<p>We get a lot of kids that weren't successful at entering medical school who then try to apply to my pharmacy school. I wish I could thank the lot of them for their wasted application fee. It defrays my tuition costs. Pharmacy and Dental school might not technically be as competitive as medical school (in some locations it's debatable...), but it's still really damn competitve. It like saying Warren Buffett isn't that rich because he isn't as rich as Bill Gates. </p>
<p>Unless you have extensive pharmacy experience or exposure, you aren't getting into any (good) school with anything less than a 3.9 GPA and one heck of a convincing job during the interview....and at that point, you should just retry medical school admissions next year. Or switch majors.</p>
<p>Thank you for that. I keep trying to tell people that Pharm and Dental schools are not the place for failed medical students, that there are legitimate, necessary experiences needed to prove one's interests.</p>
<p>alright so pretty much to bea good competitior for medical school admissions, you should have:</p>
<p>*a solid gpa of ~3.5 or more
*around a 33-35 MCAT score
*great volunteer experiences
*lots of research and labwork
*join some clubs?
*actually be interested in medicine
*get on the good side of teachers and show them your a hard worker</p>
<p>Research only matters for research-oriented medical schools. MCAT score probably doesn't need to be that high. GPA demanded varies depending on undergrad, and of course the ease of getting that GPA depends on the undergrad as well.</p>
<p>"So why don't you ever hear people say, "Oh yeah, I got into a bunch of American medical schools, but I'm going to turn them all down and instead go to the Caribbean"?" (And similar comments, regarding the quality of foreign medical schools... (particularly Sakky's conversation... from which the quote was taken)).</p>
<p>Well its undeniably true that in general foreign school are worse than US schools; no US school will be actually bad, but some foreign schools are; some foreign schools are on-par or better than top-ranked US schools. There are several foreign schools which I would like to go to --except for the cost :( For example, Oxford's medical school has an excellent reputation/ top rate teaching (and doesn't require undergrad).</p>
<p>I think the primary reasons that people prefer US schools to foreign schools are :</p>
<p>1) Concerns regarding being able to be certified (good board exam scores) and acceptance into US residencies. </p>
<p>2) Financial Aid is mostly unavailable for foreign programs. This is a big problem especially for people applying to programs such as Cambridge or Oxford where tuition+living expenses are HIGH (45000 GBP + per year... = 350k$+ worth of debt (programs are 6 years)). Difficulty getting loans/ no subsidized loans et cetera is probably a big drawback. </p>
<p>3) For those who have finished a premed program (have a bachelors), I think it can be aggravating to know that the program you are entering didn't require those 4 years of education and costs, that the people you are entering with might be fresh out of HS. No one likes feeling that they've wasted years and thousands of dollars (though, of course its not really 'wasted,' it might feel like it). </p>
<p>4) And the number of programs to enter are fairly limited-- the Caribbean/ UK / some in India and Mexico/ Australia/ et cetera-- for English-speaking medical schools (medical school is, I am sure, hard enough without classes being in Swazi or Dutch or Chinese).</p>
<p>I would be interested in a thought experiment that involved Oxford grads versus, say, Penn grads in clinical evaluations. I don't really know what outcome I expect.</p>
<p>How about Physicians Assistant as a plan B? From what I know the programs are 2 years long and after applying to med school and falling just below the cut you should be plenty qualified for these programs. You can get out of this program and be satisfied with being an assistant or you can apply to med school. Good deal if you ask me.</p>
<p>plan A: med school.. if not...
plan B: dental school... if not...
quit school... go out, have fun.. and ENJOY life, it's way too short to waste on studies and stress...
i will get a job with whatever education i have, be a teacher in high school maybe.. or whatever.. but the down side of that is that i won't be able to buy my lamborghini that i always wanted to.
Also, i do think that engineering is the best way to go. you don't need to take any standardized test, and i suck at those. for med school and dental school,you need to take the mcat and the dat... for engineering, all you need to do is to have good grades and that can be done. i regret now that i did not even consider this when i entered college, because if i switch my major NOW... that means about 6-7 years in college.. because i'll have to take all the calcs and physics and what not..</p>