where to look for premed advising at cal
"1. Where can I look besides official Premed Advising at Cal?
"This is one of the things in hindsight that really screwed me and a lot of other people. The advisors that I interacted with as an MCB student were by and large, complete goddamn morons. They just don’t have any idea what the hell they are talking about. I think on some level I think this is why I started this column, and also why I think Cal students have traditionally had a disadvantage for applying to medical school versus private schools. If you have a feeling that an advisor is blowing smoke at you, or are suspicious of the advice you are given, you are probably right. At their best, they were unhelpful. At their worst I think they really misled many students into either not applying, or to push students into having really poorly planned applications. It is sad as an adcom when you see an applicant from Cal, and know this student probably received bad advice because their application is all over the place.
2. So, where to look for advice?
I got in with the help of SDN forums which was amazing. Now it’s not the level of a Harvard pre-med advisor who writes your letters for you, etc, but it does have a lot of other people that are in your shoes and can come across the same logistical problems that you do. Things like, how do I get a letter? What sort of activities are interesting and worth doing? Chances are, somebody has run into that problem and gotten some feedback about it. That being said, there are assholes on that site that brag about amazing stats and shit, but you can kind of tell who they are. I took a lot of the advice on that site and managed to get into some very good programs."
-Andy
"This is one of the things in hindsight that really screwed me and a lot of other people. The advisors that I interacted with as an MCB student were by and large, complete goddamn morons. They just don’t have any idea what the hell they are talking about. I think on some level I think this is why I started this column, and also why I think Cal students have traditionally had a disadvantage for applying to medical school versus private schools. If you have a feeling that an advisor is blowing smoke at you, or are suspicious of the advice you are given, you are probably right. At their best, they were unhelpful. At their worst I think they really misled many students into either not applying, or to push students into having really poorly planned applications. It is sad as an adcom when you see an applicant from Cal, and know this student probably received bad advice because their application is all over the place.
2. So, where to look for advice?
I got in with the help of SDN forums which was amazing. Now it’s not the level of a Harvard pre-med advisor who writes your letters for you, etc, but it does have a lot of other people that are in your shoes and can come across the same logistical problems that you do. Things like, how do I get a letter? What sort of activities are interesting and worth doing? Chances are, somebody has run into that problem and gotten some feedback about it. That being said, there are assholes on that site that brag about amazing stats and shit, but you can kind of tell who they are. I took a lot of the advice on that site and managed to get into some very good programs."
-Andy