New to the Site, its good to find a Non-Trad geared site

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
41
  • gooble Said:
BU flat out says they don't take community college pre-reqs for BCPM. That is ONE example I know of from talking to them so I am sure there are others.



So far, BU is the only med school I know of that doesn't accept CC credit. Some people literally have no choice in taking BCPM classes at CCs. In California, you /have/ to take on average half (if not more) of your BCPM classes at your CC before you are allowed to transfer to a UC. UC Davis for instance wants me to complete my year of biology & general chemistry as well as year of math before I transfer. Hell they even strongly recommend organic chemistry beforehand too although I'm going to save orgo and physics until after I'm at Davis.
42
  • gooble Said:
If you wanna get snippy, don't read my posts lol. Simple solution.

Its tough to say that name doesn't matter b/c the raw statistics show otherwise.

Furthermore, it is tough coming from the legal world where your law school name and reputation matters more than anything.

If you don't like my comments then don't read them.

BU flat out says they don't take community college pre-reqs for BCPM. That is ONE example I know of from talking to them so I am sure there are others.



Gooble! The fact that someone finaly tired to put an and to this discussion, that I also think is not very productive, does not give you any right to be rude to them!

And if the school you want to go to requires you to take your prereqs in Harvard, do so!

There are plenty of schools that can accept you b/c you are you! Not becasue of the name of the undergrad institution!

You have to do what you have to do! And everyone here can write their opinion. You read, and make your own decision.

Kasia
43
  • gooble Said:
BU flat out says they don't take community college pre-reqs for BCPM. That is ONE example I know of from talking to them so I am sure there are others.



I never said that there weren't schools out there that don't take CC credit. I was responding to your "MANY" comment. There are 125 MD schools and 22 osteopathic schools in the US. You are making a judgment based on knowledge of one school and hearsay. Yes, MOST schools will tell you that they prefer you not take your courses at a CC and most of us on here and most advisors will tell you to take your courses at a 4 year institution if at all possible. But if that doesn't work out for someone, it doesn't work out. It may eliminate some medical schools as a possibility for certain individuals, but such is life. For many of us on here, our original undergrad GPA limited us.

What we are trying to tell you is that coming from the "best" reputation school in the US isn't going to get you into medical school if the rest of your application isn't up to snuff. People with degrees from "names" - Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, Duke and the like routinely get rejected from medical schools while people from Podunk U. get accepted.

I won't argue with you that your odds of getting accepted while taking your courses at a "name" school might be better than if you go to the local U. Assuming you do well at the "name", that is probably true. And, if you feel you need to sacrifice mucho dinero and other things in order to have that name and those extra odds, then go for it. However, as has been mentioned repeatedly, the "stats" are subjective and not calculated uniformly from school to school.

You came here and asked for comments and opinions. We gave them to you. I believe Mary has sat on an admissions committee and I have done considerable research on both my behalf and the behalf of others (I have run questions that I see on here past admissions people at my school). You don't have to believe or do what we say. (I distinctly remember not liking some of Mary's advice back in my pre-application day, but I respected her background and honesty whether I chose to take it or not.) I think we try to keep it "real" on here. I try very hard not to give false information - I post based on personal experience and recommend people contact medical schools, counselors, etc for additional opinion.

Ultimately, this is forum is a tool. What is said on here should not be taken as gospel nor does it apply to every person in every situation. Its up to you to decide which advice to follow up on and which to discard. Several of us have given our opinion on here, and you don't want to believe us. That's your perogative. There is no one best answer that applies to everybody - we all have different backgrounds/situations. I wish you the best in making the decision that is best for YOU. Just remember that the path you choose to take is not the only one or necessarily the BEST one for everybody.
44

Statistics prove very little. Schools market themselves and present numbers that are true but you have to read the fine print. Barry University claims a 95% acceptance to med/dental schools. However they fail to mention that includes acceptance into podiatry, chiro, carribean, physical therapy… So what does that 95% mean now?


The data to look at is cumulative GPA, science GPA, & MCAT scores. In the end it comes down to numbers and your interview. Some schools weigh more on numbers. Some look at the whole individual. No one is going to give you acceptance to any medical school if your scores are subpar simply because you went to X school.


You are new and I’ll say that going off on Mary is not going to get you what you want. No one here is going to tell you that pedigree matters.


Right now you are presenting yourself as a pretentious know-it-all, who because of a bit of research is going to debate everyone until we agree that pedigree matters. You’re a guest. Be civil.

  • gooble Said:
If you wanna get snippy, don't read my posts lol. Simple solution.

Its tough to say that name doesn't matter b/c the raw statistics show otherwise.

Furthermore, it is tough coming from the legal world where your law school name and reputation matters more than anything.

If you don't like my comments then don't read them.

45

In reality, I don’t want to be told pedigree matters. If that was what I wanted I wouldn’t need to come here. I’m looking to see if the cheaper route can work.


The thing is, I have yet to find more than two or three people that have actually taken the cheap, po-dunk U route and gotten into medical school, but I find scores of folks coming out of the formal and over-priced programs that go on to matriculate.


All I’m asking for is some actual facts rather than speculations. Apparently that makes me wrong. I guess this forum is designed only to agree with everyone else on here and blow smoke up people’s behinds.


Sorry if that comes across as rude to you, but I didn’t realize my caution in spending thousands of dollars of MY money on a program didn’t warrant my right to research it.


Thus far, there have been maybe 2 folks that have actually gone to medical school from a non-big name/formal program on this post. In fact, most of you that give advice on how to do it are still in the process of taking your classes, let alone accepted into medical school.


You are right, it is a forum and anybody can post their opinion, but I came on legitimately asking for some facts and all I got was hostility because everyone here likes to pretend that CC po-dunk U will lead to MD all the time.


I’ll go back to SDN, sorry to disrupt your fantasy land.

46

I have explained clearly why the name of the post-bac institution did not matter to me. I agree that if you are relying on the name, you’re investing in a false promise, at the cost of a down payment on a house which at least would have a working toilet which you could use to flush the rest of your money. The post-bac institution only matters in how it will help you shine, not in how its shine reflects on you.


If a place like Bryn Mawr helps you shine–by getting you through quickly and efficiently and preparing you well for the MCAT and the admissions process–it can be worth the money. If it does not help you shine–if fitting into the structure of the program would actually hold you back from being the best applicant you can be, as it would have for me–it’s clearly a waste.


However, I would not be absolutist about any other aspect of this, including the CC vs 4 yr question. As with all things, the situation varies greatly by target school, other elements of your academic record and so on. If you went to an unknown and non-selective undergraduate institution, and did anything less than great there, your choice of places to take your pre-reqs probably matters more than if you went somewhere med schools will know and at least partially respect, and you did well. If that’s true, then the pre-reqs just have to be done–they’re not a big part of your application. If it’s not true, they are there in part to make up for other parts of your record. If you’re in that position you need to be careful about just taking courses anywhere.


It also depends on what else you have to offer, and your goals as a physician. The “you won’t get into Harvard” theory of med school admissions unnecessarily limits your choices; there are many quite selective schools that are not Harvard, and some of them might be places that would be perfect for you. (A lot of people who might never be interested in going to Harvard might really love the Mayo Clinic, just for example; but if you’ve counted yourself out of Harvard at the gate, you may well have counted yourself out of the Mayo Clinic too.) Also, the process is totally unpredictable. I got into Harvard while I was trying to get into UCSF; UCSF didn’t take me. I think it’s reasonable to arrange your pre-med goals to assume that you will get into Harvard–not because that outcome is the most likely one, since any particular selective school has an almost arbitrary selection process with quite long odds for most applicants–but because it may give you more choices later.


j

47
  • Troll Guide Said:
The Contrarian Troll. A sophisticated breed, Contrarian Trolls frequent boards whose predominant opinions are contrary to their own. A forum dominated by those who support firearms and knife rights, for example, will invariably be visited by Contrarian Trolls espousing their beliefs in the benefits of gun control. It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls, however; the Contrarian is not categorized as a troll because of his or her dissenting opinions, but due to the manner in which he or she behaves:

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number One: The most important indicator of a poster's Contrarian Troll status is his constant use of subtle and not-so-subtle insults, a technique intended to make people angry. Contrarians will resist the urge to be insulting at first, but as their post count increases, they become more and more abusive of those with whom they disagree. Most often they initiate the insults in the course of what has been a civil, if heated, debate to that point.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Two: Constant references to the forum membership as monolithic. "You guys are all just [descriptor]." "You're a lynch mob." "You all just want to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you."

– Classic Troll Tactic: When all else fails, claim to be leaving forever. Trolls who claim they are leaving never do, of course; you can bet that anyone who proclaims, "I'm never coming back here," will most certainly at least check back for responses, and probably will not be able to resist posting again.

48

Crooze, I didn’t realize what I stated constituted your idea of “trolling.” I have no problem with disagreement, the thing is, you aren’t disagreeing about anything, you are just making unfounded comments.


Find me 100 folks that did their BCPM’s all at community college classes and I’ll drop it. It won’t happen. CC classes are easy, its a hard fact of MOST CCs and adcomms know this.



49

Trying to decide whether someone is or is not a troll won’t solve anything. Agree or disagree and move on, folks. I did not do my prereqs at a community college, but I did do them at a smaller, relatively nameless university (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and had NO problems getting into med school. No, it’s not the same as a post-bac program, but it’s not Georgetown, either. Because I worked on campus I was able to keep my day job, and that’s what made this route the best choice for me.


All you can really do individually is talk to the institutions you really want to attend, find out their policy, and then make a decision based on your job options, your income, and how much financial hit you feel ready to take.


To be honest, most people in med schools are way too busy to post on forums, so you can’t get a good sample of anything this way. And in some ways it doesn’t matter. It’s about YOUR life, and the schools YOU want to apply to, and YOUR risk tolerance (financial vs. whatever else), and YOUR ability to put together a good application. Even if 500 people went to a CC and got into med school, if doing so doesn’t fit your comfort zone for whatever reason, it doesn’t much matter.


Take what advice you can, try to appreciate the busy people who took time to offer it, and do what you want with it.

50

gooble,


It’s not what you said but how you continue to say it. Last sentence of first paragraph in my last post.


The burden of proof is on you. No one has said that everyone, applying to med school and taking their prereqs at a CC, is going to get accepted. What has been said is that a person does what they can with what they have and let the chips fall. What a Harvard med student (Joe) has posted should settle your quest for “THE” answer. There is no answer. There aren’t enough people to sample.


Where you take your prereqs matters little. Sure I would avoid CC courses. However a 3.75+ science GPA from GT, AU, GW, GMU, UDC, CU, Towson, JHU, UMD, Goucher and a 30+MCAT will still get you the same thing…an interview.


Make a choice. Find the least expensive 4 year university you can afford and give it all you got.

  • gooble Said:
Crooze, I didn't realize what I stated constituted your idea of "trolling." I have no problem with disagreement, the thing is, you aren't disagreeing about anything, you are just making unfounded comments.

Find me 100 folks that did their BCPM's all at community college classes and I'll drop it. It won't happen. CC classes are easy, its a hard fact of MOST CCs and adcomms know this.

51
  • gooble Said:
In reality, I don't want to be told pedigree matters. If that was what I wanted I wouldn't need to come here. I'm looking to see if the cheaper route can work.

The thing is, I have yet to find more than two or three people that have actually taken the cheap, po-dunk U route and gotten into medical school, but I find scores of folks coming out of the formal and over-priced programs that go on to matriculate.

All I'm asking for is some actual facts rather than speculations. Apparently that makes me wrong. I guess this forum is designed only to agree with everyone else on here and blow smoke up people's behinds.

Sorry if that comes across as rude to you, but I didn't realize my caution in spending thousands of dollars of MY money on a program didn't warrant my right to research it.

Thus far, there have been maybe 2 folks that have actually gone to medical school from a non-big name/formal program on this post. In fact, most of you that give advice on how to do it are still in the process of taking your classes, let alone accepted into medical school.

You are right, it is a forum and anybody can post their opinion, but I came on legitimately asking for some facts and all I got was hostility because everyone here likes to pretend that CC po-dunk U will lead to MD all the time.

I'll go back to SDN, sorry to disrupt your fantasy land.



This type of attitude is exactly why I don't post that much on SDN; the site is infested with people who have this kind of elitist, arrogant attitude. Screw "researching" schools and statistics. If you want statistics, go to mdapplicants.com and look at who's getting accepted. That's about as accurate a picture as you'll likely get. Is it the whole picture? No, an interview can make or break you, regardless of whether it's for a job or for medical school.

For the hell of it, I actually did run a search on mdapplicants.com just for fun. I believe the GPA range was 3.0 - 3.5 and MCAT was 25 - 35. You know the funny thing? People from UCLA, UCSD, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. were getting rejected left and right but for the hell of it I clicked on a few lesser known universities and wonders never cease, those people had acceptances. When looking at a post-bacc program, a university to go to for undergrad, etc. I think the "name" of the institution should be the last thing on anyone's mind...how good the cirriculum and the professors are should be top priority. And if you want to go with stats, I guarantee someone with a 3.8 GPA & 35 MCAT from Podunk U. has a better chance than someone with a 3.3 GPA & 30 MCAT from Harvard.
52
  • gooble Said:


Find me 100 folks that did their BCPM's all at community college classes and I'll drop it. It won't happen. CC classes are easy, its a hard fact of MOST CCs and adcomms know this.



I really don't like when people assume that CC classes are easier and worse than those from 4-year university! There are better CCs and worse ones, and there are excellent teachers in 'not-so-good' CCs. There are bunch of professors in GMU who teach couple of classes in NVCC. And I bet they don't lower their expectations in NVCC.

And just FYI, one of the questions I got asked during my interview in Penn State was: 'How would you explain the fact that you're doing better in GMU than in NVCC'... So I guess, generalizations like this don't always work!

Kasia
53
  • madkasia Said:


I really don't like when people assume that CC classes are easier and worse than those from 4-year university! There are better CCs and worse ones, and there are excellent teachers in 'not-so-good' CCs.

The community college I'm currently at ain't doing so bad....

"Montgomery College Professor Joan Naake has been named the 2006 Maryland Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a national foundation dedicated to supporting teaching, and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the largest international association of education institutions........This is the second time that a Montgomery College professor has been named a Maryland Professor of the Year. Dr. Mary Furgol, a history professor, received the honor in 2003."

54

Like I said, prove me wrong and I’ll stand corrected. Sure, there are some great CC professors, but for the most part, CC’s are viewed as easy.


Also, emergency, MDapplicants.com is hardly a representative sample. Nonetheless, keep imagining that people from crap schools have just as good a shot as admission as those from top schools. It just isn’t reality.

55

Keep it civilized people.


While there is some truth that the caliber of where you did your pre-requisites IS weighed, a person who received a C in a top school is at much less of an advantage as a person who received an A at community college. But these are issues that are dealt with in the interview. When it comes to your primary application, it is all a numbers game. MCAT and GPA. At your secondary application, maybe your institution takes some accounting, but again, a numbers game. The interview is where it all counts.

56
  • gooble Said:
Also, emergency, MDapplicants.com is hardly a representative sample. Nonetheless, keep imagining that people from crap schools have just as good a shot as admission as those from top schools. It just isn't reality.



First, if you check the posting, I didn't make the MDapplicants comment. I agree, I don't think you can consider MDapplicants a representative sample. Also, there is no verification, so it's hard to tell how many of the "profiles" are even legit. I also don't think that the postings on SDN or, for that matter, here are representative. If you believe the MCAT score thread on SDN, the average MCAT score this year would have been well over a 30 because hardly anyone reported getting under that.

Yes, (for what feels like the 10th time) going to a "top" school MAY give you a better chance of getting in to medical school. And yes, more people from these schools get into medical school than the local state university or small liberal arts college. I would contend though, (and I'm sure you will disagree, which is fine) that this has a lot more to do with the overall quality of students at the various institutions rather than the name of said institution. It only stands to reason that an ivy league school (for example) will have a larger percentage of grads going to medical school because of their student demographic. Just like their average SAT/ACT scores for undergrad will be higher, they will also have higher MCAT scores.

There is no magic formula. If a "crap" school is your only option, then you deal with it and do the best that you can to make yourself an outstanding student with great grades, MCAT scores, ECs and LORs. If having the security of a post-bacc linkage or a well-known name is important and available to you, then do it.

However, for most of us on here, going to a "top" school wasn't/isn't always an option/realistic. I didn't have the undergrad GPA to get into most formal post-bacc programs and I also didn't want to spend that kind of money.

I'm tired of repeating myself on this thread. You aren't going to get definitive answers on here about your chances if you go to X school vs. Y for your post-bacc. We aren't adcoms. Many, many posts ago I advised you to make an appointment with an admissions counselor at a couple of schools that you are interested in attending. These schools are the best ones to tell you how they will view your taking courses at X school vs. Y school and how that will affect your "chances".
57

If you are tired of repeating yourself then don’t. I didn’t realize I was still asking for your opinion.


I simply was looking for some folks that went the cheap route that made it. Apparently they are few and far between and those that did make it have chips on their shoulders.

58
  • gooble Said:
If you are tired of repeating yourself then don't. I didn't realize I was still asking for your opinion.

I simply was looking for some folks that went the cheap route that made it. Apparently they are few and far between and those that did make it have chips on their shoulders.



With your attitude, I'd have a chip on my shoulder too from having to deal with it if I followed this thread from the beginning. And on the topic of attitude, I think you need to be more worried about how you come off to your interviewer in the interviews a lot more than your stats. I don't think interviewers like arrogance.

Good luck finding a post-bacc or whatever you're looking for.
59

San Francisco State is quite cheap and many people are successful within it. My distant memory of just people I studied with or hung out with in pre-med courses includes folks who went on to UCSF, UC Davis, UCLA, University of Washington, Tufts, George Washington, and so on. None–none–of my friends failed to go to allopathic medical school in the United States if they got past the pre-reqs and the MCAT. The challenge of the folks I saw was that the barrier to entry into the program was low, so people sometimes went in before they were ready, and didn’t do well or dropped out. So there is attrition, but if you’re ready to get serious, a place like SFSU is an excellent choice. Since I’ve left, they’ve started a formal program (like Mills or Bryn Mawr, etc) but the informal choice would be fine too, I think–it’s what I chose. I also think a number of the other CSU system schools have a fair number of post-bacs moving through them. http://online.sfsu.edu/~brothman/index.htm


But there’s a more immediate problem. OPM people are getting irritated with you because you’re not playing nice. That isn’t really what this particular site is all about, and you’re not going to get help from this community if you keep it up. You may or may not believe folks here about what will work, but I’ll tell you for sure what won’t work for you–going to an expensive post-bac program and then acting like you’re entitled to a medical school spot because you didn’t do like all those suckers on OPM who think they can just get into med school with hard work.


Medical school and medical practice have a tightly enforced culture of collegiality–so tightly enforced, in fact, that even an agreeable fellow like me manages to get slapped down almost regularly for not being collegial and deferential enough. Unfortunately, the process of becoming a doctor is full of moments in which your superiors make snap character judgments about you, and if those judgments are negative they will generally spend no further time or energy thinking about you or getting to know you. (This is actually an incredibly frustrating but remarkably constant element of medical training.) The tone you’re taking here would make an admissions committee throw away your file. Though it’s impossible to assess quantitatively, I suspect that as many people are rejected from med school because someone decided that they are an a-hole (whether at their pre-med institution or the med school level), as people who are rejected because of the name of their college. Thus, as you go forward I would make sure that your avatar of Gooble is not linked to your real name on the internet where someone could make the connection. Also, whatever post-bac program you choose, make nice: going in with a confrontational attitude is going to deny you the real benefit of the more expensive programs, which is to have a pre-med advisor well-known to med schools vouching for not only your record but your character.


I’m not saying this just to be snotty in a flame war: I am genuinely saying it because I think you need to hear it. Your aggressive confrontational tone works in punk rock, football, guerilla warfare or acquisitions and mergers; but it’s really really bad in medicine. If you’re going to keep going in this direction, you are going to have to figure out where that anger comes from and try to find a way to make it useful to you instead of a barrier to your own advancement. I doubt you’re going to listen to me now about this, but perhaps you’ll think back on it later when you piss someone off who actually matters to your career, and they slap you down. It may not be fair when they do it–it often isn’t–but it will be definitive. You will get slapped down; believe me, I speak from painful experience. I hope that when you do, it won’t be too late for you to make a turnaround.


Good luck figuring out the right path for you.


j

60

Gooble -


Having read this thread, I have to admit that I’m kind of confused about what you want. It seems that your background in law (“where your law school name and reputation matters more than anything”) has predisposed you to a firm belief in the power of a name, and to some extent, there’s something to be said for that.


I think we can all agree that it’s difficult to get realistic statistics, based on schools’ motivations to make themselves look good, as well as self-selection bias at places like mdapplicants.com or SDN.


Are you truly “looking for some folks that went the cheap route that made it?” If so, you’ve already gotten some anecdotal evidence for that, which is really all you can expect.


If you’re asking for 100 med students to chime in and state their undergrad schools - well, they’re all med students, so by definition you wouldn’t hear anyone saying “I took CC classes and I didn’t get in,” which would be the evidence for your presumptive claim. If you’re asking for people’s backgrounds and experiences and success rates - well, that’s what you’ve been getting.


Taking a step back, I think it’s important to understand more about the OPM community. I think the sample size for what you’re looking for - non-traditional current med students who have matriculated at this university or that - will be smaller than you expect. I could go into a number of reasons about why, based on the community history/timing, size, etc… but the real point is, med students don’t have a lot of time to answer our questions - especially when we get snippish if we dont’ like the responses.


Of course, I don’t know whether med students are busy or not, because I’m not one; I’ll have to find 100 and get a representative sample. Or, like all of us, I can form my opinion based on reports and research.


And that’s what we’re all doing here, of course. You’ve done your homework, and you have a certain expectation about adcoms and school reputations. Others have done the same. I’m not really sure why it’s turned into such a personal issue, so hopefully we can get back to being productive.


We have different beliefs here, based on our experiences and expectations, as well as the research we’ve done. “Any input or advice is appreciated” is a productive way to manage those differences. “If you don’t like my comments then don’t read them” and “I didn’t realize I was still asking for your opinion” are not.