How To Get Into Medical School

Let’s Get Started

Let’s start off our plan by looking at the one thing med school admissions committees look at when they get your primary application from AMCAS. On it they will see.

Your transcript
Your MCAT scores
Your extra-curriculum
Your personal statement

Each component deserves your full attention and focus. We are going to start this plan by working backwards from your AMCAS application. Why? Because that is exactly what the medical schools are going to see when they look at you and nothing else. They are not going to see the many hours you devoted to studying for the MCAT or the commercial prep course you took, all they are going to see are the numbers. Sometimes a person doesn’t see your application at all and there is a computer algorithm that attempts to analyze you. Why is there a computer doing this primary screen? The first task in admissions is to eliminate those of us who do not hit the numbers. There are still some medical schools that analyze medical school candidates on an individual basis (attempting to analyze the whole picture). The good ones still look at the whole picture. Unfortunately, there are some medical schools that are looking initially at who they can eliminate.

So during my babble, do you now have a copy of the AMCAS? It is now online, so why don’t you print out the worksheets (or to save paper, just keep an electronic copy). We are going to fill this out together. What do you want to see? Just as important is what a med school admissions committee would like to see.

Your transcript. A’s across the board or a trend of substantially improving grades to impeccable A’s.
MCAT scores. 10s or above and a P or above on the writing.
Your personal statement. An articulate story summarizing key points of one’s journey to med school application and the reason he/she is applying.
Your extra-curriculum. Positions of leadership, volunteerism, academic research. Medical schools would like to see someone who can contribute significantly to the school.

So take a little time to pull out a course catalog to roughly plan your upcoming years. Roughly meaning, no commitments yet. Just a rough sketch.