<p>Hey,</p>
<p>Back when I was in Biology at Cornell, I either didn’t pay attention in class or didn’t bother going cause its in the morning. Same goes for chemistry, organic chem, and physics (autotutorial…). I study almost straight from textbooks and I did fine. However, do review the lecture slides or notes because some things may be stressed in lecture so you’ll know what to focus on. </p>
<p>Don’t rely so much on the application chart Cornell has. Try to get as high as possible for both GPA, and MCAT. Note that other than having a high GPA and MCAT, if you want to go to a good school, GET THE PUBLICATIONS and also some leadership. Medical school is not easy to get into even with good grades and the courses are WAY more time consuming than Cornell pre-med classes. I go to a NY state school right now and I can tell you that the Cornell people here are very bright. From the several Cornell students that I know of here, the majority has over 3.8 and 35+ MCAT. Personally I had a 35+ and a 3.9+, applied to 22 schools, and was only accepted to 3 schools, all ranked in the middle. I’m from NYC and a lot of the top 25 schools I applied to didn’t even bother interviewing me (Mt sinai, cornell). </p>
<p>So definitely, aside from those grades, get those publications (i did 3 yrs of research but unfortunately wasn’t published), Do leadership stuff, and it’s better to have fewer hours of high quality clinical experience, than like 300 hrs of working in the ER if all you did was like fill paperwork, talk to a few patients etc. Seriously every applicant has that and it doesn’t make you stand out at all, esp coming from a place like Cornell.</p>
<p>Also I don’t know what race you are but do know that it matters a lot. URM is in full effect for medical school admissions. Again get as high as possible but definitely look up the stats for your race group and see if it’s better to retake MCAT (if you didn’t do so well, ie if you are asian and got like a 31 on your MCAT, etc)</p>