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!