The Path to Medical School

Feb 16, 2021
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The path to medical school can be long, challenging, and even disheartening and lonely at times when you need to stay in for the night to continue prepping for your exams. There are a lot of words and phrases that can be used to describe the premed journey and none of them are easy. However, with a proper outline for the path to medical school, the process can seem a whole lot less daunting. This is why I am sharing what I have learned as a senior premed who is about to matriculate into medical school.

Grades

First let’s start with the obvious: Aim to get the best grades you can. The average GPA for a matriculant is in the 3.7 range every year so that’s a good benchmark to aim for. However, don’t lose hope if your GPA doesn’t fall at a 3.7 or above, you can still GET INTO medical school. A 3.7 isn’t a requirement, it is just an average. If you have a lower GPA you just have to compensate in other ways either in your extracurriculars, MCAT, or showing an upward GPA trend. For example, if you started college struggling during your freshman year, your GPA may still feel the effects even if you have been getting 4.0’s and 3.5’s in most of your classes since so don’t worry admissions committees do take the upward trend into account. Because everyone deals with different challenges and adapts to college life at a different pace.

Extracurriculars

During your time as an undergrad, you are going to want to build up a resume to present to medical schools that shows you have experience and are prepared to handle the rigor of the busy schedules of medical students. The most common extracurriculars you will hear of premeds participating in are clubs, research, volunteering, and shadowing. All of these are important but they are not mutually exclusive. For example, you DON’T HAVE to participate in research to get into medical school, just like you DON’T HAVE to participate in a club. None of these extracurriculars are requirements but they are general recommendations that you should participate in some of these activities. It is also worth noting none of the activities you participate in have to be related to medicine. For example, you don’t have to join the premed club and do biology research because it seems like it aligns with your goals of medical school most directly. Instead, you can join the MSU poker club and do educational research if you so choose. At the end of the day, admission committees are trying to see who you are as a person and that you are dedicated to something you are interested in. Also, if you think about it who would stick out to you more if you were reading through thousands of applications: the student who was in the poker club for four years and took on the role of president and talked about everything he learned from playing poker and running a club, or the student that was a general member of premed club for four years? Which do you think is the more common occurrence on all the applications in that deck? I can bet you the poker club individual is going to be the one sticking out. So be you, participate in whatever you are passionate about and enjoy.

Another thing to keep in mind with extracurriculars is find leadership roles in some way. As someone that just went through the application and interview process, I can tell you first hand this topic comes up a lot. So be able to show your leadership skills. This could be as an executive board member in a club, through work, or really anything that you can take on a leadership role outside of a class project.

When volunteering your time as a premed it’s good to find a blend of clinical and non-clinical volunteering, and an easier way to put that is health settings (hospital, clinic, etc) vs anything else. When you fill out your application it is going to ask how many hours of each you have and if you have the time in your schedule you want to make sure you are getting hours to put into these boxes. Do not just jump around finding random volunteer hours, find one or two places that you can consistently help out at over the long run, admission committees are looking for commitment more than anything. So 100 hours of clinical volunteering at sparrow over three years will look better than 150 hours of volunteering that is split up at 20 different places. 100 hours of volunteering may or may not seem like a lot, but from experience, it only took me about a year to hit my first 100 hours volunteering at sparrow for 3-4 hours a week my entire sophomore year and summer.

Lastly, let’s discuss shadowing. Shadowing is extremely important. One, it helps you to ensure to yourself and adcoms that you have a genuine interest in practicing medicine. Two, it helps you to explore different fields and start finding interests that you may want to pursue in the future. Three it is where you will get at least one of your important letters of recommendation that we will talk about later. When shadowing you want to make sure you at least see a few different fields, but you also want to make sure you explore at least one in-depth. For example, in my time shadowing, I saw a handful of different fields but I spent most of my time seeing dermatology and oncology in depth. Spending multiple days with a single physician in each field, then diverting off to other physicians to get more experiences and see other subspecialties within the fields. This allowed me to get an in-depth understanding of the fields that I could communicate in my application and during my interviews.

Letter of recommendation

Letters of recommendation are another critical part of your application to medical school, and it’s an area where the more the merrier can apply. You can’t have too many letters of recommendation because the more you have the more you can target them to the schools you are applying for. If you can obtain10 letters then go for it, but after that you may be a little overboard. Some guidelines to abide by when getting your letters to cover all the possible application requirements are to aim for at least two science teachers and one non-science instructor. Then aim to also get one from a boss or supervisor, a PI if you do research, or possibly a volunteer coordinator. You can also ask an advisor if you are close with one, or anyone else that can provide important insight that’s not family. Lastly, get at least one MD and one DO that you shadowed to write you a letter of recommendation. This will allow you to apply to both MD and DO schools without any complications.

Now you may be wondering how and when to start collecting these letters? Well, you can start as early as possible but keep in mind that when it comes to faculty members, upper-level courses are usually better to get a recommendation from for a couple of reasons: One, it is a more difficult course, and two there are fewer students in the course so your professor is more likely to know you on a deeper level. That doesn’t mean you can’t get one from a lower-level course professor! Generally speaking, many students will start collecting letters of recommendation during their junior year before applying to ensure the letters reflect who they currently are as best as possible. It’s recommended to obtain letters within a year of your application submission, but letters should not be any older than a year.

Taking the MCAT

When you take the MCAT will depend mostly on one factor: Do you plan on taking a gap year or going straight into medical school after graduating? If you plan on going straight into medical school after graduation you will want to aim to take the exam from January to April of your junior year. However, a little later into May is fine as well but just keep in the mind the earlier you take it the faster you can get your score back and start working on your application. If you want to take a gap year the same timeline applies except it will be during your senior year. As far as how long you should study, it depends on the person but generally you should study for at least 3 to 4 months before taking the exam. Spending about half the time doing content review and half doing practice problems. More information on how to study for the MCAT and materials can be found HERE.

Medical School Application Process

The medical school application process is long, so be ready. First, you will submit your primary common applications in June through AMCAS for MD schools and AACOMAS for DO schools. Then you will start to receive your secondary applications within a couple of months of submitting your primaries. These will usually consist of short essays specific to each school to learn more about you and how you fit their mission. After finishing all of your secondary applications you will be on hold until interview invitations start coming in around august. The interview season is extremely long and at any given point you could receive your first interview. However, generally speaking, if you don’t hear back from any school before Christmas break you may want to start looking into what you would do if you need to take a gap year. There is still plenty of time at this point to get an interview but the odds are decreased because the cycle will be about halfway over so you want to have a plan B if the dice don’t roll your way.

What Happens if You Don’t Get In And Have to Take A Gap Year?

How you spend your Gap year if you take one is totally up to you. However, if you have weaknesses in your application this is the time to work on them. Typically, students will spend a portion of their gap year working on getting clinical experience because it can be one of if not the hardest area to cover while an undergrad. If your academics are your low point you might spend this year getting an additional degree, master’s, or some other post-bachelors program to raise your GPA and show your preparedness for medical school. Spend your gap year however you feel fit for you and your application, just know you will need to discuss what you did in this year and how it benefited you and how you grew from it.

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