Questions about pre-med

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Teragen

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I'm in my 2nd year of college and I've decided I want to go into medicine. I've got all my pre-med courses lined up, but after reading through a lot of these threads I don't understand half the anagrams used or what people are talking about. What things should I try to accomplish before applying to med school other than a great GPA and a high MCAT score? Any help would be great. I just want to be the best prepared I can be.
 
Maybe is list of anagrams you've come across and don't understand would get some replies. But until then . . . R U & URM? What about your LOR? PS? BS? VR? WS? Pros and cons of an LOI? BTW, lol.😕
 
Yeah all those

EDP, LOI, pretty much the ones you said. I'm not so much concerned with that because I'm sure I'll catch on reading the forums, but what about things I should try to accomplish before applying to med school like shadowing and volunteering. Just advice on how to go about these things or where to start.
 
EDP = early decisions program
LOI = letter of intent
LOR = letter of recommendation
BTW = by the way (it took me forever to figure out this one. I'm such an internet ******)

About the more important stuff, type "shadowing" into the search page, or anything else, and I am sure you will find out a ton of stuff about it (like whether or not it is legal).
I wish I could be of more help, but I don't know where to begin.
 
Under the "I wish I had done..."

Volunteer at a place that exposes you to medicine. I liked the ER because the staff was cool about letting me watch instead of always cleaning stretchers and menial stuff.

Get some meaningful research experience. Find a lab that lets you do actual experiments, even if they are simple or boring. You don't have to do an entire, publishable project. Just get some real experience to see what biomedical research is like.

Do well in your classes! I can't stress this enough! Your GPA is the strongest predication (in a statistical sense) of how well you'll do in medical school. I know there's some controversy on whether this is true, but the fact remains that a significant factor affecting your chances is GPA. So do well!

Go to mock interviews. To toot my my own horn, I'm a pretty well-read guy and generally consider myself to be fairly atriculate. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure my interviews torpedoed me last year. It's a lot different when you actually interact with someone than when you go through it in your head! You can never be sure where the converstaion may wander. Here is why I say to get meaningful volunteer/research experiences: you may be asked about in the interview. You should definitely be able to talk intelligently about your experiences (what you learned, what it meant to you, why it will make you a better doctor, etc etc etc).

Above all, make sure you really want to go to med school. It costs a lot of money to take the MCAT, apply, and go on interviews not to mention the cost of medical school itself! Save yourself some grief and money and quit now if you're sure you don't want to go. If your SOLE reasons for going are money, parents, prestige, than med school is probably not for you. All three combined may be... but that's up to you.

The Simpsons are coming on, so I'm going to quit typing. 🙂

-X
 
Thanks for the help. I've been looking into a lot of things on my own and I'm finding a lot out. I'm not worried about the courses I have to take because I always have done well in science. It's just being prepared for the MCAT and volunteer, "shadowing", extracurricular things that I'm worried about. I just don't want to regret not doing something now later when it could have helped on my applications.
 
Check out the thread "what you wish you had done differently."
 
and make sure that when interviews come, you don't say anagram when you mean acronym 😀
 
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