The challenge...

Depending on your current situation in life, the application process to medical school will vary. Assuming you go straight from high school to college, you will have a completely different path from those pre-med students who are non-traditional - those who choose to pursue a career before deciding on a medical school education. Assuming you are a high school student looking to go to medical school after college, please consider this advice. Do the best you can in school in order to get into the best college you can! (Obviously!) However, this plays an important and undervalued role in the admissions process that you may or may not yet realize. Going to a reputable college or university CAN help in some instances; however, this is not a universal point. I attended a community college for my first two years of college and then transferred to a private liberal arts school. Granted, I did well throughout college, but along the way, especially once I was in medical school, I realized that many of my peers had gone to outstanding colleges and universities located all over the country! This was very intimidating at first. Although, once I settled in and got to work, all that undergrad reputation went out the door! Anyways, back to my point. It does serve some function in your favor if you attend a more difficult undergraduate college, but it's not a requirement. I've been told by the director of admissions at my medical school that the "preferred" applicant comes from a liberal arts college and is a non-science major! Hmmm...How about that?!!!

So, let's say you graduate from high school, you get good grades and SAT/ACT scores, and you're off to a good college (or maybe a community college if that's the case). What do you do next?! I'd recommend majoring in whatever interests you most. Here's why - I believe that you will excel at what you find most interesting. You will want to study and learn as much as humanly possible about that subject! You CAN have any major when you apply to medical school. It's a common misconception that you must major in "pre-med" or "biology" or some other science or "-ology". Please major in your passion or at least what you like best. Enjoy school and most of all - enjoy life as a college student! You will have plenty of time to study once you are actually in medical school.

Once you are in college and pursuing your bachelor's degree, you will need to take the required courses for entrance into medical school. These include one year of biology, one year of general chemistry, one year of organic chemistry and one year of physics (which doesn't need to be calculus-based). Also, one year of English is generally required and a semester of statistics is highly recommended by some medical schools. It is best to find out what each school you are interested in is requiring and try to take all of those courses. I don't recommend stacking these courses on top of each other all at once. It is wise to show medical schools that you can handle a balance of tough coursework, which means that you can handle multiple difficult classes at once. I would not try to cram all of the pre-req's in a year. You want to shoot for A's and B's in these courses and you don't want to mess around with your pre-req's. Medical schools look at these courses very seriously. Generally, if you pace yourself over your first few years with your pre-req's, this takes you through your Junior year of college. It is at this point where you can sit for the MCAT.

The MCAT is the dreaded medical school entrance exam. It is composed of three sections: a biological sciences, a physical sciences, and a verbal reasoning component. They no longer (to my knowledge) require a written section of the exam. Each section is scored out of 15 although it is speculated that the verbal reasoning section is scored out of 13. Either way, a 43 would be the highest possible score. I have never met anyone with a 43 and as far as I know it is humanly impossible to score a 43 (or a 45 for that matter), so don't worry about shooting for that score. You don't need to ace the exam to get into medical school, although that would be nice if you did do so well! A good score is anything from a 30 and above. That is considered competitive for most American medical schools. Getting a 30 is easier said than done, however. There are prep courses offered by companies such as Kaplan and test books available for you to use in preparation for the exam. I must say that the MCAT is a difficult exam to study for. The questions were absurd and I thought it was nearly impossible to accurately answer the questions with limited info! In fact, I thought it was harder than either my Step I or Step II boards!! The MCAT is basically the "weeder" test for med school and you should know this coming in. Now, that's not to say that anything less than a 30 won't hack it! I'd say anything above a 20 (seriously) can get you in SOMEWHERE! My MCAT score was close to 20. That may seem low to many, but either way I'll be graduating in June! :)

So...to summarize, we discussed the big stuff - the required courses and the entrance exam. I'd say that is all pretty important information. If you are a non-traditional student, much if not all of the same applies - you have to take the MCAT and the required courses. It's HIGHLY recommended that you have a Bachelor's these days. If you don't have one, I'd suggest getting one. It'll help your chances of admission tremendously. Also, might I add that your work experience could be a tremendous asset, especially if you worked in a health-related field such as an EMT, Radiology Tech, or ICU nurse. I had fellow students in my medical school class that worked in these fields prior to med school and they were better for it. Should you forgo your college education as a chemistry major to improve your chances of admission by working as an EMT or Rad Tech, I don't know that's up to you. However, if you really want to get your degree in chemistry, don't change your major to nursing just because you think it will help! That's not smart. Do what you love first! That's the best advice I can give. I'd also like to add that being from an osteopathic school, I know for a fact that non-traditional students are highly encouraged to apply. I had a PhD, a Veterinarian, two Pharmacists, a few PT's, a lawyer, EMT's, and nurses in my class. You may want to consider osteopathic schools as a non-traditional applicant. You'd be pleasantly surprised with how well received you'd be!