Choosing Medical Schools:
Good resources: 1. Medical School Admission Requirements by AAMC (The official book) 2. Princeton Review Best 168 medical schools (I have a copy if you want to borrow it). 3. Here's a site where medical students have rated their school in various categories http://www.amsa.org/premed/medsurvey/. It's very helpful to read their comments on the pros and cons of each school. 4. Individual school websites. 5. Studentdoctor.net (for secondary forms.)
Looking through medial schools, you will soon find that narrowing down your list of schools to just 15 or 20 schools is a challenging task. There are over 125 medical schools in the United States and it is important to keep in mind that everyone of them will make you a certified doctor. Albeit, there are some differences in curriculum and emphasis, but the biggest difference between every medical school is it's location. So as you apply, be sure you like not only the school, but the city too.
Your MCAT and GPA should be within the range of each school's numbers. The average successful applicant has around a 30 and 3.6 which should be sufficient to get into medical school given you are not overly ambitious in your school selection. My recommendation is to divide your desired schools into three categories, Reach, Competitive, and Safety. These categories will help ensure that you don't over or undershoot yourself.
As you investigate schools, you might realize that the number of criteria to judge a school by is overwhelmingly large. I would recommend having in mind certain qualities that are important to you. For example, you might want 1. Good weather 2. A Non-competitive atmosphere. 3. Opportunities for early clinical exposure. 4. Low Cost. Those qualities might not be as valuable to you as others, but the important part is to decide what you want and begin researching schools based on those qualities. The AMSA site above is great for figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of each school. Then, you can research the school on its website to figure out specific reasons you want to go there. This will help you with your secondaries and interview later on.
If you are planning on applying out of state, (which is a good idea since roughly 18% of instate applicants end up staying instate and 30% go out of state. The other 52% obviously didn't read this blog :-P) then make sure to check on their acceptance rate for out of staters. Some schools, like University of Washington and many Texas schools, that accept just a fraction of 1% of their out of state applicants. Year after year, more applicants fall into their fee collection traps not knowing that these schools don't really accept out of staters. To combat this, check out UCSD's matriculation rates for each school at careerservices.ucsd.edu. Apply to schools that have accepted UCSD students in the past.
If you are planning on applying out of state, (which is a good idea since roughly 18% of instate applicants end up staying instate and 30% go out of state. The other 52% obviously didn't read this blog :-P) then make sure to check on their acceptance rate for out of staters. Some schools, like University of Washington and many Texas schools, that accept just a fraction of 1% of their out of state applicants. Year after year, more applicants fall into their fee collection traps not knowing that these schools don't really accept out of staters. To combat this, check out UCSD's matriculation rates for each school at careerservices.ucsd.edu. Apply to schools that have accepted UCSD students in the past.
One aspect of medical schools that I believe is overly emphasized by applicants is rankings. Each school has a research and primary care ranking. According to the dean of UC Davis SOM, the rankings are based upon research funds that each school receives and are completely independent of the quality of teaching the school has to offer. I remember asking some of the deans of University of Vermont why they felt their school was the #6 in the nation for Primary Care. They were not clear on how the rankings were set up themselves. In other words, you should only value rankings as much as you are concerned with the prestige of your medical school.
One criteria that is too often neglected by applicants is the difficulty of the secondary application for each school. Unless you applying to UC schools and a few scarce number of others that screen primary applications, each medical school will automatically send you back a secondary application. There are some schools that only ask for money as a secondary application, and others that ask for llloooonnnnggg essays that you might not know how to answer. Do consider whether you are willing and have time to write each secondary. You can find them on Studentdoctor.net and they usually do not change from year to year.
The Primary/Secondary Application:
You have probably heard this before, but most medical schools work on a rolling admission basis. This means you should get your application in as soon as possible starting early June. It make a huge difference in your chances of getting in. That being said, you should have a complete, well-written and well-thought out application before applying.
Your primary application is done on amcas.org and sent out to all your desired schools; it includes a 5300 character personal statement and space for 15 activities. Your personal statement is the most important thing you write to the committee. In almost every interview, they will bring up parts of it to discuss. That said, you want to write it about an experience or two that were influential in your pursuit of medicine. Ideally, it should unravel as a story or keep a consistent theme. One of the most difficult parts of this step for me was that there were many many contributing factors to my desire to pursue medicine, but not enough room to write about them sufficiently. Keep in mind, that it's better to write convincingly about one or two topics or experiences than, than to skimpily mention five of them.
If you are stuck, I recommend that you read over some other personal statements online. In fact, don't just read them, but analyze them. Don't copy them, but figure out what you like and don't like about other applicant's personal statements. And then incorporate these ideas into your essay.
Make sure the beginning of the personal statement is engaging. Application readers go through hundreds of these and the last thing they want read is a cliche beginning. Try describing a unique experience that shaped your interest in medicine. Try asking a question at the begging or quoting someone. Vary your sentence structure throughout it and keep them guessing where it's going. Maybe even add some humor (although be careful not to sound insincere or offensive). This will help make it interesting for the reader. Lastly, you should have someone edit your whole application throughout the process, even if they are just reading over it for typos. I had 14 drafts to my personal statement, and my sister did a fantastic job of showing me areas where my essays could be improved. This helped tremendously.
The activities section is your opportunity to tell the committee about all of those fun volunteering, research, and extracurriculars you did. You don't need to fill out all 15 or even 10, but do make sure to mention all of the significant things you were involved in. You can also write about other hobbies that have played an important role in your life. These could include intramural sports, fashion, art, running and dancing. The hobbies that you write about will let the committee know you are a well-rounded person and can also provide excellent conversation starters for interviewers. I mentioned that I liked running and had ran a Marathon in my application. Several of my interviewers brought this up because they also enjoyed running.
Some people have asked me if it's ok to use "I" in the activities section. It is. And, also, don't feel obligated to fill up the entire section with a description. Application readers will not love you more if don't give them more extraneous information to digest.
Next, I recommend you start working on at least some of your automatic secondary applications before they are sent to you. One reason to do this is that it will ensure you get your complete written applications in before most other applicants. Another reason to write before you receive them is because your secondaries will all be sent to you at roughly the same time. Most of my secondaries came within two weeks of each other. Therefore, writing ahead of time will allow you to space out your time and send them in sooner.
Now, you will have to wait, and wait, and wait. The soonest interviews don't come until September and the latest are around March to April so you will have to be patient. And don't worry if you don't get anything right away. Applicants are accepted at all times of the year. You could be notified by email about an interview invitation at any time so in the meantime go have fun, stay busy and fight the urge of neurotically checking your email 24/7.
