Dental School, Medical School, Pharmacy School

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I have some words of wisdom for you. They don’t really answer any of your questions directly, but I think in the long run it’ll be helpful. I was president of our pre-professional club in undergrad, and these are the little nuggets of knowledge I always pass on… I just wish someone else would have told me the same when I started pursuing pharmacy school (I am a first year pharm student, so I just went through the whole process you are starting)!</p>

<p>To sum this all up if you don’t want to read all of it:

  1. Shadow. Get experience in your field. Grades and exam scores are NOT everything.
  2. Volunteer.
  3. Work on your leadership skills (they will ask you about leadership positions on apps and interviews)
  4. Have a real back-up plan in.
  5. Don’t ever underestimate the knowledge you can get from being in contact with admissions offices for professional schools. You will be grateful you contacted them.</p>

<p>My first advice to any person looking into attending professional school is to shadow, shadow some more, and then maybe do some more shadowing. Start doing it now – even if it’s only two or three times a semester – and don’t stop doing it until you are accepted to a professional school. You cannot know what field you want to go into without actually experiencing it for yourself (and experiencing it in <em>multiple different settings</em>). When you are applying for these professional schools, they want to know that you know what you’re getting yourself into. If you have no first-hand experience or knowledge about the profession, they won’t care at ALL about what your exam scores are or what your GPA is. You don’t want to be that person that is being interviewed and gets asked “Why do you want to be a dentist?” or “What is your experience with veterinary medicine?” and have nothing to say.</p>

<p>A quick side-note: if you shadow or volunteer consistently under a certain M.D., P.A., D.V.M., etc., they will make excellent sources for letters of recommendation.</p>

<p>I know one person that was a total brain, had a 4.0 GPA from an excellent college, and aced the MCAT, but he did not get accepted into any med schools. Why? He has no experience in the field. On the other hand, I know several people who had decent GPAs and so-so exam scores, but still got into professional schools because they had proven leadership skills, volunteered a lot, and had experience working and shadowing in their fields of interest. People with amazing test scores and GPAs are a dime a dozen when it comes to applying to professional school, so when they say you need to be well-rounded they really mean it.</p>

<p>Another huge mistake that I’ve seen many people make is to not have a REAL backup plan in case they don’t get into the professional school of their choosing. I can’t even count how many people I know that said they wanted to go to med/vet/pharm/dent/PA school, did their pre-reqs, and then didn’t get in or didn’t even bother applying because they thought they wouldn’t get in anyways. They got their degrees in biology and chemistry and didn’t even want to do anything related to the field besides go to med school. Either make sure you are willing to apply, get denied, and try to improve your resume and try again the next year, or actually have a solid backup plan. Otherwise you’ll have wasted years, tons of stress, and untold amounts of money on a degree you don’t want anything to do with.</p>

<p>If you are unsure of which classes to take, talk to your advisor. Most schools have pre-professional plans and guidelines. You can also get on admissions email lists from professional schools that will keep you updated with the school’s requirements for applying. Any halfway decent school will have a list of pre-requisite courses they require on their admissions webpage, so go to a couple different schools’ webpages and compare their pre-reqs. At least the pharmacy schools I applied to required many non-wet-sciencey classes that you would not expect like economics, extra higher level writing courses, speech, etc. I would look at the requirements for schools that are ranked very high nationally. They will tend to have the most rigorous course requirements, especially compared to lower ranked schools. Just Google things like “medical school rankings” or “top pharmacy schools” to start.</p>

<p>As far as how hard it is to get into different schools, you can normally find that out on the admissions page. Many schools have admissions statistics regarding how many people applied, how many were interviewed, and how many were accepted into the program. Every school will be different, so don’t assume that one school represents all schools in that field. Also, just because a certain type of professional school may accept a higher percentage of applicants than other types of schools does not mean that the expectations of those applicants are any lower, so don’t assume that pharmacy school will be “easier” just because they tend to accept a higher percent of applicants than medical schools. In reality, this is because less people apply to pharmacy school than medical school. So yes, you have a higher chance of getting in to the pharmacy school than the med school, but it is not because one is (necessarily) harder or easier than the other.</p>

<p>When all else fails, contact admissions counselors from professional schools that you are considering and drill them with questions to your heart’s content. That is what they are there for.</p>

<p>PS. Study for your standardized exams and practice your interview questions. Don’t assume you’ll just be ok. You will be grateful you did.</p>

<p>The End. Good luck!</p>

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<p>so what did you go for, in the end ?</p>