I wrote this about a month ago. We have switched our advising system at my university and as an outgoing student who starts medical school this fall, I wanted to leave the new pre-medical students there with some advice. Every freshman who is designated "pre-med" will be given this next year to read. I have edited it a little bit to make it more general (not just for people at my school). I am posting this here for reviews or advice you might have to offer if you have lots of free time and would like to read it. I tried to insert some humor here and there.
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, dont 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 (especially if you are second semester freshman who didnt serve time in federal prison for robbing banks). I never had this happen to me but I know people who did (at other schools). I consulted with the pre-health professions adviser at my undergraduate institution one or two times. I mostly did my own research and planned my classes by bouncing ideas around with my regular (major) adviser. At some schools, the pre-medical adviser is your sole academic adviser. At school things were different (I was a psychology major so I had a psychology academic adviser with access to the pre-health professions adviser).
In any case, you should look at your schools course catalog and cross-reference it with the requirements listed in the MSAR (
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/requirements/msar/) and the AACOM College Book (
http://www.aacom.org/resources/bookstore/cib/Pages/default.aspx). Every school has different (but basically similar) required and recommended courses. I cant even begin to tell you how many kids would complain about taking the wrong chemistry course or taking a difficult 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 doesnt mean a marginal student should take physical chemistry for the sole reason that it might stand out). People who did this were usually the type who didnt make it as a pre-medical student and switched to something else because they did not have enough invested in their future to do their own research on something as important as class selection. Make sure you investigate your professors prior to enrolling in their class. There are a number of online resources where you can do this. Just dont go into a class without knowing what to expect unless absolutely necessary. Upper-classmen who took the course with a professor can also be good resources.
Just like you shouldn't blindly accept the class schedule your academic adviser creates for you each semester, you shouldn't accept any of the advice the pre-medical 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 companies (i.e. MedEdits) are thriving and it is not because the average university adviser is all that knowledgeable about medical school admissions. 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.
