I’m starting college later this year and I am wondering what I need to do throughout college other than achieving good grades to get into med school?
Not good grades, top grades. Aim for 3.7 plus. Prep for MCAT too.
Your #1 job is to be successful academically. Without top grades, everything else is moot. The average GPA for successful med school applicants is 3.7+.
Once you’ve learned how to be successful in college, start adding ECs–community service w/ the disadvantaged, physician shadowing, clinical volunteering or employment where you have direct patient contact, take on leadership roles in your ECs.
If you have an interest, get involved in clinical or lab bench research.
Teaching, tutoring or coaching experience is always welcomed by med schools.
Get to know your professors so they will be able to write strong letters of recommendations for you.
Read this Class Profile from the University of Rochester’s med school:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2022-profile.pdf
Then change the year in the URL a few times and read more of them. You’ll see it’s a template. Do things that fit into that template so you’re a desirable candidate as I assume the majority of med schools in the US look for the same types of things (more or less).
Note that you don’t need to do “everything” listed, but there are some that are “generally expected of successful candidates,” then add something else they could write about - something meaningful to you so it’s not just a box you checked.
If I can ask some followup questions. Appreciate the help!
How many hours of job shadowing are required? I heard people say 100 hours, but that can be very difficult to get. D is doing job shadowing now, and they are only guaranteed 12 hours a semester at their school medical center.
What if you don’t have clinical volunteering, but a lot of volunteering/mentoring with disadvantaged population/youth and leadership in multiple ECs?
D hopes her path will be clearer to her after the job shadowing, but currently she is TA for a CS class. Does that help at all?
Many school have pre-med advisement or a club or group meetings to help pre-med students navigate these things.
There are no specific hour “requirements” for shadowing. Students should shadow long enough that they have a strong understanding of what the day-to-day life of a physician is like and be able to clearly articulate that knowledge to others. They should shadow a variety of different specialties, esp. primary care specialties. If possible, shadowing in variety of practice settings is desirable. (Inpatient hospital, outpatient office, public clinic, ER, etc). 50-80 hours is typical.
**No clinical volunteering —> the application will be DOA. **
Adcomms want to know that the applicant understands what kind of life they’re signing up for. It takes a special kind of person to work with sick, injured and dying (and their families) day after day.
TAing is a nice grace note on an application, but it’s not a substitute for the expected pre-med activities.
Sure…but if you get more specific to YOUR kid, it would be better to start your own thread.
My opinion…shadowing has to be a meaningful number of hours…and if it’s only 12 per semester, that’s about an hour a week. Or 4 hours a month. Not sure that would be meaningful. It’s not even one full shift with a doctor.
What about vacation times? What about summer? Plenty of time to do some shadowing.
What exactly did your kid do?
What is she doing? Grading papers? Or what.
There are no shortcuts when applying to medical school. Remember, there will be a gazzilion applicants who will have had significant shadowing experiences, high MCAT scores, high GPAs, work with underprivileged folks in some meaningful way, great LOR, and the like. And all of these applicants found time to do it all while attending undergrad full time.
Send your kid to the medical school advising folks at her college. She needs to talk to them about all of this…and she needs to work with them.
Just one antidote but D’s roommate toyed around with being pre-med (public health was major), decided that yes she did want to pursue med school at end of junior year (did have all the correct coursework since knew it was a possibility) did all her shadowing that summer, started studying for MCAT in July/August, applied in fall, got into all three in-state med schools.
Not sure I would take that approach, but don’t worry so much about getting the contact hours. Not everything has to happen the minute you step foot in college. Those opportunities will present themselves as you go if you are connected into the pre-med community at your school (although I wouldn’t wait until the end of your junior year to start).
Besides great grades, you need to take prepping for the MCAT very seriously, have hundreds of clinical volunteer hours, shadowing, and research (preferably published).
Connect with your school’s pre-med advising office early.
@momofsenior1 ^^Very, very few med school applicants have published research. In fact, research, while good to have, is not a critical component of a successful medical school application. According the MSQ, ~15-18% of matriculating med students every year report having ZERO research experience. Additionally, the annual survey of medical admission offices reports that med school adcomms rank having research experience of being of medium importance while shadowing, clinical experience and community service are ranked as being of the highest importance.
@scmom12 's timeline sounds bit off to be plausible. It takes 4-5 weeks to get a MCAT score back after sitting for the test and AMCAS/AACOMAS simply won’t be processed an application without a MCAT score. (It’s taken out of the verification queue and held.) AMCAS verification of an application takes anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks after submission/receipt of a MCAT score.
AMCAS opens in June and applying for MD school in the fall (SEP-OCT) is very late, probably disastrously late for most applicants. Med schools start interviewing applicants as early as the middle of August and close applications in mid-to-late October. Med school admissions are mostly done on a rolling basis so a late application mean one’s application ends at the bottom of the to-be-reviewed pile and that usually means no acceptances (unless the applicant is a rock star) because all available interview slots have already been filled. DO schools run on a longer cycle and accept applications thru January so their timeline is different.
Now it’s entirely possible the roommate took the MCAT in fall of her senior year and applied the summer after graduation. That would require a gap year between graduating and starting med school since a med school application cycle takes a full year to complete. (And give the roommate 18 months or more to get shadowing & clinical volunteering done.)
Honestly, with these odds, I’m still recommending future pre-med wannabes get involved in research. 15-18% sure isn’t many and one doesn’t know what the percentage of applicants with no research is (or do you have access to that info?). My guess would be that it lowers the odds and many of those without research may be some of the less traditional applicants. There’s no reason a high school student going in knowing they want to be pre-med should avoid research - esp since it can be in any field they desire - doesn’t have to be medical research.