<p>I'm not sure if I should go med yet but I want to leave that option open, so...</p>
<p>For top med schools like Harvard and Duke, aside from MCAT, GPA, recs(?), other academic records/research experiences, do they look at your community service experiences like helping out poor sick people in a ghetto or a 3rd country? Or do they not care?</p>
<p>I'm an international, and I heard intel + Harvard med = 0.0001% chance of getting in...</p>
<p>1.) Yes, community service matters. It will most certainly be a plus.</p>
<p>2.) I've never seen officially that int'l students get harmed, but I've heard rumors to that effect. You need to bear in mind that a generic premed's odds for Harvard Med are pretty terrible anyway.</p>
<p>But why Harvard is the question you should ask yourself? Unless you don't think its possible for you be a successful doctor from any other school, you should look at other schools were you can have much higher odds of getting in.</p>
<p>i've heard the rumors about internationals having a tough luck getting into any med school period. then again, internationals can only apply to private schools and most of the private schools are very hard to get into.</p>
<p>I've also heard rumors that internationals have a tougher time getting in. I think it has a lot to do with concern that international students may return to practice in their home country rather than stay in the US, and in the case of something like med school spots, where there is a stringently set number of spaces as well as a predicted shortage of physicians in the US in the coming years, such concerns could be a factor in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>International students are not even allowed to go to medical schools in the USA...my dad (who is a dr) and many others have told me you have to be a US Citizen or Permanent Resident in order to be a student at a US Medical School</p>
<p>Not true, internationals can and do come here for med school.</p>
<p>Internationals can apply to (some) American medical schools. Some schools require an international student to attend an American university for one year before applying.</p>
<p>I don't understand why pre-meds try to impress med schools by finding out "what they want." Just go do whatever you feel you will ENJOY. Med schools see right past you if you try to do "what they want."</p>
<p>For once in your life you should do something because it will teach you something/make you a better person/challenge your perceptions, etcand not because you will "ENJOY" it. The process of bettering oneself is a process of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation, as ironic as it sounds.
Life is not meant to be a fairy tale. Have you seen "Pumpkin"? Watch "Pumpkin". You remind me of Christina Ricci in that role.
This is not a hedonistic society, it's the pre-med board.</p>
<p>One<em>big</em>tree, if you don't enjoy volunteering at a clinic or volunteering in something related to the field of medicine, then you shouldn't be pre-med PERIOD. People on this board don't understand that you have to ENJOY something to do it, not because your mother told you to do it since you were 5 years old.</p>
<p>I don't mean to speak for OBT, but I'm inclined to partly agree with him.</p>
<p>I like working in clinics - mostly. Sometimes, I'm too tired to remember that. I actually liked studying for the MCAT. I actually liked organic chemistry. But there were times when - frankly - I'd have rather been playing computer games, or just sleeping.</p>
<p>And there were things I wasn't as big a fan of - I love my lab, but I found bench research frustrating. The stressful and expensive application process is tough to go through, especially as I struggle to write essays that reveal something important. But these were all part of becoming a better person, and growing myself into being a better doctor in the future, and they're worthwhile.</p>
<p>In other words: Don't do things just to impress medical schools, but don't go around just doing things you enjoy, too. To a certain extent, I'd hope that you'll enjoy everything - but it's okay if there are things that you don't "enjoy" per se, because sometimes becoming a doctor is hard. It's supposed to be, and not every moment is "enjoyable".</p>