Becoming a Competitive Applicant for Medical School Part II: Grades and MCAT Scores
Look No Further. Get Started Today. Call: 888-839-9997 e-mail: [email protected] 20 Minutes Free Consultation Getting a High Premedical GPA: Getting a high premedical GPA is not as challenging as it seems if you plan your courses appropriately. Whether you are an undergraduate or you have returned to school to pursue medicine, consider planning your coursework early on. This means having a general idea of what courses you are going to take and when you are taking each course. It is very important to be realistic in this process. Students sometimes get ambitious and take three or four challenging science courses in one quarter/semester, which can be overwhelming. We suggest you balance difficult courses with less challenging ones and take a combination of science and non-science courses together. Thinking about scientific concepts requires using a different part of your brain than thinking about the humanities. When you combine different types of courses, you are not just putting pressure on one part of your brain to always work in overdrive. We always encourage students to talk to upperclassmen and seek their advice about what combination of courses are most realistic to do well in. Doing Well on the MCAT: The MCAT is another aspect of the application that is absolutely crucial to getting into medical school. The science sections of the MCAT are covered in your premedical coursework, so if you do well in your science courses, you will already have the knowledge base to succeed on the MCAT. The verbal reasoning section of the MCAT is more challenging because there is not a single class you can take to prepare...
Becoming a Competitive Applicant for Medical School Part I
Look No Further. Get Started Today. Call: 888-839-9997 e-mail: [email protected] 20 Minutes Free Consultation Medical school admissions committees take the time to carefully scrutinize different aspects of each application. If you know what medical schools are specifically looking for when they review applications, you can better prepare yourself during your premedical career. Knowing why medical schools care about the things they care about is also helpful. Part I. What do medical schools want in an applicant and why? In this section, we review what medical schools are looking for in applicants and why. This is not a list of medical school admissions requirements, but a list of the achievements that make an applicant competitive for medical school. In the second section, we will review how you can become a competitive applicant for medical school by covering all the listed areas. 1) Grade Point Average (GPA): Medical school is academically challenging and admissions committees want to know that you are capable of handling the rigorous coursework in medical school. A good undergraduate GPA is absolutely essential to proving that you are capable of academically succeeding in medical school. 2) Medical College Admissions Test Scores (MCAT): Like the GPA, medical schools use the MCAT score to determine an applicant’s ability to excel in the medical school coursework and to succeed on the medical boards. The MCAT is the great equalizer because it shows not just how you performed compared to students who went to the same college as you, but compared to all medical school applicants. 3) Exposure to Clinical Medicine: Simply proving you have what it takes to do well...