Does that whole field undermine the appeal of college?
That path starts from high school with shadowing doctors, research, HOSA etc. It sure kills essence of an education and high school/college experience for most due to a narrow focus. A high GPA and MCAT becomes main reason to breath. It’s kind of sad, specially for ones who do it for wrong reasons.
At least American Medical schools require an undergrad degree, in most countries you skip that and go to medical school without broad learning and maturity. I’m not a fan of accelerated BS-MD programs either.
Yes, you do have freedom as a premed. It’s a lot of work and sacrifice, and you have to make the time to have fun and relax rather than expect it to just fall in your lap, but I’ve honestly had a fantastic and rewarding 4 years in college, and am also very happy with how my med school application cycle is going.
@Riversider I strongly disagree that the path starts in high school—I had no idea I wanted to go into medicine while I was in high school and things have turned out just fine. There are even people who don’t realize they want to go into medicine until they’re several years out of college.
My relative in law wasn’t sure about her path in college graduated and took GRE and MCAT and then decided to go med school. It worked out fine for her.
True.
However, some decisions made while in high school can affect a pre-med’s path:
- Choice of undergraduate colleges to apply to, due to the relevance of cost, accessibility of pre-med extracurriculars, travel to medical school interviews, and relative grade inflation on successfully gaining medical school admission without starting medical school with undergraduate debt on top of which medical school debt will be added.
- Taking college courses while in high school means that the courses and grades will be included in medical school applications and GPA calculations.
- It may be better not to take AP exams in subjects that the pre-med wants to (or has to for some medical schools) repeat in college, in order to avoid the possibility of having to mark "repeat" (of the AP scores) on them.
I’m not saying different people can’t do it in different ways, only describing the norm. Isn’t this the standard pre-Med path for merit candidates?
@Riversider It is becoming progressively more common for people to take 1-2 gap years (or more) before applying! There are quite a few top schools now whose majority is made up of non-traditional students (UPenn is one off the top of my head). Additionally, it’s not usually recommended to list activities done during high school on the AMCAS unless the activity has been continued into college. Your most meaningful/significant clinical experiences should ideally be relatively more recent.
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That’s true, I didn’t think of this! I didn’t attend a high school that offered opportunities like that so it never crossed my mind that this may be a concern for some high schoolers.
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Fairly sure that this is a non-issue. I repeated my gen chem and gen physics prerequisites despite having tested out via AP credits, and it’s never come up as an issue at all this app cycle, nor have any premed advisers at my college (or SDN) told me differently.
Most students that start the premed path drop out of this track because they are not able to maintain a competitive gpa. The premed classes are called “weed out” classes for a reason. Many will pursue other paths and even the best students will take gap years to gain more experience before committing to the expense of medical school. One bad semester and it becomes very challenging to bring that gpa up to a med school worthy gpa.
Premed is not a major. It refers to a set of classes you will need to apply to med school. Premed classes are not taught with the MCAT in mind so you will need to do your own self study for the exam. Everyone needs to have a plan B in case med school is not an option for them in the future.
If you were a straight A student in high school do not expect that the same level of effort will lead to all A’s in college. Everyone needs to come in knowing how to study efficiently and with good time management skills. Expect more than 75 percent of the students that start out as premed will never apply to med school and those that apply many will not be accepted and will have to reapply in another cycle. There are a lot of premeds out there but not all of them become med school students.
In undergrad you need to learn how to manage your time wisely. It’s up to you how you maintain that balance between academics and social activities. You get to set your priorities and decide your plan of action to be successful. Even in med school it is important to maintain a balance between academics and social to avoid burnout. You need to have an identity outside being a med school applicant. Med schools don’t just want students that know how to study but also interest/hobbies outside of the medical field.
The AMCAS applicant guide at https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/33/f0/33f0bd3f-9721-43cb-82a2-99332bbda78e/2018_amcas_applicant_guide_web-tags.pdf says on page 32:
I assume by freedom you are asking can a premed/MD have a life outside premed/MD stuff (eg academics, ECs, …private practice, etc). S has always had an active social life in hs, college, med school… practice as MD. Yes there were many, many, many times especially in college/med school when he was locked away (figuratively) in a room studying. But if you can’t find a way as a premed/MD (or whatever career path you go down) to live life outside medicine/career path, you are seriously doing something wrong.
@ucbalumnus I’m not disputing that it’s marked as Repeat on AMCAS, but rather that repeating AP credit is not something that will negatively impact an application—therefore, it’s not a consideration that high school students should be worrying themselves about.
My DD was a pre-med…her hobby was her Pre-med classes. Her intent was to do more volunteering/shadowing during a gap year…but senior year she decided med school was not for her.
Ideally you would be doing some volunteering in a medical setting, perhaps some research and shadowing of doctors during college.