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10 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Medical School Application

Joshua — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:28:11 +0000

Applying to medical school is tough. Really tough. There are more qualified applicants than there are spots. The number of applicants is increasing every year (and subsequently, the number of qualified applicants) while the number of medical school spots isn’t keeping pace.

But if you want it bad enough, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, you will get there. No matter how good an applicant you think you are, there is always room to be better, and ways to increase your chances of getting that medical school acceptance.

Feel that you’ve done everything you can? Looking for the next thing you could work on? Then this article is for you. I present to you: 10 things you can do right here right now to make yourself a better applicant to medical school.

1. Study
Whether it’s for tomorrow’s exam, the MCAT, or for a quiz five days from now, studying a bit more can’t hurt – it can only help. The truth is GPA and MCAT are the two most important factors for getting your foot into the door of a medical school, so academic excellence should be at the top of your list of priorities.

2. Review your application and identify areas of improvement
It’s always a good idea to review your progress as an applicant and find holes in a future medical school application. Are you very involved in your community but lacking direct leadership experience? Are you missing 1 or more of the 3 strong referees you need for letters? Are you overly-involved in the community but struggling in your university courses?

I am strong believer in self-reflection to figure out what your next steps should be. If you have extensive leadership experience, there’s no point joining the executive of another club (unless you really want to). Try something else and make yourself an even more well-rounded and interesting applicant. Not to mention trying new things will increase your skill set and often give you added perspective on life.

If you want to know what you need to work on as a medical school applicant, don’t ask me – I won’t know the answer. You need to spend time looking at your own progress and identifying what’s missing from your application.

3. Look up the latest information on medical school admissions
Admissions requirements can change from year to year. The MCAT cutoffs are the University of Western Ontario’s medical school change every year. In the last few years alone, McMaster added the Verbal Reasoning component of the MCAT to their admissions process and McGill University completely removed the need to take the MCAT.

Smart students are resourceful students. Keep up to date with the latest admissions information and don’t miss out on opportunities. I wonder how many potential future doctors didn’t apply to McGill this past year just because they didn’t realize they didn’t need the MCAT anymore.

4. Ask friends and family members to review your application
As the authors of our applications, we know exactly what our words and sentences mean, even if they aren’t necessarily written well. It’s always good to get a second (or third or fourth) pair of eyes to read over your essays and applications. From small things like spelling and grammar to large things like ideas and themes, it’s good to get someone else’s perspective – someone other than you is going to be evaluating your application, right? So it makes sense to see that your work is understandable to complete strangers.

5. Keep track of your activities and accomplishments
Even if you’re not applying to medical school for a year or two, I highly suggest keeping track of your accomplishments and activities, both academic and non-academic. It could be as simple as a list of these items or a professional resume, whatever you like, as long as it includes pertinent information such as dates, name of activity/accomplishment and brief description of activity/accomplishment.

I suggest this for a few reasons. 1.) It’s easy to forget all of the amazing work you accomplish over the years and you’re bound to forget something as time goes by. 2.) Having all of this prepared makes completing your medical school application a lot less of a pain (especially the 48-item OMSAS autobiographical sketch).

6. When you experience an event in your life that impacts your interest in medicine, take time to reflect and write it down
“Why medicine?” is the toughest question you’re going to have to answer when you write your essay, when you take part in interviews, and in fact, is a question you’re going to keep asking yourself even throughout medical school as you realize it doesn’t actually get easier. The reality is that the answer to this question is rarely going to be one obvious thing. For many of us, the answer to this question is going to be a myriad of reasons and experiences, and if you can keep track of any key revelations you go through, it will make answering this questions (and understanding yourself) easier as you go through the admissions process.

7. Read HealthyDebate.ca
I have been asked about my opinion on the Canadian health care system at both traditional and MMI medical school interviews. Clearly, having a basic understanding of how our health care system works and some key problems we are facing today would be useful for both your interviews and for practicing as a future physician.

In retrospect, I actually think it’s kind of funny that we are expected to answer questions like this. In my first two years of medical school, I have basically learned next to nothing of significance about our health care system, which I think is actually concerning, but I digress and that rant is for another day. I have spent my summer so far working on a project that has significantly increased my understanding and shaped my current perspective on our health care system. If I had to answer those interview questions all over again, questions like “what are the biggest problems facing health care today”, my answers would be extremely different.

In any case, a newly developed and excellent resource for learning about Canadian health care issues is HealthyDebate.ca and I highly encourage you to read their articles. I admit I am probably biased because I know some of their authors, but based on my conversations with them (who by the way have terrific credentials/qualifications), I am confident they are providing you with good information.

8. Work on your ECs
We all have unanswered volunteer emails, club events to organize, and 99 research papers to read for our lab work. Get off this blog and spend an extra 30 minutes today and take care of one of those things!

9. Plan ahead for the future
Getting into medical school is hard. It’s important to have a plan for both getting in and for what happens if you don’t get in at your next attempt. Think about how you are going to spend your summers, how you are going to spend your non-academic life during the school year, and what you might do if you graduate and do not get into medical school. If you are in your fourth year of undergrad, realize that grad schools have deadlines. If grad school is something you are thinking of, make sure you know those deadlines. The same goes for any other opportunities you are thinking of, even if it’s just for a summer – all opportunities have deadlines, keep track of them, and plan ahead.

10. Start completing your application
The earlier you start your application, the less work you have later on, and the more time you have to fix any bugs and fill any holes. Inevitably you’re going to find yourself stressing out the night before your medical school applications are due and telling yourself “I wish I started earlier”. Well, earlier is now, so get cracking!

Any more tips to add to the list? Let us know!

Stanford Admissions Video – Medicine, Business, Education and Law

Joshua — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:57:49 +0000

Thanks to Gagan, one of our readers, who suggested sharing the following video:

“February 8, 2011 – The deans of four Stanford graduate schools discussed the values of a liberal arts major and how that might impact a student who is interested in applying to professional school. They also talked about how their admission process searches for a diverse range of students with differing experiences.”

NOTE: The medical school part starts at 13:30

Enjoy, and thanks Gagan!

Is there a “perfect” medical specialty?

Joshua — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:12:35 +0000

It’s day 3 since I started my 30 posts in 30 days challenge and I’m already behind pace since this is my second post.. oh well, just gotta double up one of the days!

Last night I was having dinner with a fellow medical student and friend of mine from undergad, and one of the concepts that came up in the discussion was the question of whether a “perfect specialty” exists. To clarify, I’m not talking about one particular specialty being better than the others or being particularly “perfect”. Rather, we were asking whether the concept of a “perfect specialty” really exists for every single medical student out there. That is, can I really expect to fall in love with some specialty and find everything I have ever wanted in a career and perhaps life in general?

I think a lot of us come into medicine hoping to find that “perfect” specialty for ourselves – one that will constantly challenge us and make us excited to get up in the morning to go to work. While it is certainly possible for this to exist for some people, I think in reality this is true for extremely few people, and I think the majority of doctors will find some but not complete life satisfaction in their medical practice - and I think that’s okay, and it’s not something to be ashamed of or worried about.

Not all doctors have the same personality, values, and life goals. For some of us, we will find everything we could ever want in life in medicine. For others, who have extremely diverse tastes and interests, we may seek to find other venues to satisfy those interests, and I think it is not only fine, but actually good and healthy to explore those paths outside of medicine.

For me I enjoy program development, entrepreneurship, speaking, mentoring, writing, etc. – many things that a doctor doesn’t explicitly do, and activities that I would like to pursue on the side. Not doing these things would make me less happy and so I hope to pursue them on top of being a doctor, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

I don’t expect my happiness to come purely from medicine and I don’t expect to like all aspects of medicine. As long as you meet your professional obligations I think you should explore your options and engage yourself in activities you find challenging, stimulating, and enjoyable, even if they are outside medicine. Don’t be afraid to keep being yourself and doing what makes you happy!

Medical School Rejection: Having a Healthy Attitude

Joshua — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:53:43 +0000

In recent days, Canadian medical schools have begun spreading joy (through interview invites) and crushing dreams (through rejections) among students everywhere. Great for those invited to interviews, but feelings of disappointment, sadness, and sometimes anger for those who received bad news. As we all know, it’s never fun to be rejected for anything.

When you receive a rejection, many thoughts can go through your head, like: What did I do wrong? Was I not good enough? Boy, they really screwed up!

While some of these thoughts can end up leading to something positive (e.g. you work harder for next year’s application cycle), some of them can be quite destructive (e.g. you blame the medical school admissions process solely and spread a lot of negativity).

In perusing the Canadian premed forums this past week, it’s quite clear that all kinds of thoughts formed in response to rejections. In reacting to rejections, I think it helps to stand back and take an objective look at the medical school admissions process.

What happens every year around interview invite time is that students who hear back from medical schools post their “stats” and a status update for their application. For those unfamiliar with I’m talking about, here’s an example:

Rejected!
4th year applicant
3.91 GPA
PS12/VR14/BS10/WSQ
EC’s: 2 summers of research, started a club, lots of leadership positions, volunteered at a hospital every week
Application: Strong essay and reference letters

There are lots of good applicants with really good “stats” who get rejected from medical schools every year – stellar GPA, strong MCAT, lots of extracurriculars and leadership experience, etc. In their mind, they have put together a pretty darn good application and are shocked when they don’t get an interview – especially when they see other students with similar or even lower “stats” moving on in the admissions process. So what’s going on?

The easy way out would be to blame the admissions committee and say they screwed up. I see this a few times every year and unfortunately this is an unhealthy attitude. It suggests a sense of “entitlement” to the applicant when the reality is that there isn’t one. Understand this: the admissions committee can do whatever the heck they want. It is their process. Their goal isn’t to get you into medical school. Their goal is to create a medical school class that they and the medical school are happy with.

What do we really know about the process? Really, a whole lot of nothing

We are told some things about the medical school admissions process, but not a whole lot. We know that GPA matters more at UofT than it does at Western, for example, but there are many things we still don’t know. How is GPA scored? How much of a difference does it make if I’m a graduate student, 4th year student, or 3rd year student?

The same goes for other parts of the application. Sure we might be told that a school looks at our essay, reference letters, and autobiographical sketch – but in what way? Is the essay worth the most or the least? Are reference letters worth something or are they just a flag?

The truth is that as an outside applicant, you really have no idea. You might be an outstanding candidate, but if personal statements are your weakness, and you so happen to apply to a medical school where personal statements are, unknowingly to you, worth the most, then you might just not make it – unfortunately, you won’t know this. Which is why your goal should be to put forward the best application you can in all aspects.

Subjectivity in the process

Unless a computer does everything, there will always be subjectivity in the admissions process. Human beings read your applications and will have their own subjective interpretations of you as an applicant. It’s the reality, and we just have to deal with it. Maybe if you’re lucky you will have an evaluator who identifies with the same issues you speak passionately about, and maybe if you’re unlucky you will have someone who completely disagrees with your point of view.

Realize that there is only so much you can do as an applicant. All you can do is put your best foot forward, and hope things work out.

Is the process fair? It depends on how you look at it. If you look at it theoretically, it’s fair in the sense that everyone has an equal chance of getting lucky or unlucky. You just have to hope you’re on the right side of the coin when your application gets read. That’s not to say that the admissions process is completely based on luck (it’s not), but let’s face it, everyone needs a bit of luck sometimes to do well.

Being honest with the quality of your application

When people post “stats” like the example above, I often read things like “strong essay, good reference letters, stellar EC’s” – however, realize this is just your opinion and not necessarily a reflection of that of the admissions committee. What you might think is a strong essay might not hit any of the points the admissions committee is looking for. Just because you had a strong relationship with your referee doesn’t mean that they know how to write reference letters well (just like with essay writing, reference letter writing is a skill). And just because you had medical students and medical professors give you a thumbs up on your essay still doesn’t mean your essay is good enough to get in – the only people who decide that are the people who are assigned to read your essay and mark it. I am sure there are medical students who got in with their essays being the weakest part of their application, and medical professors who are now quite far removed from the current admissions process. And even if these are medical students and professors involved in the process, well unless they are the actual people reading your application for marking, then their subjective interpretation is only worth so much.

The admissions committee knows exactly what they are looking for in applicants. They might not agree with your perspective, but this is the reality.

My advice is to reflect on your application experience and work towards making your application better for the next cycle. Many people apply more than once before getting in, have a healthy attitude, and don’t give up!

Now that I’m half way through 2nd year of med school, here’s what I’m thinking

Joshua — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 03:42:41 +0000

When I think back to where I was at this time last year, my world was pretty different. Not just my surroundings, but also inside as well – the thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings in my head. When it comes to medical school and my impending career, it was no different.

Medical education

Last year: I was fresh off finishing my first semester of medical school. That was without a doubt the most challenging semester of my life. Being thrown into anatomy physiology, histology and embryology with no prior knowledge or understanding made for some tough times. I remember going into some exams, and for the first time in my life, feeling that I could actually fail. Now while this feeling is common among medical students (yes, you have to know THAT much for exams here!), that doesn’t mean I enjoy it =).

This year: I have taken three major exams this year, and so far having received two of my exam marks back, I’m doing significantly better than last year. I think this is for a few reasons. One is that I think I much prefer this year’s material (more clinical and medically relevant) to last year’s (more basic anatomy and physiology). Second is that overall in my life I’m trying to work harder and be more productive, and that is rubbing off on my school work as well. Third I think is that I’m just better adjusted to medical school than last year. Overall this year I have felt a lot more confident going into exams. Now I just need to work on getting more sleep the night before the exam…

Medical career

Last year: Before I started medical school I thought I wanted to do neurology. By this time last year I was interested in cardiology. By the spring it was neurology again. Now it’s neither of those. There were also many others thoughts in between. As I watched a bunch of my friends start to make decisions and work towards residency (e.g. start doing research), I feared falling behind and not being a competitive applicant when I decided to apply to residency. I also had concerns about where I saw myself in medicine and I began asking myself lots of questions:

What kind of medicine do I want to practice? Will I be happy there? How much longer do I want to spend in school? What will the job market be like? How is the remuneration? What else do I want in life both inside and outside of medicine? How will the specialty fit in with my personal and career goals? Will I be able to achieve the balance in life I desire?

These are all questions I need to think about and reflect on, and there’s a good chance my answers to these questions will continue to change, and I need to be willing to adapt as my answers surely change. At this point last year, while I knew I needed to start answering these questions, my answers were still unclear. I’m sure this is partially why I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in medicine. I did know that the closer I came to knowing myself and how I wanted to answer those questions, the easier I would be able to think about my future in medicine.

This year: One year later, I have a much firmer grasp on what I want in life and in medicine. I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what makes me happy now and what I think will make me happy years from now. I thought about where I envisioned myself in the future, both career wise and in my personal life. I’ve shared my thoughts, feelings, and ambitions with close friends and reflected on what they had to say. I thought about what makes me happy in medicine and what doesn’t. Over the past year, I have started to lean towards family medicine. My reasons for doing this are beyond the scope of this article (and personal to me), but suffice to say, it’s very much based on answering those questions I posed earlier. Could this change? Of course – I realize things could change, especially as I do my clerkship rotations, and nothing is certain until I actually apply for residency programs and get accepted.

Staying Busy

Last year: In my end of 1st semester reflection last year, I wrote: “I think this is the first Christmas break in a while where I haven’t really felt any stress or guilt whatsoever, and I guess most, if any of the stress, I’ve had previously was due to school.”

This year: Oh how things change! Right now, there is always work to do. I’m not super stressed, and I don’t need to work 24/7, but completely different from last year, there is always work that needs to be done. Of course, this is work that I’ve chosen to take on: research, projects, and so on. All that said, it feels good to be productive. Don’t worry, I will still be enjoying my holidays immensely =)

What is everyone else up to? What thoughts are occupying your mind this winter break? Feel free to share!

The Giant Med School Admissions FAQ

Joshua — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:08:50 +0000

Over the past year and a bit, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the medical school admissions process. As you can imagine, a lot of students have the same questions. I figured it would make a lot more sense to just compile these common questions and my answers for everyone to see. Overtime, as we get more questions and write more answers, we will keep adding to the list. Enjoy!

General
Undergrad
MCAT
Extra-Curriculars / Non-Academic Experiences
Reference Letters

General

Could you give a general timeline of how the med admissions process went for you?

It’s a pretty basic process, but keep in mind that this won’t be the same for everyone, and there’s no “correct” way.

Summer after 1st year – took MCAT prep course during May to July, then MCAT in August

August to Sept of 3rd year – apply to Ontario medical schools through OMSAS (Google this if you want to learn more, this is the online application service)

January to February of 3rd year – hear back about possible interviews (and rejections)

Late Feb. to Early April of 3rd year – interviews

May 15 of 3rd year – first round offers from medical schools (as well as waitlist and rejections)

What courses would best prepare me for medical school?

The best courses to prepare someone for medical school are anatomy and physiology (and maybe a few other ones, like immunology, genetics, biochemistry, etc.). That being said, these are NOT prerequisite courses for med school. I’m just saying that these types of courses are most relevant to the type of information covered in medical school.

Undergrad

Do students from universities like York stand just as much chance of getting into medical school as a student from UofT with similar GPA and MCAT scores? Do you know of any other York peers that were accepted to medical school?

Which university and program you attend in undergrad does not matter at all in the medical school admissions process. There are at least 5 students in my UofT med school class from York undergrad and I have many friends from York at other med schools. Medical school classes are full of students from many undergraduate programs and universities.

Why does York have fewer students in med school than say UofT? Honestly, I think it’s a combination that York has fewer medical school applicants in the first place, and from my experience, it seems that most students who go into university serious about medical school end up at more popular undergrad schools for science like UofT, Queen’s, etc.

Does it matter what program I take?

As long as you take any necessary prerequisite courses for specific medical schools, you should be fine. Sure, it’s a lot easier for a health sciences major to explain that they have prepared themselves for medicine than a music major. That doesn’t mean a music major has no shot – it just means that when you write your application and go to your interview, you need to make sure you have a good explanation for how your undergrad experience will contribute to your medical training.

What courses do I need to take?

Some medical schools have a few prerequisite courses. You should spend some time researching the medical schools you are interested in to find out what you might need to take. For a quick glance at Ontario medical schools, check out page 14 of this document.

Should I take a full English course?

It depends on which med schools you would consider applying to in the future. If you only plan on applying to Ontario schools, then there’s no need to take english. However, I know some schools in Western Canada (e.g. U of Alberta) require English, and I believe a lot of American med schools also require a year of english. That being said, if you do want to take english, you don’t have to take it this year, particularly if you think it will be one of your lower marks (as a lot of science students might believe). So instead of taking english earlier, you can take it the year you apply so that the mark won’t show up on your application if you’re worried about it being a bit low compared to your other courses.

What happens if I’m in a 4-year undergraduate degree but get into medical school after 3 years? Do I just stop doing my university degree and start med school?

Yup, you just leave your undergrad program and start medical school. However, at some undergraduate institutions, you can apply for a 3-year degree if you have achieved enough credits. For example, I was in the 4-year Biomedical Sciences program at York. After getting into med school, my science counsellor found out I had enough credits to graduate with a 3-year Bsc (general science) and I got a degree.

What elective courses did you take in university?

In general, I took a few economics, one psych, and a lot of philosophy. I took two economics courses over 1st and 2nd year because I knew I could do well in them, and I wanted to get as good a GPA as possible since I was planning on applying to med schools in 3rd year. In 2nd and 3rd year I took a lot of philosophy courses because I was really interested in those topics. I didn’t pick them for marks (getting an A+ in an essay based course is pretty tough), but I thought I would do okay in them too.

Should I just go to a university program that is “easier” to get marks in?

It depends on what’s most important to. A lot of factors come into play: location, other opportunities (e.g. research), campus life, etc. It really depends on how you balance your priorities and interests. Some people care about getting a higher GPA less than others, some people care more.

MCAT

When should I take the MCAT?

I wrote a whole article about when you should take the MCAT, but here’s a short answer. My general advice is to plan to study and take the MCAT after having taken your science courses like 1st year physics, biology, and chemistry, as well as 2nd year organic chem. Which is why I would suggest taking it after 2nd year, or even after 1st year if you think you can figure out organic chemistry without having taken the course. Taking it after 3rd year is okay too, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of the science material won’t be fresh in your mind anymore, and you will have more review to do.

Should I take physics in university to prepare for the MCAT?

I would say that in terms of the physics material you need to know for the MCAT, it is basically high school physics plus a bit more – however, this doesn’t mean the difficulty of the questions are the same. All I’m talking about is the type of material covered.

The advice I always give when people ask me this is to pick up a MCAT prep book, go over the physics material, and see if you can understand it on your own. If you can, then don’t take 1st year physics (unless you want to, or think you will do well in it). However, if you have trouble with the MCAT physics in your own, it may be worth taking a physics course.

What courses should I take to prepare for the MCAT?

I would say that you should take 1st year biology, chemistry, and physics, and 2nd year organic chemistry courses to prepare you for the MCAT. Physiology, biochemistry and genetics would also help.

How did you manage to participate in EC’s while studying for the MCAT?

I volunteered in a lab part time (2.5 days a week) one summer while taking a MCAT prep course and studying for the MCAT. I also spent the following summer doing research full time.

Personally, I highly suggest NOT committing to anything like a full time job while preparing for the MCAT if possible. A lot of people end up burning themselves out doing both at the same time, and as a result, some people don’t do as well as they can their first time on the MCAT and end up retaking the next summer. I’m sure there are some people who can handle full time commitments and preparing for the MCAT – if you’re one of those people, great, go for it. But it’s important to be realistic about how many things you can juggle. Don’t just burn yourself out because you think everyone else is volunteering, doing research, and preparing for the MCAT at the same time. The MCAT is an important test, and not a particularly fun one – you want to aim for taking it once and once only.

What MCAT score should I aim for?

The real answer is that you should try your best and get the best score possible for you. But if you really need a number to aim for, I would suggest aiming for something like a 11/11/11/R so that you are eligible at pretty much any Canadian medical school. It’s not fun when you miss the chance at an automatic interview at Western or Queen’s because of being one point short in a section.

I want to caution that each school uses the MCAT differently, and everyone should be aware of this when considering which schools to apply to. For a lot of students just starting to think about medical school, there seems to be some misconception that all medical schools are the same and perhaps have the same admissions process, when that really couldn’t be further from the truth. Each medical school has the same basic components (e.g. a combination of GPA, MCAT, application/essay, interview, etc.) but they all use and value these components differently, and may even administer them differently (e.g. some schools use the Multiple Mini Interview format while others have stuck to the traditional style interview).

Which MCAT prep course did you take and was it worth it?

I took the Princeton Review prep course. I would say that if you already have a background in science (e.g. you are a science major who is already taking 1st year physics, bio, chem, etc. in your program) then it’s not worth it. The prep books are pretty easy to follow if you’ve taken those courses before, so I think you’re just wasting a lot of time showing up to class to be taught stuff you could review on your own much more quickly. However, if you have never taken science before or haven’t reviewed it in many years, a prep course might be helpful. Prep courses also usually give you access to practice tests, which are useful.

What books would you suggest for studying for the MCAT?

If you’re going to study for the MCAT on your own and just get the books, I think Princeton has the best book for the Physical Sciences, Kaplan’s is probably better for Biological Sciences (Princeton is better if you want all the details, though I think that is unnecessary), Princeton has the best book for Writing Sample, and Exam Kracker’s has the best book for Verbal Reasoning.

Should I take an organic chemistry course before I do the MCAT?

As someone who didn’t take organic chemistry before doing the MCAT, I would personally suggest taking the course first. It’s possible to learn on your own if you’re willing to put in the effort and have good resources, friends, etc. who can help you. I personally didn’t get organic chem. while learning on my own for the MCAT, and I think I probably bombed most of the organic chem questions on the actual MCAT. I get the feeling if you take the organic chem course, you will breeze through the organic chem parts of the MCAT, so you should take advantage of that if possible.

Does it matter if I take the MCAT more than once?

For Canadian medical schools, no, I don’t believe it matters how many times you have taken the MCAT (most schools look at your best or most recent score). I think it might matter for some American schools, but I’m not sure.

Extra Curriculars / Non-Academic Experiences

What extra-curriculars (EC’s) did you do? What EC’s should I do?

The short answer is that I was involved in a lot of random things. I’ve been involved a lot with science promotion to youth, my church choir, volunteered with recreational therapy at a kid’s rehab centre, some band/symphony stuff. To be honest, I probably did less “EC’s” on a regular basis than many applicants, but I think I benefited from having being involved in my community for many years already and having diverse experiences.

I wrote an article previously analyzing how important non-academic things like ECs actually are to the medical school admissions process. Pretty much my conclusion was that it doesn’t matter as much as people think. This is because most medical schools rely on your GPA, MCAT score, and interview way more than the list of ECs/awards/experiences you give them. In fact, to my knowledge, schools like Western, McMaster, and Queen’s pretty much don’t really look at the list of ECs you give them. In general, it’s not so much that you have a stellar long list of ECs, but rather, their importance is that if in an interview (or application question) you are asked say “tell me about a time you had to be a leader”, you have a good example to talk about because of your ECs. That’s why quality of your ECs/experiences is way more important than volume.

I generally don’t like answering the “what ECs did you do” question because I think it might give the impression that you need to do X, Y, and Z to get into medical school, when that isn’t the case (at least not for Canadian medical schools). People get into medical school doing completely different things. Some people volunteered in a hospital and some people didn’t (I never did). Some people did research (I dabbled with this for two summers), other people didn’t and got in. There’s no magic formula.

The reasons why non-academic things like ECs, volunteering, hobbies, etc. are important to medical schools is because those experiences help you develop skills like communication, teamwork, patience, etc. that aren’t necessarily developed in the academic environment – all skills that a good doctor should have. It doesn’t matter so much how or where you developed those skills. What’s important is that you actually did develop them. So whether you were captain of your sports team or president of a club doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you can develop leadership, teamwork, and communication skills from both.

All that being said, I do highly suggest gaining some sort of experience in a health care environment, whether that be volunteering in a hospital, shadowing a doctor, etc. It’s not only important that you gain some insight into the field so you kind of know what you might be getting yourself into, but from the admissions committee point of view, how serious can a candidate be if they haven’t spent the time to learn what a doctor does?

How important is it to have consistency in EC’s between high school and university?

As for ECs, I would say that consistency is not that big of a deal – it’s pretty normal for many students to move to new cities for undergrad and start from scratch. I do think you should try and show some dedication to a few things, partially because the longer you do something, the better and more complete your experiences will probably be.

Do you need to do research to get into med school?

No, you don’t “have” to do research to get into medical school. Some people in medical school did research, some didn’t. It is by no means necessary. If you did do research, it’s another aspect of your life that the admissions committees might find interesting and you should definitely mention on your application. That being said, it is true that a lot of the doctors involved in the admissions process tend to be university-affiliated physicians who do research.

So why do people say some medical schools like research?

In terms of research, I believe research is valued by some medical schools because: 1.) doing research often means you have someone who can give you a letter of reference commenting on your academic skills, and 2.) many faculty and staff in medical school are academic physicians, meaning that they are doctors who do research. As you can imagine, like attracts like – doctors who like doing research themselves will like applicants who do research. No, as an undergrad you might not be doing medical research, but even doing any research shows you might be open to doing some sort of medical research later on.

How did you get a NSERC student award to do research with a professor?

For the NSERC, I think it depends on your university. At York, you had to find a professor willing to apply with you, and then you fill out an application form, and a committee at York selected the recipients from the list. From what I hear, GPA played a big role in the selection process at York. I have no idea how it’s done at other universities though.

How should I approach a professor about doing research with them?

I would first research potential supervisors and find ones whose work interests you. Then send them an email letting them know you’re interested in their work, let them know you’re interested in working for them, ask them if you could meet to discuss your interests, and attach your CV.

Do extra curriculars from high school matter?

ECs in high school are important for applying to certain university programs (i.e. those with supplementary applications). As for medical school, I think most medical schools allow you to put anything from 16 years old and on, but I would think that things happening earlier on in your life are given less weight. What you do now or what you’ve done recently provide a more accurate picture of who you are now as a person.

Reference Letters

Who did your reference letters come from? How did you choose them?

For a more complete answer, check out my article on reference letters.

In short, you should ask people who you know genuinely support you and want to help you get into medical school. It’s amazing how good a letter you can get from someone who genuinely wants to support you. A lot of people think that you need to get lucky to find someone who writes well, and while that’s true, the quality of your letter is significantly affected by being smart about who you ask. Don’t just ask a random professor you had a class with because you “need” an academic letter. If the letter isn’t going to be spectacular, then it’s not going to improve your application.

Personally, I got my three letters from my research professor, the director of the science charity I work with, and the head of the church choir I volunteered with. The big tie between all three, like I mentioned before, is that all three genuinely wanted to support me in my endeavours. I knew that my church choir director, for example, would not have had as fancy a “title” as perhaps someone else, but I knew she would write the best letter she possibly could – and that’s way more important than having some really famous person write you a short, generic letter.

The admissions committee knows you’re going to sell yourself the best you can in your essays and application. But if you can find 3 random people who will sell you just as well, that speaks volumes.

A List of Med Student Awesome

Shelly — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 06:13:47 +0000

Recently, I found myself waiting for someone at Mount Sinai Hospital. To my joy, there was a Chapters bookstore on the main floor (a bookstore in a hospital! How awesome is that?) So there I was, in all my frazzled med student glory, with my coat and backpack on, wearing sweatpants and Uggs, as I picked up the closest book to me and started reading it.

I happened to pick up The Book of Awesome. It was truly the most awesome book. It’s essentially a laundry list of all these priceless life pleasures that make you smile and feel great. Examples? Walking into a bakery and deeply inhaling warm bakery air, finding unexpected money in your pocket, and actually fixing electronics by smacking them. Even though I was standing there with my coat and a 20 lb backpack on, with 3 hours of sleep the night before, I just couldn’t stop myself from chuckling out loud. After all, you have to get a dose of happiness once in a while.

Inspired, I decided to put together a list of 5 little life pleasures that make me, as a medical student, smile. So here it is! Enjoy!

1. A Skipped Lecture on the Exam

This one is where you get to finally beat the system- instead of the system beating you. This is the story of that one 1-hr lecture you skipped, with the intention of relistening to it and studying it later.

Someone texts you from class during that lecture and tells you, “I hate you for skipping, this lecture is impossible”
A week later: The course coordinator tells you that she has received a few complaints regarding that lecture’s difficulty level and is looking into removing the lecture’s material from the exam – this is all before you’ve looked at the lecture, of course
A few days before the exam: The course coordinator readdresses that lecture issue. She tells you that the material will indeed be on the exam, but will only be one multiple choice question, and reassures you that the question will be easy – you still haven’t touched the lecture up to now, but you mentally make a note to do so later
11pm, the night before the exam: You still haven’t looked at that lecture. You’ve spent more than an hour trying to read the slides, but it just doesn’t make sense to you. Your friend was right, this lecture is impossible. You reassure yourself that it’s only going to be one mark out of 100, so it’s not worth it at this point.
During the exam: You arrive at the multiple choice question based on that lecture, and you sigh. You use your logic and reasoning skills, and make your best possible guess.
After the exam: Your friend tells you that you got the answer right. Woohoo! My true story. Beating the system? AWESOME.

2. Tupperware and Lunch

In our class, we have 224 students, who hail from a million prior clubs and extracurricular activities. It’s not unexpected that the clubs and extracurricular activities continue on in medical school. As a result, every day, we get bombarded with at least ten emails, telling us about an info session for this club, or a meet and greet for another, or a guest speaker, etc. Commonality between all of these? Free food. The Medical Society gives money to all these clubs. Most clubs will elect to use a portion of this budget to entice hungry students into listening to their information sessions. You can always expect pizza, sandwiches, wraps, pop, or juice, and if you’re lucky, Chinese food. Once, we even got to eat the remains of the lunch provided at the 1T4 (class of 2014) admission interviews – Pickle Barrel-catered gourmet food, with Starbucks-catered hot coffee. Heck, even the pop in the tub was being chilled with dainty little ice cubes. My friend whipped out his Tupperware, stuffed it full with herb-spiced chicken wings. Unsatisfied, he borrowed my lunch Tupperware and stuffed it with more food. After a few minutes of rampaging, we were politely asked to leave the food and pop alone. Free food and filled bellies all year long? AWESOME.

3. The Colourful Backpack

Yes, this is the MD financial backpack that as a pre-med, you notice, judge, and envy. I remember the extra bounce in my step and the tremendous pride that the backpack gave me in the first few days of medical school. You go to the library, and pre-meds stare at you; you go on the bus, and random passengers stare at your backpack; heck, you can even travel to different ends of the country, and still get picked out by other med students. It’s like an invisible community that you join – and you announce to the world that you are a medical student. It can give you that confidence booster when you need it. (Granted though, nowadays, my backpack only serves the purpose of reminding me of the smell of Gerstein Library and their hard chairs.) Anyhow, backpacks? AWESOME.

4. Having a Friend Always Behind You

I don’t mean having a friend backing you up in times of hardship here. Well, I am referring to times of hardship here, but in a different way. I’m referring to the time where you panic about school and feel like you are incapable of doing anything right – this usually happens when there is a deadline or an exam looming. For me, I tend to have my little pre-exam panic session a week or so before the exam. Because I panic so early on, I actually manage to study efficiently for that week and end up doing well on the exam.

Anyhow, what I’m trying to say is that I feel better during this panic session because of a friend who’s always behind me: Josh. If you’re behind in studying, he probably hasn’t started. If you are panicking about the test, he’ll tell you that he has to go because he going to eat out with his friends. If you’re feeling not ready for an exam the night before, Josh probably hasn’t finished his first pass yet. And lastly, if you got a bad mark, chances are that Josh got a worse one. This is not to say that Josh can’t encourage you in other ways, but having a friend always behind you? AWESOME. (Disclaimer: I got Josh’s permission to post this. He had a good laugh.)

5. Battles Against the Lecturer

This is purely about winning personal small battles against the lecturer. With a lecturer blaring a million words per minute at you in class, you easily get arthritis from the speed at which you’re writing and also get thrown into shock with regards to how much material you have to learn for the upcoming exam. You know full well that even the small words only seen in a blurry figure is fair game for a test. When the lecturer gets a technical mishap (e.g. can’t load their presentation, or their microphone battery dies out on them), you sit there and think “Aha!”. It’s one personal small battle won – the battle where you elevate yourself from that puny poor medical student, to become one who crosses your arms and says, “Ha, the lecturer can’t screw me over ALL the time!!”. Once the class let a lecturer talk for a full two minutes into a dead mic, before someone raised their hand to tell them. It was another small battle won. AWESOME.

5 Reasons Why a Med Student Should Have a Smart Phone

Joshua — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:00:43 +0000

After being on the same old crappy Nokia cell phone for more than five years, I finally stopped being lazy and got myself a new phone this past June. But not just any phone, no – I went ahead and spoiled myself with a Blackberry Bold 9700.

Probably more than any purchase I have ever made, having a smart phone has really “changed my life”. I’m sure some people will think that’s a pretty exaggerated (or maybe even stupid) thing to say, but believe me when I say it’s not. Having a smart phone makes me feel constantly connected to my social network but also to the rest of the world. No matter where I am I have access to a ton of people and a ton of information. And all I need to do is whip this small device out of my pocket.

A smart phone is especially useful for people with busy lives, including med students. Are you a med student and still not convinced? In that case, I present to you, my top 5 reasons why med students should have a smart phone:

5. Passing time in lecture

Occasionally we will have a lecture where the professor is literally reading off the PowerPoint slides (I’m sure everyone will experience this at least once in undergrad). I have the notes, so there’s really no point in me being there because I can just read them at home at my own leisure. Thanks to my smart phone I can now pass time in class by surfing the web, texting friends sitting a few meters away, and so on.

Alright, alright, I’ll come clean – I do this even in lectures where I should be giving my full attention. It’s not my fault they make smart phones so much fun!

4. Checking exam marks

Our exam marks are sent by email at random times, usually in the middle of class. Before getting my Blackberry, I had to either borrow a friend’s phone or wait until the end of lecture and run to a computer. Given the number of exams I was scared of failing (yes medical school is hard!), you can imagine the amount of anxiety that takes over as you watch the clock for the next break. Now, I just take out my phone and find out that I aced the exam in a matter of seconds (and by aced I mean passed of course).

3. Looking smart in the hospital

I remember sitting at a lunch time meeting last year at Toronto General Hospital. The room was full of health care professionals, from general internists to emergency doctors to nurses. I was relaxing in my chair and texting a friend on my old Nokia phone. I looked around, only to see everyone else on their smart phones. How was I going to be taken seriously? Now, when I whip out my Blackberry randomly in the hospital, I fit right in. All I need now is to wear my stethoscope more frequently even when I don’t need it.

2. Impressing attending physicians

This summer I spent a lot of time shadowing in a psychiatry clinic where a large percentage of the population were children and adolescents. A common thing to do in regular appointments was to measure the child’s weight and height. The scale measured in kilograms. On more than one occasion a parent would ask: “What is that in pounds?” Thanks to my Blackberry, I did the conversion relatively quickly. There was also the time I used a Blackberry application to look up potential drug interactions for a medication a patient was considering taking. In both instances, the psychiatrist was impressed with the speed at which I was able to gather the necessary information, and the patient and family were grateful for my much needed contribution.

1. Contributing in PBL

Alright, so we’ve counted down to the number 1 reason why a med student should have a smart phone. If there’s anything I have learned from being in med school, it’s that you don’t want to look stupid. Why? Well everyone in your class is smart, so if you act stupid, there’s no way people will miss it! Any thoughts, words or actions of stupidity are most easily seen in a small group setting, such as PBL. If you’re a slacker, PBL is where you are most vulnerable to have your secret laziness revealed.

For those of you who don’t know, Problem Based Learning (PBL) refers to small group sessions where medical students go through a hypothetical clinical case, often about conditions they have not yet learned about. As the students go through the case together, they come up with learning objectives for things they don’t understand. Students then go home to research these areas and share what they have learned at the next session to make sense of the case.

As students go through the case, they use prior knowledge to try and figure the case out. But what if you’re one of those students who is constantly behind in material and know absolutely nothing? Well with a smart phone, you don’t actually need to have any knowledge to contribute to PBL. You can just start looking random things up, read off the screen, and BAM – you’re an instant contributor to the group!

Remember, perception is reality: you’re smart if people think you are.

The Importance of Prioritizing

Joshua — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:14:33 +0000

For those of you who have followed this blog over the past few years, you might recall my 3rd year of undergrad when York went on strike for a few months. When the strike was over and school finally resumed at the beginning of 2009, we had to make up a lot of lost time, leading to an unusual schedule. This included our Winter exam period being pushed from the normal December period to February.

However, this coincided with medical school interview season. I remember clearly how my Queen’s interview on Feb. 27, 2009, immediately preceded my Molecular Biology final exam on Feb. 28, 2009. That was actually the only exam I had to do, and I had a week to study for it. That also meant I had a week to prepare for my Queen’s interview.

What did I do? I ended up spending the entire week preparing for my Queen’s interview, and only started studying for my Molecular Biology exam the morning after my interview. I had a 100 average going into the exam, and after the exam, I ended up with an A in the course, obviously because I wasn’t well prepared for the final exam.

Same Situations, Difference Choices

A lot of people end up in similar situations with many pieces to juggle in their lives, and given an unlimited amount of time, everyone would probably make the same decision to take care of everything and achieve everything to the best of their ability. However, we don’t have unlimited time.

There are only so many hours in a day, and for most of us, we can only work for so many of those hours. We all have a long list of things we’d like to do, but the reality is that most of us simply don’t have the time or energy to achieve all of them.

What actually happens is that we make choices and prioritize our list of things to do, and these choices can end up significantly affecting the outcome.

If I had unlimited time, maybe I would have spent 1 week studying for my exam, and 1 week preparing for my interview – and maybe I would have gotten an A+ in the course and still been satisfied with my Queen’s interview preparation. But I didn’t have unlimited time, and therefore, I made the choice to give pretty much no time to my exam preparation.

I am sure some other people in my shoes might have spent more time studying for the exam and less time preparation for the interview. Everyone prioritizes differently.

I’m not going to defend my choices, mainly because I don’t think the decision is actually all that clear cut in my case. But the point I’m trying to make is that the way you prioritize is inevitably going to affect the outcome, and it is true that depending on what outcome you desire, some people are going to prioritize differently than others.

So how do we prioritize?

Example: Prioritizing as a Medhopeful

Applying to medical school is tough. The process is long, the competition is fierce, and there are so many hoops to jump through:

GPA
MCAT
Extracurricular involvement
Volunteer/community work
Research
A million other possible things

Given an infinite amount of time, all applicants would be able to do quite well in all of these components. But again, getting back to reality, no one can be perfect in all of these. There just isn’t enough time. So, how should you prioritize these aspects?

Start by looking at key outcomes: for example, getting a medical school interview. As I have mentioned many times over, academics are the most important thing to work on because a good GPA and MCAT are what get your foot in the door of medical schools. At many Canadian medical schools, if you are GPA and MCAT aren’t good enough, then it doesn’t matter how good your research, community work, or extracurricular involvement is – no one will even see it (for example, Queen’s and Western’s medical schools which use a hard GPA and MCAT cutoff to decide on interviewees).

Despite this fact, I can’t count the times I have seen friends or other medhopefuls stress themselves by piling EC’s and community work onto their plate at the expense of getting good grades – making their road to medical school that much longer once reality hits after a few years. The obsession with being a star medical school applicant often clouds an applicant’s judgment, and subsequently, the way they prioritize. It also doesn’t help when applicants try to compare themselves to prior successful applicants, and start to think they need to be involved more and more to have a shot at medical school, failing to realize that that shot begins and ends with strong academics.

These are applicants who could very well have been great physicians, and who very well could have gotten into medical school if they simply prioritized better from the beginning.

One Last Example: Picking my Undergraduate Experience

Prioritizing is not always easy, but I do think it is definitely worth the time, investment and mental energy. Putting yourself in the right direction from the start can save you a lot of headache later on.

I attribute a lot of the success I have to prioritizing well and making good choices/decisions. As you know already, I spent hours preparing for my medical school interviews at the expense of my marks in my 3rd year of undergrad. Even in retrospect, I believe it was the right decision for me. I wanted to end this article by sharing one more example of a time where I believe I prioritized well, and how that impacted a positive outcome for me.

One of the most common questions I get asked is “Why did you go to York University for undergrad?”. And when I get this question, I know exactly why I get it. People are surprised to hear that a medhopeful would choose to go to York, when options like McMaster Health Sciences or UofT were available.

Funny enough, when I was deciding on where I wanted to go for university, my thought process was primarily based on which choice would give me the best chance at getting into medical school. I made sure to do my homework/research, so I knew that Canadian medical schools did not discriminate based on undergraduate program or institution. The reality is that York University’s science program did not have the public “prestige” that a school like UofT did, but I did believe the workload would be more manageable based on my conversations with peers and friends. And to me, having a manageable workload, not over stressing myself and ultimately maximizing my chances of getting into medical school was a much bigger priority than how other people viewed me and the degree I would obtain. Certainly this was not the only reason I chose York, but when it came to comparing York and say UofT, this was definitely the main point of comparison.

If your goal is medical school, then without a doubt, prioritizing your medical school chances over the perceived “prestige” of your institution is the right move. I give this advice probably more often than any other piece of advice I give to medhopefuls. Fortunately, there seems to be a trend towards more high school graduating medhopefuls accepting and trusting this advice. If you really know what your priorities are, don’t be afraid to act on them.

Very often we all have the same options. Take the time to consider your goals and how those goals should affect your priorities, because how you prioritize will directly affect whether you get outcome you want.

How To Get That A+ In Every Course

Shelly — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:48:14 +0000

Shelly here. Hello medhopeful readers…! First of all, I apologize for not posting at all this summer. To make up for it, I promise to post regularly, starting now.

School has started up again, and seeing the first year medical students in our building definitely makes me feel like an old school veteran. Next year will be the start of clerkship for me and I am very excited to be out of the classroom. As this will be my last year in full-time classroom and lecture (hurray), I wanted to summarize a few lessons I’ve learnt through my many years of class, from high school to university to medical school. In this post, I will share with you a mish-mash of all the things that, I think, helped me get the 90+ (A+) in my courses. Hopefully everyone will gain at least something from reading this post and be able to use any of my strategies/tips to improve their grades, if that is what they wish to do.

First off, you might ask: in which courses did I get the A+, or more importantly, which ones did I fail to do so? The simple answer is that I was able to pull off the 90 throughout high school till now, with a few important exceptions such as grade 9 gym and art (I like to blame it on the facts that I’m short and artistically challenged, respectively, haha), three courses in the second term of third year (I think I was too busy with medical school interviews and burnt out from school), and more recently, a couple of tests in first year medical school (the material was too much for me to handle and I have to admit that didn’t allocate my time properly).

Time, time, time

Alright, so now that we’ve satisfied everyone’s curiosity, I want to start off with an important belief of mine regarding academics. I believe that (exempting exceptional cases) anyone can get a good mark. You just need to devote time, time, and more time to material. Obviously, how much time is needed varies on the individual. Everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are different and everyone learns at a different pace. Visual learners may find it hard to adapt to lecture-style classes, but if more time is put into it, visual learners can perform just as well as others.

It is also important to understand that each course requires a different amount of time. When a course starts, I always try to “assess” the course outline. What is the marking scheme? How much of the marking scheme am I comfortable with? For instance, my strengths lie in multiple choice questions and my weak points are in term papers and projects. I would ask myself, how much of this course is multiple choice worth? If it’s very little, I know that I will have to put in a lot more time and effort. Am I prepared and willing to put in this time? In the instance of undergrad organic chemistry, I realized that it was not your typical multiple choice course and I prepared myself to put in a lot of time working on learning the reaction mechanisms, doing extra problems, redoing the mandatory problems again and again…all in all, I put a lot of time in orgo. The result? Awesome grades for organic chem I. I ended up liking orgo enough to take Orgo II, Orgo II lab, and Orgo III. Anything is possible!

Motivation & Commitment

No one is perfect. And to think that a 100 or a 90 in a course can be easily done is definitely not the right thing to be thinking (for most people in most circumstances). Whenever I approach a course, I understand that it’s going to a tough job if I want that 90. There is stuff to be learnt in each course, and if you ask a professor what it takes to get a 90, I’m sure most of them will answer something along the lines of “mastery” or “deep understanding” of the material.

In my second year in undergrad, I took a course on Witchcraft. It was a very popular first year religion studies course, and the course was graded with two multiple choice exams. Having heard that the material was easy and interesting (i.e. a “bird course”), I decided to take it as one of my elective courses. I discarded my usual study strategies, I became uncommitted to the course, and thought that I could cruise through the course. After the first midterm, I was shocked at the level of difficulty. I remember that a number of students had also found it hard and outright failed the midterm. I then took the course seriously, gave it the time it deserved, and studied a lot harder for the final. I then found it to be a lot easier, manageable, and quite interesting. Lesson of the day: There is no such thing as a bird course, if you want a 90. Any course needs work, and you have to respect the material if you want to do well.

What do I mean by “respecting the material”? It means to appreciate the fact that any course is tough and in order to get 90 in it, it will requires at least a 90% effort from you (assuming the course is fair). Are you willing to give up on that party the weekend before an exam that you haven’t finished studying for? It all depends on your motivation and commitment to the grades. Is it important to you? All in all, if you really want the good mark, and are willing to sacrifice the occasional things for it, you’ll go far.

Study Strategies

This is what you probably expected to find when you first started to read this post. I actually placed this section last because I think that it’s the least important. I believe that you can often do very well if you have already put in the time and the motivation, regardless of your individual study strategy.

Of course there are different studying strategies, and I have my own preferred ones. For memory courses like biology (or medical school in general), I like to write my own notes out and mainly study from those. I admit that it is a very time consuming process, and if I’m tight for time, I won’t do it. It’s all variable really. I’ve tried using flashcards for a bit in med school, but I found it to be even more time consuming than writing notes and the cost/benefit ratio to not be very favourable. I love problem-solving courses, such as physics and some chemistries, which often prove to be the least tedious for me. I play music and just spend the study time doing all the problems that I can lay my hands on.

“Cramming”

One last word before I wrap up this post. Is cramming okay?

Yes! I think that cramming is perfectly acceptable. I’m living proof that cramming works. Josh is too. It’s a fact of life because often there is not enough time to study everything, and cramming can help you do well. However, if you are looking for long-term memory of the material, cramming might not be the best way to go about studying material. Reviewing stuff that you’ve crammed after the test will help it get into those deep drawers of your brain.