Advice to pre-meds, from
people who have “been there, done that.”
Thanks
to Nick Newsom for sending me "Advice for pre-meds: from UTCOM, Class of
2008"
1)
Make sure medicine is what you want to do. It is
a long and difficult road. Though I love going through med school with my
peers, I cannot think of anything much worse than enrolling in medical school
only to find out that it wasn't for me. Shadow some physicians or volunteer at
a hospital;
2)
Take Kaplan for the MCAT;
3)
Take some time off before med school. Do not be
worried about jumping right into med school after college graduation. Take off
at least a summer...maybe more;
4)
If you can, take Physiology, Anatomy, Cell
Biology/Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Genetics along with the required pre-med
courses. They will be very beneficial for BOTH the MCAT and first year of
medical school;
5)
Take some time between undergraduate and medical
school (even if you defer for a year!) to pursue something you love that doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with medicine! This will be the last time
that you can freely do this;
6)
"IF YOUR PROPENSITY IS TO PROCRASTINATE,
DON'T!!"
7)
“BELIEVE THE PEOPLE WHO TELL YOU TO STUDY HARD
AND LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN IN UNDERGRAD (AND YOUR FIRST YEAR OF
8)
Keep your senses of humor and humility.
9)
Choose funny people for your dissection
lab. They'll become your best friends;
10)
C = MD;
11)
Never say anything in an email that you wouldn't
want the Dean to hear. People cut-and-paste like crazy.
12)
Class attendance is NOT mandatory for first
year. For some, it's not even a good idea.
13)
Be cool. Better to earn a "C"
with dignity than to act like a jackass on your way to an "A".
14)
Don't join every club. Instead, become
very involved in one
or two. This will be important to
discuss in your interview. Most honor societies are out there for your
money. Only join honor societies that expect significant participation
from you. Don't even consider an honor society that doesn't meet at least
every other week and doesn't require you to participate.
15)
Gain significant experience in the medical
field. Either volunteer on a regular
basis (a few hours a week every week) or get a job at a hospital or doctor's
office. This will also be asked about in your interview and is an absolute
necessity.
16)
Volunteer. You must demonstrate that you
want to contribute to society in a meaningful way.
17)
GPA is not the end-all-be-all. If you have
a 3.5 BCPM, focus more on your extracurricular activities and volunteer work
instead of going crazy trying to get a 4.0. If you have below a 3.5,
study harder.
18)
5. Study for the MCAT. If you are
taking it in August, 4 hours a day for 5 days a week for two months should be
sufficient. Exam Krackers books are better than Kaplan and the others,
and they cost about $100 compared to $1000 for the Kaplan class
19)
The more biology classes you have, the more
prepared you will be for medical school. However, take classes that you
enjoy too.
20) Advice for pre-meds from a 32 year
old father of three:
1. AGE: It's never too late.
2. FAMILY TIME: While I often disappear for days
on end, I still
see my kids just as much as when I had a real job. It's the time with my wife after the kids'
bedtime that suffers the most.
3. FUNDING A MEDICAL EDUCATION WITH A FAMILY:
Times are extremely tight compared to the fat days of a desk job, but we manage
to eek by. Tip: Eat uncooked rice for a longer period of satiation.
4. SUPPORT AT HOME: As a married student, you
MUST have 100% support from a well-informed spouse
before you matriculate. Otherwise
something will suffer too much. Your dream – NOT your marriage - should be the
one to fade. Having said that, at the beginning of my
pursuit, my wife was far from being on board with the dream. Increasing
familiarity with the process (from MCAT prep to private practice), with the opportunity
costs (money and time), and with the payoffs brought her around to complete
support.
5. MCAT PREP: Spring for a review course
(Kaplan, etc.). The key: take every practice test question you can find. The other
key (at least at Kaplan): watch the videos instead of attending the lectures.
The teachers on the videos are the best of the best; the local lecturers are
hit-or-miss.
21) In my humble opinion, grades and
MCAT score were everything, and of course personality is important too, but
easily measured by a FEW carefully selected extracurricular activities on your
application and basically being yourself at your interviews. You don’t have to
do ten million activities; just a few so they know you are personable. Grade wise in undergrad, I focused on taking
classes that I knew I could make A’s in, thus keeping the GPA high, many would
argue with this fact, but seriously a high GPA is key, i.e. don’t take
heavy biochem or physical chemistry if you might make a C or worse.. you know your ability to perform academically better than
anyone. Try to avoid C’s like the plague, or else when you interview you'll
have to explain them, and that’s annoying. When you get to medical
school, it will all be hard, no matter what the academic background is.
Worry about doing well in medical school AFTER getting in.
22) The significance of having done some research in the basic sciences
(preferably federally funded by NIH or EPA, etc) and more importantly if the
student presents a poster at a peer-reviewed conference (e.g. American Society of
Microbiology) or publishes in a peer-reviewed journal (e.g. Journal of Applied
and Environmental Microbiology), WHILE IN UNDERGRAD, that is a huge
distinguishing factor in impressing the admissions committee. Don’t ask
me why, but medical school adcoms (and UT) seem to salivate over basic science
research! If you have published or presented research in undergrad, that
is a huge accomplishment that you can use to shine while talking about it in
your interviews at UT (especially if the interview is with a basic science
professor). Having a poster or publication is way more competitive than
simply having "done some research". If you have a poster or
publication, bring extra copies to your interview and leave them for the
admissions committee. That will likely be a way for them to remember you
and distinguish you from the other people interviewing.
23)Get
letters of recommendation from physicians who are UTCOM alumni who still know
people on the admissions committee, I got these contacts from work experience
in a hospital, or you can get them from shadowing the doctors in their fields.
24) Try to take the MCAT in the
spring and get your AMCAS stuff in as early as possible. If needed, take
the spring off just to study for the MCAT, take a prep course (I recommend Exam
Krackers first, or alternatively Kaplan), do lots of MCAT practice questions. I
recommended the AAMC tests and Exam Krackers questions (in my opinion the most similar
to what was on the real MCATs I took). Also Exam Krackers has superb
verbal reasoning practice questions that were way better and more like the real
MCAT than Kaplan or Princeton Review verbal practice questions, IMO.
25) For UTCOM, on the MCAT, aim for at least a 28, two 9s and a 10 (or higher
of course), and you can feel comfortable, but don’t fret, my combined score was
8 verbal, 10 PS, and 9 BS (27) and I still got it in. People with 8s and
7s in one subset still routinely either get in sometimes or get in off the
waitlist. If your GPA is high and your letters of recommendation and
personality, work experience is good, and you get a low MCAT, simply retake it and
don’t work or take any classes, just study hardcore and your score will likely
improve significantly. Then just apply and see what happens! Caveat:
there are many people with below a 28 on the MCAT (me included) who get in to
UT and become doctors.
26) Find out who is interviewing you and if they are a PhD or MD, what
specialty or field they are in, and try to talk to them about stuff they are
interested in, people like a reflection of themselves so they will remember
people who they had stuff in common with
27) Send a thank-you card or thank-you email in a timely manner after you are
interviewed (soon enough so that they will remember your name)
28) Try not to worry about what medical school is like until AFTER you've been
accepted.. Then ask big sibs/faculty/peer mentors to
tell you everything. Right now getting in should be the most important goal!
29) Most importantly, I recommend taking a year off completely before starting
medical school, doing nothing academic. It is the one thing I wish I could go
back and do, because you'll be as rested as possible and probably have more
energy to consistently perform well on exams and step one vs. the guy who came
straight in from undergrad (me) and very quickly got burnt out!!
30) My advice to pre-med students
(as it was the best advice given to me): Do something that makes you different
from all the other applicants. Stand out from the rest and be able to put
"what makes you different" into words...they could very well ask you
this exact question at an interview and it's a good conversation piece.
Just make sure you stand out from all the other "biochem majors with
4.0's." (No offense to biochem's with 4.0's--just a way to think
about it.)
31)
Take a few biochemistry classes. I did not have any Biochem coming in, which
made it harder. I had to study a lot more than those that had it. It can free
up some of your study time to focus on the other classes;
32) Take
the summers off. You will have the rest of your life to work. Go on vacations,
mission trips, spend time with family/friends/significant others, anything that
you may not get to do once you get into medical school. The rest of your life
is for work. Take sometime now to enjoy
things.
33) It's
true that the more science background you have before you come to medschool,
the easier the science classes will be. But, this will probably be your
only chance to study English, Philosophy, or Anthropology, so take whatever you
want. You DON'T have to major in Biology or Chemistry to get into med
school. You'll also stand out more to the adcoms if you're not a
"biobot."
34) Having
said that, if you can add on an additional science class or two, I'd probably
recommend Biochemistry, Cell Biology, or Histology.
35) Spend some time on your personal statement; it's important.
There. From people who have "been
there, done that."