Pre-Med Schedule suggestions?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>I'm a senior at high school right now. I have aspired to be a physician since middle school (HUGE PASSION of mine to help others). I want to plan my whole Pre-Med college path so that I will have few surprises/inconveniences along the way.</p>

<p>MY MAIN QUESTION: Should I have extracurricular activities during the school year? If so, which ones? </p>

<p>Here's my "premed" plan so far:</p>

<hr>

<p>Freshman: Take General Biology and General Chemistry and other non premed classes (Psychology?). (I don't want to use AP credits)</p>

<p>Summer: Volunteer/research</p>

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<p>Soph: Take Upper-division Biology (Physiology/Genetics?) and Organic Chemistry and other non premed classes.</p>

<p>Summer: Volunteer/research</p>

<hr>

<p>Junior 1st semester: take more Upper Division Biology and General Physics I with other non premed classes.</p>

<p>Junior 2nd semester: continue taking Upper-Division Biology and finish General Physics II WHILE taking Kaplan Prep course. I plan to take the MCATs in April or May. (I won't retake unless I bomb it)</p>

<hr>

<p>Summer: Apply to Med Schools early to get interviews ASAP.</p>

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<p>Senior: Finish Calculus and English requirement while doing more med school apps. </p>

<hr>

<p>Again, what extracurricular activities should I do DURING the school year, if I should do any at all? </p>

<p>(If you have advice on improving my plan, please feel free to add!)</p>

<p>THANKS! =)</p>

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<p>186 views, but no one can tell me what extracurricular activities, if any, I should do during the school year? :O</p>

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<p>Your EC’s should be things you enjoy doing not things that will “look good” on your med school applications. Also, we don’t know anything about you or what is available in your area. This would be a better question to ask whatever school you are attending next year. Also, you can plan all you want but your college might have different ideas about what classes you take and when. Having a rough idea is great, just don’t get worked up if it doesn’t go according to your plan.</p>

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<p>You may need to add Biochemistry for the new MCAT.</p>

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<p>Sticky threads are your friends :).</p>

<p>Check out the EC threads on the FAQ sticky thread.</p>

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<p>mncollegemom: I’m definitely going to do things that I enjoy. There isn’t a doubt about that. So, that’s not extremely important.</p>

<p>I’m going to have to disagree with you. From all the admission statistics, a premed SHOULD have clinical experience, research experience, and leadership roles in order to be competitive for med school. If I don’t enjoy researching, should I avoid researching as a premed? Absolutely not. Stepping outside one’s comfort zone and trying out new things is definitely the way to go. </p>

<p>Regarding the information about me, I want this to be a roughly generic answer. Should I be doing all this during the school year? How long? How often? Is research not recommended during the school year and clinical experience easier to manage? Just a general idea would be nice. I’m not looking for really specific answers.</p>

<p>@Ace550: Thank you for the suggestion. I want to major in something chemistry related, so yes, I will run into biochem! =)</p>

<p>@Entomom: I’ve checked the EC threads on FAQ sticky. Did you? There isn’t any information there that tells me how often I should take extracurricular activities during the school year. Should I be volunteering daily? How many hours? What about the weekends? Reserach or clinical experience? Should I be doing all this at all during the school year because of the business of premed life?</p>

<p>If there’s information there that’s particularly useful, can you please quote? Otherwise, giving me a thread that does not answer my question at all isn’t really useful or relevant.</p>

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<p>There is no set in stone rule that says you have to work 1.238 hours at your clinical experience to make it into med school. What they will want to know is what you learned while doing your EC so make them meaningful to you or they won’t help you at all. You are asking an impossible question to answer. Availability to do EC’s during the school year is going to totally depend on you and your schedule with classes, work, etc. Are you going to participate in a sport? If so, that will cut into the time you have to do clinical, however it’s a plus on your application if you are at the DI level, for example. There is no 1+3=medical school to answer your question.</p>

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</p>

<p>I apologize for having recommended those threads. </p>

<p>I did so under the assumption that the reader would take in the information, assess their personal situation and figure out in a rational manner how they could best fit the various types of activities into their individual schedule.</p>

<p>For instance, along with classes and a WS job, my D1 was busy doing various medically and non-medically related volunteer and clinical experience during the school year. As a result, she did research during the summer. Other premeds start with WS jobs in labs and may work up to substantial research. So, as with most things in life, one size does not fit all.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>2.3 hours of volunteering Monday through Friday
10.55 hours of research per week</p>

<p>Don’t forget to eat and poop and brush your teeth.</p>

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<p>@mncollegemom: I don’t mean what will ensure med school matriculation 100%. I’m curious on what others recommend as far as extracurricular activities go. Do other pre-meds do this? I want to know what they think would be good. As I said, I don’t want a super specific answer. Just a generic: “Yes you should volunteer daily about 1-2 hours less than on the weekends” or “No, focus on your studies. It’s hard to focus on this and this while doing this”. </p>

<p>I’m pretty sure that’s a viable answer to give.</p>

<p>@entomom: Those threads merely gave a list of what you should do in general. It didn’t provide me enough information to assess what I should be doing during the school year at all.</p>

<p>Your second paragraph was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!</p>

<p>@Norcalguy: Be serious or don’t post, please. Thank you.</p>

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<p>

This part of schedule seems odd to me. If I were a medical school adcom, this may indicate the following to me: “this applicant may not be good at basic academics.” There is a saying that medical schools tend to favor “intellectual gentleman” types (I should add, who happen to do well enough on prereqs on the side.) I think there may be some truth in it. A good candidate shines on basic school subjects (just like in high school, some subjects, not necessarily all sciences, are considered as “core courses”.)</p>

<p>Also, MCAT is more a reading comprehension skill test than a science achievement test. Keep this in mind also when you select non-prereq classes. It may not be good if, at the end of 2 or 3 college years (before you take MCAT), you mostly study out of science textbook, handouts from the professors, and problem sets only. An anecdotal example, in one semester, DS told us he spent much more time on a required humanity class than any of his prereq science classes! (And he did well on MCAT in the end, even though he took MCAT almost 3 three years after he had taken his orgo I/II — This likely implies MCAT is likely not an achievement test at all because his knowledge on orgo when he took MCAT must be much worse than that when he was taking orgo.)</p>

<p>Another point: the (adcom) dean of a medical school (BCM) once told freshmen to pay more attention to academics in the first 1 or 2 semesters in college (i.e., get that part of medical school requirement in order first. as the very first screening of the applicants is based on GPA and MCAT. They won’t even look at your application if these two are not in shape. Just a joke here: One of DS’s high school music teacher once said: Everyone who has a pulse can volunteer as many hours as he wants! That teacher wants to see the student’s end result, the final achievement, e.g., whether the student can perform at the state-level competition event or not. She could care less about how many midless practicing hours you have put in.)</p>

<p>Of course, if you are already very strong academically among the premed pool in your college (you have taken 10 APs and got 5’s on all of them and/or your SAT is 2200-2300 while the average at your college is merely 2000.) or you are particularly “high-moto”, you could do both the school work and the ECs well simultaneously on the first day you set your foot on campus.</p>

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<p>@Mcat2: Thank you for all your advice! It’s not that I can’t do well on basic subjects (I’m taking AP Calculus BC right now and am taking my second year of AP English), but it seems that I can’t really fit the Calculus and English in a good place where they won’t overload my course load. Of course, if you can find a better place to put it, I would definitely consider it!</p>

<p>As for the reading comprehension portion, I plan to immerse myself to the Economist and MAYBE Wall Street Journal during my free time in College, since I hear you actually do have a lot of time on your hands. Hopefully from Freshman year up til year the MCAT date, I can vastly improve my reading. Of course, reading isn’t exactly a huge concern for me in general, but there’s always room for improvement.</p>

<p>As for your last paragraph, my SAT/ACT IS in that range and I have taken many AP classes (9 AP tests and many more honors level classes), but have not gotten 5’s on all (there are some 4’s from AP’s I’ve self studied). As for the “high-motto” you’re talking about, I guess I’ll just see. My high school is extremely competitive already (ex. a 2250 SAT is about 80th percentile at my school) that I’m fairly confident I’ll be able to handle the rigor. </p>

<p>Thanks for all your advice and help!</p>

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<p>Your course plan can vary based on:</p>

<ul>
<li>Your major.</li>
<li>Your college’s requirements.</li>
<li>The prerequisite structure of courses at your college (e.g. does biology have organic chemistry as a prerequisite?).</li>
</ul>

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<p>If you want more specific advice, I would say you should be doing as many hours of ECs as you possibly can without hindering your ability to keep a high GPA and without hindering your ability to have an enjoyable amount of free time. You should be doing any EC for which you think you will learn about yourself, medicine, or interacting with others, and/or just enjoy yourself, and for which you can discuss your reasons for participating without having to use the phrase “be competitive/look good for medical school.”</p>

<p>To give myself as an example
Freshman fall: newspaper photographer (i actually almost forgot about this and didn’t even put it on my apps), D1 practices for winter season sport
Freshman spring: dropped photography because with the season in full swing it was too hard to make assignments, also pledged a fraternity
Post freshman summer: took stats class at Ivy league in city where I grew up so that I would have stats background for future research positions</p>

<p>Sophomore fall: appointed position in fraternity, D1 practice schedule
Sophomore spring: elected executive board position in frat, D1 season
Post soph summer: full time research job for 2 months</p>

<p>Junior fall: president of frat, D1 practices
Junior spring: executive board member in frat, executive board member for greek wide student gov’t, D1 season
Post junior summer: studied/took MCAT, full time research job for whole summer</p>

<p>Senior fall: executive board member in frat, vice president of greek student gov’t, D1 practices, honors thesis research (2 full days/week), kaplan MCAT/SAT2 instructor
Senior spring: appointed position in frat, vice president of greek student gov’t, D1 season, honors thesis research (2 full days/week), kaplan</p>

<p>Gap year: took 1 month off to do AMCAS/some secondaries, then started full time research job, kaplan, volunteered/shadowed at free health clinic, all my interviews coincidentally were done by christmas (actual season goes until march usually), stopped everything 1 month before school started</p>

<p>Now: MD/PhD program at top 20 school</p>

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<p>"Summer: Volunteer/research’</p>

<p>-Warning - depending on you home town location you might not be able to get either of this in a summer. My D. could not at in our home town. She eventually got couple volunteering positions. Many had waiting lists. So, make sure to investigate sometime in January / February of freshman year. D. was doing all of her major EC’s (multi-years) during school year at college. She had a load, they were easy to obtain + campus job. That allowed her not to worry about her summers, relax, spend time with her HS friends, go abroad,…etc. </p>

<p>"Senior: Finish Calculus and English requirement while doing more med school apps. "</p>

<p>-Correction, you are done with Med. School apps at this point, you are traveling to interviews. Make sure not to have more than 15 - 16 credit hours. The same for Junior year, when you will be prepping for MCAT. May MCAT worked very well for my D. She took it couple weeks after finals, but wished that she took it sooner after finals, 2 weeks were wastie of time.
Gap year is very personal. D. did not have a choice of having gap year. She did not need it, she had load of everything (all EC’s lasted for few years) and we could not afford it either without any prospects of job / research opportunities outside of her UG.
But some people benefit from gap year. She also was not planning to apply to MD/PhD, she is an MS1 at Med. School of her choice.</p>

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<p>-Warning - depending on you home town location you might not be able to get either of this in a summer. My D. could not at in our home town. She eventually got couple volunteering positions. Many had waiting lists. So, make sure to investigate sometime in January / February </p>

<p>=========</p>

<p>Miami makes a good point about limited opps in some hometowns.</p>

<p>If your hometown doesn’t have such opps, then look into some summer REU programs - funded by NSF. Not only do you get some interesting reseach opps, but you get to go to another university, meet students from all over the country, and get paid for it.</p>

<p>[US</a> NSF - REU - List Result](<a href=“Search Results for REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation”>REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation)</p>

<p>Is your plan to major in Biology? Is that because you love Bio…or because you think that’s the “pre-med major”? The problem with majoring in bio is if you later change your mind about med school, there’s not much you can do with that degree and there’s a glut in the job market.</p>

<p>You’re a senior, where are you going to college next year?</p>

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<p>One word of caution about REUs: while they’re a great opportunity for summer research, these programs are moderately to very competitive. (It depends which schools you apply to. Several hundred applications for 10-15 slots isn’t uncommon.) These programs are also biased in favor of upperclassmen also–meaning rising sophomores have a pretty limited chance for getting accepted into one.</p>

<p>BTW, while the market for bio majors in general isn’t terrific–there are jobs out there, esp. if you have some solid, in-demand skills. D2 (May 2012 grad) started looking for a job in particular geographic area (that is not her hometown or her college town or anyplace she’s ever worked before) on Wednesday and was offered a full-time position yesterday.</p>

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<p>You should explore the REU opportunities starting as a freshman. Plan to work 8-10 hours a week if you do not have multiple tests/projects in that week. If you are doing well, you may get a summer REU with pay from your school/lab. Stay in the school for two years before applying to more competitive programs after junior year if you like.</p>

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<h1>Several hundred applications for 10-15 slots isn’t uncommon.) These programs are also biased in favor of upperclassmen also–meaning rising sophomores have a pretty limited chance for getting accepted into one.</h1>

<p>It is true that rising sophs have more limited options. </p>

<p>Yes, admissions are competitive, and you have to apply to several including ones that you think may not be getting as many apps. My son applied to 4 last year as a rising junior and was accepted to 2…not bad. One rejection stated that they only accepted rising seniors (wish they had said that in their paperwork :rolleyes:)</p>

<p>Your best chances for landing one is to have top grades and great LORs.</p>

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<p>One other thing about REUs: they’re funded by the NSF–which may lose as much as 1/3 of its annual budget in the upcoming year. (Budget was cut ~10-15% already for this fiscal year.) REUs are one thing that will be hit hard by any budget shortfalls.</p>