<p>As a parent of an applicant I hope all you exceptional kids observe some notes that I thought might help. I doubt any of you will accumalate as many hours as I have with a degree in Pharmacy and Medicine and uncountable hours of residency and felllowship in Cardiology, with a few graduate courses and CMEs thrown in. My son is currently applying #1 in his class but a couple of Cs freshman year. The irony is I almost applied to the Emory Internal Medicine residency years ago but was told they had already rejected many of their own graduates, so probably futile endeavor. It is a beautiful campus and respected school.
Some of the assumptions made by former admissions members are a little crazy. If you score 790/800 on chemistry and your teacher gave you a C there are a thousand possible reasons, the least likely of which is laziness. Some teachers just have very odd grading systems that reflect nothing. Teachers can make the same human errors as you or I.
Two points worth noting during these neurotic days for kids and their parents;
- Almost all of you would have been easily admitted when I was young. Things have really changed. If your GPA is less than 4 it is more likely a reflection on your school or eccentric teachers than your IQ or willingness to work hard.
- Ask anyone who has been blessed with a good career and they will tell you the same thing. Getting into post graduate work is the most important thing, so go wherever but make As. And amidst the sacrimonious and all knowing critics of your accomplishments are many who had less impressive credentials. Most important of all, based on the credentials I have seen, almost all of you will do very well in the working world, which is totally unrelated to the academic.
In my lifetime there has always been at least one rational person who understands the real world and helped with their support. Cross country runners and talented musicians are not lazy, they are just caught up in the random world we live in. Hopefully you will have some understanding and reasonable people evaluating your applications.</p>