Advice Needed

[Ginz20]

I will be a junior at a small liberal arts shool in the midwest, with a GPA of 3.19. I made some mistakes that i plan to remedy. I am also involved with extra-curricular activities. These things include captain of the football team, vice-president of FCA, and secretary of the Junior class. However, how do i go about improving my chances of getting accepted into an osteopathic medical school? Also, what are some good study materials for the MCAT.

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[Dr JPH]

Gonz20:

Experience.
Gain medical experience through work and volunteer.
Get a job in a pharmacy, hospital, clinic, or ambulance service.
Volunteer at clinics, hospitals, blood drives, and soup kitchens.
Find a physician, Osteopathic or Allopathic and sit down with them and go over your resume.
Try to draw attention away from the grades with the other things you have accomplished.

Medical schools will be less interested in you if you know little about medicine or at least dealing with patients.

Osteopathic schools are particularly interested that their students KNOW what Osteopathic medicine is before it is taugh tto them

Read.....there are several books out there that can educate you about Osteopathic medicine. A good book I foujnd is
"Osteopathy: DO's in American" by Norman Gevitz.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

PS: as far as MCAT, look into taking a Princeton Review or Kaplan course.
You can find a free online MCAT offered by Princeton at www.review.com




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Joshua Paul Hazelton, CNA, EMT-B
[email protected]
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (2002)
"D.O. Wannabe"

 

[Madness]

Ginz20,

Here's a little more advice for you..
Getting involved in extracurricular activities such as volunteering at a hospital or shadowing a D.O. are excellent ways to improve your chances in getting into medical school, but I think that you might want to focus more on your MCATS and grades during your junior year. For getting into allopathic schools, these factors are the most important.. I think that osteopathic schools are a bit more forgiving but they also consider grades and MCATS to be fairly important.


* Take advantage of courses like Kaplan or Princeton or consider to buy some practice exam books.. The cost of preparing for this exam might be extreme but it may be worthwhile in the long run.

*For extracurricular activities, consider some things JPHazelton has mentioned. You could also consider being a research assistant at a medical college or your undergraduate college. Some departments such as the organic chemistry or biology department offer research related to AIDS/HIV, genetics, etc... There are many opportunities and you may want to choose something that seems interesting and convenient with your schedule.

Good luck.