How to Apply to Med School — and save $79 today!
Your basic “how to” apply to medical school:
Step by step instructions
If you’re not sure how the medical school admissions process ‘works’, this is the article for you. Here’s the overview:
- Get ready
- Complete the AMCAS or ACOMAS
- Complete the secondaries
- Get an interview — and do really well
- Get acceptance, rejection or waitlist
- Go to med school!
Get Ready
So what do you need to get ready? Here’s the checklist:
- You need a competitive gpa, especially in the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics and math) of around 3.5
- You need a competitive MCAT score, approximately 30, and it should be balanced — 10, 10, 10 is a balanced score.
- You need to send your transcripts to AMCAS or ACOMAS. There are lots of details here, so read the instructions on the AMCAS website carefully.
- You need to get your experience descriptions prepared. Think of the experience descriptions section of the AMCAS as a detailed resume, with a maximum of 15 experiences.
- You need to write your personal statement.
- You need to write any additional essays. The rules around these vary — disadvantaged student essay, research essay.
- You need to select the med schools you are applying to. Be sure you are looking at schools that are a good match to you. Med schools aren’t all the same! Some med schools will really be attracted to you, and others won’t. Knowing the difference can save you $$$!
- You need to get your letters of recommendation ready. There are lots of rules around this … trouble is the rules vary from med school to med school.
Complete the AMCAS or ACOMAS
These are the actual medical school applications. Go to www.aamc.org for AMCAS (MD) and www.aacom.org for ACOMAS (DO). Make sure you do a good job on these apps, or the rest of the process won’t work.
Complete the Secondaries
The Secondary Application is a big ‘secret’ that most pre-meds don’t know about. The secondary is another application … that’s right, when you apply to med school, you have to complete the first application, and then you have to complete a whole second application, called the Secondary.
The secondary application is much more detailed than the primary. It’s usually full of essay prompts. If you apply to between 15 and 30 medical schools, plan to write between 30 to 100 pages of essay content for your secondaries.
Some of this content will overlap, but be careful about re-purposing your essay content. Med schools want to receive direct correspondence from you that relates to them.
Get an Interview — and Do Really Well
If you do a great job positioning yourself and persuading medical schools in your primary application, personal statement, experiences and secondary application essays, then you will get an interview.
This is your 30-minute shot at making an AMAZING impression on medical schools, so be prepared, know what you want to say — and say it with high impact.
Get Acceptance, Rejection and Waitlists
If you do all of the above, you will hear from medical schools relatively quickly, but be aware that:
Rejections come first
Waitlists come second
Acceptances come last
If you get waitlisted, you can send an “Update Letter,” but don’t flood an admissions office with material (pre-med spam). Also, the term ‘waitlist’ has several synonyms — on hold, on hold for interview, stand by – it’s all the same thing.
Don’t get overwhelmed, Get Help!
Don’t let the process overwhelm you … instead, get support. We are offering the “Ultimate Pre-Med Success Kit” at only $69 for a limited-time-only. Take advantage now.