World class twerker? Put it on your AMCAS! (Dbeast's #1 tip for success)

[dbeast]

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Hello my beloved SDN-ers, I've been wanting to write this for a while now, and I'm finally at the perfect moment of being so sleep deprived that I can't sleep, so there's no time like the present to fire up the ol' keyboard.

Those of you who are applying now, this advice is probably too late. Many of you may already know this too, so just read on and consider it a pep talk. But, to everybody else, *please* listen closely as I am about to impart on you what I believe is the most important piece of advice regarding applications that I have come across...

First, find something non-academic that you enjoy (sports, writing, dance, Peace Corps, ANYTHING!) and then get. after. it. I look around at my classmates and for each student who checked off the standard boxes of research/volunteering/shadowing/etc., there are 5 more who did something proverbially "cool". But, the trick was, they became the best at whatever it was that they did. This includes all-star athletes (ranging from football to ultimate frisbee), concert musicians, editors of the college newspaper, formerly touring DJ's, pro skiers and published photographers... the list goes on. I'm pretty sure we had an Olympic medalist who graduated when I was a first year. Okay, so that's unique and impressive, but how does that prove someone will make a good doctor? Because these people all show that they know how to work hard purely out of dedication and passion, not just because their teachers or parents or pre-med advisor says so. And it should be no surprise that medical schools actively seek out those qualities in an applicant.

So here's my tip to you, SDN-ers, since you have been my people since my more vulnerable pre-med years... and keep it a secret because it's powerful: Doing all of the "typical" pre-med activities *might* get you in to a top school. But kicking ass and showing true passion anywhere outside of medicine is more likely to get your application looked at closely, particularly if your stats are on the more... humble... side of the curve. There are plenty of people with 32's on the MCAT at top schools. I am one of them (as far as I know, this is the first time I've outed my MCAT score on SDN, so cherish this post, people). My application certainly had a hook that nobody else applying to medical school had, and I continue to do it in my free time, long after I have anybody to impress with it.

Yes, you should continue to shadow and volunteer, but in today's competitive environment, doing those things alone will very easily allow your application to blend in with the crowd. Find something else that you love- and the best part is that it can really be ANYTHING! If it doesn't exist at your school, that's even better- become the first to do it! Then, pursue it with (almost) the same intensity as you have for getting into medical school. Not only will your application sparkle, but it'll also give you a positive outlet to keep you from going crazy in this insanity-provoking application process.

If you'd like to share any of your ideas, or if you're on the fence about what you want to pursue or how to make it a reality, please discuss it in this thread. Despite being full of gunners, SDN is deep down a tight family, so let's help each other out.

[Side note- With the new MCAT, I think this advice is even more important, because the new format will be hard to standardize at first, so other strong points in the applications will stand out more. ]

 

[The Kraken]

Entrepreneurship, and possibly web/app development for the computer savy. I started "XYZ, LLC" and learned a-z from doing it makes you a hugely better applicant from the masses. It's really easy to do, once you have an idea that wont consume your entire day.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Entrepreneurship, and possibly web/app development for the computer savy. I started "XYZ, LLC" and learned a-z from doing it makes you a hugely better applicant from the masses. It's really easy to do, once you have an idea that wont consume your entire day.

What programming language would you say is the best to learn? I already know Python, but I feel like I don't really have the time to REALLY learn C or C++ so I was thinking Java.

Also, does anyone know of any free language learning tools? I know about Duolingo but yeah...

 

[amazing tekkers]

Captain of the twerk team?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[bear2roo]

sweet sounds great to know! I used to be a serious athlete in a sport that is certainly unique and I excelled at to national level merely out of passion and dedication as you said but at the same time, it really consumed a big part of my time in UG. Hoping it will give some adcoms a second pause!

 

[Amba]

So what you're saying is that Miley is basically a shoo-in?

Really though, good post. Even though I'm still in the application process, I've been trying to spread a similar message to younger students who ask me for advice.

 

[Narmerguy]

And so the furious ticking of the "passionate but random EC" box begins.

 

[BlueLabel]

And so the furious ticking of the "passionate but random EC" box begins.

I knew someone was going to say this

 

[Sephiroth]

And so the furious ticking of the "passionate but random EC" box begins.

haha, yep, so it just presses on further in a race to continuously stand out. On a plus side, med school admissions is a great human demonstration of the red queen hypothesis.

I noticed the sports activities on your app don't include "champion" or "medalist" or "all-american" anywhere. I think you might screwed.

 

[mcloaf]

I missed you Dbeast.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

We can go a step further with this: If you want to fully maximize your chances, your chosen EC should be sports or music. Ideally it should be a college sport or a classical instrument. While med schools appreciate all hobbies/ECs, sports and music hold a particular sway for whatever reason. If you go on MDApps and look at people accepted to top 5 schools, you'll find that the vast majority either played a college sport or played at least one instrument (or both). Of the ones who didn't, most were URMs with exceptional academics.

Put another way: HMS is the new Julliard.

 

[dbeast]

I missed you Dbeast.

Surgery rotation... I miss you guys too. I also miss daylight.

 

[The Bunk]

I have lots of interests outside med school stuff, like kung fu and oil painting, but one of the things I am most passionate about is karaoke. It's not something that I do competitively, it's just a hobby that makes me extremely happy and I do it as often as possible. It led me to sing in a couple of garage bands at one point. Is that worth mentioning in my application?

 

[rudziutki]

First, find something non-academic that you enjoy (sports, writing, dance, Peace Corps, ANYTHING!) and then get. after. it. ... Okay, so that's unique and impressive, but how does that prove someone will make a good doctor? Because these people all show that they know how to work hard purely out of dedication and passion, not just because their teachers or parents or pre-med advisor says so.

The thing is, a lot of the non academic type of achievements are also things pushed by parents. I'm pretty sure 90% of Asian kids growing up playing violin 4 hours a day are doing it because their parents enforce it, knowing that it will look great on their college apps as an example of a 'well-rounded' EC - and judging by your post, they would be right. As the guy said further up, it just becomes another check box. Not to discredit the people who do stuff out of genuine enjoyment, but it becomes hard to separate them from the crowd of people doing stuff primarily to get into a better college or medical school.

 

[LizzyM]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

 

[gettheleadout]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

Surely you see how bad this looks?

 

[dbeast]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

Mumford and Sun's

 

[Eaglefan]

Surely you see how bad this looks?

Seems the same as saying Asian kid with a 3.9, black kid with a 3.9. Which one do adcoms get excited about? Ideally we'd judge based on the app's merit alone, not its merit relative to which race submitted it. But such is life

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

What if you're white? Does playing the violin look good then? Do different races have different instruments that look good and bad for them?

Also, do you think that admissions has jumped the shark and it's time to switch to a merit-based lottery system so that we can eliminate the absurdity of trying to select future doctors based off of which instrument they play?

 

[La Presse]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

Bela Fleck and the Fleckstones?

 

[SunsFun]

Play accordion like a boss.

 

[gettheleadout]

What if you're white? Does playing the violin look good then? Do different races have different instruments that look good and bad for them?

Also, do you think that admissions has jumped the shark and it's time to switch to a merit-based lottery system so that we can eliminate the absurdity of trying to select future doctors based off of which instrument they play?

White guy involved in stepping? Instant admit everywhere.

 

[The Bunk]

What if you're white? Does playing the violin look good then? Do different races have different instruments that look good and bad for them?

Also, do you think that admissions has jumped the shark and it's time to switch to a merit-based lottery system so that we can eliminate the absurdity of trying to select future doctors based off of which instrument they play?

A merit-based lottery system would be awful!

 

[minuteman]

MCAT only for interview selection.

 

[mcloaf]

MCAT only for interview selection.

Rofl.

 

[SilentSoldier]

I have lots of interests outside med school stuff, like kung fu and oil painting, but one of the things I am most passionate about is karaoke. It's not something that I do competitively, it's just a hobby that makes me extremely happy and I do it as often as possible. It led me to sing in a couple of garage bands at one point. Is that worth mentioning in my application?

I love karaoke, I'd interview you if I saw it on your app 👍

Personally, I put my incredible passion for comic book collecting in my app. I've pretty much done everything except cosplay at a convention. That may or may not actually be on my list of things to do in the future....😛

 

[BlueLabel]

What if you're white? Does playing the violin look good then? Do different races have different instruments that look good and bad for them?

Also, do you think that admissions has jumped the shark and it's time to switch to a merit-based lottery system so that we can eliminate the absurdity of trying to select future doctors based off of which instrument they play?

Hahahaha +1

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

A merit-based lottery system would be awful!

But it's essentially what we already have, except no wants to admit it so we end up with an insane situation where trivial aspects of a person's life with at best dubious relevance to their ability to be a good doctor are used to influence admissions decisions. That leads to pre-meds becoming extremely neurotic because they know that even the most insignificant things can be the difference between acceptance and rejection from their dream school. For example, if someone made a thread on here asking if they should learn to play violin or banjo we'd all pile in and mock them for being hopelessly neurotic (with at least a few posts along the lines of "if you're this neurotic you shouldn't be in medicine"), but as we've seen from this thread they'd be right to be concerned over that.

The thing about making predictions with data is that you can always justify including another variable. However, there comes a point when you've accounted for all relevant variables, and the ones that are left are just wasting time and resources because they don't have a significant enough role to actually matter. For example, it is possible that the gravitational field of Pluto could be influencing the results of a PCR run; should you account for Pluto's position relative to Earth in calculating your results? Of course not.

For med school admissions, I think everyone would be better served if we just came to terms with the reality that there are more well qualified applicants than available spaces at most schools. Applicants could still be filtered according to the important criteria, but after everything significant has been accounted for the remaining applicants should just be put through a lottery.

Think about it. If you asked a school why you weren't accepted, which answer would you rather hear?

"Well, your research, ECs, GPA, and MCAT were fine, but you play the violin which is such a boring instrument."

or

"Everything in your application was great, but we had so many equally good applications that we were forced to choose at random and your name didn't get picked."

 

[The Bunk]

But it's essentially what we already have, except no wants to admit it so we end up with an insane situation where trivial aspects of a person's life with at best dubious relevance to their ability to be a good doctor are used to influence admissions decisions. That leads to pre-meds becoming extremely neurotic because they know that even the most insignificant things can be the difference between acceptance and rejection from their dream school. For example, if someone made a thread on here asking if they should learn to play violin or banjo we'd all pile in and mock them for being hopelessly neurotic (with at least a few posts along the lines of "if you're this neurotic you shouldn't be in medicine"), but as we've seen from this thread they'd be right to be concerned over that.

The thing about making predictions with data is that you can always justify including another variable. However, there comes a point when you've accounted for all relevant variables, and the ones that are left are just wasting time and resources because they don't have a significant enough role to actually matter. For example, it is possible that the gravitational field of Pluto could be influencing the results of a PCR run; should you account for Pluto's position relative to Earth in calculating your results? Of course not.

For med school admissions, I think everyone would be better served if we just came to terms with the reality that there are more well qualified applicants than available spaces at most schools. Applicants could still be filtered according to the important criteria, but after everything significant has been accounted for the remaining applicants should just be put through a lottery.

Think about it. If you asked a school why you weren't accepted, which answer would you rather hear?

"Well, your research, ECs, GPA, and MCAT were fine, but you play the violin which is such a boring instrument."

or

"Everything in your application was great, but we had so many equally good applications that we were forced to choose at random and your name didn't get picked."

Oh my god, if they told me I worked my ass off for years and the only reason I didn't get in was because of a lottery, I would be sooooooooooo pissed.

The issue here wouldn't be that the violin is a boring instrument. The violin is gorgeous and if a person is passionate about playing the violin, there's no way that could possibly hurt their application. I think what LizzyM was getting at was that if adcoms get the sense that you've just been playing the violin or piano since you were three because your mom told you to, then that's not gonna give you a big advantage. They want to get an idea of who we are as people, so they're looking for certain personal qualities that they think are important in future doctors. If they did a lottery system based on your gpa and MCAT, then all of those important considerations get ignored. Maybe you think those details are irrelevant, but the adcoms don't agree with you. I think they know better than you what it takes to succeed in medicine.

 

[SunsFun]

You could have a system where several adcoms assign a numerical score to each component of an applicant who is qualified. The combined total score is then assigned a probability and the lottery is set up to chose who gets in based on probabilities.

 

[The Bunk]

You could have a system where several adcoms assign a numerical score to each component of an applicant who is qualified. The combined total score is then assigned a probability and the lottery is set up to chose who gets in based on probabilities.

I don't see what that would help. We would still have to impress the adcoms to get our numerical score. That would just be adding a lottery on top of what we already have.

I really don't understand why the lottery idea appeals to anyone at all. I want to get in because I am a good fit and I am determined and passionate and I wanted it enough to do everything within my power to get in. I think a lottery will lower the quality of med students.

 

[deleted307836]

Asian kid playing the violin or piano 😴

Playing the ukulele or banjo 😍

Be the exception to the rule.

This really rubs me the wrong way for many reasons.

I think OCD has a good point about how ridiculous possible scrutiny can be - has the big picture been lost when this level of detail is significant at all?

As for the point of this thread - I think it's a good one. Yes, it can be seen as another checkbox to mark; OTOH, it can be seen as a good reason to pursue interests outside of medicine.

 

[SunsFun]

I don't see what that would help. We would still have to impress the adcoms to get our numerical score. That would just be adding a lottery on top of what we already have.

I really don't understand why the lottery idea appeals to anyone at all. I want to get in because I am a good fit and I am determined and passionate and I wanted it enough to do everything within my power to get in. I think a lottery will lower the quality of med students.

How do you think you differ from other qualified candidates who basically will claim the exact same thing about themselves? Lottery is appealing because instead of having 100% of the decision be based on subjective judgement, some of it will be based on unbiased chance. Rather than judging fit individually, having a scored rubric is a much better alternative.

I honestly don't see how it will lower the quality of the students. Judging on what criteria? They are all qualified. More qualified have a higher chance of acceptance.

 

[La Presse]

How does it look if I said I played the harmonica. Do adcoms like harmonica players?

 

[Koalafied]

How does it look if I said I played the harmonica. Do adcoms like harmonica players?

Perhaps, , especially when the accompanying 24 oz. beverage comes in a paper "Sack" sleeve on a loitering basis.

​

 

[gettheleadout]

This really rubs me the wrong way for many reasons.

I think OCD has a good point about how ridiculous possible scrutiny can be - has the big picture been lost when this level of detail is significant at all?

As for the point of this thread - I think it's a good one. Yes, it can be seen as another checkbox to mark; OTOH, it can be seen as a good reason to pursue interests outside of medicine.

That's understating it from my point of view.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

What about world class cowbell player? You can't have too much cowbell.

 

[The Bunk]

How do you think you differ from other qualified candidates who basically will claim the exact same thing about themselves? Lottery is appealing because instead of having 100% of the decision be based on subjective judgement, some of it will be based on unbiased chance. Rather than judging fit individually, having a scored rubric is a much better alternative.

I honestly don't see how it will lower the quality of the students. Judging on what criteria? They are all qualified. More qualified have a higher chance of acceptance.

I think that most passionate people who work really hard and are well suited to the profession will get into med school. The decision is definitely not based 100% on subjective judgement as it stands. You will always have to have very good quantitative stats. But not everyone with good stats will be a good doctor. A lottery of all technically qualified people would result in some people who have good stats, but personally aren't as well suited for the job as others who were randomly rejected. Those personal traits are subjective qualities anyway, so they will always be evaluated subjectively. Even if you want to develop a scoring rubric, you will still have to do all of the same things you're doing now. You will still have to be interviewed. But then all of your chances at all of the schools will be dependent on one committee's opinion of you . . . and then you will end up helpless in the face of an impersonal lottery. I think that would blow.

 

[gettheleadout]

But it's essentially what we already have, except no wants to admit it so we end up with an insane situation where trivial aspects of a person's life with at best dubious relevance to their ability to be a good doctor are used to influence admissions decisions. That leads to pre-meds becoming extremely neurotic because they know that even the most insignificant things can be the difference between acceptance and rejection from their dream school. For example, if someone made a thread on here asking if they should learn to play violin or banjo we'd all pile in and mock them for being hopelessly neurotic (with at least a few posts along the lines of "if you're this neurotic you shouldn't be in medicine"), but as we've seen from this thread they'd be right to be concerned over that.

The thing about making predictions with data is that you can always justify including another variable. However, there comes a point when you've accounted for all relevant variables, and the ones that are left are just wasting time and resources because they don't have a significant enough role to actually matter. For example, it is possible that the gravitational field of Pluto could be influencing the results of a PCR run; should you account for Pluto's position relative to Earth in calculating your results? Of course not.

For med school admissions, I think everyone would be better served if we just came to terms with the reality that there are more well qualified applicants than available spaces at most schools. Applicants could still be filtered according to the important criteria, but after everything significant has been accounted for the remaining applicants should just be put through a lottery.

Think about it. If you asked a school why you weren't accepted, which answer would you rather hear?

"Well, your research, ECs, GPA, and MCAT were fine, but you play the violin which is such a boring instrument."

or

"Everything in your application was great, but we had so many equally good applications that we were forced to choose at random and your name didn't get picked."

How could this even be pulled off? You apply to twenty schools and you have an independent probabilistic "die roll" for each school to see if you get accepted? If so, do higher stat applicants get multiple entries like a raffle, or a higher base probability of acceptance? Or do cutoffs get set so that you can't enter the lottery for a school without having certain minimum stats? If that, what's the cutoff? Schools like Harvard take "interesting" applicants that are low-stat, so with an exceedingly low cutoff for a super-competitive school, surely you'd have to moderate probabilities based on stats, because it wouldn't be fair for an applicant with a 4.0/40 to have equal chance vs. a 3.6/32. The problem then is, how much of an probabilistic advantage does an additional MCAT or GPA point get someone? How do you adjust for school rigor (which would be necessary if using an algorithm with applicant stat input) when GPA is entered?

The other, more absurd way to do it would be to have applicants just "apply" and then have dice roll for acceptances at various places. That's insane though because applicants have geographic limitations, and the issue of multiple acceptances and choices would have to be fairly dealt with.

TL;DR - This will never happen.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

How could this even be pulled off? You apply to twenty schools and you have an independent probabilistic "die roll" for each school to see if you get accepted? If so, do higher stat applicants get multiple entries like a raffle, or a higher base probability of acceptance? Or do cutoffs get set so that you can't enter the lottery for a school without having certain minimum stats? If that, what's the cutoff? Schools like Harvard take "interesting" applicants that are low-stat, so with an exceedingly low cutoff for a super-competitive school, surely you'd have to moderate probabilities based on stats, because it wouldn't be fair for an applicant with a 4.0/40 to have equal chance vs. a 3.6/32. The problem then is, how much of an probabilistic advantage does an additional MCAT or GPA point get someone? How do you adjust for school rigor (which would be necessary if using an algorithm with applicant stat input) when GPA is entered?

The other, more absurd way to do it would be to have applicants just "apply" and then have dice roll for acceptances at various places. That's insane though because applicants have geographic limitations, and the issue of multiple acceptances and choices would have to be fairly dealt with.

TL;DR - This will never happen.

Oh my god, if they told me I worked my ass off for years and the only reason I didn't get in was because of a lottery, I would be sooooooooooo pissed.

The issue here wouldn't be that the violin is a boring instrument. The violin is gorgeous and if a person is passionate about playing the violin, there's no way that could possibly hurt their application. I think what LizzyM was getting at was that if adcoms get the sense that you've just been playing the violin or piano since you were three because your mom told you to, then that's not gonna give you a big advantage. They want to get an idea of who we are as people, so they're looking for certain personal qualities that they think are important in future doctors. If they did a lottery system based on your gpa and MCAT, then all of those important considerations get ignored. Maybe you think those details are irrelevant, but the adcoms don't agree with you. I think they know better than you what it takes to succeed in medicine.

What I had in mind was that med schools would select applicants as they do now, except that once they hit the barrier of "this group of applicants honestly differs in no appreciable way and we think they're all good enough for this school, but we still can't accept all of them" the process turns into a lottery instead of "surely there must be something we can use to justify rejecting some of these candidates".

I'm not suggesting we make this a numbers-only game or anything like that. Holistic review can still take place, it's just that with what I'm proposing the holistic review would stop short of delving into the realm of "these two applicants are identical aside from the fact that one visited Peru and the other visited Sri Lanka. We can only accept one. Which do we think is better guys? Visiting Peru or Sri Lanka?" At that point you would then just throw all the remaining applicants into a hat and pick the lucky winners. No one would be getting screwed out of an acceptance, because everyone is equally qualified and has an equal chance of being selected. You also wouldn't need to put all candidates into the lottery. If you have a candidate that is just hands-down amazing and above the rest, you could just offer them admission outright. The lottery is just meant to prevent selecting applicants on trivial criteria that are so subjective they may as well be random and do nothing but encourage pre-meds to become even more neurotic than they already are.

 

[gettheleadout]

What I had in mind was that med schools would select applicants as they do now, except that once they hit the barrier of "this group of applicants honestly differs in no appreciable way and we think they're all good enough for this school, but we still can't accept all of them" the process turns into a lottery instead of "surely there must be something we can use to justify rejecting some of these candidates".

I'm not suggesting we make this a numbers-only game or anything like that. Holistic review can still take place, it's just that with what I'm proposing the holistic review would stop short of delving into the realm of "these two applicants are identical aside from the fact that one visited Peru and the other visited Sri Lanka. We can only accept one. Which do we think is better guys? Visiting Peru or Sri Lanka?" At that point you would then just throw all the remaining applicants into a hat and pick the lucky winners. No one would be getting screwed out of an acceptance, because everyone is equally qualified and has an equal chance of being selected. You also wouldn't need to put all candidates into the lottery. If you have a candidate that is just hands-down amazing and above the rest, you could just offer them admission outright. The lottery is just meant to prevent selecting applicants on trivial criteria that are so subjective they may as well be random and do nothing but encourage pre-meds to become even more neurotic than they already are.

How do we know adcom's don't just flip coins on virtually identical candidates now?

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

How do we know adcom's don't just flip coins on virtually identical candidates now?

While I'm sure it happens, I don't think it happens soon enough in the process. I'm not really willing to get in the particulars of at what exact point should a lotto be used, or how it would exactly work, since this isn't a serious discussion, I'm just saying that I think a lotto would be a better system than nitpicking applicants.

 

[The Bunk]

What I had in mind was that med schools would select applicants as they do now, except that once they hit the barrier of "this group of applicants honestly differs in no appreciable way and we think they're all good enough for this school, but we still can't accept all of them" the process turns into a lottery instead of "surely there must be something we can use to justify rejecting some of these candidates".

I'm not suggesting we make this a numbers-only game or anything like that. Holistic review can still take place, it's just that with what I'm proposing the holistic review would stop short of delving into the realm of "these two applicants are identical aside from the fact that one visited Peru and the other visited Sri Lanka. We can only accept one. Which do we think is better guys? Visiting Peru or Sri Lanka?" At that point you would then just throw all the remaining applicants into a hat and pick the lucky winners. No one would be getting screwed out of an acceptance, because everyone is equally qualified and has an equal chance of being selected. You also wouldn't need to put all candidates into the lottery. If you have a candidate that is just hands-down amazing and above the rest, you could just offer them admission outright. The lottery is just meant to prevent selecting applicants on trivial criteria that are so subjective they may as well be random and do nothing but encourage pre-meds to become even more neurotic than they already are.

I just don't see where the neuroticism relief is in this scenario. It's all so stupidly exaggerated. You're talking about a situation where everyone has exactly the same qualifications except for one trivial thing (e.g. Peru vs. Sri Lanka), but that's not ever going to be what happens. There is never going to be a person who is exactly the same as you except for one trivial detail. And even if you were going head-to-head for the last spot at the last school with someone who was extremely similar to you, that would be the only situation where a coin flip/lottery wouldn't make the end result even more trivial and unjust.

Possible mind-blowing insight here: The neuroticism is coming from within you, not the application process.

 

[LizzyM]

What if you're white? Does playing the violin look good then? Do different races have different instruments that look good and bad for them?

Also, do you think that admissions has jumped the shark and it's time to switch to a merit-based lottery system so that we can eliminate the absurdity of trying to select future doctors based off of which instrument they play?

All I'm saying is that when it comes to setting yourself apart from the crowd of cookie cutter applicants, an activity that is relatively uncommon will set you apart more easily than an activity that is very common. It is very common to see Asian applicants who have studied piano or violin for 16+ years. That is a snore. It is very rare to see applicants of any race who play banjo, ukulele, harmonica or accordion. That is going to be memorable, in a good way, although not in a way that will make up for deficits in any other realm (grades & scores, clinical experience, leadership, research, altruism, etc).

Are piano players and violinists going to be admitted to medical school? Absolutely. But it is always interesting to see someone who is doing something a little different.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

All I'm saying is that when it comes to setting yourself apart from the crowd of cookie cutter applicants, an activity that is relatively uncommon will set you apart more easily than an activity that is very common. It is very common to see Asian applicants who have studied piano or violin for 16+ years. That is a snore. It is very rare to see applicants of any race who play banjo, ukulele, harmonica or accordion. That is going to be memorable, in a good way, although not in a way that will make up for deficits in any other realm (grades & scores, clinical experience, leadership, research, altruism, etc).

Are piano players and violinists going to be admitted to medical school? Absolutely. But it is always interesting to see someone who is doing something a little different.

Does learning to play the guitar make me look like a stereotypical douche bag? 🙁

I promise I don't take it to parties.

 

[Koalafied]

Does learning to play the guitar make me look like a stereotypical douche bag? 🙁

I promise I don't take it to parties.

Hey, this counts too.

 

[LuciusVorenus]

Hey, this counts too.

This is what I am afraid of.

 

[Koalafied]

This is what I am afraid of.

That's why you get a haircut, a formal haircut.

 

[Escape_Goat]

Does learning to play the guitar make me look like a stereotypical douche bag? 🙁

Not if you learned to play both left and right-handed, like me. Or does that make me a double douchebag?

Oh no. I've made a huge mistake.

 

[chillaxbro]

This whole process is ridiculous and it gets crazier every year. I can't wait to see what the process is like in 20 years.