Why You Need to Think Critically about Advice and Who You Get it From
Sometimes I read advice online for medical school admissions from medical students that I think is fundamentally wrong. Of course this would seem counter-intuitive – how could someone be wrong about advice if they got in?
Consider a game of rock, paper, scissors (yah yah, how many times have I used this example now?). Imagine your opponent is playing scissors. Now also imagine that you’ve never played the game before, so you enlist the help of a friend who has. This friend has defeated this opponent before and tells you to play rock because it worked for him last time. If you listen to him and play rock, you’ll win too. Great.
But what if your opponent decides to play paper instead? Of course your friend comes along and again tells you to play rock because that’s what he did last time and it worked for him. But if you play rock, you’ll quickly realize that it doesn’t work this time. So what went wrong, and how could your friend win at this game but fail to help you this time?
Short-Term Success does Not Necessarily Equate to True Understanding
The reason why you lost is because you assumed that your friend understood the game simply because he was successful at it once. He played one game of rock, paper, scissors and got it right, and you both jumped to the conclusion that he knew how to play. But once the situation of the game changed, it became clear that the value of his advice was limited – and the value of his advice was limited because his actual understanding was limited.
One of the mistakes we tend to make is being too results oriented, particularly when it comes to attributing the success of others to genuine understanding. This can become problematic if we spend more time asking for advice and less time actually thinking about it. If the main character in our little hypothetical situation spent time thinking and figuring out rock, paper, scissors, he would realize that the advice he received was bad. He would understand that the justification of “it worked for me last time” isn’t enough to guarantee success in the future.
So how does this relate to medical school advice, and well, advice in general? Sometimes I see successful individuals view their short-term results as evidence for the idea that their strategy was correct. But instead of thinking about why their strategy may have worked, they just assume it was a good strategy because everything worked out. But like I explained, unless you can actually explain why your ideas are good, you are taking the risk of actually being quite wrong.
For instance, there are some students with a resume a mile long who get into medical school. So when they see a medical school applicant list a shorter resume and ask what their chances of getting in are, these students chime in and say it probably isn’t long enough, since they got in with a longer one. I hope you can see the logical problems with this line of thinking, and while it may seem obvious, it’s amazing how often we don’t realize it at the time.
This is precisely the reason why I don’t like answering the questions like “what courses did you take and what things did you do to get into medical school?”. Instead, I like to write articles that take a more analytical approach to the admissions process and aim to provide an understanding of the process.
Common Pitfall: Projection
One common mistake we make when providing advice and thinking about it is projecting the way we think onto other people. It’s a mistake to think that other people or groups both should and do think the way you do.
For instance, let’s visit the claim that medical schools prefer students who have studied at more “reputable” universities. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume it’s true that these more reputable universities have, on average, more challenging undergraduate programs. Some students take this idea and think to themselves that it would only seem “right” to take this information to account, and thus, they propose that medical schools prefer students who go to these more challenging undergraduate programs.
However, such students are making huge and unfounded assumptions, primarily that medical school admissions committees think the way they do. That is, they are projecting their own model of thought on the admissions committees for no apparent reason. To students, if they have to work harder than others for the same grades, they deserve to have some sort of advantage in the admissions process.
Instead of assuming other individuals or groups think like you, it’s better to picture yourself in their shoes, and try and figure out how they would perceive the situation, concept, or idea at hand. Imagine you are on a medical school admissions committee. Even if you knew that certain undergraduate programs must be more challenging, how would you react to that? How would you know which actual courses were harder at which universities, and given that the student populations are different, how could you adjust the marks submitted to you? Moreover, how could you do it in a fair, objective way?
It’s really hard if you think about it, and personally, I haven’t been able to come up with a solution myself besides just leaving things the way they are.
Are You Saying I Shouldn’t be Taking Advice from Others?
Oh no, I am definitely not saying that. In fact, I take advice from others all the time. However, what you should do is not accept advice blindly. You need to spend the time critically thinking about advice you’re given, and whether it’s logical and makes sense. You are definitely doing yourself a disservice if you accept anything I say blindly.
Imagine if a lottery winner told you to pick the numbers 3, 14, 16, 22, 31, 44 because it worked for her. You would quickly realize that’s absurd – yet for some reason it doesn’t seem so absurd to many students when they hear from teachers, parents, guidance counselors, or older students that medical schools actually care which university you did your undergraduate studies at.
If you’re given advice that could seriously affect an important decision of yours, make sure you understand the reasoning behind the advice. And if you’re not sure, ask the person giving the advice. If they can’t provide a reason that makes logical sense, you should be wary of it.
However, keep in mind that not understanding the advice is not a justification for viewing a piece of advice as bad. It’s easy to shrug off things you don’t understand, but from personal experience, some of the best advice I’ve received were things I just didn’t understand at the time.
Related Posts:
- Interview Advice: The Importance of Being Memorable and Telling Stories
- Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 3: Why Medicine and How Did You Prepare
- Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 4: How Your Premedical Studies have Prepared You for Medicine
- Why Reference Letters are Important and How to Pick Your Referees
- Mastering the University of Toronto Medical School Essay – Part 1: The Secret
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Comments
Hey , Josh. Sorry, this might kind of be a random question, but I am going into University this year. I was just wondering is it easy to find a lab part-time job ?
General consensus works in not cases but you should also critically asses the advice and realize the exceptions. Most people say take the MCAT after 2nd or 3rd year. If I had followed that I wouldn’t be in my position today having took it after first. Josh says it best. Think for yourself and find what works for you. IMO you can trust josh
lol wow you used really good analogies, i also think that medical schools should use the z score method or grad ranking of students within a program at each university to determine whether a student is on the same acdemic level as another student. for example, i’ve know high schools students who had teachers that are relatively more generous with marks and their class average is 85% when the same course taught by another teacher has a much lower class average given the caliber of students are quite similar.
Hi Joshua,
I got a research summer job already but i have some other plans too for the summer (which is also pretty important, but its not university related tho.).. I am not sure if you had any experiences with research and do you think its beneficial for your university studies ? ( I am going into first year this coming September.)
Thank you so much and have a great day ~
Joshua, I’m not a student who is intending to pursue medical school (I’m leaning more towards a graduate degree at this time, but then again I’m graduating high school this year so I have time to change my mind!), but I still find your blog and your posts to be incredibly insightful and, as someone mentioned, applicable to many things outside of medical-school admission.
you’re spot-on with what you’re writing (and this is from someone who is going to be attending one of the universities reputed for having a ‘more difficult’ competitive structure).
I really enjoy reading all your insights and I hope you keep writing. I find your way of thinking refreshing and I’m glad to see that you are becoming so successful already (and are happy with what you do)–you really deserve it.
This article is dead-on. It even makes me rethink the kind of advice I give to others. Sometimes I’m guilty of just telling people what worked for me, but if I really stopped to think, it might not work for everyone else.
This article is dead-on. It even makes me rethink the kind of advice I give to others. Sometimes I’m guilty of just telling people what worked for me, but if I really stopped to think, it might not work for everyone else.
Excellent post. I really like that your articles carry an insight that is applicable to both med school admissions and life in general. Thanks a lot. Keep it up (as much as you can!) =)