<p>I was just wondering how much influence people have over med school admissions. A former Medical Departmental director at Feinberg is a family friend. He will gladly write me a Rec for med school because I actually did a bunch of research at his lab. My name was second author on 3 research papers at his lab.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
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<p>The only people with true influence over the process are those on the admissions committee.</p>
<p>At Feinberg it might give you an edge, as much because of his research connections as well as his former adcom connections. I would definitely get the letter. A LOR will never be the difference between an acceptance and a rejection, so you’l still have to have a good package to sell.</p>
<p>I’m not clear what his position was. Medical department director of what? Admissions? A specialty at the hospital?</p>
<p>Just get his recommendation.</p>
<p>A similar question as OP’s - Can having connections at a Med School help in getting a residency spot at the same school, especially if the applicant’s parent works at the same institution?</p>
<p>Yes, having connections in anything tends to make things go smoother. Once again though, you still have to have a package worth selling, people are just more likely to trust product that has the stamp of approval from someone familiar.
As far as parents, I don’t know if I would personally want to do residency where my family worked, but I suppose that it isn’t crazy to think that in some situations it could have an affect.</p>
<p>My parents dont work at Feinberg. They own a “mom & pop” shop in Evanston suburbs. </p>
<p>He is the Chief Director of Medicine at Feinberg.</p>
<p>Also, how important are Research for Med school applications? I’m hoping to put my Co-authors to good use.</p>
<p>Well for schools like Northwestern its essentially a req. Schools vary, buy an MSAR and take a look at what percentage of students did research. The higher it is, the more likely it is valuable. That being said, research will pretty much be a good EC for any school, though an absence of it might not be damaging for less research focused medical schools.</p>
<p>well isnt the whole point of medical school rankings the research? Hopkins has a beast Med school because they got MD/ PhDs cranking out drugs and new techniques. Ditto goes to Harvard, Penn, UCSF, U of C Pritzker.</p>
<p>Less research focused med school get you residencies in… internal medicine and… enviromental medicine… and nursing.</p>
<p>I know people who got where they wanted to be because of connections. They definately would not be there otherwise. One of them actually in not there anymore, after failing 2 times. He took somebody’s spot becuase he was connected. Just have to be aware and be at the top of next bunch.</p>
<p>will the retired Feinberg Med director significantly influence my chances at say… HPME or other medical schools such as that of Duke, Wustl, Yale, UCSF and like UCLA?</p>
<p>Less research focused med school get you residencies in… internal medicine and… enviromental medicine… and nursing. </p>
<p>I feel that you might be a tad ignorant about residency placement if you feel this way. No offense intended.</p>
<p>A retired Feinberg Med director LOR isn’t necessarily going to affect your chances significantly at Feinberg, let alone at other schools. The answer is that it COULD affect your chances at any school, but it is most likely (but not necessarily likely), to affect your chances at Feinberg. I had the former executive provost of Columbia write me a letter, and it wasn’t even brought up at my interview there. He was also good friends with the president of Johns Hopkins Med, but the letter didn’t get me accepted. It’s just a letter, ultimately, and the evaluation of your character is much more important that the sig on the bottom in most cases.</p>
<p>But it got you the Interview?</p>
<p>A blindfolded shot is better than a blind shot.</p>
<p>I’d say the best shot for it to impress is with HPME, especially if your recommender says something in the letter along the lines of “As former medical director at Feinberg School of Medicine…”</p>
<p>The reason I say this is because you would be competing with a very small pool of applicants with HPME.</p>
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What on earth is this supposed to mean?</p>
<p>He is assuming I got an interview because of the LOR, which is not the case.</p>
<p>ok… back to the original question. How much influence will the LOR have? minimal? Or will it be like a good EC like a research paper?</p>
<p>Yeah, I sort of figured that out, although it’s confusingly written. But I still have no idea what that ridiculous metaphor is supposed to communicate.</p>
<p>forget the metaphor.</p>
<p>which is ridiculous :D</p>
<p>Anyways, a good LOR is a drop in the bucket. Medical schools look at the whole package, and good LORs are just another drop in the bucket. I think that not having good LORs probably hurts quite a bit, but how much more a great LOR helps instead of just a good one is difficult to gauge. My LORs did come up several times during the interview process.</p>
<p>That being explained, what I want you to get out of this is a well know author =/= a good LOR. A good LOR will have depth that indicates that the writer knows the student well, and will evaluate the student in the area of acquaintance (employer-employee, teacher-student, etc). A bad LOR will be along the line of “X came to class, got good grades, and asked intelligent questions.” Anyways, you are still in high school so I suggest that you continue your relationship with him (via research maybe) and request the letter in a few years when you are close to applying to medical school. A med school LOR would be pretty worthless at this point. Maybe have him write a college LOR.</p>