The site I mentioned before, SDN, is, as Adrian Monk would say, both a blessing and a curse. It's that hottie that gives you herpes, the baby with diarrhea, the hangover after a legendary night out. The med school application information there is unbelievably helpful, especially for someone who is somewhat removed from the process like I am. On the other hand, in order to sift through it you have to expose yourself to the craziness that is the pre-med state of mind. And just like the hottie, the baby, and the legendary night out, there is no way to get the full benefit of the information without getting at least a little bit of the disease, shit, or vomit on your (relatively) sane self.
As an academic slacker from way back I can't truly relate, even as I'm slowly infected. For those of you in the real world there is no way you can fully grasp exactly how neurotic these kids are. I thought I'd share my summary of what the forums look like, however, so that you, my (again, relatively) normal friends, can see what I'm surrounded by - and then pity me. Trust me when I say my exaggerations are fairly limited. The topics (repeated over and over and over and over and over with minor variations) can be broken down into three general categories.
Life is unfair because:
-I'm not disadvantaged
-I am disadvantaged
-People who drive nice cars and live on welfare claim they are disadvantaged
-People cheat with drugs
-People get in on legacy
-I go to a school with no grade inflation (which apparently is everyone)
-AMCAS doesn't give credit for A+'s (see also "I go to a school with no grade inflation")
-I have all my limbs, was born to an english speaking family, and grew
up with absolutely no access to any african (1st choice) or tibetan
(trendy) HIV orphans
Neurotically analyze which tiny factor will prevent me/you from fulfilling my/your dreams:
-MCAT is way more important than GPA because of the USMLE
-The VR matters most
-The BS matters most
-Who gives a crap about PS?
-GPA is way more important than MCAT because standardized tests are biased (also see "I am disadvantaged")
-GPA is way more important than MCAT because it shows consistency (see
also "People cheat with drugs" and "I go to a school with no grade
inflation")
-People with high GPAs have no lives
-People with high MCATs have no lives
-People who make sweeping generalizations have no lives
-Athletes are better than musicians
-Athletes are over-hyped
-Applying after July 1st means you will get in nowhere
-There are no safeties. No one will get in anywhere
-I totally heard of someone with a 4.2/47/Nobel Prize who only applied
to 35 schools and didn't get in anywhere, what are my chances?
-The applicant pool increases every year. The end is nigh.
-LOR from shadowing are useless
-You are unpublished
-Tattling on a fellow applicant who did something shady does/does not make you a whiny little bitch
-Your AMCAS will be bumped to the back of the verification line if you so much as breathe in the site's direction
-Your underage drinking makes you human/a horrible person
-That C in gen chem will keep you out of dermatology
-The story of how you got dumped by Kyle Henderson - totally the cutest
boy EVER - and how you dealt with that vicious blow, makes an awesome
adversity essay.
General points of discussion:
-Psychiatry is quackery/life saving/an great debate topic
-Does my class in the cultural history of the maori people count as science or math? I got an A and really want it to.
-MDApps is all about mutual masturbation and totally unrepresentative of the applicant pool (as opposed to SDN)
-The answer to life is contained within the pages of the MSAR
-US News and World Report is for suckers
-The secondary didn't come to you because you suck. You were picked last for dodgeball too, right?
-All of the people on SDN are super attractive, but dating is medschool
is impossible because if you aren't attached by the time you get there
you are clearly incapable of connecting with a fellow human being
-Women are ruining medicine/bringing something special to medicine
-Older applicants are wasting resources/bringing much needed maturity to the field
-It is impossible to live on 200k/yr, the low pay in the medical field is a travesty
-Cheap school is better than a high-ranked school, where you go is
irrelevant, and if you think it matters you are an arrogant asshole/naive
-Money should be your last consideration in picking a school
-DOs aren't real doctors
-Don't you know about Dr. X who's a DO? Huh? HUH? They are among you.
-Everyone on SDN who looks forward to med school is naive and somewhat
dumb. It'll suck. A lot. Have I mentioned how much it'll suck?
-People who go into the ROAD professions are smarter than everyone else. No, they're the devil. No, they're just smart.
-The formatting for this thread sucks, it's too cluttered/long
-Copy, paste, delete the quotes...is that so hard?
-Silly cat pictures are the solution to any heated thread
Wash, rinse, repeat. Pray for me. The stuff that is truly maddening are the interview invite threads and rejection threads...especially for someone like me who hasn't heard anything definitive from ANYWHERE. HELLO MCFLY. YOU ASSWIPES TOOK $130 FROM ME, GET OFF YOUR ASSES. The worst one so far is NYMC - a looooow tier school who has started giving interview invites this past week. Not being in the first wave is like being turned down for sex by this guy.
I will say, aside from the info, there is one great thing about SDN: it gives me people to commiserate with. Even if the majority of my fellow classmates turn out to be the douches they seem to be, I have met a few great people who will make life bearable.
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