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If you really want medicine, you will do what it takes.
Get tutors. Go to extra help session. Go to office hours. Make study and homework groups. Check out other textbooks to supplement the one your prof wants you to use. Go online (geezus, I wish that had been available to me). Except for the internet option, I did all those things to get the grades I needed. Because there was no other choice. And if you think the college part is hard, wait till med school and residency. You either want it or you don't. Not all "La la la...I am not doing good here so I will float over here...la la...I like this and it comes easy so I will la la la over here."
This ^^ could not be farther from the true (top 10 statement). There are a lot of medical and dental schools that select their students based off of where you live. You see, State schools are heavily subsidized by their state governments. Therefore they select students who live in that state. That is because they want students to practice in their state because a shortage exists especially for rural areas. In fact, the UofMN Duluth for instance has a medical school specifically designed to place doctors in rural areas inside of MN. Do you think they care if you got a 42 on your MCAT from Harvard? They need not apply because they don't have to shot to get into UofMN Duluth. That's not their mission to accept the "best". They want the "best" from students wanting to practice in rural MN.
I accept your particular example, but mine is different.
It's just from my particular sample set. I would say I know over 50 doctors (my age), and almost none of them went to schools outside the Top 30 or so. Nobody I know from the state schools here (Rutgers, NJIT, College of NJ) went to medical school. Nobody I know from HS became a doctor. But about 7 people from my freshman dorm floor alone did.
This could be because people from good schools are naturally more ambitious and score higher on the MCAT, possibly. I don't know why it is. But it definitely is.
If I had met a bunch of Radiologist and Oncologists who did their undergraduate at Rutgers, Mrs. little private school, or even better the infamous Podunk State, then that would sway my opinion in that direction.
If you really want medicine, you will do what it takes.
Get tutors. Go to extra help session. Go to office hours. Make study and homework groups. Check out other textbooks to supplement the one your prof wants you to use. Go online (geezus, I wish that had been available to me). Except for the internet option, I did all those things to get the grades I needed. Because there was no other choice.
This.
If you REALLY want to be a doctor, then try everything to get that grade up. Really, it may just be that you don't know how to study efficiently for college level work. Lots of freshmen have that problem. The typical American high school is not as challenging and the teacher walks you through everything. Plus, really 90% of what you have to do is memorize. In college things move faster with less hand holding, and you really need to learn how to APPLY concepts as opposed to just memorizing them. You need to understand the hows and whys of the things you are learning in class. You also need to understand calculus, because it is the foundation of college level chemistry (and physics, etc). Don't give up until you try your hardest to get up to speed.
People will even do post-bac programs to get into med school if they don't have good enough grades when they finish undergrad. If you really want it, it still can be done, even if it takes a few tries.
That said...
If you really, really don't like your science classes, you need to rethink things. Becoming a doctor is basically becoming a scientist of the body, who needs to translate that knowledge to patients. Not to mention the MCATs are 90% about science.
There are many ways to be involved in healthcare without becoming a MD.
I decided to major in Med School because I got insanely high Biology grades and did really well on AP Bio tests in High School. Yet I'm a Freshman in college and got caught completely off-guard by Chemistry. I did pretty mediocre in High School in Chemistry, but I thought that Calculus and Bio would be more important, so I hoped I could skid by with mediocre Chem grades as long as I did well in Bio and Calc. Instead I went to college and smelled the Hypochlorite coffee that Chem is actually pretty important. Three weeks in, I seem to be falling behind everybody even though I study. Should I fold the cards on Med-School?
I've been eyeing Finance. I been lookin over at my roomie's Finance books, and a lot of the stuff in there seems to be common sense mathematics
1. A number of colleges use Chemistry to weed out their pre-med programs. At university of IL when I attended, myself and my roomate (he is now a doctor) were the only kids in our section of 20+ to get an A in the class and that was "measley" Chem 101. (I was strong at chemistry and worked HARD to get that A)
2. Finance might not be bad but if you are strong at math you might want to take a look at actuarial science.
If I had met a bunch of Radiologist and Oncologists who did their undergraduate at Rutgers, Mrs. little private school, or even better the infamous Podunk State, then that would sway my opinion in that direction.
All of us view life from our own experiences. As you see, there are a lot of state medical schools (see List of medical schools in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). When they are subsidized, most state schools have a home team philosophy. Stare at the 3" book from the AMA or ADA and see who is getting admitted and from where. Additionally, nearly all of state subsidized medical schools upcharge their out of state students by tens of thousands of dollars. So logic should tell you only have to ask for a histogram to say University of Kansas School of Medicine to see the majority of medical students are from... Yep, Kansas! Cut, paste, repeat from state to state to state. Now if your stance was in order to get into Stanford for instance, you had to be in a top UG school, I would wholeheartedly agree.
I have comfortably 500-600 doctor customers in every corner of the USA. I have done some research on the topic. My son at the service academy is going to apply to med school so that is the reason why I've been digging. Also, my DD is currently in dental school and attended UG from the University of MN Duluth. Those parents and students that don't do their homework, very well could be on the outside looking in. I hear parents talking about their kids plan and I cringe when I hear them explain how they are doing their generals at a CC, or how they are going to another State school and planning on applying to the UofMN, or are in the pre-dental club at a State school who had zero students accepted in the past 3 years, etc. There are exceptions to these rules (they are not set in stone). But a certain level of research is in order before you attend an UG school unless you get that 40 on your MCAT or 26 on your DAT. But people's own life experience gets in the way of what actually happens and who gets in.
I submit that your personal experiences are skewed and are not what happens in State Schools. Private non-profit schools have some of THE lowest tuition rates in the country. Harvard comes to mind. So as odd as it seems, the lowest tuition rates are also the some of the best schools. I diverge..
Tell this to all of my law school graduate friends, currently in a large city, who are waiting tables. The only one with a legal job that required bar passage is because her daddy owns the firm.
Maybe the link I found was old; however, the jobs outlook for lawyers is bleak and is just getting worse.
This isn't a place to argue about law school, though. It doesn'ts seem like the OP is interested.
My philosophy on this is if art is your passion, follow it. Look into programs for art therapy where you can use your passion in art and your passion to help people. I know the school districts where I live employ a few.
What/where was their primary area of concentration? Just law? Read my post again; this time carefully. You don't go to law school to hang out a shingle in a law firm. You get a law degree on top of whatever it is you want to do for a living. There are so many MBA's for example, you have to have some additional area of expertise to be competitive in the job market, lest you wind up being a clerk in a cubicle making 30K a year for the rest of your life - talk about a waste of a college education! I can think of about a dozen other areas where a law degree (+ whatever) would get you a top floor office; and, for that matter, an income worth that exhorbitantly priced trip to college.
[quote=Supine;31615148]I had a doctor admit to me he failed his first year chemistry class in undergrad. But he passed it the second time around.
Repeating any science course puts you down to the bottom of the list (this OP, I presume, by his name, is a white male). The business about a masters degree in a medical science (for example, physiology or biochem [if that's your ilk] are one very productive way of dealing with a GPA that is not competitive (which these days is about 3.5). There is a preference for applicants with such degrees. It is also a good way to "network" your way into the MD program. Make sure you 4 point in grad school though.
PS> Never EVER take a MCAT without taking a Kaplan course first. You'd be amazed at: 1) how many applicants do and never tell anybody; and 2) what a boost to those scores that course will provide!
I am not in any way associated with review courses like Kaplan nor do I receive any financial benefits for making such statements.
I've sat on an admissions committee for several years. I know these things.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 10-01-2013 at 09:57 AM..
What/where was their primary area of concentration? Just law? Read my post again; this time carefully. You don't go to law school to hang out a shingle in a law firm. You get a law degree on top of whatever it is you want to do for a living. There are so many MBA's for example, you have to have some additional area of expertise to be competitive in the job market, lest you wind up being a clerk in a cubicle making 30K a year for the rest of your life - talk about a waste of a college education! I can think of about a dozen other areas where a law degree (+ whatever) would get you a top floor office; and, for that matter, an income worth that exhorbitantly priced trip to college.
All of us view life from our own experiences. As you see, there are a lot of state medical schools (see List of medical schools in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). When they are subsidized, most state schools have a home team philosophy. Stare at the 3" book from the AMA or ADA and see who is getting admitted and from where. Additionally, nearly all of state subsidized medical schools upcharge their out of state students by tens of thousands of dollars. So logic should tell you only have to ask for a histogram to say University of Kansas School of Medicine to see the majority of medical students are from... Yep, Kansas! Cut, paste, repeat from state to state to state. Now if your stance was in order to get into Stanford for instance, you had to be in a top UG school, I would wholeheartedly agree.
I have comfortably 500-600 doctor customers in every corner of the USA. I have done some research on the topic. My son at the service academy is going to apply to med school so that is the reason why I've been digging. Also, my DD is currently in dental school and attended UG from the University of MN Duluth. Those parents and students that don't do their homework, very well could be on the outside looking in. I hear parents talking about their kids plan and I cringe when I hear them explain how they are doing their generals at a CC, or how they are going to another State school and planning on applying to the UofMN, or are in the pre-dental club at a State school who had zero students accepted in the past 3 years, etc. There are exceptions to these rules (they are not set in stone). But a certain level of research is in order before you attend an UG school unless you get that 40 on your MCAT or 26 on your DAT. But people's own life experience gets in the way of what actually happens and who gets in.
I submit that your personal experiences are skewed and are not what happens in State Schools. Private non-profit schools have some of THE lowest tuition rates in the country. Harvard comes to mind. So as odd as it seems, the lowest tuition rates are also the some of the best schools. I diverge..
Yup. It's my overwhelming experience. Take it as you will. When I see evidence to the contrary, I'll gladly change my mind. On the other side of the coin, I've worked for some of the bigger engineering companies out there (Civil), and there is seemingly no preference for good schools or any school. In fact, you could argue there is less representation from the most prestigious engineering schools. So, if we were debating that point, my opinion would be different.
BTW, my point wasn't that you can't get in 'somewhere' if you go to a non-prestigious school, but more that going to a prestigious school helps your cause a lot to get into a school in general.
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Cut, paste, repeat from state to state to state. Now if your stance was in order to get into Stanford for instance, you had to be in a top UG school, I would wholeheartedly agree.
I know the school districts where I live employ a few.
