<p>I was wondering if anyone has any input or advice for a confused and disoriented freshman undergrad who wants to pursue his dream in cardiology. If any medical school students or anyone with any measure of medical school knowledge can tell me what I need to do as undergrad do bolster my chances of getting into my preferred medical school(tufts). Simply put, I need advice on what I should do as freshman turning sophomore to distinguish myself and ultimately secure a seat in top-tier medical schools. I'm a little disoriented as to what I need or what I should be doing or where I need to go? If anyone can guide, it would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about your specialty until you enter med school. You will most likely change your mind several times as you mature and want different things in your life. I was set on being a plastic surgeon in high school and now I laugh at myself because the specialty for that is ridiculously long/competitive and I don’t even want to be a surgeon anymore now that I know how hard it is to have kids if you’re in surgery (or so I hear, I’m just a lowly undergrad). Just do the obvious in order to be considered a good applicant (get good grades, volunteer, get clinical experience, etc etc) and then worry about specialties once you’re accepted.</p>
<p>Hey man I’m a year behind in terms of pre-req. for medical school because I felt completing my schools core requirements first would be better in the long run. Do you think starting the requirements soph. year will hurt my chances and if not what timetable would you consider. In addition do you think taking physics my senior year would be optimal?</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with starting pre-reqs a bit later. You could also take a year off or a year extra if needed.</p>
<p>As for what you need to do, just make sure you do well in classes and get involved in things that interest you.</p>
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<p>It is true that nothing is wrong with starting pre-reqs a bit later. But is it often recommended that, if most students at your school graduate in 4 years, a premed student had better graduate in 4 years in order to be a competitive applicant?</p>
<p>On the other hand, one premed student with a chemical engineering major once told me that he regretted he did not take a year off between the junior year and the senior year so that he had more opportunities to work on his ECs. (He barely had time for ECs because he was overwhelmed by his major requirement and his premed requirement.) He is an applicant who ended up applying with a gap year. He worked in some national research institute in California in his gap year, after he had been graduated from college.</p>
<p>I do not know the pros and cons of having a gap year after the junior year, instead of after the senior year, for a slightly above average student.</p>
<p>“Graduating in four years” means essentially four years of schoolwork; a fifth year in this case wouldn’t be considered to throw off that timetable. I can’t comprehend why a student would want his gap year before senior year, however, instead of one year later. It just makes everything so much cleaner.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this shouldn’t be a major problem. I guess he’d just have to have a good reason. The best reason I can think of is, “I had an opportunity that might not have been available a year later, and I had to jump at it.”</p>
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<p>This is because ECs that are done in the gap year after senior year can barely fit into the application officially, assuming that the applicant needs to submit his application as soon as possible, i.e., in June. For the application to Texas Medical Schools, the application needs to be submitted at the beginning of May.</p>
<p>After all pre-reqs and MCAT are taken, is it the ECs that are more critical than when you actually receive your undergraduate degree?</p>
<p>I fully agree that it makes everything cleaner if taking the regular gap year.</p>
<p>Boy… the admission to the Medical Schools becomes so difficult that many students are trying to get any “advantage” no matter how tiny the advantage may be. Also, not every applicant is like you who are capable of finishing all pre-regs in the first two years while “working” on ECs on the side line.</p>
<p>Thanks again for your inputs.</p>
<p>Well, he would list his EC’s as anticipated, and he would discuss them extensively on the interview trail. That’s really not an issue at all.</p>
<p>He would have to explain why he took a year off since most secondaries will ask you to explain gaps in your education. It will look strange indeed for someone to take a year off in b/w the junior and senior years just to do some EC’s.</p>
<p>I can see reasons to take your gap year between junior and senior year rather than immediately after senior year. Anything for which timing is important (for example, if you’re volunteering or working on a presidential campaign, you’ve got to take the time off when the campaign is happening). Also, if you’re spending your gap year doing something abroad, then you probably don’t want to have to deal with applying to medical school while you’re out of the country. But I think there has to be a justifiable reason or it’d look strange.</p>
<p>I agree with both of you that it may raise a red flag by doing so without a really good reason</p>
<p>BTW, the student who said that he would rather take the gap year after junior is from Stanford. An example of not having very good advising at that school? But somehow I am somewhat sympathetic because he needs to deal with his California Medical Schools. For a record, I heard this from his parents, not from him directly. Hopefully, it is not his parents who kind of forced him into this particular engineering major which requires so many courses and after graduation. he needs to make it up by taking his premed pre-reqs (maybe only a course or two) while working.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>This might be an example of bad advising. Balancing an engineering major with premed requirements is tough, but it should have been do-able. I’m not sure why he wants to balance a post-bacc with working. This kid sounds like he is doing things very bizarrely. I wonder if there’s more to the story?</p>
<p>I’m def going to cram them in which would leave me with orgo and physics by junior year.</p>
<p>Does anybody know a good gpa for the University of Virgina medical school? One of my dream med schools and I would greatly appreciate it if someone has any insight on this.</p>
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<p>Good grades and good MCAT score are the foundation, anything else you can put on top would be icing.</p>
<p>Regarding cardiology, it’s something you really really really don’t have to worry about until much later on.</p>
<p>Once you get into medical school, you’ll need to focus on getting the best internal medicine residency you can get. It won’t be until your 2nd year of residency that you will begin applying for the cardiology fellowship. In fact, it’s becoming quite common for medicine residents to apply in their final (3rd) year or to even take a year or two off to become hospitalists before reapplying for a cardiology fellowship. Certainly nothing you have to worry about yet in college. Good luck!</p>
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<p>My MSAR, which is a few years old, says the median for admits is 3.72.</p>