p reepa

and also, on the same site i found an applicant with a 3.97 overall gpa and a 35 med school. the applicant happened to apply to harvard, and i assumed that based on her scores+grades she would have a decent shot at getting in, but she didn't. this leads me to ask, what does harvard (or any ivy league school for that matter) look for in admissions? by the way, what does the pre and post secondary component of the application review process mean?

bluedevilmike

Yes, I do think applying late is a big disadvantage. The solution is simply to apply early.

I also want to mention to you that a 30 frankly is not good enough for admission into the "top" medical schools. Generally I advise against applying to any schools where either your GPA or your MCAT is below their average, meaning that I don't think kids should bother applying to (say) Duke unless they have a 36 or 37, or some other component of their application (URM status being basically the only one).

Another common reason why students with "high" MCAT scores will be denied admission is a lack of balance in their scores. A 36 for example, might be a 12-12-12 (very good) or a 15-15-6 (you won't get in anywhere).

I would talk to an available premedical advisor about the bizarre structure with which your chemistry classes appear to be set up. Medical schools are very specific about wanting a lab component, but this is not like biology, where you have your pick of courses; you must take genchem (or AP and biochem) and organic, and they are not interested in pchem. Find out what students at your school usually do.

bluedevilmike

Again I must emphasize that a 35 is really not that good a score for applying to schools like Harvard. Generally, too, Harvard and Stanford in particular heavily emphasize extracurriculars and student diversity. Generally you're advised not to bother with those two schools, as their admissions practices are kind of difficult to predict and - while they're very good - they're not quite considered the top couple clinical schools in the country. (I don't mean to suggest that you will be harmed by attending there, as you most certainly will not be. I simply mean that if clinical training is your goal, there are other schools which have reputations for emphasizing those components of their education more heavily.)

Medical school admissions occur in three segments: primary (one essay for all schools, extracurriculars, money, and grades), secondaries (varying numbers of essays per school, anywhere from 0-9, more money, and letters of recommendation), and interviews.

tangents

When you guys say apply early, how early do you relatively mean? Let's say I took the MCATS June of Junior year, when should I apply? On mdapplicants.com I see people generally applying around june and then rapidly getting their secondaries in etc; and surprising many of the applicants on that site do highly recommend to apply early.

bluedevilmike

My timetable is probably a little more strict than necessary:

MCAT grades in by June 1.
AMCAS in between June 7-10.

Secondaries turned around within two weeks - ideally one, I managed ten days - of receipt.

Interview timing is another beast altogether, and we'll ignore that on these boards.

brendansjci

The way classes are set up at my school, I won't be able to take animal physiology until junior year. I'd rather take the MCATs the august before junior year when I'm still fresh with all the other prerequisites, so that leaves me with a coupld of questions:

Is this a course that I could just learn on my own as I study for the MCATs?

Is it worth taking after I take the MCATs, or is it something I would just pick up in Med. School anyway?

bluedevilmike

Physiology is not officially on the MCAT - you should be able to deduce everything from basic biological principles, so it's theoretically not a part of the MCAT. I just personally find it helpful.

And generally, physiology is one of very few courses that will come up directly again in medical school, so I think it's a sound plan to try to take it anyway, if you can.

mjawan

Hey BDM...Yeah for me the progress is a bit later, I didn't get AMCAS in til end of July, I spent weeks on my personal statement. I'm working on secondaries now. I think a good goal for everybody is to finish their secondaries before school starts. It really depends on your stats though. People with better stats can be more forgiving on when to apply, but still its tough.

bluedevilmike

I should probably have included "December 31: Personal Statement completed."

my$0.02

bump ten char

ldmom06

bluedevilmike -

I have a question for you on behalf of my daughter....I hope you can help. She is at UNC-CH and organic chemistry is offered over three semesters rather than two. I would imagine the advantage to this three part series is better coverage of the topics and therefore better preparation for MCATS.... and perhaps higher grades. But we are concerned about timing for the MCATs. She is a freshman in her first semester of Gen Chem (101), and plans to take her second semester of Gen Chem (102) in Spring 2007. If she delays the start of the three-part Orgo series until Fall 2007, she will not complete Organic Chem until December of 2008.

Would you recommend taking Gen Chem 102 and the first Organic Chem class together in the Spring 2007 semester, so that she completes Orgo by the end of her sophomore year? It seems like the best way to take the MCAT is after a summer of preparation rather than midyear while trying to juggle test prep with regular coursework. But I don't know if taking two Chems and a Bio are recommended, along with Calc II.

She getting frustrated about spring scheduling already. Facing losing her spot on women's crew because practices conflict with labs...and now she is worried about how to manage this unusual chemistry series. She is also in Honors and has certain course requirements with that program which complicate as well.

Any help/advice from anyone would be appreciated.

bluedevilmike

Hi LD,

Assure your daughter that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. For one thing, the MCAT's new shorter response time changes the process considerably. This is the most important thing for her to take away from this: there are plenty of perfectly acceptable options for her at this point. I'm about to give you four separate - and all perfectly acceptable - options she has.

First: Just take it in the middle/end of junior year. Notice that the currently "normal" time to take the MCAT (this all changes with the new test dates) is April. At Duke, this is not merely in the middle of the school year; it's just before finals. And yet things seem to work out okay anyway. So taking it towards the beginning of summer (June) or after Christmas break (January) are both even improvements over that.

Second: Take the MCAT with incomplete coursework. I want to emphasize to you that the organic chemistry on the MCAT is not all that difficult. If she's using the same book as me (Louden), she needs basically chapters 1, 4, 20, 21, and 22. I say this not to give you a topics list but to underscore how scantily organic chemistry is covered. Even beyond that, it's less than one third of the biology section, which is already one third of the test. Skipping organic chemistry completely on the MCAT would cost you probably around four points. (This is a big deal, but it's small when you consider how "important" OChem is supposed to be for premeds.) Again, things may change with the introduction of CBT, but I don't think this will change. I often, in fact, recommend taking the MCAT before physics at all - the course simply isn't necessary. Organic chemistry, while not quite the same, could be treated similarly if she feels strongly about it - and has the help of a preparation course (which I recommend anyway).

Third: don't bother with the third semester at all. Check to see when she covers carboxylic acid reactions. This is as far as she needs to learn for the MCAT. If she is there (or nearly there) by the end of the second semester, it may not be necessary for her to take the third semester at all - or at least no need to take it before the MCAT.

Fourth: take all the classes simultaneously. It will be difficult, but certainly not impossible. My suggestion is to see how she's doing in her classes at UNC-CH and make a decision later. Some kids will be up to the task; some won't. Can I make a confession? My GPA always rose - invariably - when I was taking more classes simultaneously, and harder ones at that. I always found that I had less success with one hard class and three easy ones than I had with four difficult ones and two easy ones. People react differently to busy-ness, and your daughter has plenty of time to make the decision.

smurfgirl

is it bad if I want to go pre-med and have not signed up for any science classes this year? (I'm a freshman) My sister and my mom told me not to take any classes this year because they weren't sure if the profs here would be good or not (they want me to find out from upperclassmen) and that I don't have to major in the sciences to go premed.

I disagreed with them 100% and I believe that this decision will come back and bite me in the rear later on.

bluedevilmike

1.) It's true that you don't have to major in a science, but you do have to take science classes!

2.) Why would the professors be any better if you wait to find out?

3.) It will certainly not "bite" you per se if you decide to push things back by a year, it just means you'll need to compress your next couple of years by a little bit. It's annoying and certainly not something you'd want to do voluntarily, but it's hardly going to kill your chances or even force you to take a year off.

smurfgirl

I should've asked them question number 2 before I started here.

Isn't it going to be more stressful later on?