D is a rising CS premed sophomore at Vandy. She never expressed interests in medicine in HS and when she decided to go to Vandy instead of higher ranking schools (U Chicago, MIT, etc), she decided to add premed. So far she is doing great at Vandy and enjoys work life balance and having great GPA. But because of premed classes, she is kinda behind on her CS, but she convinced me that she will be on track by the end of sophomore year. I’d love to play devil’s advocate with her, so I asked her does she like medicine and why she wants to pursue it. She said "I don’t hate anything"and she likes medicine because medicine is more merit based. I am curious to see if you believe that medicine is merit based. I am not sure if I hope she has the conviction, passion and the staying power to go to the doc route. After all, it is a long road and CS can open a lot of doors.
Please explain what you mean by “merit based”? Medical education? The practice of medicine?
The selection process throughout becoming a doc is based on test scores, GPA, instead of relationships, who you know, office politics, cycle of friends,etc.
It depends on what your D means by “merit-based”.
If by merit, she means that her achievements will be judged holistically within context of her life circumstances, then maybe… But with the understanding that attending a “hard” of “highly ranked” or “prestigious private” undergrad or having a “hard” major isn’t going to earn her any brownie points or academic leeway with adcomms. She still needs to have the academic metrics (GPA, sGPA and MCAT) to even get considered. And that once she meets those basic criteria, she needs to demonstrate through her ECs, LORs, personal statement, secondary essays, and interviews that she has all the personal qualities physicians look for in future physicians. (Leadership, altruism, compassion, empathy, resilience, endurance, patience, persistence in the face of failure, cultural competence, a commitment to a life of service, social awareness, strong interpersonal skills, excellent oral & written communication skills, the ability to work well as part of a team, etc. as well intellectual & academic ability.)
If by “merit,” your D mean the person with the highest stats/grades/test scores always gets the med school acceptance, then probably not. Achievement is judged within the context of a person’s background and opportunities. Factors like ethnicity, rural or inner city urban backgrounds, lower SES upbringing, first gen college student , etc. are considered when deciding who to offer admission to, as well as legacy status and big $$$ donor status at specific schools.
BTW, Med schools adcomms really don’t care what undergrad an applicant attends. Prestige of undergrad is ranked as one of the" least important factors" by adcomms in annual surveys so the fact she choose Vandy instead of Chicago makes zero difference to adcomms. She could attend Directional State College or I-Never-Heard-Of-It U and adcomms would not especially care so long as she had the academic metrics and personal qualities to make a good physician.
TBH, I was not trilled when both my daughters decided to give up grad school to pursue medicine. Their lives would have been so much easier if they were engineers or health physicists or healthcare policy wonks than as physicians working 80-100 hours/week and often having to see the worst side of humanity (Drug abusers–check. Abused children–check. Rape victims–check. Mentally ill–check. Demented & abused elderly–check. Abusive a-holes --check, including some of your fellow physicians [Throwing scalpels at residents is not just a myth and teaching via public humiliation–aka PIMPing-- is commonplace]. Non-compliant & ungrateful patients–check. Stupid & self-destructive behavior close up & personal–check.)
@SincererLove Before she spends lot of time in doing pre-med courses, ask her to allocate time this semester or this year to shadow various physicians (including surgery) and volunteer at free clinic. That will help her (even if medicine is merit based) to know if she likes this as a career.
Those play a role in every career path - including science and medicine. 80% of my grade in each of my 3rd year clerkships was based entirely on subjective evaluation of my performance by physicians some of whom spent literally only a handful of hours over the course of a month in the same room as me.
@GoldenRock , she was on WL last semester, but she should be able to job shadow this coming semester. She also already starts looking for a tech internship for next summer so that she can know for sure what she wants.
@WayOutWestMom , she didn’t expect brownie points for doing CS. That was her plan B and her original plan. She knows that she has to maintain her GPA.
@iwannabe_Brown , that was helpful!