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Okay. Its 12:30AM here, and I'm bored, so I'll be putting together a guide on being a successful applicant to medical school. Hopefully it will help some of you guys out. At the very least, it shouldn't hurt anyone.
From the first day of college:
Make sure you get an A in every one of your classes, or at least as many as is possible. This means taking classes from easy professors, rather than difficult ones. For example, I'd sometimes delay taking a course if I could get it with an easier professor a year or so later. Use ratemyprofessors.com and opinions from friends and upperclassmen for guidance.
Research: Try to get involved in some serious research by your 2nd or 3rd semester. I think the best way to do this is to build rapport with one or two of your favorite professors from freshman or sophomore year and ask if you can join their research team. Make sure that you'll be on track to make a meaningful contribution which would lead to an authorship. If you're not able to do that, at least try to take one of those classes where you get college credit in exchange for being a professor's lab rat, or something along those lines. That counts as research experience too, but this is less preferable than an authorship.
Clinical experience: Shadow various physicians in. Utilize family, friends, and strangers via the cold call. Volunteer at a hospital, too. I shadowed alot, and I was able to "spin" my shadowing experience as clinical experience... because it is. I think these are the easiest ways to get the clinical experience, however, there are MANY other ways you can take this. Maybe you want to be an EMT, or a phlebotomist, or whatever else... That will do it, too.
Volunteering: Try to find some sort of service fraternity on campus to get involved with, and volunteer for awhile at a hospital. This is one out of about a million ways you can do this. Look at what your campus is offering, find what will get you good experience and will be something you'll enjoy. There's a huge variety of stuff you can do. Be creative. If you volunteer in a hospital, though, you kind of knock out two birds (clinical experience, volunteer experience) with one stone.
LORS: Keep good relationships with your professors. Go to office hours, make sure they know you, talk which your professors about class and non-class related things. Perhaps you could ask a doctor you have shadowed for awhile to write you one. Make sure that you ask them for letters in January or February or March of the year you apply. You want to give them 1-2 months to write them, yet you also want them to be fairly recent. And make sure that they will be EXCELLENT letters. If you are not certain a letter writer will write you an excellent letter, then find another letter writer.
MCAT: There are plenty of resources you can utilize to prepare for the MCAT. The best way to prepare for the MCAT varies person to person; perhaps you are a person who studies best with a prep course (although I think they are a waste of money, you could learn that stuff on your own for much cheaper, after all), perhaps you want to study for 5 months, perhaps 2 months, etc... In any case, use the Examkrakers books, and practice with the AAMC practice exams. Otherwise, you really need to find out what works best for you. Know the structure of the exam, and how many questions you typically have to get right to get a certain score. For example, know that once you are getting 11's in any subsection that getting just one more question right will typically raise your score by 1 point. The difference between, a 34 and 37 may be a matter of answering only 3 more questions correctly.
Oh yeah, and you NEED to take the MCAT by early May at the latest, because of the...
AMCAS: Pay attention, there is abunch of stuff I didn't know about this thing that I wish I would have known when I applied. First of all, you can start filling out your AMCAS after you take your MCAT, but the first day that you can actually submit your information is around June 6th. Trust me, you want to submit it on the very first day you can. How it works is that the first day medical schools can take a look at you is around June 24th, but it can take up to several weeks for AMCAS to verify your grades (why this takes several weeks is an ancient mystery). I made the mistake of submitting my AMCAS around late June and, as a result, not everything was complete until mid-July. Don't make the same mistake.
REMEMBER, every day that goes by in which your application could be in the hands of a medical school, but isnt = decreased chance of acceptance.
Ensure that you have EVERYTHING, your transcripts in, your Work/Activities section, PS, etc.. all filled out by the very first day that you can submit that thing.
Secondary Essays: Once you know what schools you want to apply to, look up the secondary application prompts from the last application year. Assume that the prompts for last year will be the same prompts for this year (they typically are the same from year to year, for most schools). That way, when the application opens and you get the secondary you'll already have it done and will have less to worry about. You'll also get your application at any given school complete much more quickly. Remember, being late = lower chance of acceptance. I didn't catch on to this nugget of advice until it was too late, don't be like me on this one...
If all goes well you'll get an...
Interview: I'd say that ONCE YOU GET AN INTERVIEW somewhere, your performance during it will have a huge bearing on if you are ultimately accepted or not. Some places say that all of your stats, MCAT scores, etc. are thrown out the window once you get an interview and how well you perform is the sole criterion by which acceptance decisions are made. At most places, however, I estimate it will be worth 40%-60% of the ultimate admissions decision. (SDNers, please don't blast me if you don't agree with this figure, but that has been my, admittedly subjective, observation.) Prepare well in advance your answers to questions about any possible hole or red flag in your application, about why you want to go into medicine, about what you might want to specialize in, or research, etc... That should go without saying...
Also, you should do the best that you can do on every possible interview. Don't think that you can "hedge" an interview at your state school, or wherever else you may expect to get into, and interview in a way that you are damn sure isn't bad, but know isn't great, either, and expect to get in. Remember, you are a future doctor, regardless if you're accepted to the school you're interviewing at or not, and need to convince your interviewer of that fact. If you're invited for an interview somewhere, and you perform very well, odds are you'll be accepted.
Note: A lot of this process is luck. Luck that you guessed right on 2 or 3 MCAT questions you were unsure of which raised your MCAT by 2 or 3 points, luck that the person reading your application at X University likes your PS and AMCAS application, luck that you get an interviewer who "understands" you. That said, though, you should definitely maximize your chances, and know that there is a threshold at which, if you can reach it, you're pretty much guaranteed of an acceptance, somewhere. An applicant with a 4.0, tons of research, and a 40 on the MCAT, for example, is very unlikely to end up with no acceptances...
After the interview...
Thank you notes: I think that thank you notes are pretty worthless as far as helping you get accepted goes (I covered this in a previous post, but I have the experience of 3 interviews with a thank you note resulting in 3 rejections and 3 interviews without a thank you note and 3 acceptances), but if you really want to show your gratitude then go ahead and send one.
Hopefully you'll get that acceptance call, or email, or letter soon. But if you don't, you could be...
Rejected: Sorry, but this isn't your day. The A-train is going home. Stick a fork in you, cause you're done... However, you should know that there are some instances in which you can appeal a rejection; these are typically limited to situations in which you believe you were discriminated against, or there was an issue of unfair bias. Its worth a shot if you have a good reason to think you were given some sort of unfair consideration, but this is usually not the case.
Waitlisted: Being waitlisted sucks... So, if you really want to go to the school, you might as well maximize your chances of getting accepted off it. This means sending letters of interest and intent, possibly making phone calls, when it is TIMELY to do so. Did you get excellent 8th semester grades? Great, send them in. Publish anything recently? Earn any awards recently? Great, notify the school.
I believe this is all of the important information a premedical student needs to know about applying for medical school which isn't already hurled at them by professors, advisers, and other articles on the Internet. I think I cover some pretty important things here that these other sources fail to touch on. In any case..
Good luck!
From the first day of college:
Make sure you get an A in every one of your classes, or at least as many as is possible. This means taking classes from easy professors, rather than difficult ones. For example, I'd sometimes delay taking a course if I could get it with an easier professor a year or so later. Use ratemyprofessors.com and opinions from friends and upperclassmen for guidance.
Research: Try to get involved in some serious research by your 2nd or 3rd semester. I think the best way to do this is to build rapport with one or two of your favorite professors from freshman or sophomore year and ask if you can join their research team. Make sure that you'll be on track to make a meaningful contribution which would lead to an authorship. If you're not able to do that, at least try to take one of those classes where you get college credit in exchange for being a professor's lab rat, or something along those lines. That counts as research experience too, but this is less preferable than an authorship.
Clinical experience: Shadow various physicians in. Utilize family, friends, and strangers via the cold call. Volunteer at a hospital, too. I shadowed alot, and I was able to "spin" my shadowing experience as clinical experience... because it is. I think these are the easiest ways to get the clinical experience, however, there are MANY other ways you can take this. Maybe you want to be an EMT, or a phlebotomist, or whatever else... That will do it, too.
Volunteering: Try to find some sort of service fraternity on campus to get involved with, and volunteer for awhile at a hospital. This is one out of about a million ways you can do this. Look at what your campus is offering, find what will get you good experience and will be something you'll enjoy. There's a huge variety of stuff you can do. Be creative. If you volunteer in a hospital, though, you kind of knock out two birds (clinical experience, volunteer experience) with one stone.
LORS: Keep good relationships with your professors. Go to office hours, make sure they know you, talk which your professors about class and non-class related things. Perhaps you could ask a doctor you have shadowed for awhile to write you one. Make sure that you ask them for letters in January or February or March of the year you apply. You want to give them 1-2 months to write them, yet you also want them to be fairly recent. And make sure that they will be EXCELLENT letters. If you are not certain a letter writer will write you an excellent letter, then find another letter writer.
MCAT: There are plenty of resources you can utilize to prepare for the MCAT. The best way to prepare for the MCAT varies person to person; perhaps you are a person who studies best with a prep course (although I think they are a waste of money, you could learn that stuff on your own for much cheaper, after all), perhaps you want to study for 5 months, perhaps 2 months, etc... In any case, use the Examkrakers books, and practice with the AAMC practice exams. Otherwise, you really need to find out what works best for you. Know the structure of the exam, and how many questions you typically have to get right to get a certain score. For example, know that once you are getting 11's in any subsection that getting just one more question right will typically raise your score by 1 point. The difference between, a 34 and 37 may be a matter of answering only 3 more questions correctly.
Oh yeah, and you NEED to take the MCAT by early May at the latest, because of the...
AMCAS: Pay attention, there is abunch of stuff I didn't know about this thing that I wish I would have known when I applied. First of all, you can start filling out your AMCAS after you take your MCAT, but the first day that you can actually submit your information is around June 6th. Trust me, you want to submit it on the very first day you can. How it works is that the first day medical schools can take a look at you is around June 24th, but it can take up to several weeks for AMCAS to verify your grades (why this takes several weeks is an ancient mystery). I made the mistake of submitting my AMCAS around late June and, as a result, not everything was complete until mid-July. Don't make the same mistake.
REMEMBER, every day that goes by in which your application could be in the hands of a medical school, but isnt = decreased chance of acceptance.
Ensure that you have EVERYTHING, your transcripts in, your Work/Activities section, PS, etc.. all filled out by the very first day that you can submit that thing.
Secondary Essays: Once you know what schools you want to apply to, look up the secondary application prompts from the last application year. Assume that the prompts for last year will be the same prompts for this year (they typically are the same from year to year, for most schools). That way, when the application opens and you get the secondary you'll already have it done and will have less to worry about. You'll also get your application at any given school complete much more quickly. Remember, being late = lower chance of acceptance. I didn't catch on to this nugget of advice until it was too late, don't be like me on this one...
If all goes well you'll get an...
Interview: I'd say that ONCE YOU GET AN INTERVIEW somewhere, your performance during it will have a huge bearing on if you are ultimately accepted or not. Some places say that all of your stats, MCAT scores, etc. are thrown out the window once you get an interview and how well you perform is the sole criterion by which acceptance decisions are made. At most places, however, I estimate it will be worth 40%-60% of the ultimate admissions decision. (SDNers, please don't blast me if you don't agree with this figure, but that has been my, admittedly subjective, observation.) Prepare well in advance your answers to questions about any possible hole or red flag in your application, about why you want to go into medicine, about what you might want to specialize in, or research, etc... That should go without saying...
Also, you should do the best that you can do on every possible interview. Don't think that you can "hedge" an interview at your state school, or wherever else you may expect to get into, and interview in a way that you are damn sure isn't bad, but know isn't great, either, and expect to get in. Remember, you are a future doctor, regardless if you're accepted to the school you're interviewing at or not, and need to convince your interviewer of that fact. If you're invited for an interview somewhere, and you perform very well, odds are you'll be accepted.
Note: A lot of this process is luck. Luck that you guessed right on 2 or 3 MCAT questions you were unsure of which raised your MCAT by 2 or 3 points, luck that the person reading your application at X University likes your PS and AMCAS application, luck that you get an interviewer who "understands" you. That said, though, you should definitely maximize your chances, and know that there is a threshold at which, if you can reach it, you're pretty much guaranteed of an acceptance, somewhere. An applicant with a 4.0, tons of research, and a 40 on the MCAT, for example, is very unlikely to end up with no acceptances...
After the interview...
Thank you notes: I think that thank you notes are pretty worthless as far as helping you get accepted goes (I covered this in a previous post, but I have the experience of 3 interviews with a thank you note resulting in 3 rejections and 3 interviews without a thank you note and 3 acceptances), but if you really want to show your gratitude then go ahead and send one.
Hopefully you'll get that acceptance call, or email, or letter soon. But if you don't, you could be...
Rejected: Sorry, but this isn't your day. The A-train is going home. Stick a fork in you, cause you're done... However, you should know that there are some instances in which you can appeal a rejection; these are typically limited to situations in which you believe you were discriminated against, or there was an issue of unfair bias. Its worth a shot if you have a good reason to think you were given some sort of unfair consideration, but this is usually not the case.
Waitlisted: Being waitlisted sucks... So, if you really want to go to the school, you might as well maximize your chances of getting accepted off it. This means sending letters of interest and intent, possibly making phone calls, when it is TIMELY to do so. Did you get excellent 8th semester grades? Great, send them in. Publish anything recently? Earn any awards recently? Great, notify the school.
I believe this is all of the important information a premedical student needs to know about applying for medical school which isn't already hurled at them by professors, advisers, and other articles on the Internet. I think I cover some pretty important things here that these other sources fail to touch on. In any case..
Good luck!
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