All I can say is that whatever the medical school admissions system (in the US) is trying to do, the result is producing premeds, and that is a side effect that is very hard to swallow :) The worst part is that, once those premeds get to med school, they just become "pre-residents", which may even be worse...
I was talking to an MD/PhD friend of mine recently and we were talking about medical students and why medical school seemed to be so different from grad school. One of the conclusions we came up with was that in med school the professors and attending docs have no investment in the students, unlike profs who rely on students to do their research. This lack of dependence seems to lead to an incredible amount of politics and what is essentially ass kissing (with the goal of getting recommendation letters), something I never really saw from students when I was in (physics) grad school. Research students rely on performance.
I'd say you can probably extend your comment about merit based admissions to science and engineering (and probably other types of grad school). In physics you generally don't even interview. They just look at your scores, grades, publications, letters, etc., then make an offer. After that they will invite you for a visit. They don't care about things like extra curricular activities or where you grew up. They would like more minorities/women, though.
I was talking to an MD/PhD friend of mine recently and we were talking about medical students and why medical school seemed to be so different from grad school. One of the conclusions we came up with was that in med school the professors and attending docs have no investment in the students, unlike profs who rely on students to do their research. This lack of dependence seems to lead to an incredible amount of politics and what is essentially ass kissing (with the goal of getting recommendation letters), something I never really saw from students when I was in (physics) grad school. Research students rely on performance.
I'd say you can probably extend your comment about merit based admissions to science and engineering (and probably other types of grad school). In physics you generally don't even interview. They just look at your scores, grades, publications, letters, etc., then make an offer. After that they will invite you for a visit. They don't care about things like extra curricular activities or where you grew up. They would like more minorities/women, though.