Premed Question

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
6

I see some issues with this plan

  1. Dual enrollment/cc credit may not be accepted by the college you plan to attend.

  2. Not all med schools will accept CC credit for fulfilling admission requirements, Many limit the number of CC credits they’ll allow or expect applicants to have taken an equivalent number of upper level [science] college credits in the same areas as the CC credits. See this pinned FAQ about AP/IB/DE and med school: FAQ Pre-med courses, AP/IB/etc. credit and college/DE courses, etc.

  3. Only about 1/3 of successful med school applicants are “traditional” (straight from undergrad) applicants. The majority of applicants today take 1-4 gaps year before applying to improve their ECs. So please understand you will be compared against them and their accomplishments.

  4. College is not just about getting the right classes for med school, you need to develop relationships with your professors since you will need LORs from at least 3 professors to support your med school application. Also be aware that many colleges have a health profession committee that writes a committee LOR for med school applicants. These committees usually won’t write one unless you have attended that college for minimum amount of time (usually 2 full years). If your college offers a committee letter and you don’t have one, that can be a black mark against your med school application.

While’s possible to use DE credit to accelerate your academic programs, it’s not usually the best idea. Med schools will be looking at the rigor of your science classes, and, rightly or wrongly, CC classes are viewed as “lacking in rigor” (i.e. easy). You’ll need top grades (all As) in your UL science electives at your 4 year college to show you can handle the rigor of med school classes.

Can you accelerate your undergrad program, graduate early and still get into med school? Yes, but you will need to be an exceptional candidate and do everything just right. And you’ll need more than just one gap year.

RE: gap years & timing. The med school application process takes more than year from submitting your application in June and starting med school in August of the following year. If you want only 1 gap year between undergrad and med school, you will be applying immediately after you finish undergrad. Any gap year activities will only be “theoretical” when you apply since you won’t have done them yet. If there are no actual completed ECs on your application to support your desire to become a doctor, then your application is likely to get tossed out.

Med school applicants needs to have much more than just a good GPA, good MCAT score and having completed the pre-req classes. They are expected to have engaged in activities that show their commitment to medicine. These activities include: community service with disadvantaged groups; clinical volunteering or employment, physician shadowing (especially in primary care specialties), leadership roles in your activities, lab bench or clinical research.

fFor community service and clinical experience, aim for several hundred hours of each. For shadowing, aim for 50+ total hours in multiple specialties. For research, aim for a year (or more) in the lab or on a clinical project.

These activities need to be done BEFORE you submit a med school application.

If you do plan to graduate early, plan on taking 2-4 gap years to get these activities done.

Applying to medical school is a long, expensive (several thousand $$$) and emotionally fraught process, you’ll want to do it once and do it right.

EDIT: Med school adcomms understand that individuals may not have the same financial resources as other wealthier applicants. CC credits will not doom your application, but adcomms expect applicants using CC credit to enroll full time in a CC first before transferring to more expensive 4 year college. And once at a 4 year college to demonstrate academic excellence to prove any CC grades weren’t a fluke or as a result of lesser competition/lesser academic expectations.

Financially disadvantaged med school applicants are not excused from the volunteering and other EC expectations. Those still need to be done.

Also when it comes to med school–younger is not better. Younger-than-traditional age applicants will face some extra scrutiny about their maturity, their reasons for pursuing medicine, and other areas of emotional, intellectual & cultural competence. Proving their fitness for medicine is entirely on the shoulders of the applicant.

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