Couple of Questions

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I'm a college sophomore on the pre-med track and I had a couple of questions:</p>

<p>1) What is the best way to go about the letter of recommendation process? It seems mind boggling because there are so many pre-meds at my school and the professors are teaching up to 500 pre-med students every year, so it seems so hard to get to know the professor.</p>

<ol>
<li>Do med schools want you to get involved with a lot of different extracurricular activities, or do they want to see commitment to just a few? I'm doing about 3 activities that I think I'll be doing all four years, but I get overwhelmed because there's always this new club or new organization or society that seems enticing to join.</li>
</ol>

<p>Any responses would be greatly appreciated!</p>

2

<p>It can be difficult to attend a large CA school and be able to connect with your profs well enough (or at all) to get a strong LOR, especially in the med school requirement weeder classes. My DD did not apply for med school until after she graduated, that allowed her to take upper division science classes, smaller classes and not designed to weed people out. This permitted her to get to know the professors well and get several letters.</p>

<p>Choose a few things and do them well. Define yourself in three adjective and have everything you do be cohesive with that story you will tell in your application. Don’t forget to do shadowing and volunteer work, but your adjectives could be rural, bi-lingual artist or sporty, Greek, musician, etc. You pick three passions or descriptors and present everything in such a way as to make those makes sense.</p>

<p>This helped my DD follow a less common path and still present a well organized application.</p>

3

<p>What is your major?</p>

<p>Sometimes upper division classes are smaller.</p>

<p>Also, ask some profs if they need any help with research projects.</p>

<p>Also…apply to some REUs for next summer. My son got a nice rec from his PI from his REU. Apps need to go in after Christmas…</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfm[/url]”>http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>

somemom, can you / should you do this with non-medical interests too? My son is really enjoying his acapella groups. On the one hand, it shows his wide-ranging interests, but on the other, it’s not medically-related which could weaken his “motivation to be a physician” trait.</p>

5

<p>you should, but that doesn’t mean you can skate by without doing something medically related. My program specifically likes musicians and athletes.</p>

6

<p>You cannot use any ECs as an excuse for lower GPA/MCAT, but I think a well-rounded applicant with a real life and real interests is appealing, whether that is sports, arts, etc. You need to have medically related activities (shadowing, volunteering, research, etc) in addition to real life interests you pursue.</p>