Show Summary

In the 605th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Dr. Barry Rothman, current Accepted consultant and former Health Professions Advisor and Director of San Francisco State University’s Pre-Health Professions Certificate Program, joins Linda Abraham to explore how med school applicants can overcome common application weaknesses. From low GPAs and MCAT scores to limited clinical experience, research, or community service, Dr. Rothman shares practical strategies for strengthening your candidacy and making smart, mission-aligned school selections. The episode also covers sensitive topics like academic infractions, mental health challenges, and the importance of timing and fit. Whether you’re reapplying or just beginning your journey, this conversation is packed with expert advice to help you stand out.

Show Notes

Welcome to the 605th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s Med School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. You’ll not only get an assessment, but tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it’s all free. 

I also want to mention that Admissions Straight Talk was recognized again, this time by The Million Podcasts, which ranked it fifth in all graduate podcasts for 2025. So thank you to Million Podcasts for the honor, and thank you to our listeners and guests for your participation and listenership. This honor is as much yours as mine. 

Speaking of wonderful guests, our guest today, Dr. Barry Rothman, is the former Health Professions Advisor and Director of San Francisco State University’s Pre-Health Professions Certificate Program, which served pre-med, pre-dental, pre-nursing, and other pre-healthcare students who were preparing to apply to graduate professional schools. Today, he is a much-loved and much-appreciated Accepted consultant, where since 2015, he’s been helping clients get accepted to top medical schools in all different areas. And of course, post-bac programs. 

Now, Dr. Rothman, first of all, welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk. I was looking through some old files, and your first appearance on Admission Straight Talk was back in 2013. I think this is your sixth appearance. So again, big welcome back to Admissions Straight Talk.

I feel very welcomed and this is my 10th anniversary with Accepted.

Multiple reasons for congratulations. 

Right, my 2013 interview introduced me to Accepted. I was still running the post-bac programs at SF State. And I talked to you about joining Accepted, and you said I could, but I had to not be directing the program due to conflict of interest. So I waited patiently, and you did, and the rest is history.

Right, potential conflict.

And I’m very glad you asked me and waited patiently.

It was good for us and certainly good for Accepted’s clients. 

So today’s program is going to focus very much on overcoming application weaknesses when applying to medical school. And I have a series of questions about different weaknesses and how applicants can overcome them. 

So let’s start first with GPA issues, either a below average GPA overall, a declining trend, or low grade specifically in science courses, pre-med courses prerequisites.

Sure. I think med schools look at your BCPM, biology, chemistry, physics, and math, or in DO schools, BCP or science GPAs. Those are going to be the most important. And they want to see either very high grades or at least an upward trend with two years of high grades.

If you don’t have that, I think you really should not be applying, but taking time and repairing your academic record. That can be done in post-bac programs or masters, special masters programs, or even a DIY post-bac program, one that you run yourself. That would be the least expensive of the three. And you can take courses, sometimes at multiple schools, and build up your portfolio so that you have over the last let’s say 40 units of BCP or BCPM coursework, a pretty high GPA, let’s say 3.5, something like that. So that’s the thing to do. There’s no fast way to medical school. The fastest way is slowly, as I’m fond of saying.

All right, great.

It’s better to invest the time than to rush, rush, rush, feel urgent, feel pressure from people around you, and then apply foolishly. Much better to wait until you’ve got all the I’s dotted and all the T’s crossed.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m  communicating, corresponding with somebody right now who I think is in a big rush. And I don’t think he’s ready.

One thing I ask potential clients is, what’s the source of the urgency? Is it inside you? Is it your parents? Is it your peer group? What’s driving this? And if you can identify it, maybe you can lessen its effects on you.

Wonderful, wonderful piece of advice. Thank you, thank you for that. What if somebody is struggling with the MCAT? They take it and they have a low MCAT.

Well, what I ask, I ask my clients first of all, did you take the MCAT under the best circumstances? Did you have enough time to prepare? Was your life in order when you took it or were you freaking out? And if the answer is yes, I did take it under the best circumstances, then you have to live with that MCAT score. Sure, you can retake it, but in many, many cases, the same score, very close to the same score, occurs. Now, if something really was not right in the preparation or in the taking of the MCAT, then by all means retake it. But, of course, repair the situation. Don’t take it again under the same poor circumstances.

I sometimes ask clients, what would you change about your preparation to change the outcome?

Yeah, that’s a good way to do it.

You know, it’s very similar to the questions that you ask. You know, obviously if there was a jackhammer going in the room outside your testing center, that could easily be a big problem.

Right or some family catastrophe or romantic breakup or something like that, that’s going to affect your MCAT performance.

Yeah, for sure.

Another thing is if you have some certified learning challenge to seek accommodations in the MCAT, it’s a very time limited test. And many people do quite well in undergraduate school in mainly time unlimited assignments and exams. But when you hit the MCAT, it is time limited and some people’s processing speed is lower. And so if that’s true, you have to kind of… it’s very hard to change your processing speed. And by the way, processing speed has nothing to do with your intelligence. It’s just how quickly you process information. For example, if you’re working in a second language, if English isn’t your first language, your processing speed in English and actually in your first language will be a little slower. So knowing that, then you need to find ways to make your use of the time in the MCAT as efficient as possible.

What if you have test anxiety?

Well, I would work with somebody to get help with it. There are some grounding techniques that you can use, sometimes very simple ones like breath work where you breathe deeply, let it out slowly. That one breath made me feel more relaxed. So you can do that in the MCAT. Nobody cares if you take deep breaths.

There’s nothing wrong with doing that, and it can help you, but there are other ways to ground yourself so that the anxiety isn’t making it difficult. Anxiety can make your brain not work, and suddenly you’re not thinking clearly at all. So learning tricks in real time to handle test anxiety is really important if that’s what’s plaguing you.

And what about the applicant who thinks that, they have the high GPA, they have the high test score, the MCAT, you know, that’ll get them in. So they don’t do much in the way of clinical exposure, and then they get rejected and they wonder why they got rejected. What does that applicant need to do? I think the answer there is probably pretty simple, but…

It’s pretty obvious they need to get clinical experience. Again, stop rushing and maybe get some help with the reality of applying to med school. You need to be strong in all three important areas, GPA, MCAT, and clinical.

If you are not strong in any one of those, it’s a much lower chance of getting in.

And when you talk about clinical experience, I mean, does it have to be, what if it’s more patient advocacy? What if you’re very active in some group that’s advocating, let’s say, for a national health care system? Is that clinical exposure or is that non-clinical advocacy?

It’s non-clinical advocacy, you’re not really doing, now the word is patient facing. I love that term because it means actual contact with patients.

If you’re going to go into a career of medicine, you should know what you’re getting into. And surely, part of what you’re getting into is talking to patients. So you need to see if you have the skills to do it and what kinds of patients. There’s going to be easy patients and really difficult patients. You really need to know what it’s like to deal with them. So you need to have enough patient-facing activity.

Some of the best ones are being an EMT, being a medical assistant, and being a scribe. Those three paths give you lots of contact with patients and physicians, and I would highly recommend any one of those three.

Do you have a minimum number in mind?

Of hours you mean? Yeah. Yeah. I think you need easily a hundred hours, if not more. And it’s helpful to maybe have more than one clinical experience, patient-facing experience. And what’s really important, either clinically or social justice-wise, is to work with disadvantaged groups and advocate for them so that you understand what it’s like for people who don’t have a lot of resources.

A lot of our patients in this country are going to … In fact, the people with the worst health care outcomes or the people from the lowest resources, resource background. So we need to know how to work with them and how to support them, how to see what kinds of problems they have and how to help them surmount those problems.

Well, that actually was one of my points. What if somebody does have, again, is limited non-clinical community service, specifically service to the underserved. Is that always a weakness for all schools? Or is it for most schools, some schools?

Well, I think it’s a weakness for all schools, but there are some people, some applicants, who themselves are so low-resourced, all they have the ability to do is to go to school and work to support themselves financially. Now, if you’re coming from that kind of situation, you don’t have a lot of time to do volunteer work. You don’t have a lot of time to do social justice work. You’re just surviving. And in that case, I would say, OK, that’s legitimate. But explain it in your personal statement. Don’t leave it up to their imaginations, because their imaginations are going to think something else, like you were goofing off, or you were taking long vacations, or whatever.

Or the other impactful experience essay, but it should be in there.

Yes, it should be in there. And also, if you’re impacted so heavily, you might need more time after graduating college to get enough experience. Because you can’t work 40 hours a week between social justice and clinical experiences. Maybe you can only work five hours a week. So spend a year or two, five hours a week, and then explain it in your personal statement.

And what about research? I mean, some applicants think that they have to have hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours of research to apply to medical school. Is that true for some medical schools, all medical schools, or no medical schools?

Some medical schools value research and really hold it in high regard. For the people who really want to have research careers but be physicians, of course there are MD-PhD programs. But for your regular MD applicant, which is a much larger pool than MD-PhD applicants, you don’t have to have research. I think most of the people I talk to, most of the students and clients I talk to, overvalue research. Research is like a gas. It fills its container. It can fill your life. And so it can eat up time that you could really use better getting clinical experience and getting social justice experience.

I think it’s good to have some idea of how research works and so to have one research experience, but to fill your time with research I think in some ways is misguided.

Especially if it’s at the expense of clinical exposure. Right. I can understand where if you’re on a university campus, it’s much easier and convenient to get involved in research. You’re right there. It might be harder to get a good clinical volunteer position or even work position.

Yes, you have to work harder. And labs are often very happy to have free research work coming in from students. So yeah.

What about lack of shadowing?

I think shadowing is a nice addition,  but a more concentrated clinical experience is better. Like I said, the medical assistant, the scribe, the EMT. But on top of it, I think shadowing is good in terms of showing you multiple dimensions of healthcare. So shadow some specialists, shadow some primary care physicians. That looks good. But, don’t rely on shadowing alone. Shadowing in some ways is the lowest form of volunteerism because it tends to be quite passive. Well sometimes the person you’re shadowing will grill you and make you be active, which I think is really good. They’re good mentors, but you’re not guaranteed that.

It’s entirely passive.

But I think it is a really good idea to shadow multiple shadows. And in your application, especially your AMCAS application, you can put multiple shadowing experiences into one experience with, let’s say, three different sets of dates. So it can be done efficiently when you’re applying.

I sometimes like to say that shadowing is a good place to begin your exploration of medicine, but it’s a terrible place to end it, especially the clinical side of medicine specifically. And I think your point about getting a broader exposure to medicine by shadowing different specialties is very well taken. And it’s really an opportunity in that regard. 

What do you see as the easiest application weakness to overcome?

Poorly written application because somebody might have everything, know, all the right experiences and high MCAT and high GPA and they write an application that just is incomprehensible or makes them seem like they’re living on a different planet. And so it’s really good to get help. It’s a labyrinthine process and schools read very carefully what you write and they’re not going to make excuses for you. So you have to be really clear on who you are and what parts of yourself you want to show to the schools.

And it should be authentic. It’s easy to sniff out when somebody’s not being real. So authentic and clear communication. And that can be lacking. 

Or sometimes they’re superficial. I think we’ve both seen applications where the stats are sky high and the writing in the application is unsubstantive, boring, repetitive, and just doing a disservice to the applicant.

Right, who maybe doesn’t even know that. That because they haven’t had in-depth experiences at a psychological level, they’re kind of naive to the process. So, I mean, that’s the kind of growing up that can take some time to learn how to look more deeply into all of your life interactions. But it’s really a good investment just in the quality of your life forever.

What is the hardest application weakness to overcome?

Well, low GPA, especially downward trending GPA, first of all you’ve got to explain it. Like, what happened? You did so well at the beginning and then you crashed and burned. Why did that happen? And then to, after the crash and burn, to have two years worth of good solid DCPM GPA, which will be mostly in upper division bio electives.

So that’s one problem that’s difficult to overcome but can be overcome with an investment of time. A low MCAT is also very difficult to overcome. As we discussed earlier in this interview, some people didn’t prepare properly or took it under bad circumstances, so they can probably fix the situation. But if you’ve taken it under good circumstances and your score is still low, then you’re going to wind up living with that. And one thing you can do, and I’ve seen it work, is to try to explain what’s going on with you and the MCAT. So with some clients who are second language, English as a second language, I’ve had them actually write an experience about the MCAT where they explain that, you know, English is not my first language, my processing speed in English is slow, and in a time-limited exam like the MCAT, I didn’t score well. But when I took my practice MCATs without time limits, I did great. So it’s a, I mean it’s not a compelling argument, but it’s better to say something like that than to just let them think, wow, there’s something wrong with your test taking skills.

There’s no great way to handle it other than getting a higher score. At least give them something, then they can judge for themselves if they want to admit you or not.

Right, but at least explain it. I’ve worked with clients for whom that explaining reasons why they have slow processing speeds actually worked and they got in.

Now we’ve kind of focused very much on academic problems or the commonly known weaknesses, if you will, in the medical school application process. 

What about something like an academic infraction or a criminal violation? Misdemeanor, even a felony.

Well, it’s kind of like the weakness in a way. First of all, there are a lot of them out there. I mean, if you’re the… A lot of people get in with these infractions. And also, there’s a lot of people who have had these problems. Things like being drunk on campus or cheating in an exam as a freshman. These are very common problems.

So people do get in.

But when you’re alone as an applicant, you think, my God, I’m the worst person in the world. They’ll never accept me. What am I going to do? But actually, explaining it and taking responsibility is good. Now, single time offenses and dumb things you might do as an 18-year-old, those are pretty easy to explain. But if you keep repeating the problem, then I think you need to go to therapy and deal with it, and then show that there’s been a period of time since then that you haven’t done this problem. So repeating problems are really much more of a red flag for a med school admissions committee. So 3-DUIs do not look good.

And I think you need to go into some kind of recovery program or therapy or both to show that you’re consciously trying to work on this.

Showing that, well, if it’s a one-time event, you know, you were young and stupid. Most admissions readers have at one time been young and stupid. So they can, yeah, they can understand that. Now, you know, when you talk about explaining circumstances or what happened, are you talking about providing context? Are you talking about justifying what happened?

Indeed.

I think there is a subtle difference there that I don’t, I think you probably want to go into it a little bit because providing context, I think is one thing and it goes very much with taking responsibility. And I think that’s absolutely key,  explaining sounds almost like justifying and I don’t think you want them to go that way. Am I correct?

No, you do not want to rationalize your problem. You want to take responsibility for it. And again, on the applications, they don’t give you a lot of room to explain these problems. That’s why I often ask my clients to take one of their experiences to do it. Because you can add on to the 250 character explanation. 250 characters? What can you tell them in 250 characters? And I would definitely add a sentence or two about how you feel about having committed that I feel embarrassed.

It may be highlighting what you’ve done differently since then, or the amount of time has elapsed, especially if it was a one-time event. 

Exactly. I always point out that since then I have not repeated it. Since then, five years ago, I have not repeated it.

What about a different topic? Mental health issues or substance abuse issues?

Sure. I think you have to tread really carefully here because certain words will scare people who are not necessarily in the mental health world. So I happen to be married to a psychotherapist, so I have heard a lot about mental health stuff. But if you talk about depression, let’s say, that seems more stigmatized than anxiety. So, in my humble opinion, honing up to anxiety seems like that’s a normal thing in this culture to be anxious. But depression has a bad kind of reputation, even though I think it’s still stigmatized.

Even though so many people are depressed or have gone through periods of depression. But I would be really careful about the words that I use. And again, seek help. Having gone to a therapist or a counselor or a recovery program really, first of all, can make a difference. And secondly, looks like you’re really taking responsibility for what’s going on.

Another topic is very frequently diagnosed, ADHD or ADD. And I think it’s so common that it’s fine to own that. You should say whether you got accommodations or not. I’ve had clients who have a diagnosis and have not taken accommodations, which I think looks really good.

But especially in explaining academic record that might be really spotty, ADD and ADHD, if they really have an effect on you, could be worthwhile talking about. But again, you have to show that you’ve gotten some mastery over it. You can’t just say, well, I have ADD and you better give me accommodation. Yeah, I’ll do better.

Please trust me, I’ll do better in medical school.

So you have to show improvement and that you’re responsibly reacting to your situation and doing the best with it.

Now one mistake, this is not so much a weakness I would say, but a very, very common mistake, is applying to the wrong schools. What should applicants be looking at to determine that they’re applying to the right schools?

Well, you should look at mission statements, but some of them are so broad and so undefined that it basically means if you’re a breathing organism, you would be fine here. With noble intentions. Don’t forget the noble intentions.

Yes, noble intention. The MSAR, the Medical School Application Requirements, gives you some sense of the range of GPA and MCAT scores. But that’s just getting in. I don’t know if that’s really a fit or not. I think using studentdoctor.net and maybe going a little deeper into their web pages to see what their real style is, that can be helpful.

Most applicants look at 20 to 40 schools and will have some that are reach schools, some that seem on target, and some that seem lower and hope that, you know, something will work out and they’ll have maybe even a choice among one or two or more schools.

What I’ve seen a lot of applicants do is they sometimes look at MSAR and they say, well, I’m not below the bottom 10%. So I have a chance. They might be not below the bottom 10 % for both GPA and MCAT. And they apply to most schools on that basis. I think that most of the schools you apply to, you should be very close to or above the 50th percentile for both those numbers and have obviously, and be able to show, fit with mission or with the program, the offerings of the school, perhaps placement. That’s probably less important on the med school level. And I think that the MSAR is really good, but don’t expect constant miracles.

Right. I think it’s fine to apply to a handful of reach schools. A handful.

Yeah, a handful. But if it’s more than half of the schools you’re applying to…

Well, sometimes a cycle of complete rejection creates a reality for the next cycle of applying. I’ve seen clients apply to all the top medical schools, and their records are not as stellar as you might expect. And then they don’t get in anywhere, and it’s sort of like, OK, time to reconfigure my reality. Maybe I’m not the most wonderful person in the world. And that maybe there are other people that are valued more than I am in terms of getting into med school and adjust accordingly.

Absolutely. It’s one great reality check. Expensive, time consuming, but it works. 

It works and it can be really a jump start into greater maturity.

What about bad timing, submitting late or turning around secondary slowly, taking your MCAT in June or July and wanting to apply that cycle? 

Yes. I mean, time management is really challenging. I know that personally. Maybe it’s worth waiting another cycle to get everything lined up. Applying late really is painful because the number of seats available diminishes tremendously, and taking the MCAT late your application’s not going to be processed unless…

What’s late for submitting the primary?

Well, it depends. I like to see people get the primary within the first month, within the month of June. Some applicants who are quite disadvantaged or in special programs for disadvantaged students can play that a little bit more and schools will understand that. That they have limited resources and they’re doing their best in their applying rate. But it’s much better to get your application in within the month of June, maybe the first week or two of July which means a lot of preparation ahead of time.

You can’t quickly apply to medical school. You can quickly reapply, but that’s another story.

Even that, that’s a different podcast, different podcast episode. You can’t quickly apply as you said, as you said so many times, and I’ve quoted you many times on this: ”The fastest way to medical school is slowly.” If you think you’re going to take the MCAT in May, have your score back by the end of June, and yeah, you can submit earlier and verify, know, submit only to one secondary. You know, you’re just putting pressure on yourself.

You can’t pre-write secondaries, you don’t have the time to. And then you end up turning around secondaries either too late, either on the late side, or you’re doing poor jobs on them, because you’re just kind of churning them out as fast as you can.

Yeah, the secondaries are worth talking about because the first five or six schools, you really have to work on the essays and each essay can be like a whole personal statement. I mean, they’re quite labor-intensive to work them out. But as you fill out secondaries, the job gets easier because you can use previously written secondaries as a foundation. I wouldn’t just rubber-stamp them or when you’re applying to School X, happen to accidentally say School Y in your secondary. But it does get easier, the first five or so can be very challenging. Very. Very. And when you apply to a lot of schools, you get a lot of secondaries. And it’s like having a full-time job.

And time consuming. Absolutely. And they all come at the same time. I mean, not exactly the same day, but they tend to pour in.

More or less, yeah. They tend to pour in and it really is a good rule of thumb to complete them within two weeks or so.

I want to thank you so much for joining me today. 

Relevant Links

• Med School Admissions Quiz
• Dr. Barry Rothman Bio 
• Applying to Medical School with Low Stats: What You Need to Know
• Medical School Selectivity Index

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