Where do I start

[NexGen]

---

Members don't see this ad.

hi im currently a junior high school student who had taken an interest in going into the medical field. I was wondering what should i do now as a high school student to prepare for it and what will make my admission easier? Since i had slacked off my first 2 years of high school so now my GPA is roughly 3.5 . Thanks.

by the way, being new here, what is MD and DO?

 

[Ross434]

hi im currently a junior high school student who had taken an interest in going into the medical field. I was wondering what should i do now as a high school student to prepare for it and what will make my admission easier? Since i had slacked off my first 2 years of high school so now my GPA is roughly 3.5 . Thanks.

by the way, being new here, what is MD and DO?

Raise your GPA, do awesome extracurriculars, and apply to early entrance programs, which allow you "Easier" admission because they guarantee you admission to med school conditional upon you going to their undergrad and doing well for 3 years. You dont even need to take the mcat. So.. do really well in high school classes, and do some volunteering and job shadowing.

 

[patzan]

by the way, being new here, what is MD and DO?

Ha ha! What a perfect question to ask this group of future docs! I wonder if any would be willing to tell you!

 

[NexGen]

Raise your GPA, do awesome extracurriculars, and apply to early entrance programs, which allow you "Easier" admission because they guarantee you admission to med school conditional upon you going to their undergrad and doing well for 3 years. You dont even need to take the mcat. So.. do really well in high school classes, and do some volunteering and job shadowing.

What kinda extracurriculars work? Is volunteering in community service good enough? I stopped attending it because i feel like it's really pointless when thousands of kids help with 1 thing. I always believe that there are other things that i can do. as for job shadowing, u mean like working alongside doctors in a hospital?

 

[Kazema]

Volunteering is great when you find the right organization to volunteer with. I agree that badly run volunteer efforts can make volunteers feel pretty useless.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting into a medical school just yet, that's a looong way from now. Do some shadowing of doctors if you like, maybe with your pediatrician, so you can get an idea of what doctors do. Unless you're shooting for a BS/MD (or BA/MD or whatever) program, you won't be applying to medical school for another four and a half years. Just concentrate on the stuff that'll get you accepted into college like any other college hopeful: grades, SAT's, extracurriculars, leadership, volunteering, etc etc. You can worry about medicine-specific stuff when you start college.

 

[NexGen]

I see, thanks. Also, what should i major in college if im planning to go into med school?

 

[Kazema]

Whatever major you want, really. The only advantage bio or chem majors have for medical admissions is that they have to take upper division classes that can help them with the MCAT and with doing science research.

Just major in whatever interests you.

 

[NexGen]

Oh, so there is no relationship between colleges and med schools then. If so, when do u sign up for med school?

 

[lfesiam]

Whatever major you want, really. The only advantage bio or chem majors have for medical admissions is that they have to take upper division classes that can help them with the MCAT and with doing science research.

Just major in whatever interests you.

my $0.02

- raise your gpa (i think 3.5 is not bad, but higher doesn't hurt 🙂 )
- get leadership position in ecs
- volunteer
- get into a top ten school i.e. ivy (it'll help: a 3.5 sci gpa from Harvard is rated higher than a 3.5 sci gpa from a Community College)

gluck

 

[NexGen]

whats ecs?

 

[Newman8r]

my $0.02

- raise your gpa (i think 3.5 is not bad, but higher doesn't hurt 🙂 )
- get leadership position in ecs
- volunteer
- get into a top ten school i.e. ivy (it'll help: a 3.5 sci gpa from Harvard is rated higher than a 3.5 sci gpa from a Community College)

gluck

dude... he's not gonna get into a top ten school with a 3.5 GPA - but you don't need to go to a top ten school. Just go to a well respected university and do well there (know that your goal should to be to get all As from day one in college)

 

[Newman8r]

Oh, so there is no relationship between colleges and med schools then. If so, when do u sign up for med school?

you might apply your junior year of college, or you might opt to wait a year and take some time off between undergrad and med school

 

[Newman8r]

hi im currently a junior high school student who had taken an interest in going into the medical field. I was wondering what should i do now as a high school student to prepare for it and what will make my admission easier? Since i had slacked off my first 2 years of high school so now my GPA is roughly 3.5 . Thanks.

by the way, being new here, what is MD and DO?

what are you saying, that you are a junior in high school or that you are in junior high school?

 

[NexGen]

junior in high school. oops haha i didnt see that mistake.

 

[Newman8r]

junior in high school. oops haha i didnt see that mistake.

ya thats what I thought. Just remember, once you start college, it's like a clean slate - a lot of people who say they are pre meds change their minds the first year because they can't handle the work (and it does get harder)

 

[abcxyz0123]

dont do any kind of hard work whatsoever in high school if youre smart.

 

[NexGen]

so i should just chillax till college.

 

[Kazema]

so i should just chillax till college.

To an extent. Keep your GPA up, do enough to get accepted at a college/university with national recognition (I don't necessarily mean a USNews Top Universities type of school, but at least one that med schools will have heard of), and after you start college you can begin to get neurotic like the rest of us 😀.

Oh, and don't pick your college on the basis of rankings and name alone. Make sure you actually like the place before deciding to go.

 

[NexGen]

thanks for all your help guys. i appreciate it.

 

[gbiz]

Ha, noone dared to try and answer the DO/MD thing. I dont think a pre-allo (MD) forum is the best place to ask that, you may not get the most favorable presentation. Your best bet would be to go to different school websites and read up on it, such as MSU COM, a good DO program.

I'll just give a little brief info. Both are licensed physicians, and they both go through similiar training. However, DOs place an emphasis on the musco-skeletal system and take and extra class in OMM (muscle manipulation); they believe there is much healing power in touch and that many problems arise from the muscoskeletal system. There approach is a bit more holistic, but they still use science as a foundation and, like I said before, are fully licensed physicians.

It used to be there were seperate DO hospitals, and that was basically where you could work as a DO, and most DOs were family practice. That has really changed, especially in fields such as Emergency Medicine, where DOs and MDs work side by side. In emergency med, in all cases I have seen thus far, the physicians are gauged on their work performance / ability, and not where they have a DO or MD.

However, a good portion of the MD population still looks down upon DOs. DO schools are easier to get accepted to (average MCAT scores are more around 25 then around say 30 for MD schools). It is a bit cyclical, DO schools are easier to get into b/c they are looked down upon by MDs/future MDs, so more people apply to MD schools and their MCAT scores are higher, so it looks as if DO students may be less qualified and thus people may look down upon them.

Today, there are DOs in practically every field of medicine, be it surgery, emergency med, etc etc. However, it would be harder to get a residency match coming from a DO school to a more competitive field; you must be in the top of your class.




My situation re: the matter; Im currently applying to 9 MD and 2 DO schools. Once I was accepted to MSU COM (DO), I dropped the other DO app and one MD app. I would rather go to MSU COM then some of the allopathic schools I applied to. In actuality, if this is any gauge of the school, the student who gave us the tour of MSU was probably the brightest and most down to earth tour guide over any MD school I have interviewed at. Though I would still pick certain MD schools I applied to over MSU COM (UMich, Case Western, Ohio State).

 

[musiclink213]

with a 3.5 gpa, and a good SAT you should get into a decent uni, but really, your university doesn't matter all that much as long as you do well in your classes and rock the MCAT. when you get to college, major in whatever you want. if you don't htink you want to be a bio/chem/biochem major, you may not want to take all of your pre reqs immediatly, since you'd be done by soph year, and may forget it by junior year when you take the MCAT. but since you're still a junior, yuo have plenty of time to think about it.

and try to get into a hospital volunteering program now. that way, if you don't like it, you haven't spent all your money on a school with an awesome science rep and then realizing your true passion is cinematography and your uni doesn't offer it. because medicine is not for everyone. and you might as well try to figure out now if you'll be able to handle the sick patients and occasionally arrogant docs.

 

[OSUdoc08]

Ha, noone dared to try and answer the DO/MD thing. I dont think a pre-allo (MD) forum is the best place to ask that, you may not get the most favorable presentation. Your best bet would be to go to different school websites and read up on it, such as MSU COM, a good DO program.

I'll just give a little brief info. Both are licensed physicians, and they both go through similiar training. However, DOs place an emphasis on the musco-skeletal system and take and extra class in OMM (muscle manipulation); they believe there is much healing power in touch and that many problems arise from the muscoskeletal system. There approach is a bit more holistic, but they still use science as a foundation and, like I said before, are fully licensed physicians.

It used to be there were seperate DO hospitals, and that was basically where you could work as a DO, and most DOs were family practice. That has really changed, especially in fields such as Emergency Medicine, where DOs and MDs work side by side. In emergency med, in all cases I have seen thus far, the physicians are gauged on their work performance / ability, and not where they have a DO or MD.

However, a good portion of the MD population still looks down upon DOs. DO schools are easier to get accepted to (average MCAT scores are more around 25 then around say 30 for MD schools). It is a bit cyclical, DO schools are easier to get into b/c they are looked down upon by MDs/future MDs, so more people apply to MD schools and their MCAT scores are higher, so it looks as if DO students may be less qualified and thus people may look down upon them.

Today, there are DOs in practically every field of medicine, be it surgery, emergency med, etc etc. However, it would be harder to get a residency match coming from a DO school to a more competitive field; you must be in the top of your class.




My situation re: the matter; Im currently applying to 9 MD and 2 DO schools. Once I was accepted to MSU COM (DO), I dropped the other DO app and one MD app. I would rather go to MSU COM then some of the allopathic schools I applied to. In actuality, if this is any gauge of the school, the student who gave us the tour of MSU was probably the brightest and most down to earth tour guide over any MD school I have interviewed at. Though I would still pick certain MD schools I applied to over MSU COM (UMich, Case Western, Ohio State).

Keep a few things in mind:

1. In general MD's do not look down upon DO's. There are isolated cases of this happening, but the vice-versa is also true. You will more commonly find this happening with non-physicians, including most commonly students. You will not find this common among patients either.

2. There a few select MD residencies that are moe difficult for DO's to get into. Keep in mind that the DO's have most of the residencies through their own programs, but are able to apply to the MD programs as well.

3. On the manipulation: It involves many systems including muscles, skeletal, tendons/ligaments, lymphatics/circulation, and nervous system. Depending on the specialty, you may or may not see OMM being done on patients.