Experience applying to medical school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, DS has 3 years of clinical exp - started working in a hospital freshman year and continued each year and summers. But sounds like folks are saying that’s not enough.

Can you clarify:

Number of clinical hours and in what areas of med

Number of shadowing hours and in what areas of med

Number of volunteering hours

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, DS has 3 years of clinical exp - started working in a hospital freshman year and continued each year and summers. But sounds like folks are saying that’s not enough.

Can you clarify:

Number of clinical hours and in what areas of med

Number of shadowing hours and in what areas of med

Number of volunteering hours

They don’t need to clarify this.

— not OP

[Anonymous]

That is a crazy good MCAT score. I think it’s just too early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, sorry, letter of interest is the correct term. You’re right. Thank you so much for the helpful reply. Truly appreciate it.

PO here. With the letter of interest your kid will basically be prodding them to give them an interview; this is going to be more effective when the school has gotten through at least some of their first list. After that, they will be in the position to extend more invites. That is when you want to hit with the letter of interest. Do it too early, and it could get overlooked. Hope this makes sense.

[Anonymous]

*PP*

[Anonymous]

Can you talk to your school about how they help. Many colleges give a lot of assistance in this area. This is what I have heard. Good luck to your child!! We need more doctors in USA!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, sorry, letter of interest is the correct term. You’re right. Thank you so much for the helpful reply. Truly appreciate it.

PO here. With the letter of interest your kid will basically be prodding them to give them an interview; this is going to be more effective when the school has gotten through at least some of their first list. After that, they will be in the position to extend more invites. That is when you want to hit with the letter of interest. Do it too early, and it could get overlooked. Hope this makes sense.

Thanks so much for this really helpful advice. Makes sense to me. Appreciate you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you talk to your school about how they help. Many colleges give a lot of assistance in this area. This is what I have heard. Good luck to your child!! We need more doctors in USA!!

Yes, thank you. DS has done this. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is a crazy good MCAT score. I think it’s just too early.

I hope so! Thank you for the positive thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you talk to your school about how they help. Many colleges give a lot of assistance in this area. This is what I have heard. Good luck to your child!! We need more doctors in USA!!

OP's kid getting in or not doesn't mean there are more doctors. The number of internships is capped and that capps the number of new doctors every year

[Anonymous]

How long ago did he send in the secondary essays? Student doctor network.com has message boards for potential students. There used to be a lot of activity on that board. They will mention when their secondaries were sent and when they were invited to interview. The med school application process is a totally different beast compared to undergrad. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How long ago did he send in the secondary essays? Student doctor network.com has message boards for potential students. There used to be a lot of activity on that board. They will mention when their secondaries were sent and when they were invited to interview. The med school application process is a totally different beast compared to undergrad. Hang in there.

Thank you - yes, horribly long! He sent all secondaries in back in early July.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, DS has 3 years of clinical exp - started working in a hospital freshman year and continued each year and summers. But sounds like folks are saying that’s not enough.

Can you clarify:

Number of clinical hours and in what areas of med

Number of shadowing hours and in what areas of med

Number of volunteering hours

They don’t need to clarify this.

— not OP

Then don’t ask why a kid isn’t getting interviews- directly related to the answer to these questions.

[Anonymous]

It is still very early. My DS is in his last year of med school now, applied to about 20 schools with similar stats (high GPA from top 10 school, 522 MCAT). My DS did not go directly from undergrad but worked for two years in a non-medical field. He had shadowing experience but no research experience and was not a science major. At this point in the process, he maybe had one interview. Interview notices can come all the way through January (or even later), so please tell your kid to relax and stay off the message boards. Worst case, your kid will need to be a scribe or something similar for a year and then apply again, but he will find a spot because his stats are great. If this cycle does not work out (but it likely will), make sure the application list includes many schools that are not considered top schools. No matter where they graduate from, they are all called doctors at the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is still very early. My DS is in his last year of med school now, applied to about 20 schools with similar stats (high GPA from top 10 school, 522 MCAT). My DS did not go directly from undergrad but worked for two years in a non-medical field. He had shadowing experience but no research experience and was not a science major. At this point in the process, he maybe had one interview. Interview notices can come all the way through January (or even later), so please tell your kid to relax and stay off the message boards. Worst case, your kid will need to be a scribe or something similar for a year and then apply again, but he will find a spot because his stats are great. If this cycle does not work out (but it likely will), make sure the application list includes many schools that are not considered top schools. No matter where they graduate from, they are all called doctors at the end.

Great advice, thank you for sharing your son’s experience.