Is Pre-Med Counseling 'Unrealistic'?

Advice to pre-medical students at the College is often "unrealistic" and "uncoordinated," the top Harvard advisor on admission to medical school said yesterday.

Dr. Curtis Prout '37, Chief of Medicine to the University Health Services, said that the pre-med advisors vary considerably in their effectiveness and tend toward "overconfident counseling." The present system, under which an M.D. is affiliated with each House as an advisor "lacks a homogeneous policy," he said.

The Unacceptables

This year roughly 25 medical school candidates, or 13 per cent of those applying, have not been accepted anywhere. This number, the highest in recent years, has disturbed Prout and others in the advisory program.

A committee set up two years ago by Dean Monro is supposed to coordinate Harvard advising. Headed by Prout, its membership includes all the House advisors.

The committee has yet to hold its first meeting, the advisors have never been able to get together, Prout says, due to their busy professional schedules.

Both Dean Monro and Prout did not think the counseling program needed changing at this time. "Ultimately, the student is responsible for placing himself in medical school, although the advisors are there to help as much as possible," Monro explained.

The system is founded on "the sense that the individual is responsible to himself," Monro said. He questioned "how much firm steering" pre-med students wanted.

What Monro calls the "loose-jointed" nature of the program may be the reason why greater coordination has not been reached. The advisors cling to their autonomy in the Houses, Prout explains, and Prout himself, according to Michael A. Savin '65, president of the Harvard Radcliffe Pre-Medical Society, is just "too busy," despite his genuine concern, to push them together.

Evaluation Underway

Monro said that if the facts on admission, which are still being evaluated, prove the situation to be "tense," then a more formalized program might be desirable.

The Pre-Medical Society was organized last fall as a student effort at coordinating advice at Harvard.