I need your help!

[Carmichael]

I'm currently a High School student I will be a senior next year. I would like to know what are something that I could do to get me ready for college and med school. I want to already know more than the average joe. I'm already taking advance classes that deal with; Anatomy, Psychology, and Biology.

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[stewiegriffinFG]

Here's some advice an attending told me 6 years ago that I wish I listened to: get out while you can. No amount of money is worth the crap that you will live in, day in and day out, for the rest of your life. You could be spending your 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 4 years of residency, 40 years of work doing something much less exhausting and more worthwhile.


Posting in the pre-allopathic forum is a better idea for good advice these days.

 

[powermd]

I'm currently a High School student I will be a senior next year. I would like to know what are something that I could do to get me ready for college and med school. I want to already know more than the average joe. I'm already taking advance classes that deal with; Anatomy, Psychology, and Biology.

And so hatches another pre-med...

Learn to read, write, and calculate as well as you possibly can. Learn a foreign language well. Cultivate an interest in something historical, philosophical, or artistic. Study this field in depth. Do something team, or service-oriented with your spare time. Develop physical stamina and strength through sport. Play an instrument.

Go to the most prestigious college that will accept you, and that you feel comfortable attending. Enjoy the best four years of your life. Study abroad. And study a broad! Or two or three or ten.. Use protection.

Keep a very open mind about other careers that give you what you hope to achieve in medicine. It's not what you think it is right now, looking in from the outside. Whatever you do, focus on becoming indispensable in some way. Indispensable people make lots of money and don't get fired.

 

[Carmichael]

i just know i want to work in a hospital and help people...it really makes me feel...idunno its this indescribable feeling i get from helping people

 

[lord_jeebus]

I am on a medical school admissions committee.

Everyone tries to "get ahead" of the pack, but it is transparent and won't help your application. We get countless applications from boring people with great grades and scores who took all the hard classes and classes with overlap with medical content, got their 6 months of bench research, volunteered in a hospital, and was vice president of the premed club. It is tiresome and not impressive.

Instead, become an interesting and happy person. The rest will fall into place.

 

[Trisomy13]

i just know i want to work in a hospital and help people...it really makes me feel...idunno its this indescribable feeling i get from helping people

that feeling is MRSA

 

[swpm]

Everyone tries to "get ahead" of the pack, but it is transparent and won't help your application. We get countless applications from boring people with great grades and scores who took all the hard classes and classes with overlap with medical content, got their 6 months of bench research, volunteered in a hospital, and was vice president of the premed club. It is tiresome and not impressive.

Instead, become an interesting and happy person. The rest will fall into place.

Uh-huh. As long as you're also a guy with great grades and scores who took all the hard classes and classes with overlap with medical content, got their 6 months of bench research, volunteered in a hospital ...

Great grades and scores and research and bench time may not impress jaded adcom guys like you, but they're still important. Don't imply that being a cool guy is sufficient, and that everything else will just happen.

Cookie cutter introverted premed clones may be boring, but med school classes are full of them. They're getting in. And if someone wants to get in also, he could do worse than being one of them.

 

[scotchnwater]

Great grades and scores and research and bench time may not impress jaded adcom guys like you, but they're still important. Don't imply that being a cool guy is sufficient, and that everything else will just happen.

I'm think Lord Jeebus is on to something, actually. When I was interviewing students for admissions these last two years, the "normal/cool" people got extra points every time. Granted, by the time someone gets to the interview stage of things, they have already been pre-screened on the basis of their resume. So there is a great deal of validity to what you're saying too as far as needing some sort of basic qualifications to get in the door.

Someone might not get in to med school with a MCAT of 22 and a great smile, but I'd take the person with a 30 who can carry on a conversation than the huge loser who's got a 4.0 with a 36 MCAT any day.

 

[lord_jeebus]

Obviously you need certain things to get in, but if you're still in high school and looking to get an edge on the competition already, you run the risk of making the premed process your life.