Timeframe for new med students

WayOutWestMom
Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:55:55 +0000

The medical school admission process takes about a full year to complete. And there’s no way you can complete your med school pre-reqs in summer '12 and be accepted into the med school by Fall '13. You’ll be lucky to get in by Fall '14.

You need to take the MCAT before you can apply and even if you take it immediately after completing your pre-reqs, it still takes 4 weeks to get your score back. Sept is too late to apply because med schools work on a kind of rolling admissions and most of the interview invitations have already been tendered by the time you’re applying.

You also will be lacking in several vital non-academic requirements–medical shadowing, hospital volunteering and community service.

Your timeline will look more like this–

Fall '11–, begin physician shadowing, hospital volunteering
Summer '12–finish pre med classes
Fall '12–take MCAT, continue volunteering
Summer '13–start med school application process, continue volunteering
Summer/Fall '14–start med school (I believe most start in July or August)

BTW, med school admission is extremely competitive–that 3.2 GPA you posted elsewhere isn’t going to get you into med school. The average successful applicant has a 3.66 GPA with a 3.5+ GPA in their BCMP courses.