My son is a junior getting ready to take the MCAT and apply to med school and is understandably FREAKING OUT. He seems qualified, but as someone who’s never applied to med school I’m not really qualified to say. I would appreciate some help so I can help him strengthen his application, but also to know if he’s putting too much pressure on himself to reach impossible standards. He’s very worried that everyone else is doing more/better than he is and that it’s too late to improve his chances of getting into medical school.
Hispanic Male
Biology major, psychology minor
3.8 GPA
At a top 15 college with 90% med school placement for pre-meds (although I’ve been told your college doesn’t matter)
No MCAT scores yet, planning to take in January
4 year involvement in Habitat for Humanity, president for final year
3 year involvement in general volunteer organization, held position for 1 year
2 summers of research, with one of those summers at the NIH
clinical experience/shadowing planned for next summer
Specific concerns:
- are most pre-meds doing research during the school year?
- are all 5 recommendations usually very high quality recommendations? Is it normal to have some very good and some just OK?
- because his school is competitive will students at “easier” schools with higher GPAs going to beat him out?
- are schools going to expect him to have been a TA?
- is anything he tries now going to be dismissed as a last-minute effort to impress schools?