I don’t have much to add to all the great advice on here, but I’ll add the University of Rochester’s med school profile for 2025. Other years can be googled and one can easily see it’s a template. They tend to look for the same things year after year. I doubt they’re alone in what they look for.
With the competition to get into med school, the last thing you want is for your application to meet the minimum requirements or even to be average. I tell students to be someone their med school could write about.
I copied some excerpts - there’s more in the link, plus google other years.
This year we had approximately 5900 applications from AMCAS that we reviewed. Of the completed applications, 3000 were from female applicants and 2800 were from male applicants, 21 were from self-disclosed, trans or non-conforming gender applicants. Our admissions committee interviewed 711 of these applications, for 105 places in your class. Your class includes 59 women, and 44 men and 2 non-binary students. The average age of your class is 23.67 years and 43% of your class is 24 years old or older. And while age is totally irrelevant to your progress and potential, the spread in years is from 21 to 32.
About 29% of you majored in Biology or some variation of that major, 15 of you majored in Neurosciences, six each majored in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, the Engineering fields and Psychology, five each majored in Chemistry, four in Public or Global Health. Three majored in Anthropology. Two each majored in History, Mathematics, Microbiology, Music and 1 each majored in Art History, Business, Comparative Literature, Comp Sci, Econ, Environmental Sciences, Epidemiology, Foreign Languages, Genetics, Human Development, Kinesiology, Physiology, Polisci, and the Visual Sciences. Some of you have Master’s including African Studies, Biomedical Sciences, Control of Infectious Diseases, Music, Psychology, Science, Journalism, Security Studies, Social Epidemiology, and Statistics. One of you is a trained dentist.
Most of you graduated with Latin Honors, including a large number who were Summa or Magna Cum Laude. Additionally, many of your class graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Tau Beta Pi and or with other departmental, and university or national honors society and recognitions. These awards show that you’ve collectively had an incredible academic prowess and we are humbled before your accomplishments. But in addition to these well-known awards, we recognize that you have had even more profound accomplishments, many that don’t come with certificates or applause, but still impacted the lives of communities, organizations and people all around you. Congratulations.
Your desire to deeply and meaningfully work in marginalized communities has led you to work in AmeriCorps, Teach for America and as Jesuit Service Corp members. More than 50% of you worked or learned in an overseas setting. From Sudan to Taipei, Japan to Bangalore, Greece to Nicaragua you have been impacted by what life looks like outside the confines of your hometowns and you are wiser for it. The University of Rochester celebrates your interest in a wide lens of experiences and we hope an equal or greater number of you continue your global reach in this phase of your transformation.
In order to be accepted to the University of Rochester, it is a must that you have worked outside your comfort zone; your class has shown heart and passion surpassing the average applicant. Many of you have worked with agencies in our inner cities, refugee camps and prisons, reaching out to those who suffer the greatest disparities in health care in our world. All of you have volunteered in various outreach opportunities, alternative summer breaks, health care brigades and other college or religious sponsored organizations and have made an impact on the health and wellness of communities. If there is a hospital clinic or possibility to help someone, someone in this room has volunteered in that opportunity and more importantly, have LOVED working within it. The Class of 2025 you have reached out to those people in need, regardless of pandemics, lock-downs, distance or personal hardship encountered.
You have really unique interests and accomplishments that display heart and soul to this class. To name just a few: you have built houses in Nicaragua, worked in reforming criminal justice systems, accompanied those with terminal illness to their deaths, joined teams for disaster relief, and supported housing insecurity and homelessness. You have worked to distribute Covid 19 vaccines at your own peril, been asylum advocates, led clinics such as Planned Parenthood and served ourLGBTQ community. You have served communities not only in English, but Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. I am particularly proud of the overwhelming number of people concerned about the marginalized in their communities, combatting racism, sexism, misogynies, xenophobia, ableism and ageism; populations easily ignored. This is a class overflowing with advocates and advocacy – the number of people who have worked in community or as community organizers, in organized politics or on committees to foster change is simply breathtaking. From intimate partner violence, rape, suicide prevention, deportation and the bias against marginalized populations, you are there for your communities twenty-four seven. Your graciousness and innovative spirt is the essence of our progress. The University of Rochester is a fertile ground for your ideas to take root, please don’t lose the opportunity to harness the power of your collective classes’ talents and skills to be innovators and collective sparks.
Oh… and the class of 2025’s your previous lives are fascinating. Many of you are EMT trained, but you have also been NIH clinical research coordinators, admissions officers, journalists, therapists, and case managers. Most of you have had jobs and know the value of clocking in and clocking out, living paycheck to paycheck as office workers, baristas, research coordinators, food service workers, and nannies.
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Impressively, 44 of you have spent greater than a 1000 hours or more in your research endeavor. Most of you have done your work in the natural sciences but also in anthropology, humanities, archeology, and history. Helping us earn our name the liberal arts school of medicine. You have not only engaged in clinical, lab and bench work, but also in qualitative work. Your interest in science is vast, ranging from meditation research to planetary health, archeology to how mRNA of vaccines affect populations, STI research in Fijians to cell signaling; from molecular mechanisms of single organisms to research in diseases that affect vast numbers of people such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. You have spanned the range from micro to macro inquiry. Regardless of the type of research, the universal theme in your class is quality work.
Feel free to read the link for the rest and parts I skipped. I tried to focus on what’s been discussed here.