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Medical schools are getting more competitive and rigid with their acceptance process nowadays. This fact is understandable and expected given that medical schools have the tough responsibility of molding doctors of the future. When it’s the life of patients at stake, there’s no taking any chances at mediocrity. This begins right from the very beginning whereby a thorough screening process is done. That way, only those who are truly equipped for medical school make it to the first and last day of classes, training, and practicum.
So, if you’re almost done with your undergraduate or pre-med degree and you’re keen on making it to your dream medical school, you have to be willing to put in all the hard work. Do remember that getting into your dream medical school entails more than just getting above-average scores and grades. There are other factors that medical schools will take a look at. This means you must become as well-rounded as you possibly can be.
It’s difficult enough to get into medical school, much more if you’re aiming to get into one of the top medical schools in your state. To achieve this, you have to ensure your application stands out and you ace every single step of the process. Hence, these tips are worth noting:
1. Be Acquainted With Common Med School Interview Questions
A crucial part of med school application is the interview process. And because you aim to get into your dream medical school, you have to ace those questions.
Of course, this isn’t to say that you’re going to memorize your answers. It simply means preparing for those questions so you won’t stutter during the actual interview. The more prepared you are for those questions, the easier it’ll be for you to maintain a casual and spontaneous yet formal conversation with your med school interviewers.
To give you a good head start, these are some of the most common medical school questions asked during the interview:
1. Why did you choose your undergraduate or pre-med major?
2. Why do you want to be a doctor?
3. What experiences did you have in your undergraduate degree that made you better prepared for a future medical degree?
4. What makes a good doctor?
5. What strengths and weaknesses as a doctor do you think you’ll have?
6. Which quality is most important in a doctor?
7. Have you had any travels or experiences that exposed you to people of different practices and beliefs? What have you learned from those experiences?
8. What do you think are the pros and cons of being a doctor?
9. What skills have you learned during your pre-med course that taught you how to manage time and stress?
What other responsibilities in life do you have? (This question will be asked as some who enter medical school are also working part-time to fund their education or are married).
2. Highlight Any Clinical Experience You Have
With your pre-med course, you may be expected to have quite a substantial range of clinical experiences. This includes all your junior and senior internships along with any other voluntary medical work you may have done.
Use those clinical experience to your advantage by talking about them when you have the opportunity to do so. Highlight those on your resume too. A majority of successful applicants to their dream med school will have experience working in a hospital, pharmacy, clinic, medical mission, hospice, and others.
The two main facets of clinical experience include:
1. Paid And Volunteer Experiences: Some pre-med students take the time to start working part-time medical jobs. On top of that, volunteer work is also done. To increase your chances of getting accepted into your dream medical school, you should aim to have work and volunteer experience for at least six months.
2. Clinical Shadowing: This refers to the effort of gaining more in-depth experience in primary care by setting up a preceptorship agreement with a physician willing to take you in. During this exposure, you shadow the doctor through their days in the clinic. This gives you the opportunity to observe the physician’s activities, both within the clinic, the hospital and, if you’re lucky, to medical conventions.
If your clinical experience isn’t vast as you may not have taken up a medicine-related undergraduate degree, it’s a good idea for you to exert extra effort to engage in voluntary medical work. You may not be doing medical functions as nursing or medical technology graduates are given. But at least you have that introductory exposure to the medical world. This also shows you’re serious about your pursuit of entering medical school, as you’ve taken that extra effort.
3. Don’t Be Too Fixated On The Numbers
Yes, your medical entrance exam scores are going to land you an interview and other succeeding steps in the application process. While you have to aim to achieve those numbers, this doesn’t mean you must be too fixated on them. Those numbers aren’t what’s going to get you to the finish line.
Once you’ve already attained the needed scores and numbers, that will be enough to take you through the pre-screening process. But after that, more scrutiny is going to be placed on other facets of your application. This is why you also have to focus on ensuring your resume is well-rounded. After getting good scores and grades, it’s time for you to step up with your effort on the non-numerical aspects of your application.
If you make the mistake of focusing too much on the numbers, you may not be able to successfully make your application stand out. Make sure to beef up on your experience and extracurriculars so your application can make an impression.
4. Do Research Projects
Depending on your pre-med degree, you may have also been exposed to a lot of research work already. If you can bring copies of those during your interview, that’s an added plus. It not only shows you’ve prepared well for your med school interview but you’ve also taken those research work seriously even when you were still in your undergraduate degree.
This fact gives you an edge to make you more appealing to your dream medical school as it shows you’ve also taken your pre-med degree seriously. Medical school is a lot of hard work. On top of classes and academic tests, there’s your internship, actual work on the hospital, and even more research work to be done. If you aren’t used to that, then you’ll crumble through the demands of medical school.
Whether you’re asked about it or not, do talk about the research work you’ve done. The research work can help you shine through your medical school applications. Many medical schools like to have students who are interested in clinical and medical and research. When you’ve had that exposure already, it gives you an edge.
5. Don’t Procrastinate
Let’s get this straight. Procrastinating may not get you anywhere. You won’t just miss out on the chance of getting accepted to your dream medical school. But you’ll potentially lose your chance with any medical school, for that matter.
If you’re still in your pre-med degree, you ought to know that the first two years should be spent knocking out potential med school requirements. Then the last two years should be focused on gaining experience, internships, and volunteer work both within your local area and out of state or abroad if that’s possible.
So, you see, preparation for your medical school begins the moment you also start with your pre-med degree. Procrastinating or doing things at the last minute will only hurt your application. There’s no way for it to stand out against the application of other students who worked so hard to make theirs stand out.
Perhaps you may start to ask now why med school applications are that challenging? This is but expected, given the long and busy days doctors go through. Medical schools are simply trying to ensure you’re well equipped to handle not just the academic side of med school but also all the other physical and mental demands that are required from doctors in the field of medical work.
6. Focus On Your Interests
While you may want to tick all the boxes of exposure on various fields of medicine, you don’t have to go that far. Interviewers will appreciate it more when you show that your efforts are focused on one to three fields of medicine you’d like to trod on. This is paramount in proving that you’re keen on achieving that specialization and you haven’t just decided on them at the last minute.
When your aim is to impress your dream school, you have to be a few steps ahead. It’s to your advantage to show that you’ve thought hard enough and made that head-on effort to potentially achieve your desired field of specialization. This is important to prove that you’re really serious about medical school and you aren’t taking any chances of rejection.
What differentiates top qualified applicants in med schools are those that show passion. Reflect on what it is you care about and how you can intersect that in the field of medicine.
Add personal experiences that contributed to your dream of becoming a doctor. For example, if a loved one has died of cancer and this was one of the events in your life that propelled your medical dreams, then you now have found a purpose. Because of that experience, you’ve now made it your life-long desire to work hard to make cancer patients survive their ordeal so no family member will suffer like you. All or a majority of your research projects and volunteer work should, therefore, be centered on cancer treatments and related matters.
7. Find Time To Serve Others
Your volunteer work will set you apart too. Why? It shows you have a passion to serve. Yes, doctors also need to earn a living. But that desire to earn a living should be balanced with the passion to serve. Being a doctor means becoming that ray of hope to all patients who need you, even those who can’t afford to pay for your services.
When you’re used to and exposed to volunteer work, this shows your passion to serve. It may help make your application look more attractive especially to your dream medical school. This means you aren’t bothered by dedicating a portion of your time to serving others even when you know you aren’t going to be paid for those hours.
Because you’re still in pre-med, those volunteer work don’t even have to be grand or big. Even if it’s spending your summer at a hospice being an assistant to the caregiver or nursing assistant, that’s already a big thing. Who knows, that public hospice may have needed the extra hand but don’t have a lot of resources to pay for extra employees.
Med schools want to see that you care about your community and environment. That way, when you become a doctor one day, you become one of those doctors who also take the time to give back.
8. Apply To Multiple Schools
Yes, your goal is to apply to your dream medical school. But that dream medical school shouldn’t just be one institution. It’s best if you apply to at least two or three more—just to keep your options open. This increases your chances of getting accepted into a medical school that meets your personal standards and preferences.
Remember that medical schools, perhaps even your dream one, have hundreds to thousands of applicants. They can’t accept everyone all at once. You can avoid getting bummed at the possibility of your dreams getting rejected when you’re realistic about this process. So, don’t lose hope. Even if you don’t get accepted to your dream medical school, that does not mean you cannot fulfill your goal of becoming a medical doctor elsewhere.
Conclusion
As you can see, your pre-med qualifications and entrance exams are only a minute part of your entire journey. There’s a lot more that you’ll have to accomplish for you to make it to your dream medical school. The comprehensive tips above should show you that getting into medical school takes a lot of hard work. After reading through all those, there’s no better time than now to brush up on your qualifications. Granted, you may be able to put yourself one step ahead of getting accepted into the medical school of your dreams.
