This is all the advice you will ever need as a pre-medical student. Each point is not necessarily numbered according to importance.
1. The Role of Advisers (or: Plan your own future, don't let others plan it for you)
"Pre-med advisers" are not necessarily the best source for information or opinions on whether or not you have a chance at being admitted. Some are okay, a few are really good but most are absolutely clueless. Don't let any of them tell you have no shot. I never had this happen to me but I know people who did. I consulted with the pre-med adviser at my undergrad one time and that was enough for me. I did my own research and planned my classes by bouncing ideas around with my regular adviser. At some schools, the pre-medical adviser is your sole academic adviser. At mine things were different. In either case, you should look at your schools course catalog and cross-reference it with the requirements listed in the MSAR and the AOA College Book. I can't even begin to tell you how many kids would bitch and moan about taking the wrong chemistry course or taking a math class that no school required (some would say that higher level math courses look really good on an application and maybe they are correct but that doesn't mean a marginal student should take physical chemistry for the sole reason that it might "stand out"). People who did this usually were the type who didn't make it as a pre-med and switched to something else because they do not have enough invested in their future to do their own research.
Just like you shouldn't accept the class schedule your regular adviser devises for you each semester without question, you shouldn't accept any of the advice the pre-med adviser gives you without checking yourself. You should examine the schools you are interested in going to and find the appropriate courses. Don't be an idiot and ass/u/me that just because someone has the title "adviser" that they know what the hell they are talking about. There is a good reason why third party medical school admissions consulting is thriving and it is not because the average university adviser is all that knowledgeable. If you want to be a lazy sap and just go along with what the adviser says without doing your own research, good luck to ya Johnson.
2. Class and MCAT scheduling (or: Pain first, play later)
Finish all pre-medical classes by the end of your junior year and take the MCAT BEFORE the summer between junior and senior year. In fact, I would even suggest that you finish them by sophomore year if possible. If I could go back and do it all again, I would have taken my basic 200-level biology and inorganic chemistry classes freshman year, physics during the summer between freshman and sophomore year and organic chemistry during sophomore year.
Why do I say this? There are a couple of reasons: first you will have the requirements out of the way and won't have to worry about whether a class will be full when you need to register for it, you will have a solid knowledgebase upon which to begin studying for the MCAT and you can spend your senior year focused only on interviews.
You should spend your junior year taking upper-level biology and major requirements (if you aren't a biology major) while studying for the MCAT. Make sure to take the MCAT BEFORE the summer between junior and senior year. Why? Simple: you should have everything you need ready to go to submit your application on June 1st. Don't be like me and worry about applications, letters of rec., MCAT studying etc. all during your junior year. Even worse would be piling all of that on-top of taking some of the harder pre-requisite courses.
Your junior year should basically be your busiest year. Even if you follow my advice and finish your pre-reqs during frosh and soph year, you should still being doing research, fully engaged in extra-curricular work, MCAT studying and preparing the primary. More on junior year later. And as an aside note, make sure you start asking for LORs as early as possible. Ask for them at least 3 months before June 1st. When you ask for them, make sure you give them everything they might need:
a. make out an envelope to AMCAS and/or AACOMAS/Interfolio with a stamp
b. give letter writers a copy of transcript and a short resume
c. hand them a brief one-page letter clearly noting the deadline you need it by and thank them for agreeing to write you one.
3. Extra-curricular activities (or: Stand-out)
Don't do stupid extra-curricular activities that every other "pre-med" ***** is doing. Everyone will shadow, volunteer at a nursing home, etc. Find some way to set yourself apart. I did a whole host of leadership stuff; I was the chairman of student government and then the student member to the university board of trustees. Being able to say on my application that I sat as a voting member of the board that allocates hundreds of millions of dollars yearly set me up for some interesting interview questions that I know stayed in the minds of the people I interviewed with long after I left. Aside from grades and MCAT score, these are the sub-categories of extra-curricular activities I would engage in:
a. Volunteer (Non-paid) medically related work (i.e. hospital volunteer)
b. Volunteer (Non-paid) non-medically related work (i.e. some volunteer organization on your campus; habitat for humanity)
c. Paid work/employment (even if its a summer job)
d. Research (see below)
e. Shadowing (aside from what you see if you volunteer in the hospital, get a good number of hours following around at least one physician enough to get a good letter from).
Also, make sure you do research. I did year long research in psychopharmacology assisting in 4 different studies, some of which are being prepared for publication. Research along with the other extra-curricular endeavors will make you seem like a very well-rounded applicant. I wouldn't go overboard on the research though. Do something that interests you and don't feel pressured to have your own project. You can simply help grad students with theirs. As long as you do a good job and get a letter of rec from the faculty member in charge of the lab, I think that is sufficient. I see too many premies working tirelessly in the lab to produce something on their own which eventually forces them to sacrifice time in other important areas (i.e. extra-curriculars and even their own school work). You can do what you want, but I'd say it is far more important to be well-rounded than to be a standout in one area alone.
4. Studying (or: Get good grades and a good MCAT score)
Get help in classes you struggle with. Make sure you study long and hard with a sufficient number of MCAT practice tests. Advice on all of this can be found in other areas but most of it is pretty obvious.
Plan your life around keeping distractions to a minimum.
My junior year was hell. I did research, had 4 courses with labs each semester, I was chairman of the student government and was studying for the MCAT all at the same time. Meanwhile, I was living in a house with 4 of my close friends and partying three nights a week. I was in a long-term relationship that I kept holding on to even while it was driving me insane. To make the long story short, I didn't do as well in my classes or on my first MCAT as I could have done. In the end, everything worked out and I was accepted to medical school but my poor planning cost me an entire year. Don't let this happen to you. Plan early and intelligently. Prioritize. Your grades and MCAT are more important than other parts of your application.
5. Stay out of trouble
Another obvious tidbit that I won't expound upon. Stay away from drugs and the people that do them. Don't get caught drinking underage. All of these things you must disclose on an application. Some will not be a big deal, others will definitely keep you out of medical school. How many stories have I heard on these forums of otherwise dedicated students with stellar numbers falling short of the finish line because they did something stupid like getting caught in a dorm room their senior year smoking a bong by one of the campus police officers? Imagine doing everything right and falling on your face for some stupid reason at the end of the tunnel. It will haunt you for a very long time.
6. Not everything is about getting into medical school
The other point I want to make is about perseverance. This pre-med path is probably the most difficult path you can take as an undergrad. It requires a great deal of sacrifice and dedication. While my friends were out at the bar for $1.00 bottle Wednesdays, I found myself alone in my dark and cold room reading and re-reading a chapter on thermodynamics. While my girlfriend was out partying with our friends on a Saturday, I was in the lab doing research. Obviously I was able to engage in the party lifestyle here and there but it was simply not possible for me to do it at every opportunity like many of the people you will meet in college.
What is even harder about this is that many of your friends and even family members will not understand this. Try and explain it to them and maybe they will understand. Even if they don't, true friends will always support you even if they can't empathize.
Not everyone will make it. Go into your freshman year biology class and take a look at how many kids are calling themselves "pre-med." Many of them will be gone by the end of the semester and half will be gone by the end of freshman year. By the time you get to 2nd semester organic chemistry, there will be only a handful of you left. And that doesn't include the number of people who will actually be successful on the MCAT and get accepted. This ship that you are on will lose a lot of cargo before it reaches the harbor. Don't this is discourage you. In fact, it should only make you even more driven to succeed. And in the end, you may be one of the people who leaves. It could be because the work is too difficult or the sacrifice is too great. It could also be that you are simply interested in something else. There is nothing wrong with this. This path isn't for everyone and that's okay. Unwilling and incapable are two totally separate things.
On a separate note, it is important to have a life outside of the library. If you spend your entire college years focused solely on getting into medical school you will regret it. Have a social life. Go out with friends. Date girls who drive you crazy (just not during junior year). These years should be fun. Get your work done first but have some fun. As my dad always told me, "Work hard and play harder." If you do everything you need to do when you need to do it you get to do what you want to do when you want to do it. Okay there are a million quotes you can reference. Just please don't be the person who's life revolves around school. When you are spending over 80 hours a week doing bitch work in a hospital as a 3rd year medical student, it will be comforting to at least have some of the memories of the good times you had when you weren't an indentured servant.
Please give me some reviews on this because I am going to eventually expand it and it will be given to every freshman pre-med student at my undergrad. Institution.
out of the way.
the MCAT exam?
. Everyone that I know is either pre-law or an art student.
