Common Myths About Medical School Acceptance
Essay 23: Common Myths about Medical School Acceptance
Myths abound about the gauntlet that medical school applicants must survive just to become medical students. To hear people describe the process, it sounds as harrowing as basic training in the Marine Corps. On the other hand, every legend contains some truth. So let’s cut through the layers of exaggeration and get to the kernels of truth. Myth #1 - You need a 4.0 GPA in college to get into medical school.
Reality: Although getting straight A’s can’t hurt, it is unrealistic for medical schools to consider the tiny pool of applicants who maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout their undergraduate years. Also, in the eyes of the admissions committee, getting a B+ at a school with name recognition, …show more content…
Assuming that a particular school sets aside ten to twenty percent of its available spots in the incoming class for minorities, this translates into no more than forty openings even at the medical schools with the largest class size (approximately 200 people). Keep in mind that most medical schools accept just over 100 new students per year. Considering there are approximately 110 medical schools in the entire United States, this works out to something like 4,000 out of 16,000 openings awarded to minorities in any given …show more content…
Reality: Although I have no direct knowledge of how medical schools make their choices, I tend to believe their claim that no one factor outweighs all others in their decision to accept an applicant. An awesome MCAT score will be of little value if one’s college academic performance was dismal. Conversely, an applicant with a solid GPA and average MCAT score is almost certain to be invited to one or more interviews. Medical school application committees tend to focus on the big picture. Hence, if a person takes a qualifying exam, gets an average score, retakes the exam, and does significantly better, normal people would interpret this to mean that the applicant is striving to improve his/her chances of being accepted. From my experience, the vast majority of the faculty at the Penn State College of Medicine consisted of normal people. Except for this one guy in the Radiology department who looked like a beluga whale, but nobody’s
Myths abound about the gauntlet that medical school applicants must survive just to become medical students. To hear people describe the process, it sounds as harrowing as basic training in the Marine Corps. On the other hand, every legend contains some truth. So let’s cut through the layers of exaggeration and get to the kernels of truth. Myth #1 - You need a 4.0 GPA in college to get into medical school.
Reality: Although getting straight A’s can’t hurt, it is unrealistic for medical schools to consider the tiny pool of applicants who maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout their undergraduate years. Also, in the eyes of the admissions committee, getting a B+ at a school with name recognition, …show more content…
Assuming that a particular school sets aside ten to twenty percent of its available spots in the incoming class for minorities, this translates into no more than forty openings even at the medical schools with the largest class size (approximately 200 people). Keep in mind that most medical schools accept just over 100 new students per year. Considering there are approximately 110 medical schools in the entire United States, this works out to something like 4,000 out of 16,000 openings awarded to minorities in any given …show more content…
Reality: Although I have no direct knowledge of how medical schools make their choices, I tend to believe their claim that no one factor outweighs all others in their decision to accept an applicant. An awesome MCAT score will be of little value if one’s college academic performance was dismal. Conversely, an applicant with a solid GPA and average MCAT score is almost certain to be invited to one or more interviews. Medical school application committees tend to focus on the big picture. Hence, if a person takes a qualifying exam, gets an average score, retakes the exam, and does significantly better, normal people would interpret this to mean that the applicant is striving to improve his/her chances of being accepted. From my experience, the vast majority of the faculty at the Penn State College of Medicine consisted of normal people. Except for this one guy in the Radiology department who looked like a beluga whale, but nobody’s