by Christian Becker, Author of The Official Student Doctor Network Medical School Admissions Guide
Gaining admission to medical school is a multifactorial process. Almost all medical schools require the MCAT, specific course work, and an undergraduate degree. There are also many extracurricular activities that may not be required per se, but are absolutely necessary to be a competitive applicant.
Some schools will not only consider you a weak applicant if you cannot show some of these activities on your application, but also will deny an interview outright if they don’t don’t see enough of them.
What do medical school admission committees look for?
Most pre-med advisors will probably agree that maybe 70% to 80% of the admissions decision depends on your GPA and MCAT scores alone (for most schools). However, there is more to the admissions decision. The various application components are weighted differently from one school to the next. Some medical schools emphasize the MCAT heavily and don’t consider much else. Others almost completely ignore MCAT scores unless they are very low, focusing instead on extracurricular activities and a well-rounded application.
Generally, the following are the main areas used by admissions committees to evaluate candidates:
- GPA
- MCAT scores
- Application material
- Recommendation letters
- Personal interview
Note that recommendation letters are written by people who have interacted with you in extracurricular activities or in the classroom–faculty, physicians, or supervisors, for example. These letters serve as a reflection of your involvement in the activities that you listed on your application and offer insight as to what kind of person you are.
The personal statement of your application, the personal interview, and recommendation letters all have one thing in common: they provide the admission committee a glimpse at who you are as a person, beyond the collection of academic statistics comprising the rest of your application. Numbers on a page, while necessary to the admissions process, offer evaluators little by which to assess you as a person. Within an applicant pool of comparably strong GPA’s and MCAT scores, these other factors can prove the difference between you and a competing applicant.
Your application, scores, grades, and recommendation letters will get you the interview. Your personality, character, and interview impression will get you the spot in the class.
Additionally, many medical schools will not seriously consider you if you have never been in a clinical setting. How would you know what physicians do or that you like what physicians do? Also, some schools absolutely require some exposure to research; without it, they won’t consider your application. Other schools may not care about research at all. Therefore, a lot depends on the specific medical schools you are interested in.
School-specific requirements
Some schools are more helpful than others at distinguishing required activities from merely recommended ones. The list of requirements or recommendations looks similar for most medical schools.
The following list should serve you well when applying to any school and was actually provided by an established medical school (not Ivy League or super competitive, but not one of the least competitive). This list is particularly useful because, instead of merely listing recommended activities, it details very specifically what must be done to meet each goal on the list. These numbers were compiled by analyzing the activity profiles of the school’s recent applicants. As a result, meeting these guidelines should make you a more competitive candidate for admission.
In order to qualify for an interview, a candidate has to meet at least the average values in five of the eight categories and the minimum value in the other three. The average reflects the true average for all of their applicants each year. Performing below the minimum in any one category automatically disqualifies applicants from receiving interview invitations.
| Category | Minimum | Average |
| GPA | 3.0 | 3.7 |
| MCAT | 21 | 30 |
| Shadowing | 1 day | 3 days |
| Volunteering | 3 hrs/week for 3 months | 4 hrs/week for 4 years |
| Clinical Exposure | 4 hrs/week for 2 months | 4 hrs/week for 3 months |
| Research | 4 hrs/week for 2 months | 4 hrs/week for 3 months |
| Leadership Positions | 1 in past 3 yrs | 3 for 3 months each in past 4 yrs |
| Multitasking | 20 hours per week | |
Time spent in these areas can overlap. For example, volunteer tutoring hours would be considered leadership and volunteer time. Time spent in a volunteer clinic would count as volunteer/service time and clinical exposure.
The weaker your MCAT score and GPA, the more important are all the other areas to strengthen your overall application. If your MCAT or GPA are average or below average, you will need to make your application stand out in other areas, to prove to the admissions committee that your GPA and MCAT alone don’t tell your whole story.
The goal of all of this
Your goal, obviously, is to score well on the admission committee’s applicant evaluation and obtain an offer of admission to the school. Investing adequate time and effort toward each of these areas will make you a much stronger applicant and, hopefully, pave the way to future success. Good luck!
Christian Becker is the creator and operator of www.medschoolready.com and an SDN Contributor.
You need to switch 4 and 5 around.
I really think that the interview is really important should be stressed more to pre-medical students. You can have all the numbers in the world but if you mess up the interview or come off a certain way to the admission officers..then you might be screwed.
The avarage volunteer time is really 4hrs/week for 4 years? really? average?
I had the same question as Ga Doc, can the average really be 4hrs/week for 4 yrs? Average?
To Ga Doc and OldSchooler: I’m wondering the same thing, but maybe he meant 4 months not years? ???
I don’t think it was a mistake. 4hrs/week for for years just amounts to one year long volunteer activity per year, which really isn’t all that much.
I have not done any shadowing. Is this really going to disqualify me from being invited for an interview??
I was wondering that, too. I don’t think it will. I remember reading somewhere on these boards that as long as you have clinical exposure with patient contact then you’re good. I have minimal shadowing (~8 hours) and I don’t think it was any more informative than my hospital volunteering was where I have lots of patient contact.
It is actually 4 hrs per week for four months for EACH of 4 years. Hope that helps.
By the way, someone I know did 780 hours of volunteer work in one year (2007) ! This is almost equal to 98 days of 8 hours each !! It is no mistake, all verified.
Not having done shadowing should not disqualify you, but this is something you should want to do for yourself. Since medicine is pretty much a no-way-out deal once you’re in with the loans, do you really want to commit to a career in it without knowing that you have a good idea of what you’re getting into? It’s not like job satisfaction is oh so high amongst doctors, plenty of docs would not do it again if they had it to do over. It is a lot of blood, sweat and tears to go through for something you don’t truly love.
I would also recommend not just shadowing anywhere, but shadowing in a hospital in some way. The majority of your years in medical school and residency will be in a hospital, so if you just do a few hours in an outpatient office, you might not get much of a sense of what that will be like. An emergency department is great because you’ll see the whole spectrum.
Is the shadowing the hours of shadowing per doctor, or total?
Re the minimum research requirement of 4 hrs/week for 2 months:
At many decent schools listed in the MSAR, only about 80% to 90% of students reported having any research experience at all, so I can’t imagine those cutoffs are all that common.
Is the GPA here the BCMP or the overall GPA?
Just to clarify. These requirements are used by one specific school for admissions, but they serve as a good guide. If you cover them, you’ll be an excellent candidate at most schools. Keep in mind that not everyone has to do everything on the list. However, you cannot go wrong having done all of these. I know some people who didn’t do any research or any shadowing. Others had no leadership experience. The problem arises when you don’t have any of these and your MCAT and GPA are average, too. In my own opinion, I would do everything in my control to position myself to be a more complete and competitive applicant. If you are asking the question “How can I improve my chances of getting in?” then you should do all of these things on the list since each will add something to your application that will help you. Some of my colleagues actually had great GPA and MCAT scores and got interviews at a few places, but didn’t get offers because they were missing some of these activities. They spent an extra year improving their applications and applied again (successfully) the next year, after having completed some more of these activities.
What is multitasking?
Actually, 780 hours is not bad. I did 25 hours per week of clinically, direct patient contact work (in a free clinic) while an undergrad (5 years, two degrees). Now that I am in post-bacc, I’ve cut way back, but I’ve been thinking about going to do some like that. I miss the clinical involvement.
What exactly is multitasking and what is considered a leadership position is it a position in a school club or something else?
hi, i was wondering, how long does students usually shadow a doctor? it says 1 day to 3 days on the list, but how long exactly do the medical schools want you to gain experience? (in terms of hours…)
also, do you request for like a certificate, to prove that you did shadowing?
and what should you learn or do specifically when shadowing a doctor?
I’m a post-bacc doing everything in a year and 1/2 before applying in May. I volunteer, and start shadowing next week, but I also work 20-25 hours a week to pay the bills. Does that factor in?
Would teaching a chemistry excel class be considered a leadership position?
I think teaching a chemistry excel class would definitely be considered a form of leadership if volunteering to tutor is, as mentioned in the article.
Sounds like fun, good luck.
I don’t agree, I had 0 shadowing and 120hrs of volunteering total and I got into some top schools who never asked me once about my lack of clinical experiences. Besides, seriously volunteering in a hospital as in filing papers and getting snapped around by nurses, I can find waaaaay better use of my time.