<p>Your stats give me hope, I’m taking the MCAT in less than 2 weeks…</p>
<p>Could you give us your general impression of the age distribution of UCLA med students? I’m concerned that being too young might be a disadvantage if a lot of people are taking at least one gap year.</p>
<p>When did you take your MCAT? I’m also curious as to why you were in the undergrad program for 5 years. Was that planned? What do you recommend doing in general as an undergrad going into their 3rd year who’s only recently made their decision about graduate-level schools? Very broad questions, sorry. I just feel like any direction would be nice to have. Thanks!</p>
<p>**Your stats give me hope, I’m taking the MCAT in less than 2 weeks…</p>
<p>Could you give us your general impression of the age distribution of UCLA med students? I’m concerned that being too young might be a disadvantage if a lot of people are taking at least one gap year.**</p>
<p>Lol Your head is being filed by
a) people who are lying about their score
b) only the people who did well on the MCAT</p>
<p>The MCAT is pretty hard, given that you guys have only dealt with the SAT. This will be the first exam that will frustrate you because some questions have no good answer… only the least crappy one. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about what you have heard here are the stats for 2010</p>
<p>The average MCAT scores
verbal reasoning 8.6
physical sciences 8.8
biological sciences is 9.1 </p>
<p>Good scores on the MCAT are considered to be above a 10 in each category</p>
<p>The average score on the MCAT of those students who were accepted to a medical school was a 32 in 2010. Bottomline you need at least a 30 for your MCAT score not to hinder your chances of getting into a med school. Anything above that is extra points, anything below will really hurt your chances of getting in.</p>
<p>When did you take your MCAT? I’m also curious as to why you were in the undergrad program for 5 years. Was that planned? What do you recommend doing in general as an undergrad going into their 3rd year who’s only recently made their decision about graduate-level schools? Very broad questions, sorry. I just feel like any direction would be nice to have. Thanks!</p>
<p>Took my MCAT at the end of my 3rd year. I stayed for 5 years because there was no need to rush life. I worked all throughout undergrad and combined with several scholarships from high school and ones earned during college I was able to attend an extra year and still graduate debt free. </p>
<p>Because of the extra year I had a lighter load, which made flying out to interviews around the country a lot easier.</p>
<p>As a 3rd year you really should be getting ready to take the MCAT if you are pre-med, also you should have some research position or at least one lined up for your 4th year. </p>
<p>If you aren’t premed… then yes that question is far too broad to answer haha.</p>
<p>I really don’t remember… which really proves how little it matters in the end. Leadership is a vague term, but when applying to medical schools make sure you put in “quality” over quantity in this section. Putting in that you were president of your dorm’s social club is useless. However saying that you were one of the founding members of a community service club that now has 200+ members = now that looks good. Even though the second one is less “leadership” in nature. </p>
<p>** What other activities**
Archery,basketball,volunteer at student run mobile clinics, health fairs,fundraising campaigns,etc etc. </p>
<p>For this section you really need to put in things that will make you sound unique. If you have a stamp collection, list it. If you break dance at the beach on weekends, list that. Its important to be well rounded, and these activities will probably be asked about during the interview so make sure you aren’t bsing.</p>
<p>When and what made you decide that you wanted to be a doctor?</p>
<p>Probably in 5th grade for me. reason why… will be different than your reason. It’s like asking why do you love your parents. </p>
<p>Med school is hard, being a doctor is hard, and compensation is going down. You really need to think about whether you will be happy as a doctor. For the reasons I just listed, you NEED TO HAVE A GENUINE reason for wanting to go into medicine. Even if that reason is “I want to make a lot of money as a radiologist” that answer will come out a lot more honestly than “I want to contribute to society”</p>
<p>There were several of my classmates that went to medical school because of prestige,because my parents were doctors,because its the hardest thing I could think of doing, because I really didn’t think about it, because other people think I’m smart for being a pre-med, etc. The most miserable classmates were the ones that were freakishly intelligent but were pushed into medical school from outside forces.</p>
<p>UCLA -> Albany Med c/o 2015 here (1st year), so I can pop in for a bit to help with the load of questions. </p>
<p>For the age disparity question that GotLactose had: I’m 21 right now. There’s another UCLA kid in my class who is 20 years old. I have a friend who’s at Mayo Clinic who is 20 and has a M.S. already. Age doesn’t matter as much as what you’ve accomplished in that time - work hard, get those grades, and distinguish yourself by pursing extracurriculars that you love doing rather than ones that you feel “forced” to do just because you’re pre-med. </p>
<p>Asking for individual science and cum GPA doesn’t really matter - it’s on an individual basis, and the best thing you can do is see how you compare to the average matriculant (look at AAMC data sheets) instead of comparing yourself to a sample population of n=1. On that note, my stats were similar to shenaniganz: 3.6+ GPA and 32 MCAT.</p>
<p>I would say that the more accurate statement is that age doesn’t matter as much as your maturity. There’s a reason the average age of matriculants is trending up, and its not because of a shortage of academically qualified applicants.</p>
<p>And shenaniganz - I’ve heard that M4 is friggin sweet and that you have a lot of time, but shouldn’t you be submitting your residency application or fixing something? ;)</p>
<p>Icarus… wait why does that name sound so familiar (ucla forums??)</p>
<p>Yeah working on my ERAS application right now…I always take waaay too long to start a project, then get it done in 1-2 nights of too much caffeine or too much beer :p</p>
<p>And yes always fixing things haha, will be soldering/fixing a friends Ipod this weekend</p>
<p>Unless you’re required to take the 31-series (i.e. engineering, etc.), just take the 3-series. Med schools could care less which one you take (and aren’t going to know the difference anyway).</p>
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<p>I didn’t - but if it interests you, go for it. It’s not going to be a huge boost to an application or anything, but it doesn’t hurt.</p>