I’m not an expert and it varies by medical school, but that sounds much higher than anything I have seen before.
But hopefully he has good pre-health advising (not just peers).
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Kiddo all in all has been thrilled with her first set of courses at Harvard and would recommend them all, especially Physics:
PHYSICS 19 - Intro to Theoretical Physics: amazing professor, really interesting topics, a dream come true for her, she loves Physics night and the friends she’s made in this class.
MATH 22a - Linear Algebra: interesting topic and likes the proof-heavy approach and problem sets, but she is generally not a fan of the large lecture format, as she really learns most readily in small classes.
PHIL 9 - Empiricists, Scientists, and Charlatans: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science - absolutely loves the discussions, lectures are fascinating, but she’s not a fan of the 9am time slot given her newfound college night owl ways.
E-PSCI 100: The Missing MATLAB Course: A Practical Intro to Programming and Data Analysis - only 3 students and a professor, so they have individualized instruction and very detailed feedback. She’s learning a ton about coding and data analysis, but also picking up info about earthquakes along the way. She may go on to take other earth and planetary science classes, particularly from her current professor.
She is also learning a lot outside of classroom from her friends and that has resulted in a new interest in linguistics.
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He really needs clinical hours where he gets experience working directly in patient care. So, CNA, EMT, hospice volunteer, things of that nature. IMO it is quite difficult to know one wants to become a doctor without having cared for patients. I don’t know that there is a minimum number of clinical hours needed to be competitive, but I expect it’s high (successful PA applicants have several thousand clinical hours). The average age of starting med schools students is 24/25ish, which means most take one to two years post-graduation to work to make their apps more competitive…that work often includes direct involvement in patient care.
AAMC is a good resource: Aspiring Docs® Fact Sheets: Get Experience | Students & Residents
I am sure @wayoutwestmom can add more, and you would get more great info if you started a separate thread!
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Applicants to “top” med schools are rock stars --top GPA and MCAT scores; exceptional community service with disadvantaged groups; plentiful clinical exposure ; exceptional research experiences (with a senior thesis or a publication if possible); leadership roles in their activities; the highest level of recommendation from their letter writers; well written, thoughtful essays about why medicine and usually a great story that stitchest their CV contents and application together.
Your son will also need to match his application portfolio to the school published mission. Not all “top” schools highly value basic research.
(BTW, the USNews rankings are trash and most of the formerly top 15 or 20 med schools no longer share data with USNews so any ranks USNews assigns them is based on guesswork. As they say in medicine–ask 5 people to name the top 10 med schools and you’ll get a 75 different answers.)
500 shadowing hours is overkill. 50-60 hours distributed among several specialties (which must include at least one primary care field) is enough.
Hundred of hours of clinical experience is a given for any med school applicant to any school. Ditto for community service where 250+ hours just prevents them from getting screened out. (Med schools that value service–like Tulane, Georgetown, etc expect much higher levels of service than just 250 hours–think 1000+)
Research, unless your son is aiming at MD/PhD, is also frequently overvalued ny naive pre-meds. Clinical exposure is much more important.
See p. 15 of this report.
Using MCAT Data in 2024 Medical Student Selection
Page 15 has the results of a survey of adcomms that shows what experiences. academics and other factors they use when making decision about who to interview for med school. admission.
Research is valued at research intensive med schools (and for MD/PhD applicants) but for everywhere else it’s just the cherry on the top of the cake.
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I would never have gotten into medical school today!
I know. I hear that a lot from doctors.
The increase in MCAT scores over the past 10-15 years has a been pretty remarkable.
While 250 hours of community service or clinical exposure sounds like a lot. It breaks down to less than 1 hour/week over 4 years of undergrad.
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Thank you, @WayOutWestMom, @Mwfan1921, @NiceUnparticularMan and @helpingthekid73. This is all very helpful. My son is coming home in a few days and I’ll share your comments and resources.
And he is for sure very naive about this process. Before he decides for sure which direction he wants to go, I’ll recommend that he do his research and talk to knowledgeable mentors rather than just the rumor mill.
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One thing’s for sure, in the area of healthcare, there’s a lot of possible career paths in addition to MD/DO. But most pre-med undergrad students don’t realize that yet. 
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That’s true. Some realize once they start shadowing and talking to physicians…and learn they don’t like it. Others develop different interests.
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As other have mentioned, there are all sorts of healthcare careers that don’t involve earning a MD or DO degree.
I often recommend this website to students:
It has a database of health-related careers searchable by years of education required and by expected income range.
I’m sure there are jobs in there your son has never even thought of. (Cardiac perfusionist? Anesthesiologist assistant? Medical physicist? Medical librarian? Genetics counselor? Biostatistician? )
Your son’s campus likely has a health professions advisor. Your son should plan to attend one of the info sessions the health professions advising office offers or arrange for a one-on-one meeting with the HP advisor to talk about what things your son needs to know if he wants to go into medicine.
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One more thing… before your son commits himself to a PhD, he really should talk seriously with a research mentor about the job market for bio PhDs–which is quite poor.
For the past 50 years, the US has produced many, many more bio PhDs than there academic positions available. Only about 2-3% of bio PhDs end up in academic tenure-track positions. The rest…do something else.
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So S24 and I had a nice chat on Friday early evening (he was killing time before heading out for fun stuff), and we actually discussed some of these scheduling issues, and how different people handle them.
Long story short, he is now looking at the possibility of taking some Physics in the summer, in order to make it easier to have the option to do study abroad!
Bit of a twist, but I think it makes sense. He didn’t love his one HS Physics class (algebra-based). I think he might actually like Calc-based Physics more. But I could see how being able to focus on it as his only class, and not seeing it as a distraction from classes he really wants to take, could be a good idea independent of study abroad.
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Back many many years ago I thought that the calculus based class would be more interesting and that I would do better. I was very very wrong. The other thing to keep in mind in deciding which class is who is in it. S24 is in the physics with calculus class at his LAC and everyone is going incredibly well. There is no curve and they spend up to 20 hours a week working on problem sets. The algebra based class for non majors is probably less intense and better suited for those who don’t love physics.
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For good or ill, the Bio major at WashU requires the standard Calc-based Physics sequence, 191/192, and it is also the recommended sequence for premeds regardless of major. There is an alternative “focused” sequence that is recommended for actual Physics majors, 193/194, and they also separate out the sections for first-years from the sections for sophomores, juniors, and seniors (191F versus 191U respectively).
Long story short, 191U is reportedly chock full of premeds and such trying to get the best possible grades. Of course so are most of S24’s Bio major courses, but that is part of the logic of not doing it at the same time he is also in a couple more courses like that.
Just chiming in - my daughter is majoring in Nuclear Medicine with a concentration in healthcare administration. It gives her all the necessary prereqs for medical school if she does decide to go that route, but also prepares her for a very in-demand career in healthcare right after her bachelors. She will be doing clinicals at Columbia in NYC starting next semester and will likely have a job lined up before graduation. Starting salaries are very high in fields like this! I wished schools marketed these programs better because there are so many kids that love science but don’t necessarily want to go the medical school or the nursing route.
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I have a friend who is a master’s degree level radiation therapist. She not only treats patients, she helped design the new treatment facility at the university hospital where she works. She used to teach radiation oncology residents a national cancer treatment center and is currently on the national certification board for her field.
She makes an excellent salary and has great work-life balance–which is more than a lot of doctors can say.
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The kid called this morning after her English exam was done. Said that by the end of the week, she’s going to be brain dead. 
She’s looking forward to winter break.
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S24 comes home on the redeye Tues night/Weds am. Cannot wait to have him home for several weeks!
Seems like his first term has gone very well.
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S24 will join us in UK, haven’t seen him since August which has been so hard! He FaceTimes us a few times a week and I can’t believe how much he’s physically changed in such a short time. Definitely hitting the gym and using the meal swipes, looks so much more mature.
Some updates on important topics. First, I haven’t seen the chain in a long time, I think it was a short-lived style choice. Unclear how much we played a roll in that. Second, he said he hesitated to say out loud but an A in MVC is back on the table due to some newer grades, will all come down to the final.
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C24 doesn’t come home until the end of next week and I can’t wait to see them! I used to kind of roll my eyes when college brochures said there’s more to do on campus than you can actually do, but it’s proving true in C’s case. They’re constantly busy, especially with various theater productions. Even better, they seem to have found a few disparate groups of “their people,” which makes me really happy for them.
Plus, they keep sending me pictures from the on-campus kitten rescue where they volunteer.
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