I am applying for Medical school and taking my MCATs at the end of this year. Any tips from current students?

Question

Anything would be great to learn from the people who have already "been there and done that" I am a Junior Biology major with a 3.5 GPA. What prep books or Cd's for the MCATs did you find were closest to the test? What did your Med school look for when you applied? Again, any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

-Amanda

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Answer 1

If you can't afford to take a prep course (Kaplan is great), get a prep book and be prepared to take the test more than once.  Go over the chapters and use other reference books with each chapter.  A couple of good books:  The Kaplan MCAT prep book, the MCAT for Dummies.  It will take months to get through both of these, but the Dummies book offers many good tips.

For getting into med school I always tell my students to make themselves unique in some way (outstanding community service, academic awards, etc)  You don't have to be an absolute star, unless you want to go to Harvard, just stand out in some way.  Write notes now to the advisors of the program you want to go to, go to open houses and make sure they know you are there, talk to them, then send them a thank you note for taking the time to speak with you.  When your application comes across their desk, your name will already be in their head.  (Hopefully you already know this but don't send the note in texting language(I actually had a student do this several times), make sure your grammar and punctuation are correct, and a handwritten note is better than an e-mail)  

Pick a range of schools-one you know you'll probably get into (say West Virginia University (one of the top ten med schools in the country for rural medicine), University of Kentucky), then pick others that may be more difficult (Tulane, Baylor, etc).  Don't give up!!!  If you don't get in the first time try again the next application period.  If you want it bad enough it will happen.