DON'T play the comparison game!!!

You decided to apply to med school for your own reasons -- something in you says, "This is what I would like to do; I would be good at this." Maybe you really love the science of it, or you are good at and like interacting with others, or you had some experience relating to the medical field that you enjoyed and at which you succeeded. Depending on how far you are as a pre-med, you have taken most or all of the necessary classes, and received grades and had experiences that caused you to KEEP considering a medical profession. We've all taken the same core set of classes, all took the MCAT, all went through many of the same processes.

HOWEVER, we have all had different experiences, and these standard evaluations of how much we've learned mean different things when coming from different people. Each person has their own set of unique abilities, ideas, interactions with the world, and this diversity of opinions and knowledge are what is needed in the medical field, and looked for by admissions committees.

Then why, oh why, do people continually play the comparison game?!? "What was your MCAT score?" "Did you do research during undergrad?" "Where did you go to undergrad?" "What volunteering have you done?" Stop. Stop! STOP!

This is not helpful-- to anyone. Most people do it to try and see where they stand, to make themselves feel like they are ahead of the other applicants and have that ever-elusive "edge," when these are often not true indicators of how strong an applicant you are, and is only detrimental to your confidence/self-esteem. As soon as you hear that the applicant across the room got one point higher than you on the MCAT, that the person next to year spent a year helping a medical team in Honduras, you feel deflated, and may begin to doubt whether or not you should even by applying.

I say, RIDICULOUS!!! I know of applicants who had an MCAT score of 40 or 42, but did not get accepted to their top choices because that's all they had, and they didn't have a personality or ability to work well with others. There are tons of stories of people with awesome stats getting rejected, and people with average stats, but an interesting background/experience/motivation skills/etc getting accepted. Of course, there are the normal situations you're used to, where an applicant got a 38, had a 3.9 GPA and had an article published, and gets accepted to all their schools. The point is, no matter where you are, sitting with fellow undergrads waiting to meet with your medical professions advisor, in the waiting area of the MCAT testing center, or nervously waiting amongst the other applicants for an interview - DO NOT compare!

Sure, if someone asks you a question, or if you need to make polite small talk, go ahead and answer or ask about any research they did, but don't start being ridiculous and actually taking what they have to say to heart. Everybody is good for their own reasons, and the person that has all these amazing stats is probably a humanized robot, will not make a good doctor, and hopefully the admissions committee will see through that. You are interesting because you are not a robot, so don't listen to other people's supposed stories of awesome, and just tell your interviewer about you, how cool you are, and why you belong at that school (but not why you belong at that school more than that other guy, that sounds king of arrogant, which is the whole point of this post).

Thank you. I hope I saved you much frustration, depression, and from pulling out of going to medical school because you aren't a medical robot. Be awesome.