This page is the work of Mitch Smith who was an Instructor in the Department of Biology at Willamette University for 5 years. In Spring 1999, Mitch enrolled in Medical School at Tulane University in the heart of New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to his departure for the crawdad and gator capital of the United States, Mitch composed these recommendations for students interested in Medical School. I encourage interested students to read and take to heart the words of someone who has been successful in their quest for admission. Please forward additional helpful and dead links to Professor John L. Koprowski (squirrel@ag.arizona.edu).
What
are you most interested in exploring today?
When to Apply?
MCAT Info
Where Should I Apply?
Interview Tips
Helpful Links
When
should I apply to Medical School?
Most US medical schools want
you to apply through the AMCAS program. This allows you to apply
to
as many schools as you want,
with all of the schools getting the same information concerning grades,
extracurricular activities,
awards, and one essay.
AMCAS will start accepting
your applications on the first of June. I would encourage you to
use the
AMCAS-E form for filling out
your applications. What you should do is have your transcript(s) sent to
the office in Washington anytime
prior to June 1st (If you are a graduating senior, you should probably
wait until your final grades
are recorded). No later than June 1st, you should send in your completed
application.
The next thing to do is to
wait around until your secondary applications start coming in. Some
schools
will do an initial screen
prior to sending you a secondary (Don't get too excited, since this screen
is
essentially are you breathing;
i.e. 2.5 gpa and MCAT over 20) and some send everyone a secondary.
The secondary application
is essentially a way for the schools to collect some additional information
about you as an applicant
and hit you up for an additional $50-100.
What
about the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT)
The MCAT exam takes a full day and is composed of four sections:
A
reading comprehension section--this is the hardest section to
do well at relative to all other test
takers. Most people
do very well on this section and you want to distinguish yourself from
all other
folks. The upshot is
that you can miss very few question to get a good score. Spend a
good chunk of
time practicing these types
of questions as you will get better with practice.
A
physical sciences section (first year chemistry and physics)--This
is the easiest section to do well
on, but has the hardest questions.
Take solace in the fact that you can miss multiple questions and still
outperform your fellow test
takers.
A
writing section--You will write two 30 minutes essays on an
assigned topic just after lunch. This
is the score that the schools
care the least about. It is not given a number score like the other
sections,
but rather a letter with T
being the high score. Spend some time remembering how to write a
good
essay, read the paper in the
weeks leading up to the exam, remember the history you have not thought
about since freshman year.
A
biology section--The biology section is both biology and organic
chemistry; the split can be 50-50
to about 60-40 with biology
(thank god) being the majority of the questions. You will need to
know
more biology than they tell
you (one year). I would recommend having Diversity, CBG, Micro, and
Animal Physiology before the
thought of taking the exam crossed my mind. On the test that I took,
there was physiology, endocrinology,
evolution, genetics, as well as other topics.
A couple of other points:
Studying:I spent 4 hours/day, 5 days/week
for 6 weeks studying. My score was a 32. I would not
recommend paying $1000 for
a course on how to study. I went and bought the Kaplan book ($50)
and
divided up the number of pages
in the book by the number of days I had to study; that was the number
of pages I had to do a day.
Scores: What you should be shooting
for is a combined score of over 30 with no subsection score
less than 9. I am not
saying you won't get in with a 29, just that you are in a pool that has
a greater
number of competitors.
With every one point you drop off of 30, your chances of getting in are
getting
smaller and smaller.
If your score is less than 25, I would stop the application process and
retake the
MCAT.
Helpful Links on the MCAT:
MCAT Registration Info from the AAMC --registration times, application requests, etc.
Kaplan's Online --various test taking
information on most of the major professional school exams
Where
should I apply to medical school?
Be honest with yourself concerning
your abilities and realize that most schools get in excess of 5000
applications. You will
have to have a GPA around 3.5 and MCAT scores around 30 to be a serious
applicant. In addition
it helps to have significant research experience as well as tons of volunteer
health care hours.
The reality is that most medical
schools in the US graduate folks who pass the boards (99%) and go
onto practice medicine.
Unless you are going to try and do academic medicine, where you go is not
so
important. Pick some
places that are great, some that have a solid reputation, and some that
seem
good but not great.
Again I would encourage you to be honest with yourself. How many
students with
a 3.47 and MCAT scores of
28 get into Harvard?
I would encourage you to look
at the statistics concerning application #, % accepted, and % of
out of
state folks accepted.
This should give you an idea of your chances, based on the numbers.
You can
follow this link
to the JAMA issue with this data (for some of the tables, you may need
to head to the
library!)
Other Helpful Links on Universities and Medical School Programs:
Peterson's Guide to Colleges
Kaplan's
gradschools.com --information
on nearly 50,000 graduate programs
U.S. News and World Report
--various rankings and information
College Net --general information
and search capabilities for graduate schools
* Show up early for your interview
* Try and spend the night with some students as they will give you the lowdown
* Read as much as you possibly can about current events, health care issues,
your
research projects, and volunteer work. You could get asked about
any of these topics.
* Do a mock interview and think of ways to answer the most common questions
within
2-5 minutes (Do not be a blowhard)
* Bring questions to ask your interviewer. They are busy people with
many things to
do, if you answer their questions in 5 minutes, your interview could be
over.
* Bring a current professional copy of your resume and leave it with the
interviewer(s)
or the departmental secretary.
* If you talk about an article from a journal or a magazine send that interviewer a copy.
* Send a thank you note listing all of the people that helped you on your interview.
American Association of Medical Schools:
A good site with lots of student information