<p>We have a 10 percent increase (46%-56% in one year; from 2009-2010). Emory just created a new pre-med office in 2009. Prior to 2009, we just had the career center serve pre-med students (which sucked because the career center was inundated by the number of students it had to serve—pre-buss/pre-law/pre-med, etc.) In 2009 the new president of Emory decided to create a new pre-med office which served only pre-med students. The office started offering much more individual attention to its pre-med students. It also implemented a committee letter system to help students. Hopefully this trend continues, and we can hit 70 percent in the next year or two</p>
<p>The increase seems mostly to be driven by higher MCAT scores. 2009 had 164/339 scores over 30 (48%). 2010 had 195/347 (56%). There’s also a mild effect where even the high scorers did a little better. Interesting.</p>
<p>^ I also notice that less than 10 percents (20/225) of applicants from Cornell have a GPA of 3.9+, and more than two-thirds of them have an MCAT score of 35+. This probably indicates there is a high correlation between GPA and MCAT at Cornell for those with a high GPA.</p>
<p>An interesting question is: Which school’s students have such a high correlation between these two metrics, just like Cornell? Another question (a more “practical” one): Which schools have more GUT courses (maybe even one or two of them are pre-reqs) such that the students have an easier time to pad their GPA and the GPA reflects more on student’s “premed gaming” skill than anything else (or the school is more eager to “please” the students?)</p>
<p>Hmm…I suspect that the number 225 excludes not only URMs (as Cornell usually does) but also alumni. Cornell is an Ivy that is larger than most others, so it should have more applicants. (I do not bother to look up the data from AAMC.) This is because there are not many URMs.</p>
<p>Are you asking if they exclude legacies from their data?</p>
<p>*An interesting question is: Which school’s students have such a high correlation between these two metrics, just like Cornell? Another question (a more “practical” one): Which schools have more GUT courses (maybe even one or two of them are pre-reqs) such that the students have an easier time to pad their GPA and the GPA reflects more on student’s “premed gaming” skill than anything else (or the school is more eager to “please” the students?)</p>
<p>She’s asking if Cornell excludes students who apply after they’ve graduated from college, which Cornell does. Cornell typically produces around 450 applicants a year (according to AAMC data) with around 1/2 being college seniors and 1/2 being alumni.</p>
<p>mom2ck, I pick up this term “gut” not many years ago. I think it is not an acronym. It refers to a class whose professor would give out an easy A even though the student does not put in too much efforts. It was joked that if you go to a class at the beginning of a semester and you see a lot of recruit athletes there, it is likely a gut course. No offense to any athletes especially those who are recruited by the college – their practice schedule is really tough and oftentimes the sport is their number one priority. If a student is a star athlete and is also good at academics, he or she really has a very good hook when applying to medical school.</p>
<p>The rumor has it that the gut class tends to be small (but not always so), the professor tends to be older (near retirement – but not always so). The first thing a premed who is good at taking advantage of this is to locate which professor is like this early in his college career, and he or she will keep taking his/her classes – as many semesters as possible. BCPM not good enough? Off the student goes to take some “research for credit” class from some “nice” professor – and he may get a good LOR at the end too. There is some reason why many science departments do not allow their students to take too many these classes. Some scheming premeds may even join some clubs (or frat) just for this information. Some colleges may have fewer these kinds of classes than others. (Almost all science prereqs are not gut. The professor may even want to make it harder so that the class size could become smaller quickly.)</p>
<p>Looking at the table at the bottom of the Cornell data sheet that gives numbers in the national context, I see it is actually easier now to get get accepted to a medical than it was when I applied in 1996. That year there were approximately 50,000 applicants for a little over 16,000 positions meaning that only about 33% of applicants were accepted by any medical school in that year. I applied to 20 schools and was accepted at one, MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine (now Drexel University School of Medicine) and considered myself fortunate to be among the only one out of three applicants that were accepted at a U.S. allopathic medical school anywhere. I realize it is not one of the elite medical schools but I subscribe to the maxim that the best medical school in the United States is the one that accepts you. I had a GPA of 3.65, a science GPA of 3.7 and an MCAT score of 31 but no medicine related ECs of any kind. I had an undergraduate degree in Astrophysics from a large state university and spent all my time in class, Physics labs, the university observatory or the Astronomy library.</p>
<p>Another thing I noticed is that despite the substantial increase in the population of the U.S. over the past 15 years the absolute number of applicants to medical school has actually declined. Clearly Medicine is not as attractive as a career option as it used to be. I like being a physician but can understand why fewer people in general and fewer of the brightest students in particular would want to become one. The endless hours of studying massive medical tomes during the first two years of medical school, the abusive treatment endured during clinical rotations during my second two years of medical school, always being angry, upset and exhausted as an intern when 36 hour shifts Q3 were the norm and then the drudgery of residency make becoming a doctor vastly more difficult than two years in an MBA program to become an investment banker or even three years of Law School to become an attorney. Investment bankers get semi-annual bonuses that are much larger than the amount of money a doctor earns in a year. I should probably consider myself fortunate that my medical practice is still profitable but it seems like I have to see more and more patients to make the same amount of money each year. No one should be surprised that the best college graduates are increasingly staying away from medical school and heading to graduate schools of business instead.</p>
<p>We are getting off the subject. However, it is always an interesting point. I always feel that a very talented individual can’t endure the long training process of the medical career. I found out that BDM is now a law school student and somehow that is not a surprise to me. I do not know if BDM ever shared his story on this board. I do not mean that other posters are not talented. Actually, I believe that most of the student posters on this board can be very successful in business or law. </p>
<p>I also came across web sites showing doctor’s ranking. It is very possible that we will see more of those similar to the rankings for a merchandize on Amazon. A doctor really needs to stand out based upon his/her skill, knowledge, and patience in order to expand the customer base. I am not sure if knowing how to socialize would be enough.</p>
<p>Actually, most of the research that’s been done looking at how patients rate “good” doctors very rarely has anything to do with skill or knowledge base. The depth of knowledge any licensed physician has is orders of magnitude beyond what the layperson knows and as such it’s difficult for people to accurately judge how knowledgable their doctor is (unless they screw up really simple stuff - like my family’s FP who missed when I had a perforated ear drum and who incorrectly placed the splint over my brother’s broken finger…but we didn’t know he’d screwed these things up until other physicians noticed the mistakes). What research has shown to be important is bedside manner, personality and making connections. I did a research project that was related to this the summer after M1 and all the responses were generally the same - “seems like the MD knows her stuff, but I really appreciate the time she takes with me”</p>
<p>I’ve worked with doctors who were polar opposites and their patients loved them equally - one loved to take care of his patients in the hospital, so he didn’t have any appointments before 1045 so that he could round in the morning, then was triple or quadruple booked every 15 minutes until 4:30pm…but he was usually 2 hours behind by 1pm every day. Still his patients just adored him, despite the hours they spent in the waiting room. Another preceptor was the opposite - never scheduled appointments shorter than 20 minutes, never double booked, and sent all his inpatients to be taken care of either by the residents or the hospitalists. He had super early morning appointments starting a 7am, and his staff freaked out if there was a “sick visit” that had to be worked in. Perhaps more understandably the level of adoration his patients had for him was through the roof. But both men, despite their style differences absolutely knew their stuff, and they did care deeply about their patients - which is what really mattered.</p>
<p>Lastly, the amazon.com ranking of physicians is a highly contentious issue amongst many physicians, and there have been claims against the websites that host these for libel. Because of the anonymous nature of many of the sites, it’s been an uphill battle, but many physicians are not standing idley by as these things get posted.</p>
<p>** I pick up this term “gut” not many years ago. I think it is not an acronym. It refers to a class whose professor would give out an easy A even though the student does not put in too much efforts. It was joked that if you go to a class at the beginning of a semester and you see a lot of recruit athletes there, it is likely a gut course. *</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I’m an MD/JD candidate (and always have been). Not a switcher.</p>
<p>Does anyone remember that scene from *Legally Blond *when Elle is sitting on the lawn with her new Harvard Law classmates and they go around and introduce themselves? Everyone else has all all these amazing degrees…BDM should have been in that scene.</p>