I just realized that getting into med school is a lot of work

[P0tat0dude]

That might be so (I emphasize on might be), but most PhD friends I know, in top notch chemical engineering programs (i.e. UMich), and chemistry programs, their first few years, go in at 10am, leave at 5pm, and when you need some time off? you take it whenever you want. And the only reason that PhD programs take so damn long is because people like to take their time. I have a friend who told me that if she actually work 40 hours a week in her program like people do at normal day to day jobs, she would finish her program (engineering) in 3 years, easily.

So for what it's worth

This.

As someone who majors in a hard science with lots of friends applying to grad school, works in a hard science research lab, AND is the child of college professors, I've been exposed to the grad student lifestyle for pretty much as long as I can remember. The secret towards success in grad school is VERY different than for med school, with the former being based more on creativity and intelligence and the latter more on hard work and diligence. Grad students, for the most part that I've seen, never really have to follow any rigid schedule. Most only have to take real courses in their first 2 years (in some cases, only the first year). For the rest of the 6 years at school, they pretty much just make their own time and go at their own pace to slowly but surely get enough research and publications done to have some material to do their defense.

Take one of my friends for example who is extremely bright and smart but also extremely lazy. I've taken many classes with him in which he understood the course material perfectly well but ended up getting B's or C's in anyway purely due to slacking off and carelessness, when he could've gotten an A had he put in some more effort. In those cases, he just didn't care enough for it to matter. For certain other classes though when the material just sort of "clicks" with him and he finds it interesting, he will excel. In these cases, he enthusiastically does all the homework as if it were a fun game, easily gets the highest scores on all the exams, and still has enough time left over to help out and tutor everyone else in the class. Now this person would definitely not be able to cut it in medical school but he is essentially the ideal candidate for grad school.

As for getting into grad school vs. getting into med school, I would say that the difficulties are fairly similar in most cases (GRE vs. MCAT, both have long applications with essays, both require lots of good LORs, etc.). The only major advantage that grad school applicants have is that there is usually no interview process! They just have to send off their apps and then sit back and play the waiting game.

To channel Yakov Sminoff a bit, when you visit grad school, you get to judge school. When you visit med school, school judges YOU.

---

Members don't see this ad.