Is Low Stress Med School Admission Possible?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
#1

<p>Study</a> Hacks Blog Archive Is Low Stress Med School Admissions Possible?</p>

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This approach generates what has been identified to me as the ideal med school applicant: someone with high grades, high MCAT scores, and a solid collection of relevant medical activities. The key, however, is that you can accomplish these goals without having to have your semesters overflow with multiple hard courses and demanding activities.

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<p>Very interesting article that I think would help many people. Although the author didn't go through the process, he offers some great tips. And as a long time lurker (I don't post much), his advice seems to be what BDM (doing EC's in the summer) and kristin5792 (organizing a program) did. </p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

#2

<p>^Doing EC's in the summer was not possible for my D. Nothing was available in a summer in our home town. And she did not need to take summer classes either. She mostly relaxed during summers, spent time with her HS friends, volunteered a little, since even volunteering was not easy to get in. She did everything during school year at college, where job, Med. School Research, volunteering and many other EC's were easily available for her.<br>
Her approach at lowering stress which has worked greatly was to be in bs/md program. Maybe she had some stress, but from parent's prospective it looked like she had much more fun than stress. She starts at Med. School outside of her bs/md in few weeks.</p>

#3

<p>It's easy to have a low stress medical admission when you have perfect stats, ecs, etc... I for one disagree with a number of points in the article, particularly the MCAT bit. Granted, he doesn't define how early is early, but there is nothing worse than spending three years lightly studying for the MCAT. Does it work, probably, but it ultimately drains a tremendous amount of time relative to just studying hard for a couple of months. You can get an equal effect by simply taking physics, o-chem or advanced inorganic chem, and a bio course immediately before prepping hard for the MCAT.</p>

#4

<p>The short answer to this question is: absolutely, but apply to a 7/8 year program while in high school. Just make sure that you can apply out without losing the 'guaranteed' spot.</p>

#5

<p>Just quickly browsing the article seems kind of faulty.</p>

<p>The author bases all this off of the "happiest med students" he met. This adds a ton of bias to the advice for obvious reasons. </p>

<p>1.Majoring in what you want to reduce stress seems counter-intuitive. Doing this means you are taking that major's requirements AND the pre-reqs, which means more class and more stress.
2. Spread out hard classes = common sense?
3
4. Okay its college. Almost everyone is going to be stayng up late before an exam. College students are not robots. But yeah courses should be the main focus.
5. seems to make sense to me
6.makes sense to devote more time to ecs in summer, but should not be relied on to fully replace 3.
7. Prob the best advice to set urself apart.</p>

#6

<p>Interesting article...</p>

#7

<p>The key to a low-stress medical school process is to remember the big picture: a career in medicine. I do not mean "being a doctor" or "being successful" I mean a genuine interest in the field that is medicine. Every step of the way gets more difficult. The standardized tests don't stop, the workload increases, the consequence of failure increases, etc etc. The people who survive are the ones who enjoy what they're doing because they are the ones who when times get rough, can remind themselves of the aspect that they enjoy, whether it's working with patients, the study of the human body, the study of disease, whatever aspect of the enormous field of medicine interests you.</p>

#8

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Majoring in what you want to reduce stress seems counter-intuitive. Doing this means you are taking that major's requirements AND the pre-reqs, which means more class and more stress

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<p>Most majors are on the order of 40 credits. You typically need 120 credits to graduate. You shouldn't have difficulty squeezing in the premed prereq's. It's really not "additional" classes since everyone has to take electives anyway.</p>

#9

<p>Brown, the things you describe are absolutely true for a low stress medical career. For a low stress medical admission, one simply should focus on things that he or she is passionate and interested in, both medical and non-medical.</p>