By the way, also to correct some of the misconceptions about Stanford. Yes you can finish the curriculum in 4 years, in fact that's what I am planning to do. But you also have the flexibility to do a 5 year program with the extra year being a year off to do full-time research. Many students take that route for 2 reasons. 1) At Stanford, you only pay 4 years of tuition in full, so if you want to stay an extra year to do research (which is fully funded by the school's medical scholar program), you can do so without worrying about paying an extra year of tuition. 2) A lot of people came into Medical School without significant amount of research exposure, and in order to get in a competitive specialty say derm, it would be nice to have some research entries in your application if you don't want to spend extra 4 years to get a phd. I think from last year's figure, over 90% of the Stanford graduate got matched to their first choice, so the program is definitely helping the students.
Also many people perceive Stanford Medicine is all about research. That is totally not true. In fact the faculty here encourage people to do activities in public health, management and international/global health etc. Many of the people I know are doing scholarly concentration in none basic science field. They are traveling to Asia, Africa and South America with Stanford money to do projects related to population health and getting publication out as well. A fun experience but at the same time helping your residency application as well.
Finally, from what I see with my classmates here, Stanford are not just looking for scientists to come to their med school. Many of my classmates here don't have any prior basic science experiences. But whatever you did, you need to be good at it and passionate about it. Stanford is already a leader when comes to research, it doesn't need to admit more research people to help them do that. Our Dean said the best, what the school is looking for are people who has demonstrated that they have the ability to become leaders in the field, Stanford is just here to provide the nurturing environment to make sure they do so.
