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

[Anonymous]

Just focus on going to nursing then nurse practitioner. The same as a doctor.

[Anonymous]

Getting a B or a B+ in organic chemistry does not preclude you from getting into medical school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting a B or a B+ in organic chemistry does not preclude you from getting into medical school.

Medical school will be much harder though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just focus on going to nursing then nurse practitioner. The same as a doctor.

Not the same at all.

[Anonymous]

A huge percentage of the first-year class wants to go to med school. Then reality hits as the weed-out classes start to thin the herd. OP, your son may not want to pursue med school - is that your dream or his? Or, maybe he wants to, but the reality of the coursework required is not aligned with his talents. If the first scenario, you should help him find a major that excites him. If the second, then start laying the groundwork for which medical schools he should target and ways to help improve or increase his GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pardon typos please.

I think typos are the least of your issues in this post.

[Anonymous]

Your 5 closest friends, people you spend the most time with will determine who you become.

We pulled my kids out of public for HS. My younger one was gravitating to the non-ambitious, going down the wrong road types.

He’s a junior now and proud of straight As and hangs out with the honors kids from good families with lots of ambition and good values—kindness, community service. Before it was not cool to be an academic.

My older son found his core group in public school and would have succeeded either way since he always was around good kids. As parents, we saw what was necessary to change our younger one’s course.

Older kid is at an Ivy and his peer group is very much like his childhood friend group—nice, motivated, supportive with life ambitions. We will not send our younger one to a big tailgate/party school — the more “serious” the campus, the better for him. He aspires to follow older sib.

[Anonymous]

Have you ever had a parent dislike your friends and want you to be friends with different people who find you weird?

There’s a reason why people say it doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. If you go to Stanford, the rich hang out with the rich and the dysfunctional with the dysfunctional.

OP, I understand your child. It’s not easy to exit friends who accept for who you are. I also understand your wanting a better future for your child.

Look for adjacent peer groups that are high-performing and will accept your child. For example, there are a lot of nonprofits geared towards first generation college students. Maybe there’s a group for kids who want to become doctors.

If it makes you feel better, there a lots of highly privileged, neglected children who are not headed for bright futures at all. Regardless of where you come from, there’s a way to find good friends who are also a good influence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever had a parent dislike your friends and want you to be friends with different people who find you weird?

There’s a reason why people say it doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. If you go to Stanford, the rich hang out with the rich and the dysfunctional with the dysfunctional.

OP, I understand your child. It’s not easy to exit friends who accept for who you are. I also understand your wanting a better future for your child.

Look for adjacent peer groups that are high-performing and will accept your child. For example, there are a lot of nonprofits geared towards first generation college students. Maybe there’s a group for kids who want to become doctors.

If it makes you feel better, there a lots of highly privileged, neglected children who are not headed for bright futures at all. Regardless of where you come from, there’s a way to find good friends who are also a good influence.

OP cannot be finding friends for her sophomore in college. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever had a parent dislike your friends and want you to be friends with different people who find you weird?

There’s a reason why people say it doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. If you go to Stanford, the rich hang out with the rich and the dysfunctional with the dysfunctional.

OP, I understand your child. It’s not easy to exit friends who accept for who you are. I also understand your wanting a better future for your child.

Look for adjacent peer groups that are high-performing and will accept your child. For example, there are a lot of nonprofits geared towards first generation college students. Maybe there’s a group for kids who want to become doctors.

If it makes you feel better, there a lots of highly privileged, neglected children who are not headed for bright futures at all. Regardless of where you come from, there’s a way to find good friends who are also a good influence.

OP cannot be finding friends for her sophomore in college. Nope.

Fair, but if giving advice, this is more helpful than, “find new friends” or “make better friends.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Back up. What happened in high school?

And why are his "goo[f] ball" and these extra hard classes that the strongest students aren't even taking?

And if he is intentionally challenging himself with harder classes then necessary, then he is too intellectually curious for medical school.

Let him choose a path that motivates him and that rewards his interest and effort.

Every doctor I know is intellectually curious. The med students who make it to med school are. I went to an ivy undergrad and those of us who got in, which was most, took the hard classes AND got mostly As.

as in, math 55? I don't believe that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He could be a paramedic / nursing assistant / nurse
there's plenty of jobs in the medical universe with the chance of progression and they don't all start with DOCTOR.

I have been in hospital enough times to recognize the talented people versus the untalented ones. Sometimes its the nurse practitioners who are the ones spotting the details and saving the lives.

Sure, sometimes. That is not the norm. NP and PA training only covers basics and not the rare diseases or abnormal/unusual human reactions to illness. Docs have 3-5 YEARS more training than midlevels. That is why they work under the supervision of an MD. On their own they do not have the scope of training to diagnose anything atypical.

Measuring it in years undersells the difference - a doctor gets 40--60 hours per week of supervision their first year of clinicals (3rd of 4 years), so they end up getting many many times as much experience by the end of their MD as an NP does (NP's only require 500 hours total). Even then, there's still another four years of 50-70 hour work weeks of supervised training during residency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your 5 closest friends, people you spend the most time with will determine who you become.

We pulled my kids out of public for HS. My younger one was gravitating to the non-ambitious, going down the wrong road types.

He’s a junior now and proud of straight As and hangs out with the honors kids from good families with lots of ambition and good values—kindness, community service. Before it was not cool to be an academic.

My older son found his core group in public school and would have succeeded either way since he always was around good kids. As parents, we saw what was necessary to change our younger one’s course.

Older kid is at an Ivy and his peer group is very much like his childhood friend group—nice, motivated, supportive with life ambitions. We will not send our younger one to a big tailgate/party school — the more “serious” the campus, the better for him. He aspires to follow older sib.

Yes, agree, peers can matter a lot for many kids. We banned large party type colleges from consideration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your 5 closest friends, people you spend the most time with will determine who you become.

We pulled my kids out of public for HS. My younger one was gravitating to the non-ambitious, going down the wrong road types.

He’s a junior now and proud of straight As and hangs out with the honors kids from good families with lots of ambition and good values—kindness, community service. Before it was not cool to be an academic.

My older son found his core group in public school and would have succeeded either way since he always was around good kids. As parents, we saw what was necessary to change our younger one’s course.

Older kid is at an Ivy and his peer group is very much like his childhood friend group—nice, motivated, supportive with life ambitions. We will not send our younger one to a big tailgate/party school — the more “serious” the campus, the better for him. He aspires to follow older sib.

Yes, agree, peers can matter a lot for many kids. We banned large party type colleges from consideration

+1
10k was almost always pushing it and 15k+ was almost always out of the question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.”

ummm...a B in orgo chem means you made it

Agree! A B in orgo is just fine for medical school! However OP kid appears to have Bs in almost all stem classes so far. That means med school is likely already off the table unless OP wants to gun for a postbac or better yet a masters in a hard science after undergrad and get all As and get published. A 3.0-3.2 science GPA after 3 semesters in college makes med school highly improbable, even DO school. One or two Bs, in orgo or calc or chem, ie a 3.7-3.8 science GPA after 3 semesters is excellent and renders US-med school acceptance very possible. There is a wide gap between those students.