "I am too smart and therefore can do no wrong" folks. 😀

 

[Lucca]

Look, I feel the people who are saying the process seems arbitrary, I really do. To an extent, it almost certainly is arbitrary. Trying to understand why an applicant gets A, B, C but not X, Y, Z interviews is basically inscrutable. That's not surprising given that applicants beyond a certain point are all qualified to enter and succeed in medical school and as others have alluded the process becomes one of negative differentiation where you are trying to find reasons to reject some applicants and not others. That said, I think there are a few areas where we need to get a grip as a forum:

1. this idea that there are all these psychopaths just faking their way through interviews is just insane. Are there literal, actual psychopaths in medicine? Definitely. But that's like...0.0001% of the population. C'mon. This is not something any serious person would upend the entire admissions process to snuff out. Sensitivity/specificity ppl; we're supposed to be thinking like scientists here.

2. the idea that medical schools only care about demographics is equally unfounded. Yes, students with different backgrounds can have very different outcomes in admissions, miss me w/ that discussion pls. However, there is absolutely no denying that the vast majority of medical students in this country come from one of like three demographic pools and medicine and science both are nowhere near the level of diversity of the actual country. And given that the vast, vast majority of medical students are passing boards and moving on to residency no problem, raising the spectre of "unqualified people" making it into medical school over "more qualified" people is nothing more than a racist dogwhistle tbqh. You're qualified or you're not and the bar for being qualified is statistically much lower than the bar for admissions at almost every med school in the country. Again, don't even @ me.

Obviously the admissions process isn't perfect, but the problems are definitely not on the end of "qualified people aren't getting into medical school" which is just demonstrably false...the expectations for being a competitive applicant are more than transparent to anyone willing to do just a little bit of legwork. The problems, where they exist, rather, lie on the end of people who would make excellent physicians not being able to meet those expectations for entirely structural reasons. That said, compared to basically every other professional field, the amount of BS one has to go through to enter and stay in the profession is much, much lower in medicine.

 

[mydogmolly]

If bad LORs are rare, the just about all of them are great right? Then what is the point of making applicants get them if they’re all basically going to say “ this guy would be a great doctor”

because as mentioned above, there's a difference between a mundane letter, such as "Susie showed up to work on time and performed her tasks well and as required" (which is most letters I read for job hiring) vs. "Susie was a truly special employee who consistently went above and beyond what was required by her position. For example, she did X, Y, and Z."

One is extremely lukewarm and the other is both uncommon and great.

 

[Goro]

If bad LORs are rare, the just about all of them are great right? Then what is the point of making applicants get them if they’re all basically going to say “ this guy would be a great doctor”

No, in reality, most of them gel together after a while. The vast majority of them tend to be testimonials, rather than letters of evaluation, which is really what we want. Mydogmolly above hits upon what we want to see.

It kind of does actually...
There are many things you can tell about an individual from an interview. When you interview long enough, you can weed out the rehearsed and the "fake" answers.

When these individuals come out to the real world (either as residents or to be a part of the medical group), no one really says: "it's ok if he/she is a narcissist, of course the STEP scores will make up for it!!". Absolutely not. Too much liability, too much risk.

We will pick the teachable candidates over the "I am too smart and therefore can do no wrong" folks. 😀

1000% this. The purpose of the interview is to see if we can envision you in the white coat. Clinicians and medical students want to see if they can envision you as a colleague. Most of us also apply the rubric of "would you want this person to touch your mom or your kids?"

 

[Med Ed]

If bad LORs are rare, the just about all of them are great right? Then what is the point of making applicants get them if they’re all basically going to say “ this guy would be a great doctor”

LOR's are not binary, and they aren't judged by a few generic adjectives. In fact, there are no less than five discernible levels (according to my own infallible system):

1. Superlative (rare)
2. Strong
3. Good
4. Lukewarm
5. Bad (rare)

Superlative letters are the ones where the letter writer really pulls out the stops and tries to make an impression on behalf of the applicant. They tend to be long and rich in detail.

Truly bad letters are indeed rare. These are the ones that start "I am not sure why X asked me write this letter, as I have few positive things to say." They are lethal.

The middle three have to be interpreted in the context of the application. For example, someone applying straight out of a large university will almost invariably have lower quality letters than someone who has taken a couple of gap years and built stronger relationships. That does not mean the college student is an inferior applicant.

Lukewarm letters are less deadly than bad ones, but they kill a lot more dreams because they are more numerous. These are the letters that, despite having the opportunity to compose something compelling, the writer instead chooses to be deliberately cursory.

There is an art to reading LOR's, just as there is an art to writing them. I have spent entire weekends writing and rewriting letters for people I really believed in. For some others, not so much.

 

[RNtoMD87]

Seems for a LOR its more of finding a person who cares enough and has the time than finding someone who knows you well and even likes you very much. I have had quite a few nurse techs and nurses want me to write LOR for them, and honestly I tell them to just type me up a manuscript, and I'll look at it, make some changes and sign it. I really just don't have the time to do that for everyone I come across. The only person I put a lot of time into (like a whole weekend) was my friend who just got his nurse practitioner. I don't know how LOR writers find the time to put that much time into writing a LOR on top of work, academia, etc for multiple people.

 

[skk_]

Most crucial part? As far as I know, most nations on this planet do not even make applicants go through 4 years of undergrad, which I (along with medical schools across the world) believe are a complete waste of time for an aspiring physician.

I've talked to so many doctors about this and they agree. Talking with someone for 30 minutes, who has practiced the crap out the answers he will orate, is not an indicator of how compassionate/"good" of a physician they'll become in like a decade.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but it's time that changes are made in the pre-med process if you actually care about having good doctors come through the door.

I've also talked to many doctors about this, including many faculty members involved in admissions both in the US and abroad, and a large number also very strongly disagree. Not to derail this thread, but since I've seen this sentiment expressed so much on SDN for some reason, and this is honestly a much more divisive issue than you claim even for doctors from other countries since everyone seems to conveniently leave out two key factors:

(1) base medical education is six years instead of four in those systems, where the typical undergraduate degree completion time is also usually only three years. This makes the total completion time effectively identical to combined BS/MD programs available at many schools in the US - the option to undertake this route already exists here if you're so inclined to pursue it seriously. In addition, in the majority of countries that utilize the 6-year undergraduate-entry system (UK, Australia etc.) the interview still remains an integral and required part of the admissions process, so you're really conflating two completely separate issues as-it-is.

(2) the 6-year systems require you to know with absolute certainty you want to do medicine when you're 17, prior to even finishing high school. How many people do you know who started pre-med in college but realized after a semester or two it clearly wasn't for them? Alternatively, how many people do you know who only really realized they wanted to pursue medicine after finishing high school? I sure as hell didn't know I wanted to go to medical school with any level of certainty when I was 17.

While the current system being used in the US is far from perfect, I have severe doubts that moving exclusively to a 6-year MBBS-style system would improve the quality of doctors being produced. I'm not exactly alone on this either - beyond purely anecdotal evidence from both on us about people we've talked to, notice how countries like Australia have actually been moving away from exclusively having a 6-year-only system and towards also offering 4-year postgraduate programs much like we have in the US (compare how many 4 year postgraduate programs there are now vs. 20 years ago there, for example), and not the opposite.

 

[Lucca]

I've also talked to many doctors about this, including many faculty members involved in admissions both in the US and abroad, and a large number also very strongly disagree. Not to derail this thread, but since I've seen this sentiment expressed so much on SDN for some reason, and this is honestly a much more divisive issue than you claim even for doctors from other countries since everyone seems to conveniently leave out two key factors:

(1) base medical education is six years instead of four in those systems, where the typical undergraduate degree completion time is also usually only three years. This makes the total completion time effectively identical to combined BS/MD programs available at many schools in the US - the option to undertake this route already exists here if you're so inclined to pursue it seriously. In addition, in the majority of countries that utilize the 6-year undergraduate-entry system (UK, Australia etc.) the interview still remains an integral and required part of the admissions process, so you're really conflating two completely separate issues as-it-is.

(2) the 6-year systems require you to know with absolute certainty you want to do medicine when you're 17, prior to even finishing high school. How many people do you know who started pre-med in college but realized after a semester or two it clearly wasn't for them? Alternatively, how many people do you know who only really realized they wanted to pursue medicine after finishing high school? I sure as hell didn't know I wanted to go to medical school with any level of certainty when I was 17.

While the current system being used in the US is far from perfect, I have severe doubts that moving exclusively to a 6-year MBBS-style system would improve the quality of doctors being produced. I'm not exactly alone on this either - beyond purely anecdotal evidence from both on us about people we've talked to, notice how countries like Australia have actually been moving away from exclusively having a 6-year-only system and towards also offering 4-year postgraduate programs much like we have in the US (compare how many 4 year postgraduate programs there are now vs. 20 years ago there, for example), and not the opposite.

This is a very good, and often overlooked point. Having been in the UK for a year, I can tell you that the first thing our NHS collaborators said to me when I mentioned I wanted to go to medical school was how they thought having four years to explore any subject before entering medicine was very positive. There’s a very funny and worthwhile book about working in the NHS that became very popular last year after certain members of the Conservative party accused NHS docs of being greedy while simultaneously attempting to privatize large sectors of the NHS (politicians will call docs greedy no matter how the logic works out!). It’s called “This is Going to Hurt” and it’s by an ObGyn who left medicine to become a comedy television writer. The book opens with a bit about the insanity of choosing a profession at 17 in the 21st century, especially one like medicine.

In other countries, like Germany, entering medical school is insanely competitive and you need rly top marks to be competitive. A lot of people have to take several years between HS and applying to UG to boost or make up for their less-than-perfect transcripts (sound familiar?). A labmate’s bf had taken 4 years off to do this before finally entering a medical program. Because of the way the German system works, his career prospects are now set in stone but he’s looking at 4+6 after high school before entering what we would call residency.

In my own home country docs are trained straight out of HS but after going through UG I’m a much bigger fan of our system than the older style. The liberal arts model (breadth over depth at the UG level) is one of the few good ideas we had in education in this country and it’s funny to me how many people want to run away from it at literally every single opportunity.

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

Med schools are rather up front as to what they want. It's just that most pre-meds, despite even having 1000s of research hours, are too lazy to life finger to research the admissions websites of med schools. here's just one as an example that tells you EXACTLY what this school wants.

There are no magic predictors to med student success. I could take the entire class at Western or PCOM and dump them into Harvard, and they'll do fine. Will they sail through? Maybe not all of them, but graduate and make good doctors.

There are, however, red flags that indicate high risk of doing poorly.

Trying to standardize med school admissions is as much of a fool's errand as trying to standardize college admissions.

Please be precise. What are the red flags? Can you make this a little more transparent?

College admissions at large and prestigious state universities are standardized. Based on GPA and SAT/ACT it is easy to predict which state residents will get admitted to schools such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa. There is no reason that medical school admissions can't be more transparent.

The opaque nature of medical school admissions promotes favoritism and corruption. Witness the case of Benjamin Mendelsohn. Please justify this:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Florida-Medical-Dean-Overrules/40749

 

[Blanky]

$33,000 is enough to get me into UF?
There is more to that case I’m sure, they just can’t find the correlation.

 

[libertyyne]

Please be precise. What are the red flags? Can you make this a little more transparent?

College admissions at large and prestigious state universities are standardized. Based on GPA and SAT/ACT it is easy to predict which state residents will get admitted to schools such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa. There is no reason that medical school admissions can't be more transparent.

The opaque nature of medical school admissions promotes favoritism and corruption. Witness the case of Benjamin Mendelsohn. Please justify this:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Florida-Medical-Dean-Overrules/40749

~20k plus admissions every year. clear correlation of admission with stats going up the mcat gpa grid, and you find one article from 10 years ago that states without proof that one admission was corrupt and declare the entire process a broken. lol.