My child wants to go to med school but hangs out with blue collar students who are pursuing less academic degrees

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He has no shot at med school with Bs. Too late OP

so dramatic! He’s still a sophomore…and besides osteopathic medicine and med school in the Caribbean, there’s post-bac pre-med.

What DO school do you think you'll be accepted to with a B average?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbor has a blue collar background, was a b student, has mostly blue collar friends and he is a doctor. His patients love him and his practice is busy. Let your child find their own way.

I have many doctor friends that were the same, 3.3-3.4, more Bs than As, and are docs now. Some blue collar/first gen, some uber rich kids of docs. The huge glaring difference is that 3.3-3.4 used to be AVERAGE gpa at colleges or even a little above avergae at some schools. Now Average gpa is 3.7 or higher at many schools. Only the most elite schools have below-median kids get into med school(and they have to have good mcats, ie 512+). They have to have more A than B these days, in the science/stem gpa. The student OP describes has mostly Bs. As a sophomore they likely already have 2 semesters chem, one semester orgo, 2 calculus and a bio or physics. And they are getting mostly B. That is not on track for med school unless one is at a super -elite school where below average kids get into med.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students from privileged backgrounds still have to study hard and grind for a shot at medical school. They're not going out on Tuesday nights or wasting time playing video games or beer pong. They're in the library studying organic chemistry. Just like the students from working and middle class backgrounds who want to go to medical school. Pre-med - like engineering - is hard work. And everyone understands that by mid-terms in their first semester of college when they go through the weed out classes. And those weed out classes are there for a reason. They are specifically designed to get rid of the students who don't have the smarts or the work ethic to succeed in what are necessarily difficult programs.

If a sophomore doesn't have the discipline or talent it takes to get into medical school, they should change majors quickly. It has nothing to do with friends or class background. It has to do with drive. It's either there or it's not.

Yes yes yes! The key point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots and lots and lots of kids say they want to be doctors. Then they go to college. They have fun. And get a B in organic chemistry..and then they go to find a different career path. If the path to being a doctor were easy (@nd inexpensive) there would be a million doctors. Geez. It’s not the “people around him.”

no there wouldn't. there are only so many spots in medical school and so many spots in residency. that is the bottleneck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He should be a chiropractor or similar. that is his range.

going to chiropractic school is not cheap and they don't make that much money.

not worth it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He should be a chiropractor or similar. that is his range.

going to chiropractic school is not cheap and they don't make that much money.

not worth it!

But if you don't have the grades or the umph for real medical school, what else is your alternative?

[Anonymous]

You need a 3.5 and a 505 MCAT to be competitive for DO. A 3.7 and 510 MCAT for MD.

If you have a 3.0, even a high MCAT 518+ won't save you. Off to post-Bacc you go.

[Anonymous]

Sixty percent of college graduates are women, and 40% are male. I am convinced he will be fine, if he wants to go this route. Back off parent and tell him keep his GPA up and start volunteering. Tell him to look at teaching science for a few years, live in your basement (I know horrible), and mature - then volunteer and pick up a grad. degree. Then, he can apply to medical school at the ripe age of 25 or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m confused- why are there blue collar students at college?

Their backgrounds. No kids whose family members are white collar professionals

What a crock.

DP.
This is a polite way to refer to those people. They are almost always a bad influence and engage in activities and behaviors that are risky because
they have little to lose.

Wouldn’t they have more to lose than a kid who has a “good” family to fall back on?

[Anonymous]

Are you for real? His life and his choices are someone the issue of his friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the idea of this thread disgusting. OP is angry at children from non-college educated backgrounds for “pulling down” her child. Why is it just okay to assume that someone from a poorer background is non-academic and a leech? They’re at the same institution as your child, so what does that say about the type of college your DC goes to if they are accepting these non-academic poor kids who are apparently drain? You are not better than others for possessing a Bachelors, my lord.

I mean yeah ... the thread is pretty disgusting. Disgusting enough that it is likely a troll post designed to rile people up.

What's disgusting is the lack of transparency and honesty by some people (like yourself) who purport to be woke saviors of the lower class but who are really just liars (to themselves and others). There's hierarchy everywhere and I guarantee everyone reading this buys into it. When you send your kid to a private high school, when you send your kid to a solid public or private school and forgo a full ride to Podunk U., when you don't invite your cleaning people to thanksgiving, you're buying into the natural hierarchy of life. Stop trying to feign innocence to the ways of the world. It isn't cute.

??
Just statistically, one really has to be resilient and work pretty damn hard to go from a rough background to a good college. I don’t see how it’s a savior complex to tell OP to get their $hit together and stop blaming random kids for their child’s failure. Also, not everyone on DCUM is rich and has cleaning stuff, some are *shockers* normal people.

No one said live-in staff. And it's appropriate to blame bad influences for being bad influences. I know a girl who ended up at Eastern Carolina after falling in with the wrong crowd. Why are you trying to discourage awareness of the impact those people can have on good people? Maybe seeing OP's story makes someone realize the importance of having quality peers. Take your illogical, impractical, immoral attitude elsewhere.

Sweet baby Jesus, I hope you are a troll. Stop automatically assuming non-UMC equals bad influence. I agree peers are important but F off with the they have to be right pedigree BS. What about UMC kids gunning for IB? What does morality have to do with class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of B's pretty much takes you out of DO and MD schools.

Maybe the islands?

That or NP? OP, over break, ask him what his plan is.

A decent BSN is competitive. So is a solid NP program. But Bs will get you into diploma mills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He should be a chiropractor or similar. that is his range.

going to chiropractic school is not cheap and they don't make that much money.

not worth it!

But if you don't have the grades or the umph for real medical school, what else is your alternative?

oh, one of the other hundreds of other careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Because he doesn’t have friends who are uber academic, he doesn’t get how much dedication it takes. He has the intellectual ability. He got overconfident after first year with all As. Then he signed up for tough courses second year but studied with his good ball friends. This semester GPA now 3.3. Not one A in a science course. No Cs though.

Has he taken organic chemistry?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I blame the parents.

Same here.