2010-2011 Med school applicants and their parents

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1241

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<p>You know, I don’t know that this is the subtext they’re worried about. I’m sure nobody’s worried about their assertions of personhood. I think the subtext in these situations is typically directed at the parents themselves, actually.</p>

<p>It’s hard for me to understand just how anxious parents can be about … well, parenting. I’ve seen a few parents (like curm) talk about it a little bit online (and he’s already got a beautiful, brilliant daughter). My parents’ bookshelves are stocked with hundreds – maybe thousands – of dollars’ worth of books about parenting. As my extended family has gotten older, family gossip has shifted from “Who is he dating?” to “When are they having kids?” to by far the most intense topic of all: “Are you sure you should be raising your kids that way?” It seems that everybody has an opinion, everybody has a theory, and everybody is terribly anxious about the process.</p>

<p>I think it’s in that vein that your uncles and aunts are fretting. (Of course, some people cover up “fretting” with lashing out, or condescension, or what-have-you.)</p>

<p>Sure, some of it is that they feel a direct competition between you and your cousins – maybe not “more of a person,” but maybe you feel you’re smarter, more important, or more valuable.</p>

<p>But I think mostly they’re feeling a lack of validation on their own behalf. “Did my brother raise his kids better than I raised mine?” I know my Dad’s had some of that – when I was little, I was a terror, and my uncles and aunts all chimed in with advice which my poor mother had to do her best to ignore. Now, twenty-three years later, there’s a little bit of vindication involved – and it can be terribly divisive. Whether I do well or poorly, somebody gets to say “I told you so.”</p>

<p>In the game of life, many people measure their own achievements through their children. If you raised them well, then it means you’ve done a good job at the most important enterprise you’ll ever face. So it’s only natural to expect a little bit of folks trying to adjust the measuring sticks while they compare, needle, condescend, and bristle. They’re trying to evaluate their own self-worth, how good a job they’ve done – to measure whether, in the end, they were good parents or not.</p>

1242

<p>*But I think mostly they’re feeling a lack of validation on their own behalf. “Did my brother raise his kids better than I raised mine?” *</p>

<p>Oh yes…it’s a lot of this! </p>

<p>Siblings often seem to worry that another sibling’s children are being raised better, are smarter, are more athletic, are more talented, etc.</p>

<p>I think sometimes it can be worse amongst brothers.</p>

1243

<p>sorry --but what does DS mean?</p>

1244

<p>Mike–nice perspective, and by now I’ve come to expect that from you. Guess it’s all just part of growing up and being part of a big family. I usually just try to spin it whatever way makes all of us come out in the best light–no sense in harboring mean feelings or grudges or whatever. All in all, I don’t think it’s a horribly big deal, at least right now. Then again, I’m the eldest of 4 in my family, and the eldest in my generation too, so we haven’t hit the marriage/kids thing yet. I’m sure it will intensify as time goes on, but hey…maybe it’s fun? Or something like that.</p>

<p>I’ve always taken DS to mean dear son, and DD to mean dear daughter. DS2 would be the second (dear) son. No idea if that’s correct though!</p>

1245

<p>Yes…DS2 means second son…sometimes people will write DS21…meaning their 21 year old son.</p>

<p>Some people leave off the first D.</p>

1246

<p>And here I always thought it meant their twenty-first son. Well, that’s helpful.</p>

1247

<p>BDM, I just want to say I enjoy reading your post #1241 very much. Only a person who has been put through this and then outgrows from this experience could write an essay like this.</p>

<p>Guess your parents were much “worse” (or much “better,” depend on how you look at it) than me when comparing the amount of efforts they have put into it (e.g., the number of books related to child raising. I may have had only 10-20 books.) Hey…it is better to be a terror when very young than when much older :slight_smile: The principal at DS’s middle school once said the best time would be before high school. Sometimes I actually worry that DS had not had much experiences in making mistakes (esp. some bigger ones) and recovered from it before he headed to college and need to live all by himself. His life before college had been too “uneventful”, and it might not be good for him (but easier for us as lucky parents.)</p>

1248

<p>And here I always thought it meant their twenty-first son. Well, that’s helpful</p>

<p>LOL…well, it could be the Duggars posting. ;)</p>

1249

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<p>Curm , you are bad! I am proudly wearing my UWSM hoodie ;)</p>

1250

<p>K:</p>

<p>I think all parents wonder how they are doing at the job. There is no definitive guidebook to parenting, there are books you can buy about teething, but teen books usually come too late. What you sow with your toddlers, you reap with your teens.</p>

<p>If I am easier or harder on my kids, am I going to have a disaster or is the other person. Most parents want to do a great job, yet don’t really want a lot of advice! And most of us tend to feel a bit defensive regarding past actions that we cannot change.</p>

<p>In the same way I am very cognizant that I hit a home run with D2 & D3 college app cycles, I know I could have done vastly better for D1, had I known at the beginning when I knew at the end :wink: I feel the same way about some teen angst things, I could have done better with what I learned over time. I am incredibly proud of the accomplishments of my kids, but mostly because I hope it is what fulfills them and makes them happy, but I no longer live where that mad competition exists!</p>

<p>Let your Dad enjoy the moment! It will likely be brief, unless he really is out of line.</p>

<p>There are very few people in ones life who both understand the significance of the accomplishment AND are not jealous. That is why I called Curm when DD got the news! People who see you as the smart girl expect the achievement and are not able to understand the excitement. People who are also applying may very well be rivals.</p>

<p>We have a cousin who is a freshman who says med school is her goal, lucky for her, she is in TX. DD is doing all she can to offer input and assistance along the way and to ensure there are no rivalrous feelings. We attempt to engender the feeling that we want all our family to be successful, who wants to be the best of the worst! But you really have to get to that place over time.</p>

<p>As to vindication, I would love to gloat to those numbers based adcoms who did not even want to interview DD about her top of the class performance, just to point out how limiting MCAT is as to potential. It should be a tool not the be all, end all!</p>

1251

<p>We are enjoying the moment (including D.) and brag about it all the time and nothing negative so far. D. has not decided yet on school. </p>

<p>Take it easy, do not dig too deep, just spread your wings and fly high, you deserve it, forget about others. Who wants it really bad, will get it one way or another, if not this year, then sometime later. You got it now, celebrate, be happy and proud, relax, hard times are ahead.</p>

1252

<p>OK. You should all know by now how much I absolutely loathe the psycho land of SDN.</p>

<p>But tonight, tonight I was actually so bored that I stumbled on over there. And what to my wondering eyes did appear…but perhaps the loveliest thread I’ve read in a long time. So great, in fact, that I just had to share it with the CC folks:</p>

<p>[when</a> you found out you got in, how did you react?](<a href=“when you found out you got in, how did you react ? | Student Doctor Network”>when you found out you got in, how did you react ? | Student Doctor Network)</p>

<p>Some really great stories! Wonderful to see the hard work pay off. Maybe they’re humans over there after all. PS: My contribution to that thread’s on the very last page, under my SDN alias. The thread’s a long one (goes back to '03!), but fun to read!</p>

1253

<p>Thanks for your post. It is an interesting read. I could easily tell which one is your post.</p>

<p>DS called me at my work when he got in. Although he told me he had got in a calmly manner, he must be very excited because he called me just a minute or two after he got the call from the dean of the medical school. And he knows I care very much even though I keep telling him it is perfectly OK if he does not get in.</p>

<p>I highly doubt he would go out to celebrate with his friends that evening.</p>

<p>Both he and we did not know he should send in some form and deposit to hold the spot. He found out from his friend who got into another school (maybe uva?) and he told him he needs to do that likely a week later.</p>

<p>DS would the the first in his family who got into a medical school. He does not have a large extended family though.</p>

1254

<p>Happy New Year, everybody!!!</p>

1255

<p>Happy 2011, CC crowd.</p>

<p>I had an interesting convo with my friend (also applying this cycle–has been successful also) and our advisor this afternoon…thought you guys might like to weigh in on it.</p>

<p>A Dean of Admissions at a school where my buddy interviewed (I wanna say USC or UCLA, not quite sure) offhandedly mentioned one of the other schools where he interviewed–without him bringing it up first. He asked her how she knew, and she told him that the schools have access to a list of where applicants have been offered interviews through AMCAS–much the same way they have access to a list of where applicants have been accepted through AMCAS in May (hence the May 15 deadline for deciding). He says she acted like it was common knowledge, and he was initially surprised but now isn’t after thinking about it.</p>

<p>If it weren’t this particular friend (who happens to be a very strong applicant himself–35/4.0, Goldwater fellow, very impressive extracurriculars and recommendations, a nice collection of MSTP and MD acceptances already), at a particularly strong school (USC or UCLA), with a particularly reliable source (the Dean of Admissions) who was quoting the AMCAS…I would have written it off as some flip comment and not given it another thought.</p>

<p>He mentioned this in reference to me talking about how few interviews I’ve had, and how I noticed that many of the kiddos interviewing with me at Duke had very few (<5) but very impressive (all top 20s, plus their state schools–similar to my situation) interviews lined up. Since Duke was the end of the line for many of us (now med school interview veterans), we spent our free time talking about The Process, and many of us were perplexed at how sparse our response had been (how cocky of us to think such things! Haha!).</p>

<p>“Seems like a natural explanation, don’t you think? Mid-tier programs see you’ve been invited to a few top 20s, take a closer look at your application, and then decide not to bother wasting their time and energy on interviewing you because you’ll likely attend one of those top 20s anyway–thus, high quality applicants with relatively few but very impressive interviews.” my buddy concluded. Advisor agreed.</p>

<p>I must say, it jives with what’s happened for me and some of the kids I met along the way. Looking back, I noticed this at Northwestern and, to a lesser degree, at Mayo…and now Duke too! Seems like a plausible (albeit a little slimy) explanation to me. Guess it’s all just part of the game.</p>

<p>Any similar experiences? Thoughts?</p>

1256

<p>DS appears to have many interviews but not many acceptances - for an unknown reason (one interpretation is many schools think he is really not a strong applicant?!) I think only one school (out of maybe 13 to 15 schools — Geez…I even do not know exactly which school he applied to anymore, after he has continuously stopped applying to so many schools) did not give him an interview invite. It appears that, for many of the schools which have interviewed him, he may need to write a LOI (letter of intent, not just letter of interest) before he could possibly get an acceptance.</p>

<p>DS was “immuned” (became numb about this) a long time ago (even before the application cycle started), when he heard that a California kid could get into a single school in the end. So, he thinks this is typical for most applicants – except for an applicant who can walk on the water.</p>

<p>Several schools even explicitly told ALL interviewees that they should give the school such a letter (LOI). And most applicants seem to have known about this. Is this true?</p>

<p>I heard (forgot from where) a medical school would know exactly which schools an applicant has been accepted/wait-listed after a certain day (e.g., March 15?) as long as this school has accepted this applicant. The school then uses this info to decide whether it should sweeten the deal (i.e., FA) to recruit a particular student. But this is just a rumor.</p>

1257

<p>It’s a surprising piece of information for me, too, Kristen. But we’ve known for a long time that schools did this on a “predictive” basis. That is, schools think: “Geez. This kid has a 42 MCAT. What’s he doing applying here? Don’t bother with an interview.”</p>

<p>The fact that they’re doing this based on actual information rather than best-guesses is a little bit of a surprise, but I don’t think it’s a “fundamental” surprise about how the process works.</p>

1258

<p>Nice point, BDM. It was a little unsettling to learn…but after thinking about it more, it seems like there may be some formalized “process” behind the predictions you mentioned. Guess they have to make decisions somehow, and it doesn’t bother me one bit that I know very little about what goes on behind those closed committee doors. I imagine it’s quite frightening ;)</p>

<p>mcat2, I know nothing about letters of intent, and nothing like that has been mentioned at the 3 schools where I interviewed (and am waiting to hear from). Actually, the opposite has been the case at each of them–that the schools don’t want to hear anything else from you (“Your application is now closed.”) after your interview, unless it’s something academic (like you finished the biochem class fall semester to meet the biochem prereq).</p>

1259

<p>Letters of intent (a promise to attend if admitted) do make a difference. They help medical schools simplify their administration, reduce their admissions rates, and increase their yield. They especially matter in the waitlist game, when every admission costs you ten days before you can give that offer to somebody else – who might in the meanwhile be taking his spot off of another waitlist!</p>

<p>Obviously, you can only write such a letter to one school.</p>

<p>Letters of interest are essentially used to (1) reassure a school your top choice hasn’t admitted you yet, and (2) remind them that you exist. Those should be written liberally – just short of being a nuisance.</p>

1260

<p>Mike–I’m holding an acceptance to a school I’d attend if I don’t pick up another one between now and March. That said, I’d like to do everything I can to maximize my chances of picking up another acceptance. I’m open to the idea of something like a letter of intent to Mayo and Duke (Northwestern’s “dead to me” for a laundry list of reasons, and yes I do feel like a diva for saying that) but don’t know where to start. Care to help?</p>