WHY is premed considered hard?

bluedevilmike
Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:49:53 +0000

The medical school process is substantially different from the undergrad process.

First, these cute little things that undergraduate schools do - they want valedictorians, kids who were on their yearbook staffs, athletes, etc - tend to be somewhat deemphasized at the med school level. URMs still get a considerable boost, but my GUESS is that it’s nothing like the boost they receive during the undergrad process.

Second, the interview is much more important in the med school process. In the undergraduate process - at least at my school - it has absolutely no impact whatsoever unless you really do something atrocious.

There are probably other differences as well (the MCAT is probably more important than the SAT, med schools break your GPA up into BCPM and Other), but those are the two that come to mind.



And a 3.5 GPA is on the low side, depending on what school you go to. Nationally speaking, it is at roughly 3.65 that candidates have a 50/50 shot, all other things being equal. Which, of course, they never are.



When you go to USNews, make sure to pay attention not to the overall rank but to the residency score component, as that’s the component that most premeds care more about.