Articles

Aug 07 2017

Something most Pre-Meds don’t do but should be doing!

Almost every university has one and it is there for your benefit. I am talking about your school’s AMSA or pre-med club. Most major universities and colleges have a club for pre-medical students. This club is intended to help keep you on the right track for getting into medical school and can be one of your greatest resources as an undergraduate pre-medical student. This is also an easy piece of advice to implement into your pre-medical strategy. Lets jump right into some of the benefits of joining your school’s pre-med club.

Benefits of joining a pre-med club:

1. Get valuable pre-med advice:
At your pre-med club you will be surrounded by other pre-meds, often ones that are closer to applying than you, who will be able to help answer any pre-med related questions you have. If you want pre-med advice, there is no better place to go than to your university’s pre-med club.

2. Meet like-minded people who will help keep you on track and motivate you to try harder:

This might be one of the most important reasons to join the pre-med club. Meeting like-minded people will greatly improve your own success. Simply by being around other people who share a common goal will motivate you to get more involved in pre-med related endeavors. We are the average of the five people we hang out with the most. So by spending more time with hard-working and high achieving pre-med students, you will in turn become a hard-working and high achieving pre-med over time. Spending time with other driven pre-meds will keep you on track.

3. Discover opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise:

Your pre-med club will most likely have the connections to be able to get you opportunities that you need for your medical school application. This includes things such as volunteering, shadowing, and research. If you need help finding extracurricular activities, there is a good chance you will find them through your pre-med club.

4. Can lead to leadership roles and letters of recommendation:

Another great opportunity that can be provided by your local pre-med club is that it can lead to leadership roles and letters of recommendation. If you spend enough time with your pre-med club, there is the real possibility of landing yourself a leadership role in the club. This is something that will look nice your medial school application. Also many pre-med clubs have a science faculty member/teacher involved, so this can also lead to getting a nice recommendation letter!

So how do you find your university’s pre-med club? There are a few ways:

– Ask your pre-med advisor

– Do a quick google search

– Browse through the list of clubs and organizations on your university’s website

Once you find your school’s pre-med club, go to it as soon as possible! From the networking to all the opportunities it provides, being a part of your pre-med club can make a huge impact on the success you find as a pre-medical student. I hope this article helped to inspire you to find and join your school’s pre-med club if it has one. Search right now for it and schedule a time you will go there!

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Aug 01 2017

9 Tips to write a personal statement that captivates your reader. (Medical School essay)

Nine Tips to write a personal statement that captivates your reader

The personal statement is one of the most important aspects of your medical school application and one of your best opportunities to separate yourself from other applicants. Your personal statement is your chance to convince medical schools that you would be a great physician. Do not underestimate the value of having a good personal statement. There are many medical schools that accept students who don’t have the highest GPA or MCAT, but have excellent personal statements. And it is often the personal statement that plays a major role in encouraging the medical school to invite you to an interview. Please take your time to review the tips I wrote down below, these tips come from personal experience as well as advice from medical school admission officers. So what are some tips to help you write a spectacular medical school essay that no school can resist?

1.Treat the essay as if you are writing a novel. Tell a story.

One of the most important things you can do when writing a personal statement is to write it as if it were a novel. You want to start the essay strong with something that catches the readers attention, use suspense, build up to major events, and give the reader closure at the end. It is important that you are able to maintain the readers interest in your story.

2. Use powerful language.

An easy way to improve your essay is to use strong and emotionally powerful adjectives. When describing events use metaphors. You want all of the language that you use to really leave an impression. This ties in with the first tip about writing a novel, you really want to use strong and symbolic language that will captivate your reader.

3. Make a list of several key points and themes you want your personal statement to include

This also goes back to the idea of writing a story and is honestly one of the best ways you can guarantee you say everything you want to and give the right impression to your reader. By having themes and key points in your essay you are both implicitly and explicitly emphasizing why you would be a great addition to their medical school program. Make a list of all of the major points you want to emphasize and the main themes that will define your essay. This list will be a valuable asset as you write your essay.

Heres a list of some things you might want to focus on: Showing you really care about helping other people, illustrating your hands on experience with patients, showing that you love to volunteer, showing all the different struggles you have overcome and how you have grown from them, showing your growth and evolution as a person over time, showing that you understand the rigors and realities of medicine, showing strong and resilient character, and showing that you are humble.

4. Make sure to subtly repeat your key points and themes throughout your personal statement

It is important to be able to subtly remind your reader of your key points as you write your essay. You want to be able to tell them that you are awesome without having to say it directly. Having consistency in your key points and themes makes it more authentic. For example: If you want to get the key point across that you have learned a lot from patient interaction, mention in the beginning of the essay how one patient was memorable to you. And then later in the essay bring up how the lessons you learned from that patient played in an impact in a separate situation. Once your essay is able to show consistency in your key points they become themes of your essay. And having a theme is much more powerful than trying to tell your reader explicitly why you are awesome. Being consistent and subtly repeating your key points and themes makes your essay more genuine.

5. Give examples for your claims

Having examples for each of your key points will greatly increase how believable your essay is and also the impact it leaves on your reader. Make sure you have good examples for your key points. Also make sure to use strong and emotional language, see tip #2, when describing that example. For example: If you are trying to show your reader that you are compassionate for others, then have an example where it shows you are compassionate.

6. Stay humble.

This is one of the most common pitfalls that many pre-med students fall into. Many medical school admission officers emphasize the importance of being modest and humble when writing your personal statement. Often one of the biggest turn off’s to medical school is being too full of yourself. That is why it is best to imply rather than directly state that you are good at something. Remember, being subtle and consistent is key.

7. Make sure not to go over the character limit

This one is actually really important for saving you lots of time and annoyance. The character limit is only 5300 characters! That is only about one page long. When I wrote my essay I accidentally misread it as 5300 words! That was a big mistake. Because when I copied my essay into the AMCAS essay box, it was literally twice as long. Then I had to go back and try and cut certain things out to make it fit. It was a very painful and upsetting process. So make sure you are constantly checking that you don’t go over the character limit. If it helps, you should write the essay in the essay box instead of a word processor.

8. Don’t have any grammar mistakes

This is an obvious one but also one that is easy to avoid. Having grammar mistakes is one of the easiest ways to show a lack of professionalism. So just make sure to double-check that.

9. Have multiple people proofread your essay and give feedback

This tip is a must. It is critical that you get other people’s opinion on your essay. Other people will see things that you won’t and have advice that you wouldn’t have ever considered. You will most likely have to go through several drafts of your essay before it is truly ready. I went through 6 drafts before I submitted my essay.

Follow these tips and you will have an essay that truly stands out and makes medical schools interested in you. The main key points to take from this article is: Write a story that will captivate your reader and keeps their attention, develop major themes and key points that your essay is based around, and to have others check your essay. Remember, the personal statement is your biggest opportunity to let you stand out. Write a powerful essay that will blow the socks off your reader! I believe in you! You can do this!

Tell us what you think by leaving a comment down below! For more pre-med tips and advice, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, twitter, and pinterest!

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Mar 26 2017

Three unique ways to make your med-school application stand out

As pre-medical students we face tough competition for getting into the medical school we want. We are pitted against many other strong applicants, often ones who will have a better GPA or MCAT score than us. This is why it is so important to find ways that make your medical school application stand out. There are two things to focus on when crafting the perfect application: Activities that are unique, which can grab the attention of those who are reviewing your application. And activities that show your character, which demonstrate your commitment to helping others. Adding these things could make the difference between you or someone else getting accepted into medical school.

Here are the three ways to make your medical school application stand out:

Go on a study abroad
Do tutoring
Lead a club at your university

Go on a study abroad:

Going on a study abroad trip looks great on a medical school application. A study abroad trip shows a lot to those who review your application: It shows that you are open to new experiences, you aren’t afraid to leave your comfort zone, and you are exposed to different lifestyles and cultures. This is something which will not only make your application stand out to those who review it but it will also give you some fun stories to talk about in your interview.

Do Tutoring:

Tutoring is another excellent way to make boost your medical school application. Tutoring is excellent for many reasons, but one of them is that it looks great on a your med-school application. Tutoring demonstrates your willingness to help your fellow students, that you take your studies seriously, and that you are good at interacting one-on-one with another person. These are all essential characteristics a physician must possess, so it makes the admission board happy when they see it.

Lead a club at your university:

A huge thing that medical schools want to see in prospective students is that they are leaders. Being able to create a club or be in a leadership role in a club makes you stand out from other applicants. This shows you are someone who is not only a leader but also responsible, which are crucial for being a physician.

As pre-med students we must find ways to make us stand out from the other applicants. This is especially true when your metrics (GPA and MCAT) are not above average or even below average. However, that does not mean we should slack in that department. What it does mean is that there are many ways to improve your chances of getting into medical school. Many pre-med students only focus on the GPA and MCAT, and that gives an advantage to those who take the time to add more to their application.

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Mar 22 2017

What score to aim for on the MCAT 2015

Its important to have a good score on the MCAT because if you don’t have a high enough score often medical schools won’t even bother looking at the rest of your application. Having a good score is essential to being a competitive applicant to medical school. So what is a good score on the new MCAT? The MCAT 2015 introduced a new scoring scale that seems like a radical departure from the old one. For many students this can be confusing. So let’s do a quick review of how MCAT 2015 is scored and then what score you should aim for.

MCAT 2015 Review:

The MCAT 2015 is comprised of four sections. The total score is now scaled from 472 to 528. With each individual section being scored from 118 to 132.

The four sections of the MCAT are:

Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems
Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems
Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior
Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills

For comparison, on the old MCAT there were just three sections which were scored from 1-15. The main differences between the old MCAT and the new MCAT is that the essay portion of the MCAT was replaced with the psychology and sociology section and the scoring scale was changed to 472-528.

So what score should I aim for on the MCAT 2015?

The AAMC tries to say that you cannot convert scores between the old MCAT and the new MCAT, because of all the changes made to the MCAT. However, that doesn’t mean its any less important than before to do well on the current MCAT 2015. The average MCAT score of matriculants into medical school in 2016 was 508.7 (which corresponds to roughly a 30 on the old MCAT). The average MCAT score of matriculants for each section was 127. This data was obtained from the aamc, you can check the link here.

average-2016-mcat-matriculant-score

Average applicant and matriculant MCAT scores. Picture from aamc website (link above).

Prior to the new MCAT, the national average on the MCAT was 31.4 in 2014, which corresponds to a 511 roughly. This is alot of numbers I know! So what score should I aim for??

510-512 or greater for total MCAT score
~128 per section

This is a safe goal to make for yourself for the new MCAT. This will put you above the average matriculant but is still possible to achieve. Obviously getting a higher score is better, but not necessary. If you achieve atleast a 510 or greater then ultimately your admission to medical school will depend on the other factors of your application such as your GPA, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, etc.

If you want to convert between old MCAT and the new MCAT scores, check out our article here!

And if you want to know the exact GPA and average MCAT score of each medical school, check out our free download here!

Some important things to know about your MCAT score:

– Medical schools want you to have a balanced score among all of your sections. It is not better to make a 132 on one section and then get a 118 on the other sections. Try to show you are balanced in all the sections.

– Your MCAT score is not the only factor in determining your success and ability to get into medical school. There are many other aspects to a competitive medical school application that just your MCAT. These other areas include things such as your extracurricular activies, letters of recommendation, and GPA.

– There is no score that will guarantee you get into medical school. Like I mentioned in the last point, its important that you have a strong application in every area not just the MCAT. Your MCAT score will help get the admission officers to look at your application in the further detail but it alone probably won’t get you into medical school. Make sure you are shadowing, volunteering, and maintaining a high or good GPA.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions, you can always leave a comment down below!

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Mar 21 2017

MCAT score converter – Convert scores between old MCAT and MCAT 2015

We know that the MCAT 2015 scoring scale can be confusing for many pre-med students. So we put together a few tables for you to help with converting between the new score and old score! The first picture is for the conversion of the total score for the old MCAT to MCAT 2015. The second picture is for the conversion for a single section from the old MCAT to the MCAT 2015. Please make sure to share this page and help your fellow pre-med!

MCAT score conversion for total score and percentile:

mcat-score-conversion-total

MCAT score conversion for a single section:

mcat-score-conversion-ss

We hope this helps! If you want to know what score to aim for on the MCAT 2015, check out our article here!

Also if you want to know the average MCAT score of every medical school in the United States, check out our medical school database to see how you stack up.

Please share this page with your pre-med friends! Spread the love!

Tell us what you think by leaving a comment down below! For more pre-med tips and advice, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, twitter, and pinterest!

Did you find this article helpful? Let us know!

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