Pre-Medical

The path to becoming a physician is long and challenging, and being a pre-medical student is hard. Learn about what you need to do to get into medical school successfully.

What Can You Learn From Reflecting on Your MCAT Test Day Experience?

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The MCAT is a significant hurdle that all students who wish to attend medical school must overcome. However, even after you have successfully completed the exam, you can continue to learn from your testing experience by reflecting on the test day itself.
Below are four areas of reflection that can provide you with additional insight about your future as a physician. Do not neglect to consider them!
1. How you learn best 
Many students experiment with a variety of study and test-taking strategies when preparing for the MCAT. After identifying which methods are most successful, they ultimately settle on a framework that works best for them. Throughout this process, you will likely discover how you study most efficiently and most effectively, which is an invaluable tool as you move forward to medical school.

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Mistakes to Avoid During Your Medical School Admissions Interview

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Earning a medical school admissions interview is a significant accomplishment. Many programs adhere to rigorous academic, extracurricular, and research requirements when selecting candidates for in-person meetings. Though you should view this as an opportunity to communicate to admissions interviewers why you are a perfect candidate for the school’s incoming class, be aware that a poor showing can harm applicants. Below are several blunders to avoid during your medical school interview:
1. Failing to articulate your career plans

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Should You Retake the MCAT? A Guide to Evaluating Your Score

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Deciding to complete the MCAT for a second time is a decision that can have a significant impact on your chances of being admitted to medical school. It is vital that you correctly assess your first MCAT score to determine if retaking the MCAT is best for you. As a general rule of thumb, if your result is five or more points below your goal score, you should consider sitting for the exam again. However, there are also several factors to examine before solidifying your decision.

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Benefits and Drawbacks: Taking a Gap Year Between Undergrad and Med School 

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Increasingly, medical school students begin their medical school experience one or more years after graduating from college. In fact, the average age of a first-year medical student is 23 or higher at the majority of institutions. However, the decision to opt for a gap year should not be taken lightly. A gap year can serve as a significant advantage, but it also carries several potential drawbacks.

Benefits

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Making the Transition to Medical School

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You’ve taken the MCAT exam, applied to medical school, received an acceptance (or two!), and finally decided which school you are going to attend. Now it’s time to prepare to start medical school.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has a few tips to help make the process of transitioning to medical school a little smoother:

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5 Steps to Preparing for Your Medical School Interviews

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After obsessively checking your email every five minutes for weeks, the appearance of your first interview offer brings with it a flood of relief and excitement. All that studying, volunteering, and writing of countless secondary applications has earned you a coveted interview slot. Yet coming on the tail of such excitement is that sense of panic. What now?

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Practical Advice for the Medical School Applicant

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As students begin to prepare for the next cycle of medical school application, I want to review some of the practical pieces of advice that every applicant should know. The actual process of applying to medical school is resource intensive: it costs thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and will strip you of many relaxing weekends that you would have otherwise enjoyed. Since you’ve made the decision to apply, here are some things that will help you make the best of it.
Remember that your MCAT score is a number. Your GPA is a number. These two things make up a major component of your application and you can’t change either of them now. You can’t change your letters of recommendation, either. The personal statement is a modifiable aspect of your application at this point, so you want to make sure to do a good job on it. But what else is there?
The answer to this lies in the details. This is what separates a good application from an excellent application. It is also what could separate a marginal application from one that gets an interview invitation. Every year, there are a few key mistakes that really put some students at a disadvantage. When schools are looking to offer acceptances, they are not only looking for good students. In addition to being smart, they are looking for people who will one day care for patients and be their colleagues. It is no surprise that those selected to become student doctors are usually meticulous, mature, intelligent, team players, and caring. Your application needs to reflect this.

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The Dual Path: What to consider when considering an MD-PhD

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“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
I was sitting in the back of a filled auditorium listening to a presentation about the medical school application process when I heard the question that would forever change my life’s trajectory. “What about MD-PhD programs?” a woman sitting somewhere down in front asked. That was the first time I had heard of the dual degree program. Having struggled to decide on my career path, this seemed like the best of all worlds: I could get an MD and a PhD.

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9 Things to Do Before Applying to Medical School

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Think about including these steps in your path to medical school:
1. Work or volunteer in the medical field. Working or volunteering in a health care-related environment or organization will not only enhance your medical school application, it will benefit you. It’s a chance to see if you enjoy working in the health or medical field, network with like-minded peers, take on increased responsibility and leadership roles, and build your resume.
Consider internships and research opportunities at health care facilities or research institutions in your local community. Shadowing a doctor or health professional is another good way to find out if a career in medicine is right for you. Research and leadership positions on campus are also a great way to build your application and test out this career path.
Get Medical Experience

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How to Not Get Into Medical School

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As an undergraduate student, I wanted to know how to get into medical school, and I wanted it straight from the source: the medical students. I figured that because they got in, they must have it figured out.
Then I got accepted into medical school and realized the truth. While there are some real lessons to learn to be more successful, medical school admissions can be a pretty arbitrary process. It’s actually more of a crap shoot than you would like to think. I gave myself less than a 1% chance of getting in to my current school, yet here I am. My state school, where I considered myself very competitive (higher than average stats, etc) didn’t even put me on their waitlist. Why? No clue.

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Post Undergrad: Getting Ready for Medical School or a Gap Year

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For many students interested in a career in medicine, the period after the final year of undergraduate education represents a time of transition to medical school or to furthering their experiences and their education in preparation for applying to medical school. This month’s article from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) focuses on those two pathways.

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MCAT® Exam Registration: 10 Tips from the Experts

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In just a few short weeks, registration for the June 2014 through January 2015 MCAT exam dates will open. We understand that registration can seem overwhelming! While we can’t promise that you won’t experience any wait time during registration, we do have some tips to help you BEFORE you even login to the registration system to make things a little easier and quicker.

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