<p>As a recently accepted medical school applicant, I have a few words of advice on the pre-medical route.</p>
<p>First of all, choose your undergraduate major with no regard for medical school. Yea that’s right. Many kids come out of high school thinking they know what they want to do in life and settle in on microbio/biology/biochem/etc., but if you change your mind (which is that case for most people), you want to have a backup plan. Having a biological science major by itself does NOT disqualify you from getting into medical school. I know next year I will be with history majors, economics majors, and other people like myself (engineering majors). All medical schools purposely pick students from different backgrounds. I was interviewed at one school by a girl that interviewed at top school’s like Duke, Michigan, etc., and she was a theatre major.</p>
<p>Secondly, you can be whatever level of doctor you want to be regardless of whether or not you have a big school name on your resume. I know a bunch of very succesful (and wealthy) physicians who went to medical school in India and Europe. One of them is the even the neighbor of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter down in Tampa (where they have spring training!)</p>
<p>Thirdly, getting into a top 10 school requires farrr more than good grades (3.8+ GPA) and exceptional MCAT (36Q+). You need to show extensive research experience (maybe even co-author a publication), exemplary leadership (start a club at school or take a leadership position in one), exemplary humanism (do some volunteering for underserved minorities within america and maybe a medical related volunteer mission abroad), a solid grasp of the medical profession (through physician shadowing - in the interview they will see how much you know about the structure of and challenges facing the health care system), and a good life story (so they see you can overcome difficult life challenges and have sincered motivation to be a doctor).</p>
<p>Fourth thing, understand that the acceptance process of medical school is largely a craps shoot. These schools have very limited seats and want to maintain some particular in-state/ out-of-state ratio, gender ratio, certain racial ratios, etc. This means they intentionally deny academically qualified students because they may not meet a certain demographic that they have an open seat for. And along these lines, my sister had a friend who applied to several medical schools and the ONLY one he got into was Johns Hopkins. He got rejected from less ranked schools and ONLY got into Hopkins. There is no one formulated way of getting in these schools, so focus on getting into A medical school and not a particular one (unless something about their curriculum or medical education process at that school really attracts you).</p>
<p>Lastly, calm down. If you want to be a physician, lives will literally be in your hands. If you are too stressed about grades, then you will most certainly wayyy more stressed when the health or life of a human being is completely in your hands. Develop composure. It will not only help you as a physician, but make your academic career much more bearable.</p>
<p>On a side note, I studied chemical engineering. I had a 3.92 GPA, 33S MCAT, 1 year of research (9 years physicial chem, 3 years biomedical sciences), 1 publication (in the journal of chemical physics), 3 years of volunteering the hospital ICU, 4 physician shadowing experiences, and I applied to 10 schools (“Reach Shools”: Baylor, Vanderbilt, Emory – “In-Reach Schools”: Ohio State, U of Miami, U of Florida, U of Cincinnati – “Fall back schools”: U of South Florida, Toledo, Wright State) and I only got 2 interviews - (Toledo, Ohio State). The two things I regret not doing are showing leadership (this is HUGE) and being more creative with my volunteer experience (they know you can’t do a whole lot when you volunteer in a hospital). - And yes, I know kids who got slightly lower grades than I did and got way more interviews than I did and at better schools. Think of grades as merely a prerequisite.</p>
<p>I hope this was a bit informative! Good luck!</p>