# Incoming US Medical Student - AMA!



## C3bBb (Oct 22, 2013)

Hey ya'll! As the school year draws nearer, I'll be spending a lot less time on PerC, and wanted to offer advice and suggestions to anyone who was interested in pursuing the medical field (and particularly US M.D. granting programs) while I still have the opportunity to. Some of my credentials are as follows:

-Plenty of research background spanning multiple scientific disciplines (ecology, chemistry, neuroscience, psychology)
-Emergency Room volunteering + physician shadowing
-Summer camp counselor for disabled children
-Club president for a sports interest club in college (2 years) and board member of other academic organization
-3 publications, including a self-published, award-winning research abstract for a well-attended international scientific conference at which I also presented my summer research

More detailed information can be found in my MDapps profile link: 

MDapplicants.com - View Profile

Feel free to shoot me any questions you might have pertaining to applications and my decision to pursue medicine. Please keep actual personal medical-related questions between you and your physician. As I don't technically start school until fall, I won't even pretend to understand your condition. :laughing: Ask away!


----------



## angularvelocity (Jun 15, 2009)

If what you listed for your application is true, this is hilarious.

Has "A-" GPA of 3.7 , has 2-3 publications, has the average accepted to med school MCAT score of 30, and lots of volunteer experience in the field..

Denied from 90% of the schools you applied to.

The true life of an Asian.

Any other ethnicity with those stats gets you in.


----------



## C3bBb (Oct 22, 2013)

angularvelocity said:


> If what you listed for your application is true, this is hilarious.
> 
> Has "A-" GPA of 3.7 , has 2-3 publications, has the average accepted to med school MCAT score of 30, and lots of volunteer experience in the field..
> 
> ...


True, I definitely didn't pick this route because I thought it'd be the easy one. Unless I plan on going into the liberal arts, the odds are pretty much never in my favor.


----------



## sriracha (Sep 19, 2010)

How much money did you spend on applying for all of those schools?
How did you prepare for taking the MCAT exam?
What school are you going to attend in the fall, and how do you feel about it? Do you think the school is competent into making you successful, and how confident are you in succeeding at this school? 
What specific field(s) are you going into, and what prompted and motivated you to pursue it?
How do you think your experience working as a summer counselor for disabled children will help you in your life-time career?
What are the biggest problems you have faced in preparation for med school, and what is your advice for students who are preparing to pursue this field?


----------



## C3bBb (Oct 22, 2013)

rawr_sheila said:


> How much money did you spend on applying for all of those schools?
> How did you prepare for taking the MCAT exam?
> What school are you going to attend in the fall, and how do you feel about it? Do you think the school is competent into making you successful, and how confident are you in succeeding at this school?
> What specific field(s) are you going into, and what prompted and motivated you to pursue it?
> ...


*How much money did you spend on applying for all of those schools? 
*On just applying, I spent $160 on the AMCAS processing fees which includes one medical school designation and each additional school thereafter was another $36. All in all I spent about $800 just on the primary applications. After my primaries were sent to each school, they (usually) sent me a secondary app that was specific for their school, which ranged anywhere from $40 to $100. This amounted to another $1100 in total. Then came the interviews, which I had to pay for travel related expenses and living. This was about $600. 800+1100+600 = $2500 roughly.*

How did you prepare for taking the MCAT exam?
*I used the Princeton Review for Biology practice, Berkeley Review for general+organic chem, and NOVA for physics. Read through the lesson and drilled through problems. On average spent about 4-5 hours a day for 4 months.
*
What school are you going to attend in the fall, and how do you feel about it? Do you think the school is competent into making you successful, and how confident are you in succeeding at this school? 

*I'll be attending school at the LSUHSC in New Orleans, and overall I like it. From what I've seen so far, the faculty is pretty down-to-earth and the students are chill. The school has a 100% STEP 1 (national board exams you need to take after your second year) pass rate, which is higher than the average, and their average scores are either on par or slightly above the national average as well.*

What specific field(s) are you going into, and what prompted and motivated you to pursue it?

*I don't pick my specialty until the end of my 3rd year when I start applying for residencies. I am interested in internal medicine and specifically a sub-branch of that : pain management. I did some volunteer work at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which dealt with all sorts of patient cases from post-amputees to chronic pain sufferers. Specializing in pain management gives you some versatility in clientele and also allows you to prescribe a wide range of medications.*

How do you think your experience working as a summer counselor for disabled children will help you in your life-time career?

*Part of being a good doctor is not just having technical skills and the knowledge needed to carry out your practice but compassion and the ability to deal with other people. Acting essentially as a baby-sitter for disabled children is perhaps an exaggeration of the compassion aspect needed to practice medicine but the principle remains the same. Not to mention meeting future classmates and 2nd years at the camp was pretty helpful/fun as well.
*
What are the biggest problems you have faced in preparation for med school, and what is your advice for students who are preparing to pursue this field?

*I prepared for it rather late, thinking that I was going to pursue graduate school for the longest time. Either way I still got all my needed classes and "core" requirements completed as per graduation/medical school guidelines. My advice to students is to make sure they plan out their classes well in advance if they have any interest in pursuing medical school. Know what classes you need to take as part of the medical school requirements and also keep in mind that you also should leave some time open for social/extracurricular activities. If possible, try to be a club officer or board member of your clubs/organizations. Leadership experience looks great to medical school admissions committees and dedication to an interest group is quite impressive in and of itself. Overall it's a tough road to take, and there will be many days where you wish you'd have chosen a different path but as long as you retain your original motive for choosing medicine, it's definitely within your reach.


----------

