We’ve written about how to piss off your medical school admissions reader, and one of the big takeaways from that article is that you shouldn’t make excuses or pull cards that you don’t have. Candidates sometimes take this route when they feel desperate or out of options, but it’s likely to further undermine your chances.

Like wikipedia, these sources are a great place to start when doing research, but they can’t be viewed as the end-all-be-all. Here’s why:

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This myth has us clamoring for a guaranteed solution, perhaps to absurd lengths, but that solution will always remain elusive… because it doesn’t exist.

Appeals to Pity (guilt tripping) are ineffective when they stand on their own. That’s why there are three points to the rhetorical triangle. Pathos (emotion) can be very convincing, but it needs logos (logic) and ethos (credibility) for it to be a sound argument.

Don’t be fooled into feeling pot-committed - in the end, that’s usually just an excuse to do what’s more passive and comfortable! Â

Think about all those advertisements you see on TV with sad dogs in cages, encouraging you to donate money to such-and-such charity. I’m all about helping dogs, but those nonprofits are clearly pulling at your heartstrings to sell you on their message.

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In some cases, certain factors will prevent you from getting in, but majoring in anthro is not one of them. Neither is getting a C in freshman bio. Small blips can be compensated for, and many academic paths can lead to pre-med success.

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In the example above, the candidate is putting a lot of stock into the advice from his superior at the NIH. And why shouldn’t he listen to one of the higher-ups at the National Institute of Health?

No matter where you’re at in the admissions process, make sure to heed this advice and stay clear of the myths that pervade the online forums. Don’t hurt your odds! Keep an open, objective mind and make Fitzgerald proud!

But you won’t even be getting the benefit of the 50/50 coin flip. More likely, you’ll just be eating massive application fees and ending up in the application slush piles.

You might think that you’re above this kind of mental lapse, that you always see things objectively and logically, but you’d be wrong.

There is no surefire, foolproof method when it comes to medical school admissions, or life in general. It’s not the “what” of your application that will get you into medical school; it’s the “how.” And how you present your application will depend on your experiences, personality, writing style, school selection, etc.

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Too much thinking in this mindset will cause you to avoid diversification or risk-taking in your application. In turn, this will lead you towards a safe, generic application that comes across rather one-note to admissions committees.

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That’s how the Sunk Costs myth operates. It tricks you into the idea of feeling “pot-committed” - or obligated to finish something - strictly due to the energy previously spent.

Sure, there are stories of pre-meds who have miraculously pulled off this numbers-game approach, but that’s the same as people winning the lotto or beating the house at a casino. They’re the anomaly that helps to feed the myth. You’ll find far more people with crumpled lotto tickets and empty pockets.

It’s usually something relatively minor, like getting a C in freshman biology or taking science courses at a community college. Maybe even choosing a non-science major. But the trolls are hasty in their generalizations, letting small things snowball, claiming others will never get into medical school due to X, Y, or Z reason.

We make this mistake all the time. When we feel like people are smarter than us, we tend to take their words as objective truth, whether or not they have any specific expertise on the topic. It dates all the way back to agreeing with our parents that babies come from storks, and this tempting mental shortcut never goes away completely.

Well, for one thing, the NIH has nothing to do with admissions and no authority over what constitutes good personal non-fiction for your essays. If the supervisor had given you advice on finding research opportunities, then it wouldn’t be a myth - the advice would have legitimate ethos and credibility. Â

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Not exactly. You can’t compensate for iffy stats, limited clinical experience, and typical background by maximizing the amount of applications you submit. If anything, the cumbersome amount of work you’ll be doing to complete the applications will be a detriment to their quality.

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We encourage you to bend conventions and plot your journey in your own distinct way, free of the false dichotomies placed on you.

The Golden Ticket myth partly arises from our inability to distinguish the part from the whole (i.e. it was X reason why I did or didn’t get in, rather than a bevy of factors weighed holistically). It also stems from our inability to accept the concepts of luck, chance, and all the small aspects that are out of our control.

Why? It’s because these myths are an easy escape from the truth, a way to avoid deeper and more critical thinking. They often play off our basest fears, instincts, or first impressions. They typically break things down into deceptive black-and-white dichotomies, which are easier for our brain to process and therefore more attractive as ideas.

This monkey-see-monkey-do myth can be useful at times (line dancing, for example), but your medical school application is far too personalized for such a one-size-fits-all approach.

Every school gets the same primary application, transcripts, letter of recommendation, etc. from you, and they all receive fairly similar secondaries about your life and experiences. So for the most part, with some exceptions (in-state vs. out-of-state, for example) your odds with each application are relatively the same every time.

Playing the numbers game to the extreme relies on flawed logic. Apply broadly all across the country, cast the widest net possible, and your chances of getting an interview will go up!

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Since you’re dealing with such high stakes and steep competition, these forms of mental bargaining all the more alluring. Who doesn’t want an easy formula for success, a quick-fix catch-all solution? Be careful - buying into these myths could have negative effects on your admissions chances.

Sure, that formula of activities worked for your cousin, one person, but there were many other factors at play (his background, GPA, MCAT, overall time commitments and responsibilities, etc.) that affected his success. Attributing it to his volunteer capacity and amount of research alone is a False Cause myth, since you’re creating a correlation that is built on a limited and short-sighted premise.

The pre-med Appeals to Pity happen most often when students write disadvantaged essays or essays about institutional action.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka prints a handful of golden tickets inside his chocolate bars, dispersed randomly across the globe, giving recipients a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour his factory.

For a healthier approach to your application, click here to find out what really separates the typical from stand-out pre-meds.

You might follow the same path and wind up miserable and overworked, without much to make you stand out. Do not jump to conclusions about causality or you’ll wind up a casualty.

It was that simple in the book; if you had a ticket, you got to enter. And that’s how the Golden Ticket myth tricks you. It deceives you into believing there’s a secret, hidden method or formula that will guarantee success. If you have X, or if you can get Y position, you’ll be irresistible to every medical school you apply to. It’s at the heart of the easy thinking that plagues all the myths on this list.

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This myth can rear its ugly head in many scenarios for pre-meds - lingering in impossibly hard classes until it’s too late to drop them without penalty, clinging to countless fringe roles in a slew of half-hearted extracurriculars, settling for a biology major after a year of classes instead of pursuing something more personally stimulating.

And it’s not your fault. There are many pre-med myths and misconceptions that are perpetuated by the hivemind, a mob mentality that arises from internet hearsay and a fear of missing out (FOMO, as the kids call it).

Moral of the story - take all advice with a grain of salt (even mine) and examine it critically. Consider the sources of information and the expertise behind them, and never lose your healthy sense of skepticism!

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” He’s right, but our brains don’t like to operate that way; we like to see things in clear-cut, black-or-white dichotomies because they’re easier to process and seem more reliable.

More specifically, let’s say you stick around in a research position that you find unfulfilling, simply from fear of being labeled a “quitter.” Great, you save some element of pride, but you’re unlikely to end up with any inspiring stories, tangible results, or pending publications. Check out our 3 signs it’s time to quit your research position for more insights.

In some cases, we’ve paraphrased actual comments from these online forums (see the italics below); others are derived from years of working with students who continuously cite these sources as the Gospel Truth of admissions.

All work on this site is our own. The content for the Savvy med school search was found on the webpages of the respective medical schools.

Whether it’s online through forums like Student Doctor Network (SDN) or reddit, you are constantly inundated with advice (both wanted and unwanted), and it’s tempting to take whatever advice sounds good or most convenient for you.

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We all know this feeling. We’ve invested ourselves into something and we want to see it through. For me, this is my growing collection of stories and poems that have unraveled into the “Outtakes” folder on my computer. Most of the time, it’s good to finish what you’ve started, BUT not at the expense of your long-term success.

Do MDs really have more success than DOs in residency applications? The verdict is that both types of programs can get you into residency programs, no matter their ranking. Sure, MD programs might help you slightly for more competitive specialties, but looking at it in such an all-or-nothing way is reductive.

You won’t find a secret formula for admission, so your best bet is to complete an application that’s authentically the best representation of yourself as an individual. Focus on YOUR strengths, YOUR stand-out experiences, and YOUR potential contributions to the field. They’re your real golden ticket.

The Appeal to Authority myth is particularly hard to shake. We’re taught from a young age to listen to our elders and heed the wisdom of those with more experience. As a pre-med, you should recognize how much of a novice you are in the grand scheme, but you shouldn’t blindly follow advice from someone just because they’re on a higher rung of the ladder than you.

This is NOT to say that disadvantaged candidates don’t face significant challenges, or that emotional and mental health aren’t valid. ‘Do no harm’ includes your own self-care. The point is that there’s a clear line between legitimate disadvantage and fabricated sob story. If you let the facts of your circumstances speak for themselves and don’t editorialize, you can achieve the pathos you want while also maintaining a sound argument. Â

As illustrated in the italics above, a good pre-med example of the False Dichotomy myth is the belief that DO programs will determine your range of future specialties. In essence, it’s MD or bust in some people’s minds when it comes to competitive specialties like surgery. This notion might lead you to believe that DOs exclusively fill primary care specialties, with no grey areas or exceptions in between.

That’s where the Slippery Slope myth ends for most pre-meds - rejection - not getting in. When voices are telling you that something always or never leads to rejection, speaking in such certain extremes, it’s hard not to listen. The Slippery Slope or Hasty Generalization myth makes a haphazard leap in logic which plays off our fears.

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In an era of fake news and an explosion of opinions on social media, you may have heard the term “confirmation bias” before. If not, it’s pretty simple - it means we tend to seek out and believe information that reinforces our pre-existing opinions.