“Top Ten” Pieces of Advice for Aspiring and Successful Pre-Meds
Dr. Spence with JAMP interviewees just before the interview day in Lubbock, Texas. (From left to right: Andrew Torres, Dr. Spence, Niray Bhakta.) January 2009.
Greetings,
I am Doug Spence, a biology professor and for the last fifteen years health professions advisor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa. Trevor asked me if I would write an article for premedicine.org giving advice to pre-meds from an advisor’s point of view, and I’m happy to oblige.
Here is a “top ten” list which, to a greater or lesser degree, sooner or later, affect almost every pre-med:
1. Recognize at the very outset (beginning as a freshman) that getting into medical school is going to be harder than you could possibly imagine at that point. If you understand that, and steel yourself to what it will take for the next four years, then you will have a much better chance of actually making it successfully into medical school than those for whom this never quite sinks in.
2. Conversely, be realistic. I hate to tell you this, but all the time you were growing up and adults (parents and teachers, bless them) told you, “You can be anything you want to be,” simply is not always true. It’s great to have dreams, aspirations, and goals, but if you can’t bat, pitch, catch, or field, you don’t have a future in the major leagues. Similarly, not everybody makes it to medical school. The hardest part of my job, as I’m sure it is for every health professions advisor, is when I have to tell a student, “Sorry, but I think we need to consider other professional alternatives.”
3. One of the most fundamental differences between successful and unsuccessful people in general is being a proactive, do-more-than-you-need-to type of person. Health care is one of the most demanding of all professions, so this especially applies to pre-meds. Of course, you need to know your limits and you need to be careful not to overcommit yourself, but the best pre-meds establish and maintain a record of being punctual, reliable “go-getters” who go through life doing more than is minimally required. In short, you want to show how much you can do and how good you can be, not how much you can get away with.
4. Following from that, realize that as you go through life the impression you make on people will be at least as important in your long term success as your measureable accomplishments. I’ve known a lot of students over the years who could pull an A in their courses, despite missing every class period or taking advantage of every loophole in the syllabus they could get away with and begrudging having to do that much; I’ve also had a lot who attended every class scrupulously, handed in every assignment punctually, and always seemed genuinely happy to be there, to do anything they were asked, and eager to please, yet could never pull better than a C. Which group do you think got the warmest and most enthusiastic recommendations from me?
5. Plan out your academic track, preparing for the MCAT, and applying to medical school as far in advance as you can, and do your utmost to stay on track. On the whole, it’s vastly more important to make sure you do things right the first time, rather than just to do them quickly, because you just might have to do it again. This applies to everything, major and minor, from routine class assignments to your progress through your academic work to preparing for the MCAT.
6. Do not underestimate the MCAT. Do not underestimate just how long and just how much you need to prepare for it. Make sure you start preparing for the MCAT early enough and seriously enough that you really have put in as much effort as it takes. The single most common frustration my students put me through is that I can tell they are not studying for the MCAT nearly as hard as they think they are.
7. Considering the nature of my job, I don’t like to look like I’m doing a commercial for them, but seriously consider taking one of the various MCAT preparation courses – Princeton Review, Kaplan, etc. They are not cheap, but reckon the comparative cost of not getting into medical school the first time around and having to do it all over again the next year. Every student of mine who has taken one of these courses has been glad they did. Conversely, I’ve had a number of my students over the years tell me, “I’ll study just as hard without taking one of these courses.” I know you; no, you won’t. And they didn’t.
8. Set an achievable target date by which you will be prepared to take the MCAT, and stick to it. Ironically, in some ways the online MCAT actually works against good MCAT preparation. Back in the days of the paper-and-pencil MCAT, there were only two test administrations each year, in April and August, and every Texas applicant knew that taking the August MCAT was too late to achieve the “early” application that is so important. Thus, Texas applicants knew that they just had to be prepared for the MCAT by a certain Saturday in April, despite themselves, with no fall-back position. So, by the strange twist of logic, they usually were. Now, the problem is that the multiple administrations of the online MCAT can work against a student’s timely preparation to take it because there is always another MCAT a week or a month later that a student who isn’t putting in adequate preparation can use as a fallback. I’ve already seen it with so many of my students over the last two years: “I had originally planned to take one of the April MCATs, but then I thought, ‘That’ll be in the middle of the semester, when I might have a lot of regular exams to study for. I’ll be so much better prepared if I wait and take one of the May MCATs. Then as the May MCAT date approached, I thought that I hadn’t had enough time to study for it after school let out, so I cancelled my May registration and signed up for the June administration.’” Thus, students keep putting off and putting off taking the MCAT, but when they finally do take it, they tend to be no better prepared. As one of my students last year confessed to me, “After I cancelled one registration and registered for the next one, I realized, ‘I just gave myself another month. I can go the movies tonight.’”
9. Everything Trevor says in all his other postings on this website about the importance of submitting your application early is absolutely true. I tell my students to have their applications submitted and completed to TMDSAS by the end of July.
10. The whole time you are filling out the application, imagine yourself as a member of a medical school admissions committee looking at your application: Does your application tell them what they are seeking to know about your aptitude for medical school and the medical profession? Answer all questions truthfully and openly. Don’t give the impression that you are withholding information because you don’t want the medical schools to know it, and don’t give the impression that you are rushing through and giving short, perfunctory answers (“not applicable”) everywhere you can get away with it just to get through the application. On the all-important personal statement, one of my successful students gives this excellent advice: Start on the personal statement first, and work on it continually as you fill out the rest of the application, because questions throughout the application will constantly remind you to add or revise passages on your personal statement. Last, print a copy of your application and re-read it before your interviews to remind yourself what you put on it. You don’t want inconsistencies between your application and the statements you make during your interview.
Dr. Spence can be reached at: spence_d@utpb.edu