<p>^ I learned from somebody on SDN recently that Case Western is a “friendly” medical school. But it does not elaborate what it means. Is it friendly because of its grading system being similar to U. of Chicago or Yale?</p>
<p>Also, lollybo (who is from wustl undergraduate) seems to indicate that the second year at wustl medical school is “scary” because its grading is pass/fail in that year. I thought a pass/fail grading system is at least better than the traditional A/B/C/D/F grading system. Why is it still scary if the grading system is pass/fail? Is it because the failure rate is particularly high? (I know the caliber of students there is extremely high.)</p>
<p>Edit: Oops, my mistake. lollybo said it is no pass/fail at wustl medical school.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>BTW, somehow I feel that wustl medical school is like cal tech (esp., its undergraduate), except that it is in medicine rather than in science/engineering. Both try to push their students to their limit and the soft/subjective factors are not over-emphasized like ucsf/Harvard/mayo. (I could be wrong though.) – I did not claim here the soft factor is not important. It IS very important.</p>
<p>I think what LB meant was that it wasn’t a “true” pass/fail curriculum. They use Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail.</p>
<p>It’s not particularly important, since truthfully nobody cares about MS2 grades anyway. But it certainly is true that the student body is very bright.</p>
<p>It is interesting to learn that “nobody cares about MS2 grades anyway.”</p>
<p>Many premeds would be overjoyed if they can say that nobody cares about their sophomore grades (Do most premeds take that dreadful orgo class in sophomore year?) I guess it is a different game.</p>
<p>It has to do with the fact that MS3 year is so, so different from MS2 – and so much closer to what you actually do in residency.</p>
<p>It’s hard to come up with a good analogy. You could imagine a world in which undergraduate economics majors spent their first two years learning finance but their second two years actually interning in investment banks. When the time came for actual hiring at investment banks, you can imagine that the banks would almost entirely disregard the grades from the first two years.</p>
<p>It makes sense. I heard that for those who are inspired to do i-banking/consulting, the intern is very very important. Good grades help, but it is a very, very small part of the qualification. The summer intern may be more important than his class work during semesters, if his school is not in a city where intern opportunities are available during school in session.</p>
<p>DS happens to know a person who is into laws. In addition to a high LSAT score, he needs to build up some leadership credential. He spent so much time on that club (often needs to cut classes for more than a week) and his grades may not be that optimal (likely many Bs). But he still got into HLS because of his LSAT score and his leadership quality. The world in that academic/professional career is also quite different.</p>
<p>“Students are invariably obsessed with programs like Georgetown and Boston University – excellent programs, sure, but their popularity is vastly out of proportion to their peer schools. I applied back in 2005, and at the time a student who could open his mind up even a little bit – enough to apply to Case Western, or Baylor, or Emory – was at a huge advantage in the admissions process.”</p>
<p>Location is extremely important to my D. and the biggest reason why she has applied to Case Western among others close by, Baylor, Emory are just too far. She does not care about Paris, and NYC where she has been numerous times for a week at a time is not impressive for her at all, besides some Broadway musicals that come to our home town anyway. She has been to Europe, New Zealand on several weeks long trips, and it is OK, nothing to be overly impressed about. She loves to be at home, and although she did not apply to local Med. School because of her unique situation, her criteria #1 is to be no further than about 4.5 hours away. All schools that she has applied are within this range and most of her pre-meds friends are the same. I have never tried to change her mind in anything, whatever she wants seems to be working, why interfere?</p>
<p>And I cannot stress strongly enough how shortsighted and judgmental this sounds. As individuals, we may all have different motivators for growth and may thrive in different environments. Exploring different locations (and engaging in new experiences) definitely opens our minds. New experiences will also make us wiser. For that reason, someone’s decision to explore Paris and London and New York may have little to do with thinking “cool and worldly” and more with the experiences that those places offer.</p>
<p>Attending medical school is challenging enough for someone to be looking for further “growth” by seeking “locations about which you have negative preconceptions” as a “powerful motivator”. Attending medical school is a tough experiment already. Students take into consideration financial resources and less debt at the time of their decision and students should also take into consideration environments in which they will thrive to reduce their stress levels.</p>
<p>Because especially in medical school, the university culture almost entirely dominates the student’s life, it is “paramount” to have an environment that one enjoys. Having such support and relief, minimize the numbers of unhappy medical students that end up at their local school health or support counseling office.</p>
<p>Attending medical school will be a very important part of a student’s life. Some will make it all of what their lives will be about. Others will continue to have “a life”. Personally, I worked very hard during high school so that I could have some choices of undergraduate colleges. My hard work paid off and I was privileged enough to turn down places like Duke (a couple of summers in Durham during high school programs were enough) and chose to attend another great school, in a favorite location. It contributed to my “growth” and now it has allowed me to be prepared for my med school application cycle. I am considering places where I could see myself for four years, doing both - well academically and keeping my sanity. I want to be a doctor really bad, but if given a choice I will study where I know I will be at my best.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should all “open our minds up” a little bit. And if I get into medical school, it will be on my own merits, application and little bit of luck and not on “exploiting other’s people shortsightedness and shallow priorities”.</p>
<p>^ Wow…relax…chill …the process must really be stressing you out to attack BDM like that…</p>
<p>BDM is a highly valued contributor here who has more than “walked the walk” and always speaks with great insight and empathy. </p>
<p>You can only hope to achieve the level of success that he has. He is busier than most of us yet he still returns to offer insight AND opinion…take it for what its worth…and again…put your ego aside and relax.</p>
<p>Everybody’s situation is different. One hat cannot fit everybody. People are looking to be as comfi as they could to diminish stresses of Med. School. But for some, more stress might be exciting, again everybody is looking for the best fit, if they have a choice. Yes, relax, take care about your own desires, do not listen too much to others with different backgrounds. This thinking has helped me thru my life, others might be wearing different shoes, which is OK as long as they do not put them on somebody else.</p>
<p>eadad, I have not questioned the value of BDM’s contributions and I was certainly not attacking him at all. I was simply replying to his post, (which in case you missed it, his was about my post). I just read it over and I do not know where you are coming from. In any case, I am totally relaxed and chilled here, and as far as egos go…well, let’s just learn to agree to disagree. :)</p>
<p>Well, I think BDM’s post rings true to the far majority of pre-meds. Most people cannot be too picky about location. For most of us, we will want to try to cast a wide net and have a couple of schools that finally admit us. Then, we can try to narrow it down based on location, cost, curriculum, etc. </p>
<p>I think location is very important, but you might be overestimating the amount of free time med students have It is very important to use those free hours you have to do something you enjoy, but it is a few hours in the week at most. To me, the people in a medical school make or break the environment, not the external location.</p>
<p>I agree, however, that St. Louis has crappy weather. Good thing I rarely go outside during the summer!</p>
<p>I’m with eadad on this one–in my opinion, the tone of MO’s reply comes off as defensive (see: first sentence first paragraph, first sentence second paragraph, last sentence of post), even if it might not have been intended to, and it makes sense to interpret defensive replies as attacks on the author. The snide remark about being able to turn down Duke was pretty rude/uncalled for too, and I can’t think it was unintentional because MO later goes on to carefully disguise the name of other schools–why name Duke unless it was intended?</p>
<p>But who cares, really–a sort of argument on a thread of a forum shouldn’t be grounds for making people annoyed or peeved. Isn’t the whole point of this thread to offer support? Maybe it would be best to chalk it up to the stress of applying and let all the hype die down.</p>
<p>To intentionally change the subject, does anyone know how receiving secondaries works? I submitted my AMCAS about a week and a half ago and I just got word today that my transcripts are finally in. Do I need to wait to be verified to receive secondaries? Will the schools email me, or are their secondaries generically available on their websites? I’ve given it some cursory effort and so far have come up empty handed!</p>
<p>PS: Another St Louis native here–I always thought we were being wimps by complaining about the nasty summer weather, but it seems like we might be justified after all! Gotta love 92 degrees with 85% humidity. Bonus points if you work outside!</p>
<p>And you might be underestimating the amount of time med students have. </p>
<p>As part of a med school project, I kept careful totals of the EXACT # of minutes I studied each day for a period of around 4 months. As it turned out, I only studied an average of 3 hours per day on the weekdays and around 5 hours/day on the weekends. And this was the second semester of my M2 year when I was preparing for boards at the same time. In my first year, I studied significantly less. </p>
<p>The answer, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. One must balance both location vs. strength of program. However, for stronger applicants, which I suspect many of us are, one can be a little more daring with location and apply to schools in Manhattan or Boston or Chicago or DC.</p>
<p>kirstin, I heard a high percentage of schools do not screen for secondaries. The prompt for the secondaries for many schools can be found at SDN. I think it is some ms1 student at wustl – maybe with the screen name ksmi, who created these threads this year. Last year, it was shemarty. (How come the super helpers on SDN are female MS students, but here are male ones? I guess male medical students are kinder to these parents, while the female medical school students are kinder to their peers. A good theory? :))</p>
<p>I think DS may have received SOME emails requesting him to write secondaries. I do not know how many and when he received them. I do not know how many he will finish by when. We know we should not be nagging parents when the child is already an adult. Well, we did nag him for completing at least 3 - 5 secondaries not too late.</p>
<p>Well, the actual med student wins here. I concede. But by 3 hours per day of studying, does that include doing assigned work or merely reading/reviewing?</p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean by assigned work. I had very little assigned work in medical school. Much like college, most of the “grading” in medical school takes place on tests and practicals.</p>
<p>In my experience at least, college has a good amount of assigned work (depending on classes, obviously). But for many of my classes I keep busy with graded problem sets, lab writeups, papers, and not to mention my daily practice problems in Chinese. I’d say this category of “assigned work” takes up more time than book reading, reviewing, and learning, which I consider “studying.”</p>
<p>lollybo, my sister’s experience has been the same as norcalguy’s. Her first year was the most intense. She was getting used to the pace of her lectures, the note service, the new professors, and the type of exams. But even then, it was not 24-7. Her second year was much better and she tells me she averaged about 3-4 hours per day of independent study, (outside the classrooms and labs). She continued with her guitar lessons and other outside interests. </p>
<p>Her grades came directly from tests. No “homework” assignments to submit. She did not have any “formal tests” in the clinical years and her performance was evaluated during rounds, patient presentations, and a couple of clinical projects.</p>
<p>I submitted my AMCAS on 6/8 and I was verified 6/14. AMCAS sent the info to the schools on 6/25, but I know of a few people that got secondaries from some schools without being verified anyway. Most schools have their secondaries already up, however, some will require a specific ID that they will send you by email allowing you to establish an account. Others will allow you to create the account by using your AMCAS ID number and birthdate instead, and essentially you do not require an invitation (ex- Columbia). </p>
<p>Make sure you check your spam folder. I had an invite for a secondary sitting there for about a week before I found out (not kosher at all). </p>
<p>Also, even though I was verified that early on and have now finished almost all my secondaries, I am not complete anywhere yet. My school begins sending the Committee Letter later this week and the med schools say they won’t look at my application until all the information is in. I am hoping to begin hearing some news shortly after that.</p>
(Do most premeds take that dreadful orgo class in sophomore year?) I guess it is a different game.</p>