If JHU is such an amazing school for pre-meds...

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
41

<p>
[quote]
sakky, it does not matter, look at it more simply, multiply grad% immediately after 4 yrs w/ med school attendence% and that number is higher than any other school which provided data to us news. If that is the end result due to jhu's writing disapproving recs, probably all schools should adopt it soon, look at the benefit the recs are providing for all those other students, the greater majority.

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<p>Uh, well, I don't have USNews in front of me right now. And I suspect a lot of us don't. Since you seem to have access, perhaps you can do a few calculations for us and demonstrate to us that JHU really is higher than any other school. That's a quite strong claim to make, so if you want to convince me, then I'd like to see the calculation. </p>

<p>
[quote]
sakky, if the committee does not disapprove of anyone, how can it truly approve of anyone?...in order to judge someone as overly qualified, one must also judge someone as underqualified...although, it is a pity that those small minority of students who are underqualified will not receive rec letters or will receive bad recs, the greater good for the majority is accomplished through this sacrifice->the largest amnt of grads attending med school immediately following 4 yrs of undergrad (w/ exception for the schools that did not report their grads info)

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<p>
[quote]
because their chances are already so low that sending a bad rec or refusing a rec will most likely make no difference...but the benefits of sending bad recs and refusing recs is a greater benefit for the rest of the school and its grads.

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<p>Now, see, darkhope, this is where we fundamentally disagree. Fundamentally so. Sure, if you want to make gradations, you obviously need a 'lowest' gradation. But the difference is that you don't have to ACTIVELY ADVERTISE that you are placing certain people in the lowest gradation.</p>

<p>Let me give you an example. At MIT, all failing grades in your freshman year are not recorded on your external transcript. You might fail a bunch of classes, but evidence of this will only be available within MIT. MIT won't display this information to anyone (without a waiver from the student). Heck, you might fail ALL of your freshman classes, and your external transcript will show no evidence of this. The philosophy behind this is that MIT is trying to help the students who perform poorly. {Now, of course, one might argue that MIT should extend this to students in all years, and graduate students too, and I would agree, but hey, implementing it solely for freshman year is still better than nothing at all}. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that it's one thing to not think highly of somebody. It's quite another thing to advertise to outsiders that you don't think highly of somebody. Again, I repeat, if you can't say anything good, then you shouldn't say anything at all - just like how if MIT can't say anything good about the class performance of certain freshmen, then MIT rightly chooses to say nothing at all. By the same reasoning, a good, compassionate boss knows not to criticize his subordinates publicly - criticism should be handled in private behind closed doors. You don't go out of your way to make people look bad in front of others. That's rude. </p>

<p>I don't see what the issue is with just issuing the form letter. What's so bad about it? The top students will still get the same committee letter that strongly endorses their candidacy that they always got. But the difference is that the bad students will at least get a form letter. Who loses? The bad students aren't taking anything away from the top students. The top student might go to Harvard Medical or Johns Hopkins Medical, and the bad student is clearly not competitive for schools like that. So if that student wants to try to get into the University of South Alabama or East Tennessee State Medical School, why try to hinder his chances of doing that with a poor rec letter? What's the harm in his applying there? If South Alabama wants to reject him, that's their decision. But you don't try to embarrass him in front of the South Alabama adcom.</p>

42

<p>
[quote]
if you want to convince me

[/quote]

Actually I don't think the calculations will convince me, since it says nothing about their successes as a proportion.</p>

<p>Hopkins might have more kids going to medical school because more of them want to. Lots of Duke kids, Stanford kids, etc. could have gone to graduate school but accept offers from Bain and UBS instead. So Hopkins having more kids go to grad school is not in any way an indication that they're a better school for that purpose.</p>

<p>The only sensible metric would be a means of assessing what proportion of premeds -- including those who never bother applying -- at JHU are admitted to a medical school after SAT and HSGPA are controlled for. This is clearly an impossible statistic to find or generate.</p>

43

<p>
[quote]
Something that is getting wildly twisted here is the correlation between getting a good rec and having a good GPA. Getting a good rec does not simply presuppose a good GPA. Students with poorer GPAs get into med school from hopkins because of their total application.
Further, a lot of you arguing don't even go to Hopkins, so why do you care? At this point your pointing out what you assume to be gaffe in hopkins way of getting students into professional schools. So other than talking largely out of your butts, your just making hopkins look like a big, evil stress-creating monster, which it isn't. Talk to people who have gone through the process with less than stellar grades, and you'll see this whole discussion is moot.</p>

<p>check these: <a href="http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3612%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3612&lt;/a>
<a href="http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=1313%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=1313&lt;/a>
<a href="http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=922%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=922&lt;/a>
<a href="http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5555%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5555&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The fact is, regardless of your GPA, if you do what's required plus some research and shadowing, you'll get in somewhere.</p>

<p>Read the bottom of the last one. She used the undergrad committee to SUPPORT HER APPLICATION, despite a poor GPA.

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<p>Well, let me put it to you this way. It sure seems to me that some Hopkins students/alumni don't appreciate the process.</p>

<p>"For many undergrads, however, seeking guidance from Fishbein and Savage can be an intimidating, sometimes negative encounter. Junior premed Jamie Lee Palaganas summed up the impression that many freshman and sophomores get upon having their first meeting with the advisors: "You get the impression that they're going to use [a lot of] scare tactics to convince you not to go to med school. They're very honest, and if you're not ready for what they're going to say, it's going to be harsh.""</p>

<p>"Yet not all students are able to put a positive spin on their experience like Palaganas. Recent premed graduate Brett Gutterman felt that Fishbein and Savage discourage students who may actually have a chance of being admitted to medical school.</p>

<p>"I feel that they try to demean people who's grades are marginal in order to convince them not to go to medical school," he said. The result is, said Gutterman, that people who could get in marginally with a 3.2 do not even apply. "They think people won't get in, but I personally know people who've gotten in with a sub-3 GPA and sub-30 MCATs." "</p>

<p>"A student with a much lower GPA can still insist on having their application sent to the committee, yet Fishbein stressed this will most likely reflect badly in their recommendation"</p>

<p><a href="http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2003/03/21/Features/Premed.Office.Guides.Students.Through.Application.Process-2246962.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2003/03/21/Features/Premed.Office.Guides.Students.Through.Application.Process-2246962.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My question is simply - why does it necessarily have to 'reflect badly' on the recommendation? Again, I would repeat, if you can't say anything good about somebody, don't say anything at all. Why does the committee insist on talking badly about certain students? Just give them a form letter and be done with it - a letter that neither endorses nor denounces the student. If that student can then use that form letter to get into some 4th tier med-school, good for him.</p>

44

<p>
[quote]
Actually I don't think the calculations will convince me, since it says nothing about their successes as a proportion.

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<p>I suppose that's true. I take what I said back and will assume your stance then - that the calculation won't convince me then.</p>

45

<p>hi guys hehe lol
ok first sakky, I HAVE SCREAMED A million times why it is necessary to not provide GOOD recs to everyone...because it undermines the values of the recs...yessss...and a couple yrs from now i'll be one of those bitter individuals hehe =D
ok, first the calculations are true, but i'm too dizzy to input them all now, i believe us news r in libraries you can check one out...fine..too lazy but really don;t quite care...it's not my job to advertise for the school...i'm only trying to provide some information =(...anyhow...yes, bluedevil mike and sakky, i had already addressed that already regarding having the % thing. Look under what the two points i made when suggesting the high percentage. But it's basically covered when bluedevilmike said "Hopkins might have more kids going to medical school because more of them want to." Your argument was what my second point was referring to. Also last time i checked, i believed hopkins has the first semester covered also...
Also look at it more simply:
A) a school only provides good recs and generic recs
B) another school provides good recs and bad recs
if you are in the admission committee for a med school, wouldn;t the generic recs be almost as bad as the bad recs since you know the other school doesn;t give bad recs and give recs to everyone? But if you are only an ok student in school a, won;t your generic rec be undervalued since the lowest end applicant at your school is also receiving that generic rec? =(</p>

46

<p>If you're referring to your post #37, your point is non-responsive. I'm not saying that Hopkins is BAD because they have a lot of undergrads going to grad school; I'm just saying you can't use that high number as a point in their favor because you don't know how many of them wanted to go to grad school in the first place.</p>

<p>Unlike HS students applying for college, many college students do not WANT to go to graduate school. So a high GS% doesn't tell you much about how good that college is. It might tell you that this college is good enough to get its kids into graduate schools but not quite good enough to get them top-tier employment chances.</p>

47

<p>Extremely selective with the quotations, Sakky. Your representation doesn't convey the meaning of the article. How about </p>

<p>"You're not consigned to the scrap-heap if you don't get in the first time," said Fishbein, "and we will be here to support you the whole way, even after you graduate."</p>

<p>Further, Sakky, JHU does send the highest percentage of students to Graduate school. "83 percent of Johns Hopkins students go on to graduate school (about half immediately after graduation), the highest percentage of any school in the nation." From 2006. This is states on many of Hopkins' websites.</p>

<p>BDM, Hopkins places students at every large consulting firm and most large Ibanks as well as in many other good government and private sector areas. Much better than many schools. Look at the career center website.</p>

<p>Most of the students here do want to go to graduate school because they're curious people and great researchers.</p>

48

<p>bluedevilmike post 21, lol, you think too critically, enjoy and hf! duke owns hands down =D!
also because i'm not here to advertise any schools lol, i can flame jhu lol =D my own personal reasons on why i think jhu has so many students going to grad school is the mean pay after the 4 yrs experience is not as high as colleges of similar tier, one can argue this is because most of its strengths lies in liberal arts part of the college instead of offering majors like electrical engineering and etc. And that these liberal arts prepare students for grad school/prof school more than it does for students seeking immediate employment. I had no indications of saying hopkins is a better school, i severely doubt that...all schools are realitively the same. I was just indicating that the %s of grads x %s of attendance to med school immediately after graduation (4yrs) is higher than any other colleges of its tier which can indicate the two things i posted in post 21.</p>

49

<p>Oh. That does make more sense. I feel a little embarassed now.</p>

<p>But in any case:
[quote]
why everyone else was so idiotic to still go there

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</p>

<p>I think this goes back to the classic economic theorem of "optimism bias". I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but that's a classic sociological discussion.</p>

<p>Besides, it's more simply explained by a lack of information. I certainly had never heard of screening before this.</p>

<p>And Duke the school does own. :D Duke the basketball team... not so much lately.</p>

50

<p>no, duke's basketball owns...omG in my comp class i was doing a program on the NCAA thinging, and wow duke won championship 2 times in a straight role against odds...it really did hurt my california pride...after the two simulations i lost all pride in ucla</p>

51

<p>I just read post #43. What you don't seem to understand is, that 90+% of premeds go to medical school from Hopkins. The premed GPAs are higher than the average students, so lie somewhere between 3.5-3.6. Therefore, the bottom 10% of premed students don't get into med school. The bottom 10% of pre-med students have a sub 2.7 GPA, because the pre-med population remains representative. Believe me, as many great students drop out at the same rate as poor students. So, many students with 2.7-3.0 GPA are getting into medical schools. And still you pose "If that student can then use that form letter to get into some 4th tier med-school, good for him." Firstly, there are no fourth tier medical school (MD)--not in the sense of law schools, such that no career options, pay or prestige is limited by any one of the 125 or so allopathic medical schools. There are, however, ostepathic schools. As I have said before, these students usually end up at ostepathic schools, despite their poor GPA. This would suggest to me that the committee will take this into account. The committee is not there to hurt you, only to help. Withstanding, they ARE NOT going to write a stellar recommendation for someone with a 2.7 applying to Harvard medicine, but probably will write a good recommendation for a similar student applying to an osteopathic school</p>

<p>The committee is not a machine which spits out personalized, good or bad recs depending on the GPA. It is a human tailored group of people who want to see the grads succeed in what they do.</p>

<p>It's similar to getting recs for Ph.D programs. A renowned professor say, in Political Science, is not going to write a stellar recommendation to a top program for a student he doesn't think can handle the work at, say Chicago Political Science. Why? Because his reputation is on the line. He is expected to endorse candidates who will be great thinkers and theorists, and do well in the programs. Much to the same extent, Hopkins stellar premedical reputation is on the line EVERY time they write a recommendation. So they're not going to write a rec for a kid who, they believe, could not handle Hopkins med, if they think he could only handle the work a State U. And Hopkins have had years to perfect the scale.</p>

52

<p>"I think this goes back to the classic economic theorem of "optimism bias". I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but that's a classic sociological discussion."</p>

<p>-blah blah blah...QED...sorry my only way to answer that b/c i have no understanding regarding economics...my high school doesn;t even offer economics as a course, they combined it w/ gov!!!...no wonder the mean savings of americans is -1...</p>

<p>"Besides, it's more simply explained by a lack of information. I certainly had never heard of screening before this."
-lack of information...i'm just going to say when a senior chooses a college...i think he/she is making a pretty big choice so will try to be as informed as possible...bluedevilmike, probably you never heard of screening in jhu probably b/c you never applied there =D...i cannot picture the godly bluedevilmike as being ignorant of anything =D
=-D i saw duke '11 on cc named after you lol =D</p>

53

<p>coolguyusa123, i'm so sorry to say this =(...but...i'm not here to extol any specific school...so i must correct a little thing:
although everything stated is pretty much correct, only 90%+s of the premeds w/ recs get into med school, not everyone who is a premed gets a rec or that would be quite a scary thought lol..if that was true people will reject the hypsmc just to go to hopkins and to be a premed...lol they just have to make sure they are on the top 90% to get into med school lol =D</p>

54

<p>I'm not exactly sure what you mean darkhope. In fact every premed student gets a recommendation. I'd suggest you consult the office of preprofessional advising before you start to believe that. It's under current students, then health professions. As a Hopkins students, I've been to pre-professional meetings, and I have the sheet in front of me that says ALL premedical students get the rec. </p>

<p>Further, on the success of Hopkins grads, I find it insulting to suggest that Hopkins grads are less successful than their peers. In fact, in addition to sending the largest percentage of grads to graduate school, it also sends a large proportion of all the graduate students to top graduate schools. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.jhu.edu/careers/docs/postgrad_Class05.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jhu.edu/careers/docs/postgrad_Class05.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>See the last page for a list of graduate schools.</p>

55

<p>
[quote]
90+% of premeds

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<p>Of the premeds who actually apply. Nationally speaking, that's only about half of the kids who end up taking the MCAT, much less organic chemistry. Don't know how the numbers look at Hopkins.</p>

<p>I'm very skeptical of your claim that great students drop out at the same rate as poor students. Great students drop out, yes, but most certainly not at the same rate. If you can provide me numbers from a verifiabled source I will concede the point, however.</p>

<p>
[quote]
i saw duke '11 on cc named after you

[/quote]

Really? I'm kind of excited. Where is this?</p>

56

<p>coolguyusa...sorry then i'm probably wrong =(...but i thought premed students that the committee does not think is ready yet will not write a good rec and so when a student is notified that the committee does not think he/she is ready yet, the student will not pursue to get that rec b/c the student knows that the rec will be bad. But cool, thank you so much coolguyusa, i forgot to completely consider that the students who receive bad recs also get counted into the med acceptance %s...wait, am i interpretting anything wrong, because if that's true than wouldn't a positive rec mean close to a 95% or higher chance of acceptance to a med school...wow...i must be interpreting something you said wrong</p>

<p>coolguyusa, i'm just saying hopkins has better strengths in putting its students through grad/prof school than through getting high paying jobs for immediate employment because most of its majors are not directed towards those high paying jobs but rather grad/prof school.</p>

<p>inconclusion...jhu and duke both rock =D cheer!</p>

<p>bluedevilmike, look through the duke thread and i believe you will find him/her =D wow an admirer lol so lucky =/</p>

57

<p>I doubt many students ever actually receive a bad letter. My suspicion is that JHU uses the "bad letter" as a deterrent to prevent those applicants from applying in the first place.</p>

<p>The letters are confidential. Who knows? Maybe JHU threatens them with bad letters, but if they persist and really demand one, they actually write a good one. You don't have to harm any of your applicants, but you do actually get to deter most of the bad ones.</p>

<p>And here I am spouting conspiracy theories... (back to histology)</p>

58

<p>
[quote]
after the two simulations i lost all pride in ucla

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</p>

<p>In real life: national finals and then the Final Four? Not too shabby, if you ask me. Much better than S16 and first-round.</p>

59

<p>Is anyone listening to me? seriously. </p>

<p>BDM, I will avoid making comments about every committee in the future.</p>

<p>While this argument has centered around ONLY Hopkins, I'd really like those who go to Hopkins (and are thus vehemently defending it) to step back for a second and defend the idea of screening committees on a universal basis. We've had others on this board try to tell us that screening committees at places like U of South Florida are the way to go. Can the people defending JHU, equally say that screening committees at less prestigious institutions are equally as advantageous? Someone said earlier that all schools would be wise to adapt the screening committee process - why? You've used the fact that a great rec from the JHU committee is worth a lot, but that's only in light (of current reality) of the fact that many very prestigious places don't use a committee to limit who applies to med school. If every school from the lowliest state school to the most amazingly prestigious school used a screening committee wouldn't that limit the effectiveness of the JHU committee? Suddenly the numbers of applications would drastically decrease, while the % accepted would skyrocket, wouldn't they?</p>

<p>The point is, no one is questioning the value of getting a recommendation letter. There plainly great things if you can get one. Get one from a great school, and it can set you on your way. But, at least as I see it, how can you reconcile the conflict of interest between school and mediocre applicant? JHU and any other school with a committee that screens has to be looking out for their own hide, they wouldn't screen otherwise...how is that process in the best interest of ALL the students at a particular school? (again not just JHU)</p>

60

<p>To play devil's advocate: I will say that we've seen some schools that really ought to use screening as a mercy tool. I seem to remember one candidate trying his hand at apps with an eleven. I can certainly argue that he should not be permitted to waste his time, money, and emotions on an application. (In reality, I'd probably say that he's an adult and he's responsible for his own choices. The school should just give him a form letter and let him do what he wants.)</p>

<p>But this is really a separate issue from that which we're discussing, which is the merit of screening in order to make other students more likely to get in.</p>