Medical School Questions

<p>I understand that GPA and MCAT are the most important aspects when applying to med school, but do you think strong internships, good letters of rec, experiences outside the country(United States), being an athlete at a D1 school, being in many clubs and societies on campus, and a deep passion to become a doctor could possibly out weigh GPA/MCAT scores that are not at the universities standards? I am applying to a large number of schools that have varying averages for GPA and MCAT scores, however most of these schools have high standards. I am applying to UChicago, UPenn, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Northwestern, Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Stanford, UCLA, and USC. Is this enough schools? I heard you want to apply to many universities because of how difficult admissions is for med school. Thanks for the help.</p>

<p>IMHO, the list seems to be too top-heavy for most applicants, unless you are a hooked applicant. (Being a D1 athlete could be a semi-hook. None of others you listed are.) </p>

<p>Also, geographically, it is all over the places – It would be tough to go to all these locations for interview (if invited to many of them), especially if you do not take a gap year. Many med schools may have some regional bias.</p>

<p>Which are your in-state public schools? It is generally considered as unwise to NOT apply to all or almost all of your in-state schools. (I do not know anything about California though. It may be somewhat different there.)</p>

<p>Usually, an applicant decides the list of schools after he has had his MCAT scores, not before.</p>

<p>Regarding the list being top heavy and the lack of focus on the kind (e.g., region and missions) of schools in your list: DS was a relatively high stats applicant. But still, he only applied to 3 schools (actually 2 in the end, as one was dropped in the middle of application cycle) in your list and he applied to slightly over 20 schools.</p>

<p>Many med schools use MCAT + GPA to screen applicants so it’s critical that your MCAT +GPA are within the range for the particular school. If it’s not, your ECs will never even get looked at.</p>

<p>AAMC surveyed US med school admissions directors and asked them to rank factors from most important (5) to least important (1). Below are the mean weighted results of that survey.</p>

<p>Here’s the results:</p>

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<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As you can see some of the things you’ve listed don’t even make the list–like participation in many activities or experiences outside the US. </p>

<p>Athletics could possibly be a small bump, but only if your academics and ECs are at an appropriate level for the school.</p>

<p>Thank you for this information. I am a California resident so I will apply to some more in-state schools. Great advice!</p>

<p>what is the experience outside of the country?</p>

<p>I know people have gotten into Harvard by spending time in AIDS clinics in other countries.</p>

<p>You may know people who got into Harvard who did those things but I can almost assure you the fact they did those things did not get them into Harvard. Maybe if they set up the experiences from absolute scratch and it evolved into a sustainable program beyond their involvement, but simply going on some foreign service trip is nothing special.</p>

<p>^Right. 2yrs Peace Corps doing AIDS education in Cameroon is wayyy different than going to Costa Rica and setting up primary care clinics for two weeks. And my personal belief is that neither is necessary nor sufficient for med school admissions. (For what it’s worth, I really like med service trips and find them personally rewarding–so this isn’t intended to be derisive toward those trips.)</p>

<p>OK, back to the original question :)</p>

<p>“I understand that GPA and MCAT are the most important aspects when applying to med school, but do you think strong internships, good letters of rec, experiences outside the country(United States), being an athlete at a D1 school, being in many clubs and societies on campus, and a deep passion to become a doctor could possibly out weigh GPA/MCAT scores that are not at the universities standards”
-Everybody have all the above minus D1 (but some even have this). I do not know how exactly it works, but it seems from D’s experience, that GPA/MCAT is a key to the door. Once you unlock it, then your application is there to review as a whole. If your GPA/MCAT does not fit into this door, then you are locked out. Again this is an impression from D’s application cycle. As far as ECs go, school also tend to look for what they need. They might have musicals as fund raisers for Free Clininc, so they will be looking for musicians, they might be involved in local HS tutoring, so they will look for people with tutoring experience, they might be sending students abroad to work at clinics so they will be looking for certain foreign languages. Agan, it all came to play when D. has applied.</p>

<p>^^^ I am speaking of spending an year or more abroad doing service under difficult circumstances, no different from being a rhodes scholar or fulbright or william. All of those get you into Harvard too.</p>

<p>It seems to be a common trait among students going from Rice to Harvard, having done something abroad for an year.</p>

<p>^Maybe you know examples of how it has helped them? I am not sure that anybody here has done it, but maybe somebody did.</p>

<p>What exactly are difficult circumstances? Rhodes and fullbright help you get into medical school because they are prestigious awards, not because they involve time abroad.</p>

<p>There are very poor regions in a world. D. has been to one working at free clinics there. But she actually could do a lot and could communicate well knowing language as she at least did it while at Med. School and after she obtained many skills or could be easily trained because of certain amount of medical knowledge. I do not know what college graduate is even allowed to do in these type of places. But there are certain amount of physical challenges there. Your stomach most of time does not agree with the food available there, everybody had a problem (no exception), D. has much more mild because of her multiple trips to Mexico and knowing hoe to be extremely careful, while several others had severe problems. During her trip, they also had to take drugs for being in elevated region with thinner air. You deal with different culture. I understand the physical challenges and D. was there only for one months. Living like this for couple years is very difficult, no doubt. But as I have mentioned, although college graduate could be helpful, the degree of this help could not be comparable to the degree of help provided by people with extansive medical training.</p>

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No/maybe. You need to have a base gpa/MCAT in order to start the process, but it also depends on how far off you are. Keep in mind there are minimums that you must first achieve before your application is even considered and that is dependent on the particular school. </p>

<p>Keep in mind also that your D1 athletics were a hook to get you into college, but medical schools don’t need to fill the athletic teams like college. Instead, it describes the kind of person you are (team player, able to balance school & sport, etc., etc.) and makes an interesting story.</p>

<p>Having said that I think your list of medical schools, UChicago, UPenn, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Northwestern, Duke, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Stanford, UCLA, and USC include some of the schools with the highest standards. What are your scores? As a CA resident, you should widen your reach with a number of lesser known schools.</p>

<p>" What exactly are difficult circumstances? "</p>

<p>Would it matter what the circumstances are if the medical schools deemed them worthy enough to give them weight? Does it require your personal seal of approval?</p>

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<p>Petitio principii??</p>

<p>No, but in order to understand what you’re saying and convey something that is meaningful to me and others I need an example. Saying that if you do something really impressive you’ll get into Harvard without telling someone what is considered to be really impressive is not very helpful advice.</p>

<p>If by difficult circumstances you mean that it’s a competitive program and thus difficult to be included, then yes, I agree, an abroad program under difficult circumstances would help with med school admissions, but that’s not because it’s abroad.</p>

<p>If by difficult circumstances you mean that it’s an extremely expensive program making it difficult for many people to afford, then no, I don’t think such an abroad program would help with med school admissions.</p>

<p>If by difficult circumstances you mean the person lives in a hut without running water, then no, I don’t think such an abroad program would help just because of its difficult circumstances. If the difficult circumstances lead to a great essay that could help, but then it’s because of the essay, not the circumstances. A bad essay about the difficult circumstances would be worse than a good essay about easy circumstances.</p>

<p>Please help me understand the point you are trying to make.</p>