<p>What's up with the competitive premed attitude? What's with the bickering over grades, worrying about not getting in anywhere, and throwing around statistics as if they decide the world? I know people who study for finals a month beforehand, people who submit regrades to turn an A into an A+, and people who complain about every assignment they get back if it wasn't a perfect score.</p>
<p>I understand med school is hard to get into- so many qualified applicants apply and get rejected. But not getting into med school doesn't make the sky less blue, or good tasting food less tasty, or a South Park episode less funny.</p>
<p>Yeah, but most premeds cross the line. I hate being associated with them.</p>
<p>To them it's all about getting into med school.</p>
<p>I'm signed up for a very hard biochem class next semester, even though I have the option of taking an easier biochem course; I've gotten a lot of "med schools won't see the difference, just take the easier one" or "why would you take a harder class?". When I took honors history last year, I heard "why would you take the honors section? Isn't that harder?" "Why take an honors class that's not even in your major?".</p>
<p>It's inconceivable to them that a person might have their own set of goals and standards they'd like to achieve, or that they like to challenge themselves, or that they legitimately want to learn something.</p>
<p>Honestly, I stayed away from most of the pre-med groups at my school (and the boards here) until after I'd gotten into medical school for just this reason. The extra stress just doesn't help me. I want my biggest competitor to be myself, not my classmates. It's the same reason that I didn't take a Kaplan or PR course for the MCAT. I didn't think that I could be around that many pre-meds freaking out about the MCAT without freaking myself out.</p>
<p>They are just obsessed about becoming doctors. Thats all. </p>
<p>@goldshadow. You don't understand the pain some people go though by merely taking a harder class. I took a physics class with a hard but good teacher, and you know what? I got a A-!!!!!. If I took the class with someone else, I would have gotten the A. The difference is too much! Ahhhh!</p>
<p>Believe me, I know about being obsessed with becoming a doctor. But that doesn't mean that I need to worry myself further by being around people who are sometimes out for blood.</p>
<p>I don' tend to worry about others very much. That said, I am very competitive with myself and unforgiving when I don't achieve what I know I can. I don't think this is related to being premed, though. Just a part of who I am. I would imagine there are plenty of other people like me in this regard.</p>
<p>....alot of the people who are as you described don't want to get into med school for any altruistic reason or because they are "obsessed with becoming a doctor" to help people or some other BS line like that...they do it so at the end they can pat themselves on the back and say they did it....they see it as a universally recognized achievement that would automatically validate them. </p>
<p>Many of these "horror stories" you hear about someone with a 40 MCAT and a 3.9 getting rejected from everywhere or not getting into a "top" med school tend to be the people like this.....they played the game and grubbed every grade but at the end of the day they have nothing to show that they actually want to become a doctor and have a passion for it or just aren't able to convey passion in their essays because you can't just invent it out of thin air. </p>
<p>i think uvajack's advice in this thread is probably some of the worst i've heard on this board.</p>