4 ms·

One thing I can say is that medical school admissions, while incredibly tough and competitive, is far more egalitarian than undergrad admissions. Med schools w

by riahi 17y ago

One thing I can say is that medical school admissions, while incredibly tough and competitive, is far more egalitarian than undergrad admissions. Med schools want the best students, period. They don't really care where you came from or who your parents were, but that you took advantage of all the opportunities availed to you in your college, and perhaps made some of your own.

carbocation 17y ago
This is incorrect, at least at "named" med schools. Family background, ethnic background, collegiate pedigree, etc, are still of tremendous importance for admission, and can overcome GPA and MCAT.
- codexon 17y ago
  I knew a black premed and a middle-eastern premed. Both of them came from privileged families, yet had below par scores and grades, and both managed to get into Harvard med.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
This is false. Whites/asians accepted by medical school have average GPAs of 3.7 (3.6 in the sciences) vs 3.4 for blacks (3.3 in the sciences). The average white/asian MCAT is about 10 (9.9 asian, 10.2 white), while the average for blacks is 8.3. http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2007/mcatgparaceeth07.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.or...
RK 17y ago
All I can say is that whatever the medical school admissions system (in the US) is trying to do, the result is producing premeds, and that is a side effect that is very hard to swallow :) The worst part is that, once those premeds get to med school, they just become "pre-residents", which may even be worse... I was talking to an MD/PhD friend of mine recently and we were talking about medical students and why medical school seemed to be so different from grad school. One of the conclusions we came up with was that in med school the professors and attending docs have no investment in the students, unlike profs who rely on students to do their research. This lack of dependence seems to lead to an incredible amount of politics and what is essentially ass kissing (with the goal of getting recommendation letters), something I never really saw from students when I was in (physics) grad school. Research students rely on performance. I'd say you can probably extend your comment about merit based admissions to science and engineering (and probably other types of grad school). In physics you generally don't even interview. They just look at your scores, grades, publications, letters, etc., then make an offer. After that they will invite you for a visit. They don't care about things like extra curricular activities or where you grew up. They would like more minorities/women, though.
deleted 17y ago
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by riahi 17y ago

carbocation 17y ago

This is incorrect, at least at "named" med schools. Family background, ethnic background, collegiate pedigree, etc, are still of tremendous importance for admission, and can overcome GPA and MCAT.

codexon 17y ago
I knew a black premed and a middle-eastern premed. Both of them came from privileged families, yet had below par scores and grades, and both managed to get into Harvard med.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

This is false. Whites/asians accepted by medical school have average GPAs of 3.7 (3.6 in the sciences) vs 3.4 for blacks (3.3 in the sciences). The average white/asian MCAT is about 10 (9.9 asian, 10.2 white), while the average for blacks is 8.3. http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2007/mcatgparaceeth07.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20080801022539/http://www.aamc.or...

RK 17y ago

All I can say is that whatever the medical school admissions system (in the US) is trying to do, the result is producing premeds, and that is a side effect that is very hard to swallow :) The worst part is that, once those premeds get to med school, they just become "pre-residents", which may even be worse... I was talking to an MD/PhD friend of mine recently and we were talking about medical students and why medical school seemed to be so different from grad school. One of the conclusions we came up with was that in med school the professors and attending docs have no investment in the students, unlike profs who rely on students to do their research. This lack of dependence seems to lead to an incredible amount of politics and what is essentially ass kissing (with the goal of getting recommendation letters), something I never really saw from students when I was in (physics) grad school. Research students rely on performance. I'd say you can probably extend your comment about merit based admissions to science and engineering (and probably other types of grad school). In physics you generally don't even interview. They just look at your scores, grades, publications, letters, etc., then make an offer. After that they will invite you for a visit. They don't care about things like extra curricular activities or where you grew up. They would like more minorities/women, though.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]