premed

How to Spend a Premed Summer

by
premed summer

Summer—the season of sun, swimming, relaxing, and traveling. For most people, summer can be the best season of the year and a time to decompress from the demands of normal life. However, most premedical students find themselves in a predicament with regards to summer—do they do something they enjoy or focus on an activity that will help their application to medical school? Depending on who you ask, you will likely get a different answer on how to spend your free time, but after years of advising premedical students, my greatest advice is to do both!

Read more

How To Get More CARS Questions Right

by
Get More CARS Questions Right

One of the questions that we hear most often from students is “How do I get more answers right on MCAT CARS practice passages and in the exam itself?” That’s a critical question because your score depends totally on how many questions you answer correctly in the time allotted. When you look at the methods described in most MCAT CARS practice books, they give you a lot of tips and tricks on how to answer questions. And when you learn these tips and tricks and use them on practice passages, the first thing you notice is that they don’t work very well. You’re still getting a lot of wrong answers.

Why is that? It’s because these methods are anecdotal rather than scientific. Think of it this way: when a patient comes to see you with a serious medical condition, are you going to use tips and tricks to treat her?  No, You’re going to use your basic knowledge of medicine combined with your reasoning ability to do a proper diagnosis and treatment.

Read more

Preparing for Medical School as a High School Student

by
high school student

Looking to college and beyond is a major step for a high school student. You are about to embark on your journey into adulthood and establish yourself as a college student. For students considering a career in medicine, it is not too early to start exploring this path in high school. To give perspective, to become a physician, it takes four years of undergrad, four year of medical school and then three to seven years of post-graduate training. In essence, making the decision to become a physician is no feat to be taken lightly. If you are considering this path, you can start to solidify your decision in high school. Here is what you can be doing to determine if becoming a physician is the right career choice for you!

Read more

Non-Academic Ideas to Boost Your Med School Chances

by
non-academic ideas

At this point, you are probably already aware of how competitive medical school admissions are. For instance, you may already know that the most competitive med schools boast acceptance rates of nearly 3%—that’s almost half the acceptance rate of Harvard College. Pretty dire, right?

The truth, however, is that while medical school admissions are and will continue to be incredibly competitive, there are a number of steps you can take throughout college to distinguish yourself from the enormous pool of hyper-qualified candidates. Along with doing the typical extracurricular activities for med school like lab research, teaching experience, etc. the best candidates think outside of the box to make their extracurriculars stand out.

Read more