How to get in a medical school?

Question

I am beginning my college life for the first time and wondering what do I have to do now, so in the future, when I decided to apply to any med school, I will surely be accepted? I am a freshman, and just heard about internships. What is this "internship" thing? Is this needed. I also took nursing courses in high school. Someone please tell me so I can take care of it now, so it will benefit me in the future. Also, what about MCAT?

Answer 1

Internships are like volunteer gigs, but they're more structured and they might pay. Usually, people do internships during the summer. You basically find a biotech firm or some large research institution and apply to be an intern. As an intern you will work on projects alongside regular employees. You might have to do some of the unpleasant grunt work and menial tasks, too. Thems the breaks: interns are only slightly higher on the corporate food chain than slaves.

Internships are not necessary, but they are helpful. You can do just fine simply doing volunteer work. But internships are good because there's a chance you will be paid. On most medical school secondary apps, they will ask you to list your volunteer work and paid work separately. That's where the volunteer and internship stuff diverges. But otherwise, if you have stuff in either column, you'll look good to the admissions committee.

Ask yourself why you want to be a doctor. Is it to go into research? Or is it to serve a particular community. depending on that answer, you should be able to determine whether volunteering or internships would be better for you. If you want to be a doctor to do really cool research, then be an intern for a big pharma or biotech firm. If you want to be a doctor because you have humanitarian tendencies, then you're better off volunteering with some disadvantaged community or advocacy group.

You high school work counts for diddly-squat when it comes to med school, unless you continue working in that capacity (i.e., if you were a student intern for Planned Parenthood as a HS student, and you continue to work for PP as a collegian). Still, if your nursing work in HS had some influence over your decision to apply to med school, then you can talk about it in our personal statement.

About 50% of all people who attempt to get into medical school will eventually get in. Depends on how qualified and persistent you are.

The MCAT is something you will take after your 3rd year, unless you want to take a gap year or go to grad school before going ot med school. You should only take the MCAT right before you apply. MCAT covers material learned in the first two (three if you're slow with your coursework) years of college. It covers general bio, general chem, o-chem, Newtonian mechanics, E&M physics, optics, reading and writing. you do not need upper-div classes to ace this test. If you were a strong AP student in HS, you would already know the material well enough not to bomb the test.

Things to do while you're in college: study hard, go to tutorials, suck up to prominent professors, do tons of volunteer work and always ask yourself, "Why do I want to be a physician?"

If you cannot answer that question with something that doesn't sound like absolute bullcrap, then find work in another field.

ADDENDUM FOR JAMES P: Asker is talking about UNDERGRADUATE internships (as in research internships), not medical internships you do prior to residency. I assure you, I respect and regard the indentured servitude that new doctors call Internship.

Answer 2

I had to laugh while reading that the internship was 'like a volunteer gig". Not hardly.

Following graduation from med school, you will enter into a residency program to learn the field of medicine you've chosen. The first year, or Post-Grad Year One (PGY-1) is called the internship and the doctors (the new MDs) are called Interns. Following the first year, the MDs are called Resdients. Depending on the program selected, there may be PGY-2, PGY-3, PGY-4 Resdients. Usually, after PGY-3 the Resdients are known as Senior Resident or Chief Resident--it varies between programs.

Since you are just starting out, the best place to get information about being a medical students and medical schools is from the Association of American Medical Colleges: http://www.aamc.org/

They have answers for just about any question you can think of.

Answer 3

Yes. 1. Get a GED. 2. Go to community college. 3. Get a high GPA in community college and transfer to a 4 year university. 4. Do good in that 4 year university (get a high GPA, aim for 3.7 or above) 5. Take the MCAT and score high on it. 6. Apply to as many med schools as you can. If you can get yourself together and get good grades from now on then you still have hope. Many people have done it this way as well, don't listen to some of the morons on here.

Answer 4

start building up your resume, do volunteer work in a hospital and such

medical skool admission gpa is usually 3.5-3.8 so do good in your classes

highly recommend taking kaplan classes, these classes benefit you in mcat

internships are not necessary but recommended,-you need much exposure as you can in the medical field(medical school love people who has experience)

i suggest studying your mcat 30min every day, then in your year of mcat test, study about 1 to 2 hours a day

Answer 5

You need a bachelors degree most likely in some sort of science first. Nothing is guaranteed because medical school is extremely competetive. You have to have top grades and excellent references. I would do more research online and look up different schools to see what the prerequisites are. g/l