Those lucky ones among you holding multiple acceptances to medical school have decisions to make. May 15 is around the corner.  In "Medical School X vs. Medical School Y" on the Medical Student Musings blog, the author, a current medical student opines on the factors that she believes should influence this decision. She makes some excellent points about the qualitative factors to explore as well as the academic elements that will make for a more pleasant and educational medical school experience. Please note: the word "rankings" doesn't appear in her post.

From my base in the Middle East, I work with many applicants throughout Asia who have excellent English but use a few phrases in ways that depart from the strictly correct. In this, my first blog post, I aim to help applicants improve their use of these phrases.

There are two words in particular that applicants frequently employ using an incorrect preposition: leverage and comprise. "Leverage" is most often used to indicate that you made use of one thing to obtain another. Most applicants understand what leverage is; the mistake only comes in how they phrase it. The correct way is without a preposition, for example: "I leveraged my knowledge of marketing to champion my idea throughout the department." Remember, you can leverage credibility, loyalty, and even debt, but the key is to do it alone, don't use a preposition (like the frequent error "leverage on").

The other word that frequently trips up my clients is "comprise." Everyone knows this word, but for many people for whom English is a second language – even those who spent their entire lives studying in English in school -- this term comes with another prepositional complication. "Comprised" can be used in two ways:

1) A team can be "comprised of" certain members, or

2) Certain members can "comprise" the team.

Every year many of my applicants mistakenly use the preposition "of" when it isn't needed and drop it when it is necessary. So remember, when team members comprise a team, they do it alone – without a preposition. Feel free to write those two sample sentences out on a sticky note to put on your computer screen. These words come up all the time, especially in the plethora of leadership and teamwork MBA admission essays.

So when you want your essays, personal statements, and statements of purpose to present your skills, knowledge, and individuality well, remember: you don't have to do it alone.  Professional writers have editors for a reason. Contact an Accepted.com editor to guide you through these and other subtle English issues and make sure that your qualifications are not buried under prepositions!

The AAMC announced last week:

An annual survey on medical school expansion, conducted by the AAMC, indicates that first-year enrollment in U.S. medical schools is estimated to grow 21 percent (3,400 students per year) by 2012 to 19,900 students.

According to survey results, more than 86 percent of existing schools have already expanded the number of first-year students or plan to do so within the next five years. In addition, nine new medical schools are under development or discussion, according to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical education programs leading to an M.D. degree. The AAMC estimates that almost 800 first-year students will attend these new schools in the academic year 2012-13, based on future enrollment figures. The results of this survey were presented on Thursday at the opening of the 2008 AAMC Physician Workforce Research Conference.  The latest issue of AAMC Analysis in Brief also examines some of the results from this survey:

It’s May. The 2009 AMCAS application will be available soon and the MCAT is looming. Have you chosen your schools yet? Even if you have, consider the following:

• Applying to medical school is expensive. The MCAT registration fee is $210. The AMCAS fee to apply to ten schools is $430. Add the school application fees of at least $50 (some are as high as $125) payable at the secondary stage. Your grand total is now $1140, not including the cost of a prep course for the MCAT or travel to interviews. (There’s a fee assistance program for AMCAS and the MCAT, but it’s very difficult to qualify for it.)
• State residency plays a greater role in medical school admissions than in college admissions. Public schools are required by state regulation to give some degree of preference to legal residents of the state. A few simply don’t accept non-residents. The non-resident tuition at some is so high as to be beyond the means of most candidates. Many don’t accept non-residents in significant numbers, and those accepted usually have considerably higher grades and MCAT scores than their in-state counterparts.
• The highest-ranked medical schools want the highest grades and the highest MCAT scores. If you aren’t in the top group in both categories, don’t spend your money on the “big guns.”

What all this means is that every candidate needs a “core group” of wisely-chosen schools. The number might be 10 or 20, depending on how many public schools there are in your state and the strength of your academic record and test scores. It rarely makes sense, financially or in terms of improving your odds, to apply to more than 20. If your list is lengthy, start re-evaluating now.

As of today, the Accepted Admissions Almanac will start to present the posts of different Accepted editors. Paul Bodine's first post on the Accepted Admissions Almanac will appear later this morning to be followed by the posts of other Accepted editors in the future.  They will all post regularly going forward. And for my fans don't worry, I will also continue to post. :-)