Confessions of a Med School App Reader

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
41

Given that medical schools run almost exclusively in the red, the only way to make a med school profitable would be to severely cut spending on resources for students. I would definitely choose a brand new not for profit medical school over a few years old for-profit school - there’s a clear difference in the mission.

Key word there: graduates. If you go with the percentage of people who matriculate you’re in the 25-33% range who end up as MDs in the USA.

Good (as in middle of the road) ECs = sustained community service, research leading to a poster, sustained interaction with the sick/disabled (this can be paid or volunteer), leadership in a campus-based org, sustained commitment to pretty much anything.

Frankly, I think the bigger issue is people who think their essays and LORs are top tier when they really aren’t. I can think of one application I read that checked off every box, including LORs, and yet the essays were written in such a way that I was forced to put them as a hold because I just came away with such a dislike of the person. The 2nd reader agreed and also marked them as hold. More common is the essay that demonstrates naivete or a fundamental misunderstanding of what a physician’s career actually entails. Another app I can think of was doing ok until I got to the LORs. The last letter was genuinely negative which was the final nail in the coffin but a couple letters I read before that didn’t have anything negative but were skillfully written in a way that made me wonder if it was actually a positive LOR or not. I think I would have been very torn as to whether I was reading between the lines properly or not if it hadn’t been for that final letter.

42

Regarding the Carribean med schools, I would think that the entering class of those schools is of lower quality to begin with, thus the high attrition rate. It happens in many US undergraduate Colleges as well, many of those are easy to get in but difficult to graduate. That is because while the entering class is of lower quality, the professors are still requiring high standards in performance, therefore the graduation rate is low. There is nothing to worry about it, all I can say is that those students are fully aware what they are getting into and their money is at risk.

43

As the parent of a high school Jr. who has wanted medicine for as long as I can remember, I have to say this is a truly terrifying thread. I want to ask a question that will elicit some comforting advice, but I can’t think of anything. Maybe I should try to steer my daughter into something safer…like acting.

44

There are a lot of ways to be involved with medicine that don’t require med school. College is a good time to explore all the options.

My relatively uninformed suggestion - NY has historically been a hard state for med school acceptances, second only to CA. If she’s 100% set on med school, and willing to play the long game, she might consider attending college in a state that’s known for being easier, and establishing as many ties to the state as possible. Texas, Florida, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Kentucky are generally on the list of “good” states.

45

@gallentjill

I’m the mother of one young doctor and another about-to-be young doctor. (D2 will graduate from med school in 5 weeks…)

Getting into med school is a real gauntlet. Approx. 75% of freshmen premeds end up never applying to med school, Of those persist and apply, 60% each year end up with no acceptances. In some ways, acting may be a safer career choice. :wink:

The road to med school is a very, very long slog with many pitfalls along the way. And at the end, one can be a perfectly good candidate for med school and still end up shut out just because there are so many other well qualified applicants and not enough seats for them all.

Because of this, every pre-med needs to have a Plan B.

Encourage your D to keep an open mind and to educate herself about other healthcare careers. There are dozens of healthcare careers she has never even heard of out in the world. Medicine today is really a team sport with many different team members each of whom has important role to play.

46

Yeah. I have occasionally floated the idea of other careers but she is adamant and has been for years. Everything she does just keeps pointing in that direction. She volunteers at a hospital, gives up her vacations to work with a professor in the city doing medical research. I haven’t pushed her to do any of these things. Its all self motivated. I keep wondering if something will dull her enthusiasm but nothing does. I’m not really worried about her changing her mind while in college. If that happens naturally, fine. She will find something else. My nightmare is that she does everything right, gets good grades and a good MCAT and still gets shut out.

I have been trying to slowly introduce her to the idea of osteopathic school. In my mind, its simply an alternate path to practicing the career she wants. I hope that by the time she applies, she won’t see it as somehow “lesser.” If she really wants to be a physician, the letters after her name won’t matter. Interestingly, my other D just had surgery and all the doctors and the surgeon who took care of her were DOs. They were great and it was a nice example.

@allyphoe why do you say that NY is hard? Is that just for public med schools or will she have a problem with the privates as well? My understanding is that even if she goes to school in another state, she is considered a NY resident unless I move.

47

You just need to show her the reality, but not be against it. The reality is, if she doesn’t get great grades in Math and Science in college and a 3.5+ GPA all around, she probably won’t make it. If she has strong high school grades and is a good test taker, then the strong GPA is more likely.

48

Total not true. NY has 4 state med schools where at least 2-3 (Upstate, Buffalo, Downstate) give in-state preference for NY residents.

On the other hand, CA is definitely the worst. Lots of CA kids attending med schools in NY (mostly the private ones… Albany, NYMC…), they do go back to CA for residency (if they match there successfully).

49

“why do you say that NY is hard?”

I lurk on SDN, and that’s the impression I’ve picked up from there.

Different schools have different rules for undergrads establishing residency, and four years of undergrad in-state gives you credible ties, particularly if you have gap year plans in that state.

50

Some students are aware. A lot of students aren’t or think they will be in the small percentage who make it.

51

CA schools have a much stronger in state bias than NY schools and the state schools are higher quality and the sheer number of applicants is so much larger. That’s why CA is worse but NY’s in state bias is relatively small. Texas for example mandates 95% of the class be Texas residents at minimum.

52

@gallentjill Don’t be alarmed. Half glass full or empty, depends on the perspective. I see 3 trump cards for your D.

  1. Self motivated and clear (whether she understands fully or not at this age) that she wants medicine as a career.
    2 She has done the jump start already by doing volunteer work and doing research in the relevant area
  2. Have a parent who is doing the spade work and guiding in the right direction and open for any change in plans or open for DO etc

You have not mentioned what grade she has so far in HS. If she is 3.85+ (out of 4) UW GPA and assume she gets decent test score (ACT 33-34+ SAT 1500) she has a good chance to get in to BS/MD with good Essay, LOR, Interview.
Check those threads and/or post in those threads (or PM me) if have any questions specific to BS/MD programs.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/multiple-degree-programs/1993091-official-thread-for-bsmd-applicants-2018.html#latest

53

@gallentjill

Be realistic and supportive of your D’s aspirations. Encourage her to explore other careers, but don’t push.

Don’t stress over what she does during high school–except perhaps to encourage her to take the most challenging science classes offered at her school.

There’s plenty of time for her to make up her own mind and choose her own path. There is no one “right” way to get to med school. The path is as individual as the person.

As a parent, I understand your angst about the potential for failure and disappointment your D faces. I understand the desire to help buffer her from those, but its our job as parents to let go and allow our children make their own choices & mistakes, to face their own failures & successes and grow from them.

Yes, if your D pursues med school as end goal there is a good chance she will be unsuccessful. It’s a risk, but it’s one she has to accept if she wants to pursue this path. (TBH, I discouraged both my Ds from applying to med school. Not because of the risk of failure, but because medicine is a tough career that exposes them to the very worst of humanity on a daily basis. I often think how much easier their lives would have been as an engineer or scientist…but this was their choice and I support them anyway I can.)


RE: osteopathic medicine. There are actually more applicants per available seat for DO programs than there are to MD programs. (And no, a rough meta-analysis shows that the applicant overlap with MD programs does not account for the greater number of DO applicants.)

So no guarantees there either.

RE: state of residence. One’s home state does confer some advantages/disadvantages when it comes to applying to med school. All states produce far more applicants than in-state med schools can accommodate, but some states are worse than others.

https://www.aamc.org/download/321460/data/factstablea3.pdf
https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/factstablea4.pdf
https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstablea5.pdf

CA is a bad place to live (in term of # of students matriculating OOS vs in-state), but so are MD, MA, CO, CT and NJ. (Not to mention those states without any in-state med school: ME, DE, MT, ID, WY, AK)

NY actually falls in the moderate group (only 17% of student matriculate OOS).

54

@WayOutWestMom I thought med schools with big instate bias’ (like CT) were easier for in state students to get into. Is it because some of these med schools are so small?

55

UConn is a small school that enrolls only 100 student per year.

But rest really aren’t small. UMD enrolls 168 students. UMass enrolls 162. NJMS enrolls 178 students and RWJ enrolls 134. (total 312) CU enrolls 184.

Some states just produce a lot of med school applicants. (Probably a reflection of the state’s demographics.)

56

Making a livable career out of performing arts may be even more elite-or-bust than medicine.

57

I won’t trade acting for med school with any thing. If you are intelligent and work hard, you will succeed in becoming a physician. With a physician license you can make a good living. But acting is a crap shoot, the chances of being busted is very high. If you visit Los Angeles, you will find tons of actors are waiting tables in hope one day become famous. Hollywood could eat actors alive and have been.

58

Or just population size, relative to the number of spaces in that state’s public medical schools.

59

I’m assuming the acting comment was a joke guys

60

I know the acting comment was a joke, but the actress daughter of friend has so far out-earned both my doctor daughters. (Plus the actress got her terminal professional degree–a MFA from Yale–for free…)