<p>What a weekend! Last night was officially named “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” (we got a limo for about 20 people)…oh man, still a little hazy at the moment but let’s get this done.</p>
<p>1) This is a ridiculous question. Simply put, you need both. There are plenty of stories out there of kids with 4.0’s and 37 MCATs, but nothing else who don’t get in to any medical schools, usually summarily dismissed everywhere, even without interviews. Also, as BDM pointed out, balance between MCAT and GPA is important. Using his friend’s index of 68 as an example, within a certain range, a point in either direction can be make up for the other category - ie a 30/3.8 student is roughly the same as a 31/3.7 or a 33/3.5, get too far out though, like the person he referenced, and it does no good.</p>
<p>2) Medicine is a social profession. Yes, there are some specialties that are far less patient oriented, but in the end, no physician works entirely independently. If you can’t communicate and deal with people, then you probably shouldn’t go into medicine. So how do medical schools assess this? With your extracurriculars and the interview. You must have them, and you will be asked about those things during your interviews. They are also the ways in which you learn and develop the skills that a physician needs - leadership, communication, compassion, empathy.</p>
<p>3) Staying in-state is one thing, but in-state status doesn’t matter much when you’re talking about private schools. </p>
<p>4) I’ll echo the statements made about BS/MD programs. The real scenario you have to ask yourself is, when you’re 70 and getting ready to retire as a pediatric orthopedist (7 years of training), are you really going to look back and say, “Gee I’m really glad I was a doctor for 37 years and not 36, best decision ever!”? I tend to think not.</p>
<p>5) If you can sell it during an interview or on your personal statement, ANY experience can help in the admissions process. I waited tables at Old Chicago for almost two years and when it came up in both my interviews, I was able to talk about the multitasking, the heavy demand on time and getting things right and the social interactions and how that would benefit me as a student and future physician (just like you can’t **** off a cook, you don’t want to **** of your nurses). At one school I interviewed at, both interviewers (there were two separate interviews) were super enthusiastic about the fact that I had waited tables. Dead serious. One of them, went on and on about how he could tell a lot about me because I had handled such job and enjoyed doing it. Is research more readily apparent to admissions committees? Sure, but it isn’t always more applicable. </p>
<p>6) As far as D1 athletes - depends on the school, the sport, and the individual. Also where they are applying. Some schools have phenomenal support systems in place for their athletes - free tutors, great test files, great academic advising and so on. Students-Athletes, regardless of sport, at those schools are probably getting a lot of benefits that most students have no idea about (I only know about them in such detail at my school because I dated a scholarship athlete for a while and one of my good buddies was on the track team). Of course the student has to take advantage of the help offered or otherwise it’s of no use. However, other schools don’t provide for their student athletes nearly as well, and despite the experience, team work, and leadership, they probably do take a pretty big hit. I’d imagine that this is an even bigger problem at lower division schools due to smaller budgets and such. </p>
<p>However, it’s hard to put a value on how much playing a sport can mean. I know I have several stories of people I know who did not click with their interviewer at all, and it cost them their admission (including one guy who had his initial interviewer - who he had a great interview with - die before submitting the report of the interview meaning the student had to reinterview about a month later). You catch the right person who’s a huge Nebraska or USC Football fan, or Duke or Kentucky basketball fan…who knows what that could do for you. Even just the association athletes in smaller sports have with those famous programs could be a benefit.</p>
<p>7) I believe your gusto for AP courses is misplaced. In some cases, namely AP chem in certain situations, I even believe that AP’s can be detrimental to pre-med students. However, I’m sure that they do matter a lot to college admissions and so they remain important. Not having much knowledge about college admissions, I can’t tell you just what importance they have though. It seems rather petty to whine about APs only being important for college admissions.</p>
<p>I think that’s pretty much all I wanted to get at…</p>