Two surprising things that medical schools really care about

Medical schools care about alot of things. They have many expectations of those who apply to their programs. They want a high GPA, good MCAT, shadowing hours, volunteering, unique experiences that make you a good candidate, letters of recommendation. These are the things that most pre-meds know about. There are however many other things that medical schools value in a candidate which they don’t put onto their website. Knowing the things that medical schools value in their candidates is what can tip the odds into your favor when applying against other strong applicants. You can leverage this information to your advantage in your medical school applications and you should. During my first year of medical school I realized two things that I wish I knew before applying that could have made my application even more competitive! I want to share that with you all.

1. You have the ability to be self-sustaining and can cope with stress

This was made surprisingly important during our orientation of medical school and through out the year by faculty. During orientation we went over about the realities of physician burnout and how medicine can be stressful. We also went over various coping strategies and self-care methods to know for at least an hour! They also spent an incredible amount of time talking about all the services the school offers for students for their well-being. Then throughout the year we had several mandatory wellness sessions that included activities such as teaching us how to cook simple meals and talking about the importance of mental health. This includes taking proper measures to ensure you have health coverage, whether through insurance or savings (HSA Future Value Calculator). So it can go without saying that they really care that their students are healthy and happy! How can you use this to your advantage as a pre-med? Simple. Make sure that you emphasize in your application and during your interview numerous ways that you cope with stress in healthy/positive ways. This could be things like running, meditating, reading books, playing sports, etc. You want this to be authentic though, you should have more to say than I like to run. Maybe mention that you have ran a few marathons. This will be more memorable and impactful than just saying you like to run. As a side note, remember you always want to try and find ways to be unique and stick out in a good way to the admissions team! Besides showing that you have ways to cope with stress you also want to emphasize that you are self-sufficient and can take care of yourself. This can be done via certain activities such as cooking or if you lived abroad before. Ultimately just try to find authentic ways you can show the medical team that you have what it takes to handle the stress load of medical schools because that’s what they want to know.

2. You can help your classmates be successful

This goes along with the last point which is that medical schools want to know that their students can handle the stress load of medical school. The medical schools are investing alot of time and resources into turning you into a doctor! They want to make sure that everyone they accept will succeed and become a doctor. They don’t want students who will give up and quit out, that represents a loss of time and resources on their behalf and makes them look bad. You must remember this when applying! They want all of their future students to succeed. That is why they require such high GPAs, MCATs, volunteering, shadowing, letters of reccomendation, etc. It is because they want to be assured that their students can succeed. This is why having the ability to help your classmates succeed is something that medical schools want in an applicant. Often times the success of students lies not just in themselves but in having great classmates who will help eachother out. Showing to medical schools that you will be a student who is group-oriented and is a team player will make them feel you are a good addition to the class and can provide some benefit to the other students.Knowing this will help you fine-tune your application to making the medical schools want you! If you can not only show that you can handle medical school and succeed but also show that you can help support your classmates do it then that makes you really appealing in the eyes of the medical school! You can show this through activities such as being a tutor, being a peer mentor, serving a leadership position in some club at school, and even if you have done alot of team sports (soccer, basketball, etc.). These activities help provide the image of someone who is team oriented and knows how to work well with others.

Alright so keep these tips in mind when you are deciding on what extra-curricular activities to choose as a pre-med and what you want to emphasize on your application! Think like the medical school and know what their agenda is. If you know what they want then you will be able to turn yourself into a stronger applicant! Its the small things like this that add up and make you get that spot in your dream medical school!

Check out this video I made on the topic! Youtube video

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The Rule of four passes

As you all might know I have a lot of articles about studying advice. That’s because I believe there is a science to effective studying and anyone can improve their grades if they learn how to be an effective studier. I am constantly evaluating my methods of studying and realizing what works well and what doesn’t. It is important that we learn to be efficient with our studying methods and utilize methods that have been shown to work. You need to constantly be refining your study methods and making it more efficient for you. During my first year of medical school, I have realized yet another component to this “science of effective studying”. Something I call the rule of four passes.

So what is the rule of four passes? Essentially it takes at least four complete passes through your lecture material/powerpoint from start to finish to be able to retain it for the exam. This means that just looking at a lecture or powerpoint once or twice is usually not enough to learn the material well enough for an exam. This depends a lot also on the density of the material. This is especially true when you are in medical school and you have lecture powerpoints that are 130 slides of dense material. You won’t be able to retain the information by just going through it once or twice. It will take at least four passes through it to really retain it. Also I have found an effective way to do these four passes to get the most out of it. So lets talk about what you should do starting with your first pass through the material to the last one.

First pass:

So by the first pass I mean the first time you are sitting down and going through your lecture material/powerpoint. So essentially the main goal of your first pass is to simply get used to the material and get acquainted with it. It is not about focusing on the details or writing notes. Simply read your lecture material with the focus of just trying to understand what’s going on. Think of it like getting your bearings. You want to understand the big picture and what the lecture is all about. If there are things you don’t understand, look them up and research them. Other than that its just simply about getting used to the material.

Second pass:

The objective of the second pass is two things: Understanding the material more deeply and taking notes on your lecture material. So as you are going through your powerpoint/lecture material for the second time you want to be going slower and aiming for understanding the material more deeply. As you are going through the material you will now be taking notes, underlining and highlighting the important information.

Here are some examples of how I take notes on my slides:

Notice how I am trying to identify the things that are most important. These notes will help me during my third pass to focus on the highest yield information.

Third pass:

The objective of the third pass is to really memorize all of the important facts and information from the lecture you will need for your exam. Now that you have gone through the material twice and become well acquainted with it, you want to really focus on understanding it fully and memorizing what matters. This pass is about understanding the nitty-gritty details. Your notes and highlights from the second pass should be helpful here as it will identify what is important to focus on. Make sure you take it slower this time and really focus on understanding your material and memorizing all key information.

Fourth pass:

Essentially the fourth pass is a self-review of the all of the lecture information. Now that you have gone through the material three times you should understand the material very well and have memorized all the key information. Start at the beginning of the lecture material again and go through each slide and quiz yourself as you go through it. You want to quiz yourself on everything you can in the lecture. Make sure you understand all the things you could be tested on. Quizzing yourself as you go through the material will allow you to assess how well you know the material and if there is anything you need to work on.

Thats the four passes! You don’t have to do all four passes all at once. You want to take breaks between each pass through the material. This gives you time to absorb the information and let your brain to take it in. Its fine to even do the passes across multiple days if you want, I would personally recommend that. You can do more than four passes obviously if you want as four is the minimum I believe it takes you to be ready for your exam. If you are to do more passes through the material I would recommend focusing on quizzing yourself on the information and identifying areas to focus on. The rule of four passes really lets you know that you can’t cram for an exam and expect to do well. Doing well on exams and getting high grades has alot to do with multiple repetitions of going through information, similiar to the concept of spaced repetition I talk about in this article. I hope that you all are excited to add another tool to your study toolkit! This is a great concept to understand which will help you do better on all your exams!

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