Top 10 Tips to Get Into Med School
This is a guest post by a friend of mine who is currently going through the process of planning to retake the MCAT and scrambling for money.
All this even though his MCAT score was just fine and his course schedule was rigorous.
(Considering law school, too? Read how to do well on the LSAT.)
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Below are the top ten tips I can give to any individual wanting to get into medical school (ranked in order of importance).
1.) Be born a woman or a minority, preferably both.
African American/Hispanic applicants face entirely separate and severely lower criterion for admission. Females also face lower criterion than males do in all gender categories. Thus, you should be born a black female so you may get accepted into a school with a ~2.9 GPA and a 24 on your MCAT, whereas a white male would get wait listed at the same school with a 3.8 GPA and 31 MCAT.
2.) Be born into a family that has a physician already in it.
Because everyone always knows what everyone in their family’s professions are like, medical schools assume that if your father/mother/grandfather/aunt/third cousin is a physician then you know exactly what you’re getting in to. In fact, you automatically know far more about the field than someone with 500+ hours of shadowing/volunteering experience who has worked towards this goal since High School.
Paying your own way through school is all well and good, but what looks even better is having your parents pay for everything. That way, you can go on “mission trips” to beach resorts, join a sorority/fraternity, party all day in said sorority/fraternity because you don’t need a job and so that you can get a “position” on student government as “secretary”, meaning you show up once every month at a two hour meeting and write down what everyone else says. That way, you have quality social experience, show a high degree of compassion for suffering and have fantastic leadership skills.
4.) Do not work for anything.
If you’re in something that moves you towards a goal (like Tae Kwon Do or Marching Band), quit. Schools for some reason seriously like seeing stupid and pointless social activities on your resume, things again like greek organizations or an equestrian team. Never mind if all you do in the frats are get drunk at parties constantly, or if you are too stupid to tell which end is the front of a horse. Just be there.
5.) Do not succeed.
Medical Schools believe you aren’t social if you have good grades. Be average. Run of the mill. Have a 3.5 GPA and a 30 on the MCAT. Do not dare get any higher.
6.) If you know you want to be a physician, major in something other than medicine.
The only courses required for medical school are Organic, Genetics, Physics, General Chem and General Bio. All other sciences courses you take are pointless and don’t really count towards anything else. Thus, pick an easy major in college that doesn’t require you to work and is completely unrelated to medicine (English Poetry is a good start). Take the above mentioned science classes during the summers at community schools so they are also a joke. On your incredibly-stressful 12 hour semester before your MCAT, take a class from Princeton and simply study for the test around six months. Get your 30 and be done with it. Again, do not dare get higher.
7.) Make sure that the section you score highest on on the MCAT is Verbal Reasoning.
Medical Schools put far greater emphasis on the Verbal Reasoning scores than the science scores. Although one might think that double 12’s on sciences means you have an incredibly scientific mind and would be a fantastic physician, the truth is that your success as a physician depends on your poetry skills. A verbal score of 12 will almost guarantee you a spot into medical school, as everyone knows that the best kind of doctors are the ones that know a lot about British plays.
8.) Be born anything but a white male.
Although previously stated, this bears additional stressing. If you really want to be a physician, do not be chosen to be born as a white male. Basically, all races and genders are equal, yet some need more equality than others.
9.) During your interview, make sure you say you care about people and want to do good in the world.
It doesn’t matter if you actually believe it or not. Just say it and you’re golden. They kick out a lot of people who really believe it anyway.
10.) (On a more serious note)… Do not give up.
If you have failed to follow any of these previous ten (or most importantly, 1 and 8), then you are probably an overly successful, hard working, honest, social and caring white male. Do not feel special because you aren’t. In fact, you’re in the back of a long line of other equally qualified individuals. The truth is that medical school admission has turned more into a mission of fulfilling demographics than accepting the best and most qualified individuals. If you don’t fit into any of these demographics previously listed (race, gender, non-medical major, greek organization, average student, wealthy), you do not have anything that separates you from the other equally qualified individuals.
It’s a fantastic thing that the modern medical application process has such a huge emphasis on demographics. After all, we all know that viruses and genetic ailments acknowledge that diversity is needed in the health care field and lessen the severity of their effects due to the race/gender of whomever is treating them…
god this is so true. and that last part about viruses caring about demographics was awesome. they try and hold the white man down haha
So true, you’re amazing.
Thank you, from someone who failed to follow tips 1 and 8.
This is HILARIOUS! and most importantly useful haha thank you!
I here you, my white brother ahhh the wonderful struggles against affirmative action!
LOL thanks for the tips
and wish me luck in med school in 2 years:D
Complete garbage, you should not have to work with all the free labor from slavery. Hell give me 4 slaves for 10 years that I dont have to pay, I just need to barely keep alive…I will teach them a trade and never pay the slaves, but charge for the work and get rich. I cant understand white people that complain about affirmative action…WOW how much more do you want???
Brian that would be great and all except….. slavery has been outlawed for well over 100 years. Why hold us accountable for something that our great-great-great-great grandparents did. Besides your argument does nothing to disprove the inherent reverse racism that is created by affirmative action. I suppose the next thing you will be demanding is payment for the suffering of your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Two wrongs dont make a right.
This is a humorous post; however, to address those who seem to be taking it seriously- as if affirmative action is an institution meant to “keep the white man down”- I would certainly hope your thinking is not as limited as you have demonstrated.
Surely you realize that minorities remain underrepresented in medicine, and surely you realize what that means. Allow me to clarify. It means that for every X amount of minorities, a small % of them go to medical school. Conversely, for every X amount of Caucasian males, a much higher % go.
But you don’t stop there, you must realize that the explanation for this discrepancy is indisputably attributed to institutionalized economic and social disadvantages for minority students.
So, while it’s true that affirmative action gives minority students an easier time getting into medical school, economic and social barriers– which should be easy to generate examples of– make it inordinately difficult still. But don’t get me wrong, the post is funny… as long as you don’t miss the joke.