Reply to How is pre-med going for your DC at a selective college?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "How is pre-med going for your DC at a selective college?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At any top school pre med will.be brutal. [/quote]

premed is brutal everywhere. what makes you think "top schools" are unique? [/quote]

It’s been covered up thread, [b]classes are more difficult and competition is stiffer.[/b] [/quote]

Statements like this drive me nuts. How do you know exactly? Have you attended all of them? [/quote]

When you have experience working with multiple premeds who come from many different schools, you start to gather data on what the tests are like, what the syllabus covers, how prepared they are for the MCAT comparing similar SAT scores going into different colleges. The elites in general have much more demanding coursework including the exams(most or all of the grade at elites). The peers add a different layer: when the majority of peers are the kind who were top of the high school, have high scores, love to learn and have very high work ethic/discipline with studies it can be hard to compete against them. When the grading curves are taken into account (80% get Bs and As) it helps but it is not “easy” for most to be above average and get a 3.8+ in that setting. [/quote]

Precisely which is why it is a bit of a risk choosing this path. It will pay off but it won’t be the easiest route. [/quote]

Agree the student needs to understand the undergrad options, investigate each as much as possible and accurately assess where they are likely to stack up once there.
Two real examples:
3.85 GPA school ranked around 70, flagship in the deep south, science major. Did not get in to UVA in state but did get into VT just did not choose it. With a 3.9 and department honors this student thought med school was in range until started prepping for mcat(premed advising recommends a year off to study!) cannot get above 492, does not fully grasp a lot of the material.  One year post graduation and is just starting to realize they are not cut out for it. Would they have been better off being weeded out at a harder school probably. They could have studied something that suits them better.

3.7, but upward trend (3.3 one semester early on), elite, told as a soph to spread out the sciences to help the GPA, knew would have a gap year to take the MCAT after biochem as a senior,  did the standard 6weeks prep summer after senior, got 517 first try. Thought it was easy. That score is around the undergrad school average. With the knowledge a gap would be needed they planned and secured NIH year of paid research after undergrad. They already had lots of research at the school. They got into multiple med schools on the list of best-100 hospitals and picked a research med, instate and cheaper for them. Sure they had to give up on chasing the top10 like their 3.9 elite peers did but they realized the instate one they got was probably the one they would have picked anyway because it saves them tons. 
TLDR pick premed undergrad according to the student need[/quote]
Sounds like both of these people had nothing to do other than study for the MCAT after graduation. What about someone who doesn’t want to take a gap year and takes MCAT during junior year, while also working, job shadowing, and researching? Are they viewed the same as people who have an entire year to devote solely to studying and polishing their med school application? [/quote]

Med schools prefer someone who takes a gap year.[/quote]

100% false.  35% of my kid’s ivy went to med school with no gap year. The list of schools is very impressive. There are similar top schools on the list with one gap year. For the list with 2or more gap years the med schools are notably less selective. They tell the students gap years are needed for some and chosen for others, Med schools do not have a preference. This ivy does extremely well with over 85% of applicants getting into at least one MD program, 96% if they have above a 3.80.  For some students, their application is better with a gap, even for highly selective: ie they got a prestigious fellowship to study abroad for a year in public health after undergrad, but already had top grades Mcat and research/clinical, all the rest. the fellowship ads positively to the resume for a highly selective med school and could help but is not preferred over someone who had a similarly prestigious opportunity that they were able to do during the 4 yrs undergraduate. An extra year of regular research or clinical work if they already had plenty would benefit because it would not anything extra that the applicant did not have[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics