Have any of your friends gone Caribbean Med?

[Med Ed]

Do people get bounced from the Caribbean after 1st or 2nd year, generally speaking?

That's the entire business model: a lot of high margin M1/M2 students and a significantly smaller cohort of low/negative margin M3/M4 students.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Rhabdoviridae]

Do people get bounced from the Caribbean after 1st or 2nd year, generally speaking?

Not having spent my first two years of medical school on the island, I can't say from personal experience. However, my classmates who were there for the first two years told me that those who didn't make it through were cut after the first two semesters (1st year). This was after the school allowed them to repeat terms and put them through intensive tutoring services and/or remedial classwork/exams. In other words, it sounds like these students were not cut out to study medicine in the first place.

 

[Goro]

There are no reliable stats on this. Data that was reported from Ross and AUC in 2013 to Bloomberg, indicated from 20% to 27% of their students left during the first 2 year. It further stated that those who were left 52% to 66% graduated in 4 years (the way the article was written I couldnt tell whether those second set of percentages was for only those who were left or from total initial class size). It should be noted that US MD schools have a 3% overall attrition rate with 82% graduating 4 years, 94% in 5 years, and 97% in 8 years (accounts for dual degrees)

It's amusing how some people get shaken by the phrase "probation" for a med school, as if they're going to be closed tomorrow, yet others will gladly go to a school that would not merely merit probation, but be closed immediately by LCME for such attrition and match rates.

 

[GypsyHummus]

So once you pass first year you are good as far as dropping out?

Not having spent my first two years of medical school on the island, I can't say from personal experience. However, my classmates who were there for the first two years told me that those who didn't make it through were cut after the first two semesters (1st year). This was after the school allowed them to repeat terms and put them through intensive tutoring services and/or remedial classwork/exams. In other words, it sounds like these students were not cut out to study medicine in the first place.

 

[Rhabdoviridae]

So once you pass first year you are good as far as dropping out?

This is just what I was told the other day by a group of students competing a rotation with me, but yeah it seems like those who drop out do so early on.

 

[Goro]

So once you pass first year you are good as far as dropping out?

fail any class, and they either give you the boot or make you repeat the year.

On top of that, I have seen multiple posts from desperate SGU and Ross students who say that they passed the pre-clinicals, but got kicked out for failing diagnostic shelf exams.

While the Lotto winners may claim "but they give you a chance", make no mistake, these schools are predatory and engage in educational malpractice.

 

[863168]

fail any class, and they either give you the boot or make you repeat the year. On top of that, I have seen multiple posts from desperate SGU and Ross students who say that they passed the pre-clinicals, but got kicked out for failing diagnostic shelf exams. While the Lotto winners may claim "but they give you a chance", make no mistake, these schools are predatory and engage in educational malpractice.

The Caribbean also gives a chance to someone with sexual abuse charges and pleaded unlawful imprisonment of the second degree.

 

[En3rgy]

The Caribbean is designed to cater to individuals who want to become physicians but can't or couldn't get into a U.S. MD/DO school, because of either academic reasons (low GPA, low MCAT score, Institutional Action etc.) and/or non-academic reasons (lack of extracurricular activities, parental pressure, lack of foresight, lack of patience etc.). Due to these reasons, it is no surprise that the attrition rate is so high.

It is unfortunate to see some people go to the Caribbean and either fail out or never acquire a residency, after having invested so much of their time and money. What if they had reinvented themselves for a U.S. MD/DO school? Perhaps, they would have been spared a better fate.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Now heres an interesting ponder,

If someone wanted to do just family medicine and was fine getting into a rural or otherwise non competitive program somewhere in the middle of nowhere, would that be a good idea?

 

[Goro]

Now heres an interesting ponder,

If someone wanted to do just family medicine and was fine getting into a rural or otherwise non competitive program somewhere in the middle of nowhere, would that be a good idea?

DO schools would be that pathway, even for someone with a 497 MCAT and a 3.1 GPA.

 

[Donna Moss]

What percent of re-inventors end up going to the Caribbean? After all that time, money spent on reinvention I would suspect someone who applies 2 or 3 times and doesn't get a single acceptance would then feel the Caribbean is the only way to go for the effort they put in. Or are most caribbean medical students those who applied once, did not want to reinvent/work on ECs and therefore went to the islands?

 

[GypsyHummus]

.

 

[863168]

.

You know what you need to work on. Good luck. A bad score on a standardized test is not worth two years shipping all your packages in barrels and being forced to live in a third world country while studying vast volumes of medical information. All for tenuous outcome at landing a medical internship.

 

[Goro]

What percent of re-inventors end up going to the Caribbean? After all that time, money spent on reinvention I would suspect someone who applies 2 or 3 times and doesn't get a single acceptance would then feel the Caribbean is the only way to go for the effort they put in. Or are most caribbean medical students those who applied once, did not want to reinvent/work on ECs and therefore went to the islands?

I doubt that reinventors go to the Carib. Several SDNers who went that route have commented and their reasons were the same: they wanted that MD now, and didn't want to take the time to reinvent, or bother trying DO.

There's a reason why I copypasta gyngyn's DDx on the reason why people go there:
The DDx for a Caribbean grad is pretty off-putting: bad judgment, bad advice, egotism, gullibility, overbearing parents, inability to delay gratification, IA's, legal problems, weak research skills, high risk behavior. This is not to say that all of them still have the quality that drew them into this situation. There is just no way to know which ones they are

 

[deleted245139]

DO schools would be that pathway, even for someone with a 497 MCAT and a 3.1 GPA.

To add to this, regarding family practice setting, OMM is (for now) easily monitized. Add acupuncture, etc, and you can really bank. One vs the other with rural practice in mind, I'd have to think DO would be a better way

 

[Goro]

To add to this, regarding family practice setting, OMM is (for now) easily monitized. Add acupuncture, etc, and you can really bank. One vs the other with rural practice in mind, I'd have to think DO would be a better way

I have a DO colleague who pointed out that with OMM and the right locality, one can make as much bank as any decent dermatologist. And the overhead is a lot cheaper...you only need the OMM table!

 

[En3rgy]

What percent of re-inventors end up going to the Caribbean? After all that time, money spent on reinvention I would suspect someone who applies 2 or 3 times and doesn't get a single acceptance would then feel the Caribbean is the only way to go for the effort they put in. Or are most caribbean medical students those who applied once, did not want to reinvent/work on ECs and therefore went to the islands?

Old habits die hard. I'd estimate for every 100 people who say they're going to reinvent themselves, probably only 1-2 of them are actually successful at gaining admission into a US MD/DO school. Out of the remaining 98-99, 3-4 most likely opt for the Caribbean at some point. The rest already failed or gave up during some point of the reinvention journey.

 

[GypsyHummus]

At my undergrad, We had a fair amount go to the carribean. If I recall, there were about 40 of us freshmen year as premeds ( rough guess, prolly more). I mean, everyone is a premed before organic chemistry.

Of those 40, 20 found other professions.

Of those remaining 20, 10 ended up getting bare minimum GPA/MCAT scores to move on. The other 10 Others kind of stuck around the university to do a masters and try again later (Most not succeeding ).

Of those 10, about 5 ended up getting into a US MD/DO school. The remaining ones either went to carribean or did pharmacy or podiatry. The ones who did podiatry were smart.

I do not know of a success story from the carribean who has graduated in the last 10 years. I know older docs who went and are doing fine, but no one in the last 10.

Old habits die hard. I'd estimate for every 100 people who say they're going to reinvent themselves, probably only 1-2 of them are actually successful at gaining admission into a US MD/DO school. Out of the remaining 98-99, 3-4 most likely opt for the Caribbean at some point. The rest already failed or gave up during some point of the reinvention journey.

 

[Goro]

Old habits die hard. I'd estimate for every 100 people who say they're going to reinvent themselves, probably only 1-2 of them are actually successful at gaining admission into a US MD/DO school. Out of the remaining 98-99, 3-4 most likely opt for the Caribbean at some point. The rest already failed or gave up during some point of the reinvention journey.

We're having a > 50% success rate for our SMP in getting people into med school. Naturally, the majority of those get into my DO school, but a few more go to other DO schools, and a some made it into MD schools.

 

[Lawpy]

We're having a > 50% success rate for our SMP in getting people into med school. Naturally, the majority of those get into my DO school, but a few more go to other DO schools, and a some made it into MD schools.

So if an advisee says he is on "probation" but does 500 hours of "community service" is this a good or bad thing

What exactly is allowing Caribbean schools to operate as they do? Is the US government sponsoring Caribbean schools? Does the LCME recognize them? Do states recognize them for licensing purposes?

I'm just wondering what's preventing the Caribbean schools from being uniformly shut down.

 

[Lawpy]

From a legal basis, since schools are located in sovereign nations, US accrediting bodies have no authority over the schools themselves. Attempts to do would cause diplomatic issues.

However, the US government can review items that either affect supporting citizens attending these schools, such as loans, or coming back into the country to practice, which is how the ECFMG operates

So Caribbean schools continue to operate/function because the countries they are based on allow them to do so?

 

[begoood95]

At its most simplistic, yes. Obvious it is much more complex with more than 40 years of politics at work

This is a loaded question, but you can answer with a simple yes or no, or go into detail if you want: do you think the cons outweigh the pros of completely shutting down all Caribbean medical schools? That is, hypothetically, if you had the power to shut them down, would you?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[Donna Moss]

Old habits die hard. I'd estimate for every 100 people who say they're going to reinvent themselves, probably only 1-2 of them are actually successful at gaining admission into a US MD/DO school. Out of the remaining 98-99, 3-4 most likely opt for the Caribbean at some point. The rest already failed or gave up during some point of the reinvention journey.

Oh boy, I am fighting an uphill battle. Time to buckle down and be that 1%. Why do you think only 1-2% of reinventors obtain an acceptance to a US med school? Generally many of them are dedicated post bacc students or like myself enrolled in an smp. Do they not perform well or are med schools not taking a chance on people like me because there are so many "perfect" applicants?

1) Politically, we cant. How do we diplomatically distiguish between countries to close schools? Grenada, St. Kitts, Dominica are independent countries same as England, India, or Pakistan.
2) Medically, we cant. We have grown dependent on them since the physican shortages of the 1970s and 80s.
3) many of the schools will have difficulty meeting ECFMG requirements for their graduates by 2023 when they become effective. this combined with growth of MD/DO grads may push off-shore grads getting residency to 1/3 or less of their current levels

I really feel like the last bit should be bolded because I don't think many people understand the severity of it.

 

[738177]

.

 

[deleted647690]

This thread could be re-titled, "Found a pack of cigarettes in our 13 year old daughter's room, how do we talk to her about this?"

 

[Goro]

Most people drop out during 1st semester or 1st year.
Chances of you landing a primary care residency as a fresh US-IMG senior (Caribbean or elsewhere) is ~70%. No speculation needed for this. It's straight off of NRMP. US MD/DO schools are a better choice for obvious reasons.
I've never heard of a failure story coming from the Caribbean. But i'm Canadian and i think the caliber of students we're sending there are different. The only "failure" if you wanna count it is one guy who needed 2 extra years to get a residency. He went to a "low tier" Caribbean school where you could enrol straight from high school. Maturity and caliber of students does matter. The problem is everyone thinks they're high in those categories.

Browse through the Carib forum of SDN and all of the posts are of this ilk:
"Failed out of Ross/SGU/AUA...chances at other schools?"

Or "IMG, failed to match...what do I do now?"

It's quite sad.

 

[738177]

the rates that are used for match rates only count active residency applicants. Those who initially apply but then withdraw or do not tank are dropped from totals in counting match rates. For US MD the withdraw/no rank account for 8% of initial total. overall for US IMG 30% either withdraw or do not rank. Since we have no reliable statistics readily available on either the attrition rates, graduation rates, or residency withdraw/no rank, we can not give a firm "success" rate to any of these schools which is most important to these prospective applicants; that is the rate in which a student starts schools, earns a degree, and obtain a residency slot.

Sure. I'm not advocating any of these Caribbean schools and don't care about their success/failure rates. Merely pointing out the reliable data we have with regards to US IMG seniors who presumably survived the preclinical years.

 

[Rhabdoviridae]

Sure. I'm not advocating any of these Caribbean schools and don't care about their success/failure rates. Merely pointing out the reliable data we have with regards to US IMG seniors who presumably survived the preclinical years.

People like Goro seem to have no purpose in life other than to demean applicants from Caribbean programs, so that they can feel better about themselves and the way in which they have dedicated their lives to teaching fantasy medicine like OMM.

 

[PreMedMissteps]

Oh boy, I am fighting an uphill battle. Time to buckle down and be that 1%. Why do you think only 1-2% of reinventors obtain an acceptance to a US med school? Generally many of them are dedicated post bacc students or like myself enrolled in an smp. Do they not perform well or are med schools not taking a chance on people like me because there are so many "perfect" applicants?
.

I would guess that many students who want to reinvent themselves underestimate how hard the postbacc or SMP classes will be and don't end up doing well. Maybe some never had strong study habits before. Maybe some just aren't academically strong enough to begin with.

 

[begoood95]

People like Goro seem to have no purpose in life other than to demean applicants from Caribbean programs, so that they can feel better about themselves and the way in which they have dedicated their lives to teaching fantasy medicine like OMM.

I sense some pressure in between your eyes (or something like that, @Goro you can correct me) coming soon.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[Lawpy]

People like Goro seem to have no purpose in life other than to demean applicants from Caribbean programs, so that they can feel better about themselves and the way in which they have dedicated their lives to teaching fantasy medicine like OMM.

Wait, weren't you in a DO school and learned OMM before transferring to Caribbean for bizarre reasons?

I have recently transferred to St George's University after completing my second year at a stateside osteopathic medical program and had a question about completing my rotations. I have just begun my first rotation in a large Northeastern city and have been trying to get a straight answer from my colleagues regarding the potential benefit (or disadvantage) that comes from completing rotations at several different hospitals. SGU allows students the choice of staying at one hospital (in some cases) for all clincal rotations, or moving around between different hospitals (sometimes in different states) for rotations. Personally, I would prefer to stay where I am (happens to be my home state), but there seems to be certain hospitals that are better for some rotations than others. I was wondering if program directors take any notice as to whether all of the rotations were completed at the same site and if this influences their decisions in selecting residents. Like I said, I have asked some of my cohorts but got conflicting responses.

 

[Rhabdoviridae]

Wait, weren't you in a DO school and learned OMM before transferring to Caribbean for bizarre reasons?

That is correct, but my dissatisfaction with OMM is not the main reason I transferred

 

[Goro]

I sense some pressure in between your eyes (or something like that, @Goro you can correct me) coming soon.

Wait, weren't you in a DO school and learned OMM before transferring to Caribbean for bizarre reasons?

Indeed. SDN is best utilized when people ask for realistic advice and not affirmation of extremely risky and/or poor, career-terminating decisions. Maybe it's a confirmation bias, but people like this sure seem to go loose cannon a lot more often here.

 

[Toutie]

How many times have we seen stories like this one posted just yesterday?

Can't match need the truth

 

[PreMedMissteps]

That is correct, but my dissatisfaction woth OMM is not the main reason I transferred

You transferred from a DO school to the Caribb? What would possess you to make that move?

 

[863168]

Conversations like this are embarrassingly predictable to understand in terms of where they wind up because they are driven by an egocentric concern for survival. Caribbean students are unable to abstract criticism on Caribbean schools from personal attacks because they now embody the heart and soul of the Caribbean and now must fight as Caribbean freedom fighters to defend their Caribbean brand. They unwittingly enlist themselves as one big co-defendant party whenever one of these threads pop up and find themselves defending not only their fellow Caribbean students, but also their Caribbean school and ultimately the capitalist notion that specialization is about you advancing in life and not the people you service or the craft you practice. The most vocal Caribbean students have a tendency to enlist argumentation that they shouldn't be judged or evaluated on their physician outcome until they are able to display their competencies. They make it seem like they were born a Caribbean student rather than having failed to perform in undergrad. Most of all, the ones with just poor GPAs don't realize that they are being used to white wash the applicant pool from other unsavory premedical students who have IAs that would bar them from U.S. medical schools for life.

 

[863168]

*When I mention IAs I don't mean just school misdemeanors. I am talking about committing acts that make me fail to see you as a human being. *

 

[738177]

And my point is we dont have that data. We do not have reliable attrition rates either preclinical or clinical years. The last batch of remotely reasonable data was from DeVry (Ross and AUC) in 2012-13 which reported to Bloomberg that 20%-27% (Ross AUC) dropped out in preclinical and that 52%-66% graduated in 4 years. we do not know how many drop out in clinical years or graduated in 5-8 years (data which AAMC collects on US MD students). There is no data and therefore no conclusions can be reached.

So pardon me if I dont trust the data or conclusions. Yes, 70% of active residency applicants get some sort of slot, but it says nothing about the bodies that are lost along the way and therefore gives an exceedingly misleading picture to prospective applicants

And i never claimed that it did.
I directly quoted NRMP data which is irrefutable - your chances of landing a primary care residency as a fresh US-IMG is ~70%. Nowhere did i say that those are the odds if you start off at a foreign school. It's up to the applicant to do their research on attrition and make their own conclusion, just as you decided to make your own conclusion based on "remotely reasonable" data.

 

[Dr. Souk]

This thread could be re-titled, "Found a pack of cigarettes in our 13 year old daughter's room, how do we talk to her about this?"

Oh that's too funny.

 

[PreMedMissteps]

6) and as a taxpayer, who ultimately pays for defaulted loans of those who may spend $250,000 dollars for an education that has a large chance of not leading to a career of clinical medicine, perhaps I should do something to decrease that impact.

I wonder how long some of these Caribb meds would last if the US stopped providing fed loans to attend? Do US banks like Wells Fargo make it easy to get med school loans for Caribb schools?

 

[Goro]

I wonder how long some of these Caribb meds would last if the US stopped providing fed loans to attend? Do US banks like Wells Fargo make it easy to get med school loans for Caribb schools?

The US government does, alas

 

[WingedOx]

The decision-making process for nearly all of the Carib students I went to school with basically could be summarized as "f-ck it... LEEEROY JENINKS!"

Plenty have come out fine. Most doing family med in the rural midwest. Quite a few failures who are stuck with debt and don't like to talk about what they're doing now for work. I did have one high school classmate who matched integrated vascular surgery out of the Caribbean, though that's an outcome so rare that if @mimelim looked it up, he could probably find out where I went to high school.

 

[calivianya]

I'm starting to think about investigating Carib a little more closely...

I have 515 MCAT, three degrees (two magna cum laude), cGPA/sGPA ~3.8, ~10,000 hours paid clinical experience, >100 hours clinical volunteering experience... I just can't get either of my science professors, the ONLY TWO professors I had more than once in my most recent degree, to get my letters done. I asked in May, they said yes, but it's now almost September and I have total radio silence.

If I can't get these two letters, I don't have any other professor letters. Every US MD/DO school I've seen requires professor letters. I have two physician letters from physicians I have worked with for years, I could get a couple of supervisor letters, and I could certainly get my volunteer supervisor to write me a letter as well. I'm just SOL on school letters.

Do Carib schools accept applicants without school letters?

It seems ridiculous to do a SMP, or, even more ridiculous, a fourth bachelor's, since I have a decent GPA and MCAT score. I'm not really willing to pay for more school just to meet professors to ask for letters when I feel like I have academically done everything else I need to do.

 

[Goro]

I'm starting to think about investigating Carib a little more closely...

I have 515 MCAT, three degrees (two magna cum laude), cGPA/sGPA ~3.8, ~10,000 hours paid clinical experience, >100 hours clinical volunteering experience... I just can't get either of my science professors, the ONLY TWO professors I had more than once in my most recent degree, to get my letters done. I asked in May, they said yes, but it's now almost September and I have total radio silence.

If I can't get these two letters, I don't have any other professor letters. Every US MD/DO school I've seen requires professor letters. I have two physician letters from physicians I have worked with for years, I could get a couple of supervisor letters, and I could certainly get my volunteer supervisor to write me a letter as well. I'm just SOL on school letters.

Do Carib schools accept applicants without school letters?

It seems ridiculous to do a SMP, or, even more ridiculous, a fourth bachelor's, since I have a decent GPA and MCAT score. I'm not really willing to pay for more school just to meet professors to ask for letters when I feel like I have academically done everything else I need to do.

In will be far more prudent to simply take two new science courses, make friends with the profs, and get thier letter, than embark down a path that you know is extremely foolish.

 

[863168]

@calivianya If they are research professors then they are doing likely doing overseeing bench work over the summer. If they are active professors on campus then they are teaching classes in September. If they are writing your recommendation letters then you should know where there offices are and who their personnel team is and how to get in contact with them. Did you provide them with a skeleton model for your letter, a resume, a personal statement for why you want to become a physician, and a transcript of your grades?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm starting to think about investigating Carib a little more closely...

I have 515 MCAT, three degrees (two magna cum laude), cGPA/sGPA ~3.8, ~10,000 hours paid clinical experience, >100 hours clinical volunteering experience... I just can't get either of my science professors, the ONLY TWO professors I had more than once in my most recent degree, to get my letters done. I asked in May, they said yes, but it's now almost September and I have total radio silence.

If I can't get these two letters, I don't have any other professor letters. Every US MD/DO school I've seen requires professor letters. I have two physician letters from physicians I have worked with for years, I could get a couple of supervisor letters, and I could certainly get my volunteer supervisor to write me a letter as well. I'm just SOL on school letters.

Do Carib schools accept applicants without school letters?

It seems ridiculous to do a SMP, or, even more ridiculous, a fourth bachelor's, since I have a decent GPA and MCAT score. I'm not really willing to pay for more school just to meet professors to ask for letters when I feel like I have academically done everything else I need to do.

This is a terrible reason to even consider the Carib. Bug the hell out of them.

 

[863168]

This is a terrible reason to even consider the Carib. Bug the hell out of them.

Should they really bug them though? I think that students often times have little to no social tact when it comes to understanding whether or not a professor feels comfortable with writing them a recommendation letter. If I was a professor and a premed said, "Hey doc, I got an A in your class and I need this letter for med school. Wanna write it for me? PLEASE. I NEED THIS." As a professor I'd feel bad and be like, "Okay, I guess. I can do it." Student just says, "Ok bye." Then you get an email with 100 MC questions regarding student performance or you have to write an open letter for this student who you really know nothing about and they didn't make any attempt to let themselves be known aside from that one kid who got the A in my class.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Should they really bug them though? I think that students often times have little to no social tact when it comes to understanding whether or not a professor feels comfortable with writing them a recommendation letter. If I was a professor and a premed said, "Hey doc, I got an A in your class and I need this letter for med school. Wanna write it for me? PLEASE. I NEED THIS." As a professor I'd feel bad and be like, "Okay, I guess. I can do it." Student just says, "Ok bye." Then you get an email with 100 MC questions regarding student performance or you have to write an open letter for this student who you really know nothing about and they didn't make any attempt to let themselves be known aside from that one kid who got the A in my class.

Well I mean that's part of being a human being. I'm pretty socially stupid so I just flat out ask if they feel they can write me a good letter and say it's okay if they want to say no. I also only ask people I have a close relationship to, so I've never gotten a no.

So when I say bug, I mean send emails and show up at office hours. It's your career. Not theirs. You need to make it happen. Just don't be an asshat about it.

 

[863168]

Well I mean that's part of being a human being. I'm pretty socially stupid so I just flat out ask if they feel they can write me a good letter and say it's okay if they want to say no. I also only ask people I have a close relationship to, so I've never gotten a no. So when I say bug, I mean send emails and show up at office hours. It's your career. Not theirs. You need to make it happen. Just don't be an asshat about it.

True. I never played the game as a premedical student where I compartmentalized as much time as possible. Instead, I actually hung out with my plant biology professor to the point where he would tell me about how all the professors were playing for federal biofuel research grants, his shining moments in research, and visited him two or three times after he retired from academia. I suppose I was spoiled as an undergrad because I was pretty good at selling myself and getting scholarship funding so that I didn't need to set hard plans after school ended. I suppose that for students are rushing out the gate that they don't have the time to get to develop a relationship with a professor. Which is sad. Because then the relationship is just mutually exploitative. P.S. I genuinely liked my professor as a human being. Ironically I never asked him to write an LOR for me.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

True. I never played the game as a premedical student where I compartmentalized as much time as possible. Instead, I actually hung out with my plant biology professor to the point where he would tell me about how all the professors were playing for federal biofuel research grants, his shining moments in research, and visited him two or three times after he retired from academia. I suppose I was spoiled as an undergrad because I was pretty good at selling myself and getting scholarship funding so that I didn't need to set hard plans after school ended. I suppose that for students are rushing out the gate that they don't have the time to get to develop a relationship with a professor. Which is sad. Because then the relationship is just mutually exploitative. P.S. I genuinely liked my professor as a human being. Ironically I never asked him to write an LOR for me.

I developed pretty close relationships with a few professors. One of them is writing a letter for me, but I asked him at the start of the course last spring if he'd be willing assuming I do well and engage the class. Well I knew it would be a bit before I needed the letter, so fast forward more than a year later, and we are quite close and have done research together.

You don't have to hustle if you just genuinely form relationships with people. A lot of these type As just view it all as a game with boxes to check.

No one wants to be someone else's checkbox.