okay, maybe this exists already. But on the off chance that it doesn't:
Things that, as a non-traditional applicant, i wish i had known when i began.
I was lucky. I had saved up some money and have a very supportive wife and no kids yet. Ymmv.
- you can overcome bad grades, i had a lot. Graduated summa cum barely in 1993. I have not yet encountered a question regarding my sordid past in my interviews.
- school is more work than i remembered it being. As a professional for many years, i worked very hard and i often thought wistfully (and inaccurately) of college as a time of carefree drunkenness. Maybe it was, but being a premed is a lot of work. Don't get suckerpunched.
- take gen chem and physics, then bio and orgo. Try to do it that way since those subjects sorta work together. Do not take biochem without at least orgo i first.
- orgo will take over your life. Carve out a lot of time for it. Tell your significant other that it's going to be a tough few months.
- good orgo supplement books - organic chemistry as a second language.
- many schools will let you take biochem to substitute for an orgo class. This may come in handy.
- try to actually understand what the equations mean in physics even if you can get a decent grade through sheer memorization. It makes studying for the mcat a lot easier if you have actually puzzled out the underlying logic.
- except for enthalpy. Enthalpy will never make sense. Just memorize the equations. I know, that's chem, but whatever.
- the electricity equations actually make sense best if you think about them in terms of force, potential energy and work (f*d). Things like voltage and potential seem less mysterious in this context.
- in anatomy - bring your book to class. Circle the id#/caption of each picture that the professor puts up on the screen. Then circle the name of each anatomical item that the professor mentions. Focus on these items. This makes it much easier to know what's important and what isn't. There is a lot that is in the book but can't make it into lecture.
- in anatomy, redux - make your own flashcards. Even if you can't draw. Draw it anyway. Another thing that worked for me: Photocopy the pictures from the book. On the photocopy, white out all the names leaving the arrows in. Photocopy the new version a bunch of times. Fill in the names. Over and over again.
- my suggestion: Do not do a 12 month or even 18 month postbacc program. Very hard to get good grades. Very hard to get research experience and volunteer. On the off chance that you make it through with awesome grades, you probably won't have time to study enough to do non-trad well on the mcat. You also will only be able to take the bare minimum prereqs. I know one guy who pulled it off at my school and he was a genius (and is at case right now). The other 15 guys who tried it, not so much.
- kaplan is a waste of money if you understand your classes and studied hard. Start early. Get the examkrackers books: First, get the subject books that teach the subjects and have little mini-quizzes in them. When you finish a subject book, before moving on to the next subject book, get the 1001 questions book and do all of the questions. Do this for each of the 4 subjects (verbal doesn't have a 1001 book, it's 101 passages or something). Next, get access to some computer based mcats. I think there are a few sources for this.
- i did 13 computer based mcats. This is too many by about 7 in my opinion. My scores went like this: 32, 39, 42, 43, 40, 39, 39, 37, 36, 30 and then bounced around 30. I did ok on the real thing, by my point is that i peaked early and just about gave myself a heart attack by overdoing it.
- people will tell you that it doesn't matter where you take your premed courses. It sure doesn't look that way when i look at the interviewee pools i've seen so far. If you can afford it, take your classes at a well-known program.
- if you come from a non-science background try to take extra science classes, especially bio - immuno, physiology, genetics, cell bio, biochem, anatomy, etc. This seems to come up a lot in my interviews, shows interest, dedication, passion, etc. Biochem in the bio department > biochem in the chem department.
- go to office hours. Try to get to know your professors by asking intelligent questions there. Recommendations are really important actually. I have fared worse at the schools that don't ask for recommendations before deciding to interview or not.
- get your recommendations early.
- if you go to northwestern, do not use the recommendation file service. Use interfolio or anything else. Hell, use smoke signals or an air horn.
- if you have time: Preread for every class. Do every problem in the book. It might not help for that class, but when you know the basics cold, the trickiness of the mcat gets less tricky.
- get some research experience if you can. One way is to start off as a volunteer in an academic hospital and get to know the attendings. I have found vectors into research work at two hospitals this way. See if your school will let you do an independent study. I did one over the summer and it comes up often in interviews.
- spend as little time on the pre-allo board as possible. There are some seriously malevolent psychotic little bastards on that thing. And a lot of bad/misleading information.
- they really do think of you as adding diversity. And when you sit in a room full of 22 year olds, you'll realize that they're right. It is a huge advantage to have professional and life experience. It won't overcome bad postbacc grades or mcat, i think, but it definitely puts you in a different category admissionswise.
- the narrative of your life is really important. It's okay that it took you 15 years to figure out what your passion is. But how did it come to you? How was it manifest before now? What have you done (besides your postbacc) to learn about medicine?
- start working on you personal statement six months before you submit your primary application. Seriously. There are editing companies out there that will take a look and actually make pretty good suggestions. Pm me if you want the company i used.
- some schools will send you a secondary 30 seconds after you submit your primary. Some screen and you won't hear for a while. Some don't screen and you still won't hear for a while (u colorado comes to mind). I don't know why, but try not to let it get to you.
- hopkins doesn't email you to tell you to submit your secondary, you have to go to their website and it just says something like "submit one if you want to." i lost a couple weeks on that one.
- after you are complete, there can be many months of absolute silence. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it's just a silent rejection. The pre-allo forum gets into gigantic gordian knots of fury about this - no one really knows what they're talking about - again, just make sure you're complete. The rest is in the hands of your god.
- the interview database here at sdn is actually pretty useful.
- orgo is tested less and less on the mcat. My mcat had 2 orgo passages, my friend's had 1 passage. The material in the last 1/3 of my orgo sequence was neither on the mcat nor on the practice materials i had. Which leads me to believe that fate owes me a trimester of my life back.
- do not buy the princeton review 168 best medical schools book. It is absolutely riddled with misinformation, bad stats and math that doesn't add up. Seriously, the rush curriculum that it outlines hasn't been used there in 8 years. Luckily, i didn't know this and asked a really stupid question during my interview as a result.
Please add to this if you want to. Again, this is just the product of my experience. I have been really lucky in a lot of ways and some folks won't have enough time or resources to jump this many hoops.
Cf
- anyway, he took BIO and Chem at a C.C. and he was denied interviews the first year he applied even though he had a 4.0 and a double BIO/Chem major!
