You’re about to embark on four years of learning, working, socializing, and then learning and working some more. The best way to prepare for the long road ahead is to know what to expect. This post will walk you through the various avenues of medical school education, from reviewing what and how you’ll learn to…
The Best Medical School Letter of Recommendation Advice for 2024
Based on the hundreds of letters of recommendation we’ve read, we’ve identified five key elements that make a recommendation stand out from the rest and help the applicant shine. If you’re writing a recommendation for someone, or you’re drafting your own recommendation for your recommender to edit, these elements will help you structure your letter…
New York University Grossman Medical School Secondary Application Essay Tips [2023-2024]
Located in the bustling heart of lower Manhattan, the New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine is known for its strengths in patient care, medical education, and scientific research. The program is consistently ranked highly by physicians and researchers. In the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report ranking, it tied at #10 for research…
The AAMC’s PREview: Everything You Need to Know
The PREview exam is a type of situational judgment test designed to help admissions committees assess applicants’ pre-professional competencies. Unlike quantitative measures, such as the MCAT and one’s GPA, the PREview exam attempts to evaluate the qualitative, or “soft,” skills believed to be just as important for future physicians. Thus, used in conjunction with other…
University of Washington School of Medicine Secondary Application Tips and Deadlines [2023-2024]
Given that the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) is ranked number-one in primary care by U.S. News & World Report, it looks for applicants who have a strong interest in patient education and community health. It is also committed to serving the needs of the citizens of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho…
The Casper Exam: A Situational Judgement Test
GPAs. MCATs. CARS. AACOMAS. AMCAS. PREview. The abbreviations and acronyms you need to wade through on your journey to medical school can seem endless. Here’s another one: the Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics – Casper for short. This situational judgment test (SJT) is designed to assess core competencies related to social intelligence and professionalism,…
Med School Applications Kick Off: Ten Tips to Get You Through the Season
Getting ready to apply to medical school? This can be a hectic time as you try to stay on top of everything. Here are ten tips to help you hit the ground running: 1. Get cozy with AMCAS/AACOMAS. These two services – the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) and the American Association of Colleges…
Should You Consider a Caribbean Medical School?
If the application season isn’t going as you’d hoped, your thoughts might be turning to alternative ways of advancing your medical education. Perhaps you’re thinking about retaking the MCAT, boosting your GPA with postbaccalaureate coursework, or spending a year in a clinical or research environment. Or you might be thinking about warm tropical breezes and…
Teamwork in Medical School Admissions: How to Show You’ve Got It
In this post: Why do medical schools value teamwork? When the Institute of Medicine Committee on Quality of Health Care in America published its 2000 report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” the authors attributed most medical errors to two key deficits: (1) a lack of communication and (2) dysfunctional teamwork. It…
How to Answer the AMCAS Other Impactful Experiences Question (Formerly the Statement of Disadvantage)
If you have experienced any form of severe hardship – at any time in your life – medical schools want to know. Prior to the 2023-2024 cycle, AMCAS allowed candidates to self-identify as a disadvantaged applicant because of social, economic, or educational circumstances. Aiming to leave behind the negative connotations of the term “disadvantaged,” this…
The AMCAS Primary “Deadline”
In just a few days, many of you will want to submit your medical school primary application. You’ve probably heard that you have to click “send” on the first day possible – which this year is May 28, 2024 – if you want your best shot. But just how true is that? The AMCAS primary…
How to Improve Your Experiences for Your Med School Reapplication
One factor that can seriously hurt your chances of getting accepted to med school is a lack of substantive, ongoing service experiences, both clinical and nonclinical. Community service is not just another hoop you need to jump through to get admitted to medical school. After asking admissions officers in 2021 to rank the relative importance…
Rejected from Medical School? Three Tips for a Stronger Reapplication
You worked your tail off as an undergrad to earn an amazing GPA, took MCAT review courses to get a high score, and engaged in many hours of clinical experience and community service, but you were still rejected from medical school! Where did you go wrong? How can you get it right next time? Three…
What Is a Good MCAT Score for Getting into Medical School?
You’ve spent months in an MCAT review course, taken practice test after practice test, and finally sat for the exam. Your results are in. Are they good enough to get you into your target medical school? Let’s take a look at what your scores mean. MCAT scores and your grades are weighted differently. The primary…
GPA Issues When Applying to Med School: What to do With a “W”
Almost everybody has a blemish on their GPA. Usually it’s a failed class or a semester of poor grades. But there’s also the issue of how a “W” on your transcript will affect your chance of admission to medical school. The truth is that withdrawing from one or two classes is not going to hurt…
13 Essential Do’s and Don’ts for Your Residency Personal Statement
Residency applicants can submit applications via ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service) starting September 7th. Don’t wait until the last minute – get cracking on those residency essays now! Why is your residency essay so important? Your personal statement is a vital part of your residency application; it’s where you’ll explain why you’ve chosen your specialty…
How to Write the “Why This Medical School” Secondary Essay
One of the most popular secondary questions asked by medical schools is “why our program?” Saying why you’re attracted to a particular school can be a hard thing to explain, especially when you’ve looked at so many programs that they’ve all begun to blur. I think that’s why I so often see the same answer:…
Matching Your Values to a Medical School’s Mission Statement
We cannot stress enough how important it is to understand and think about a medical school’s mission statement when you are applying. Successful applicants not only demonstrate that they have the essential qualifications a particular school wants, but they also prove that their interests and values align closely with those of the school. Why are…
7 To-Dos for Canadians Applying to U.S. Med Schools
Each year, Canadian medical school hopefuls look across the border for their medical education. While there are obvious challenges (adapting to a different health care system, returning to a Canadian residency, and much higher education costs), the higher acceptance rates at U.S. programs (about 36.2% overall per AAMC, as compared to around 19.6% in Canada)…
Reapplying to Medical School: Secondaries, Interviews and School Selection
In this final part of your assessment, we will look at all the other ways you communicated with the admissions committee. With the multi-staged admissions process, and an increasingly longer application season, applicants have multiple opportunities to make an impact – or be weeded out. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate whether or not your interactions…