Peterson's Insider's Guide to Medical Schools: Current Students Tell You What Their Medical School Is Really Like (Insider's Guide to Medical Schools)

Rating:
Summary: Correction
Review: Sai Li is certainly entitled to an opinion, however negative, of our book. However, there is a glaring error of fact in Sai's review. Every review, with just a few exceptions in which we could not find medical students at particular schools (fewer than 10 out of 126 schools), is written by a current medical student or recent graduate of the particular school. Their names are in fact listed in the back of the book. I'm not sure why Sai had this misperception, but I thought it was important to correct it.

Rating:
Summary: Correct the Correction
Review: Sai Li's point was just what the "Correction" comment states: that current students did fill out the surveys. However, without any biographical information on them (sorry a list of names at the end of the book doesn't do a whole lot of good) and without knowing how those students were picked (i.e., whether they can be considered at all representative of their class and school), we are left not knowing how much weight, if any, should be given to their feedback. It appears as if the "Correction" review was simply an attempt by the author to increase the overall rating of the book by including an additional 5 star review. Pretty transparent, and I second Sai Li's recommendation to get your hands on the AAMC's MSAR book which is the only guide to medical schools officially sanctioned by the American Association of Medical Colleges.

Rating:
Summary: Get the big picture with this book...
Review: This book excels in giving you the general flavor and background with respect to school curricula, strong and weak points, housing, entertainment, and other local info that would be difficult to find in any one source. I referred to it extensively and used it as a starting point for further research into schools I might be interested in. I have also found the descriptions to be mostly accurate, as far as the few schools I knew about in particular. Friends I knew, who were also trying to pick schools to apply to, got this book after flipping through my copy. Who exactly the student writers are, and their class standings are particularly irrelevant, as I would hope that you wouldn't base your application decision on any one source. As a general reference, and a peek into a particular school and it's local area, this book can't be beat! The few suggestions I would have would be to update this book every year or two (some of the info was slightly dated, as some schools have changed curriculum (e.g. going from traditional to organ-based, etc.)), and to standardize the descriptions a bit more if possible. Also, reading the great descriptions of schools that you're interested in, leaves you hungry for more, they could easily make this book twice as big, but then it would be a little less handy. *I haven't found any other book out there gives this broad a perspective, so I highly recommend it.*

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: True, each article was written by an actual med student, but how were those students chosen? Were they the top of the class, or the slackers? Why did they pick the school? Perhaps the editors could have supplemented the book with a short biography of each writer. Better yet, have a student unaffiliated with the school infiltrate the medical school and do the writing. Each article was overwhelmingly positive, and ended with the writer saying "great school," "high-quality education," etc, whether if it's Hopkins or the University of Southern Florida. Were they afraid that the schools would sue them for defamation if they pointed out the shortcomings? The descriptions of "Preclinical Years" and "Clinical Years" took up most the space, when I could have gotten more up-to-date information from brochures. Perhaps the Social Life sections could have been expanded, since this is the only thing that's not available elsewhere. This book will not help shorten the list of the schools you'll be considering, but make it longer. If you really need to buy a book about medical schools, get the Medical School Admissions Requirements from AAMC. It is updated annually and gives selection factors and prerequisites, and will save you a lot of money when it comes to deciding which schools to apply. If you're really interested in the school, go on a tour and ask around, or schedule a telephone interview with a med student over there. When it says on the introduction "Peterson's did not verify and cannot vouch for the accuracy of information contained within these profile," how can I trust anything I read?