What do I need to do to get to medical school?

This is not the easiest question to answer and much depends on your individual circumstances after you finish your undergraduate studies. Generally speaking, however, to earn a seat in a U.S. D.O. or M.D. program, you want to do the following:

Coursework:

Complete a minimum of 90 credits while completing the following courses (These should be considered minimums and understand that each medical school will have its own individual nuances regarding required courses):

General Biology (For science majors) Lecture & Lab 8 credits

General Chemistry (For science majors) Lecture & Lab 8 credits

General Physics (For science majors. Can be algebra/trig or calculus based) Lecture & Lab 8 credits

Organic Chemistry (For science majors) Lecture & Lab 8 credits

English (Depending on the medical school, some may accept courses such as technical writing or persuasive writing while others will only accept the standard two semester introductory Freshman English series. Still others will accept Sophomore-level English literature) 6 credits

Math (Depending on the school, Statistics and/or Calculus may suffice. If you must take Statistics, most medical schools want it to be taught by the math department. Some will accept stats taught by the psychology department) 3 to 6 credits

Social sciences (i.e., Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology) 3 to 6 credits

Other classes that are recommended but not required include:

Human Anatomy & Physiology 8 credits

Biochemistry 3 to 4 credits (Some medical schools are now requiring this course and some medical schools allow you to replace one semester of organic chemistry with one semester of biochemistry)

Immunology 3 to 4 credits

Microbiology 3 to 4 credits

Genetics 3 to 4 credits

Cell Biology 3 to 4 credits

Molecular Biology 3 to 4 credits

Ethics 3 credits

In terms of what you should study, you can literally choose a bachelor’s degree in anything under the sun. As long as you complete the pre-requisite courses for medical school, it doesn’t matter what your degree is in. Obviously, if you pursue a science-based degree, it may be easier to fit in these courses as opposed to choosing a humanities degree. My advice is to pursue a degree in something that you would enjoy while at the same time ensuring that it’s a degree that can potentially help you land work if you don’t get into medical school. I finished two degrees, one in Microbiology and the other in Community Health Promotion with a minor in Sociology. Both degrees allowed me to find work after graduation and I happened to enjoy both fields of study.

What about outside experiences? Medical school admissions committees will expect you to have clinical experience in the form of shadowing physicians and/or working in some sort of patient care environment (popular routes for this are EMT-Basic, CNA, home health aide, Patient Care Technician, Wound Care Tech, or Scribe). You’ll also want to pursue some sort of volunteer activities. For example, working at a local after school reading program or volunteering to feed the homeless. Gaining some leadership experience will also be seen as a positive; serving as the President or Vice-President of a student organization or sitting on your university diversity committee are positive leadership roles. Finally, while not necessary (unless you are applying to D.O./PhD or M.D./PhD programs), gaining research experience as an undergraduate student is a positive application builder.

Before I address how many hours of these different activities one should consider pursuing, I want to preface that by saying that you should do things that you care about. Don’t do things just for the sake of checking a box to get into medical school. Medical school admissions personnel know how to see through the B.S. From a deeper perspective, these should be opportunities for you to explore your interests, become a well-rounded person, and decide if medicine is really what you want. It is not uncommon for students to participate in these activities and then have a change of heart about medicine. The name of the game is GROWTH.

So, in terms of how much time you should put into doing these things, here are some numbers based on what my wife has shared with me regarding what the average applicant to ATSU-SOMA has (These are just averages; many students apply with far more than this and some have less):

80-200 hours physician shadowing

800-1,000 hours other clinical experiences

1,000 hours of volunteering

80-200 hours leadership experiences

0 – 1,000 hours research (SOMA isn’t nearly as big on research as they are service/volunteering, and it is not uncommon for students to apply with no research)

When I applied this cycle, my numbers looked like this:

120 hours shadowing three physicians, two D.O. and one M.D.

Over 18,000 hours clinical experience gained from military and civilian healthcare

I only counted my most recent, significant volunteer experience, two terms of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA – Over 3,400 hours

Over 2,000 hours leadership experience from the military and civilian world

3,500 hours in research – As an undergrad, I completed three research internships and I have conducted research across two master’s degrees and my PhD

Don’t look at my hours and think, “Wow, I will never catch up to all of that.” I am a non-traditional applicant who has had multiple careers in the years since I graduated from high school (1989). It is EXPECTED that I have a more extensive background than the typical applicant. If I applied with the averages, the admissions committee might very well ask, “What in the hell have you been doing with your life since 1989?” But I point this out to show that you can see a wide variation in what students apply with. The real issue is that you should do things that you care about and make sure that they are quality experiences.

Last thing before I go. When it comes to GPA and MCAT scores, the best advice that I can give is to make sure that you do as well as possible in your classes. GPAs > than 3.0 science and cumulative and MCAT scores > 500 give you the best odds of earning an interview and eventually and acceptance. For the current 2020-’21 application cycle, the average MCAT score for applicants to U.S. medical schools is 506.4 and the average MCAT for matriculants is a 511.5. In terms of GPA, in the 2017-’18 application year, the numbers for matriculants were 3.64 science, 3.79 non-science, and a 3.71 overall. These numbers are for all D.O. and M.D. applicants/matriculants. In practice, the numbers for D.O. applicants and matriculants are a little lower, but not by much (and the gap is rapidly closing between the two). Further, there are always students with lower numbers who get into medical school and those with higher numbers than the averages who do not get into medical school. For example, my undergraduate science GPA is a 3.18 or 3.19 and my overall was a 3.36 (As calculated by AACOMAS). My graduate science GPA is a 3.67 and overall is a 3.75 according to AACOMAS but medical schools tend to place the most emphasis on undergraduate performance when reviewing applicants for admissions. My old MCATs are expired and my new MCAT score was a 495. Conventional wisdom says that I should not have gotten into medical school, yet I hold two acceptances to two U.S. medical schools and may potentially earn interview invites to a few more (and maybe another acceptance or two) before all is said and done. This highlights another point: More than numbers goes into making admissions decisions but in general, the higher your GPA and MCAT scores, the better off you will be.

Last thing. You’ll want to develop good relationships with your professors early on as you will need letters of recommendation. As a rule, you will need either a committee letter or individual letters. Some undergraduate institutions will not allow you to request a committee letter unless you have a particular GPA. Thus, it’s probably easiest to get individual letters. For individual letters, you will need two science letters for rec, one non-science, one from a physician that you have shadowed, and finally, if you can get one from a supervisor from work, a research experience, or a volunteer experience, that will be good. Again, start building relationships early because you will need great letters of recommendation.

Financial Readiness for Medical School, Part 3

As part of my getting financially ready for medical school, one thing that you should do is to review the websites of every school that you are interested in to determine what sort of financial aid options exist. Does the school only offer loans? Does the school have any under-represented minority (URM) scholarships? Are their incentives to pursue a dual degree? What about grants? Does the school have a history of students being awarded the National Health Service Corps scholarship?

When building my list of schools to apply to, part of my consideration were those questions that I listed above and ultimately, the availability of financial aid was one of the criteria that I used to rank schools. Please be aware that some schools do not offer any scholarships and of those who do, many do not offer more than a few thousand dollars in scholarship aid. There are, however, some schools who do offer significant forms of scholarship aid. This is why I stress doing some research on each school before you apply.

Don’t neglect the outside sources of funding either:

Military HPSP (i.e., Army, Navy, Airforce)

VA HPSP

National Health Service Corps

Indian Health Services

State and local health boards and professional societies

Corporations (For example, the Tylenol Cares scholarship)

African American Greek letter organizations (For example, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Educational Advancement Foundation)

Association of American University Women

Even those web-based scholarship search engines such as Fastweb.com

There is a LOT of money out there that goes untouched. If you start looking early and apply often, there is no reason why all of your medical school has to be financed by student loans.

Financial Readiness for Medical School, Part 2

Here’s a story that illustrates why financial planning and maintaining financial health before and during medical school is important.

I have a friend who is amazingly brilliant. This guy also has a photographic memory and when we would study, it seemed that all he had to do was turn the pages of the book, notes, or PowerPoints to get the information stuck in his head. After our undergraduate studies, my boy was accepted to St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, West Indies. He excelled in his first year and he finished his MD1 semester with a 4.0 and MD2 with something like a 3.7ish. His second year was just as amazing, and he scored a 245 on his Step 1. He was considering a career as a cardiologist and it didn’t seem that there was anything that could derail him. Except for that all-important credit score.

While my friend was in Grenada, he lived beyond his means, so he maxed his Sub/Unsub loans. He qualified for the Grad Plus loan in his second year, but he didn’t give any thought to the need to have a new credit check run when he got to year three. He purchased a lot of luxury items on his credit cards while he was in Grenada, didn’t pay a few bills and his credit score took a significant hit.

Just before he was to start his third-year rotations, he received word from the US DoE that he did not meet the credit score criteria for the Grad Plus loan. The remedy was for him to provide letters from his creditors showing that he either had paid his past due balances or he had made other arrangements to pay. He’d amassed some 25 or 30K in debt from the time before he started medical school but since he had paid minimal payments on that debt, nothing went into collections. When he got to medical school, the combination of his outstanding debt and his living beyond his means meant that he could not pay his bills so most of his creditors reported him to collection agencies, so his FICO score took a major hit. SGU gave him two weeks to figure out how to come up with the money for third year; he couldn’t do that, so he ultimately dropped out of school. My friend is home now trying to pick up the pieces to his medical career. I don’t know if he’ll be able to go back to SGU since almost six years have lapsed but his credit is better now, but he never had to be in this situation.

While this is an extreme situation, it helped to provide the impetus for me to repair my credit and get into good financial health BEFORE starting medical school.

The first thing that I had to do was take a look at my credit reports. You don’t know what you don’t know. In my youth, I had not been the most responsible with my credit, so I was honestly afraid to see what was present on my FICO reports. Additionally, during my senior year of undergrad, I had applied to a master’s program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. One of the admission staff stole a hard drive that had the names, addresses, social security numbers, and photo IDs of several thousand applicants, including mine, and she sold them on the Dark Web. I didn’t know this until 2012 or ’13 when I got a call from the Las Vegas Metro PD but luckily, they gave me a police report regarding the ID theft that I’d suffered, and this came in handy as I worked to repair my credit. Finally, in 2012, I had a surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon; the surgeon was in network, but the outpatient surgery center and the anesthesiologist were out of network (I didn’t know this at the time). Plus, I had a high deductible health plan; this meant that a lot of the procedures cost weren’t going to be covered until I met the deductible. Altogether, these facts meant that I was likely to have a LOT of debt.

Taking a deep breath one night in 2016, I pulled all three of my FICO reports and discovered that I had about $78K in debt. My heart sank. How was I going to pay for all of this? I spent that night reading EVERYTHING that I could find about old debt, how to negotiate lower payments, how to dispute items on your credit report, and the statute of limitations on old debt for Arizona. I discovered that I had rights and using this empowering knowledge, I set out to dispute everything on my reports that I was not responsible for. This amounted to about 17K in debt and using the police report that I had from LVMPD and another that I obtained from the Chandler Policed Department, I was able to have that removed in fairly short order.

Next, I picked up three jobs. I taught at two community colleges, full-time, and at Arizona State University part time. I trimmed my living expenses to the bare bone’s minimum and every extra dollar that I made, I put towards paying those debts that were mine and had not aged out (those debts that had aged out, I disputed and had removed from my credit report). By 2018, my debt was down to $10,500 and by mid-2018, I had that paid off.

The next step was to have all of the paid debt reports removed from my credit report. Even though the debt was paid, these reports still showed as late pays/charge offs so they were still drag on my credit score. I went through another round of disputes and I was able to remove all but two items. I’ve tried to work with the two collection agencies to have these items removed but I have had no luck; I recently hired Lexington Law to assist and it’s been the best $89/month that I have spent. They have helped to tend to a couple of other issues on my FICO reports that I had overlooked, and they are currently working to have those last two items removed from my credit report.

The other two things that I did was 1) I have not had a late payment or missed payment since 2016; your payment history is the single biggest factor in your FICO score; 2) I opened two credit cards, one with a $3500 limit and the other with a $2500 limit and I have a loan of $10,000. I never exceed 10% - 20% of my credit limit and I have paid on my loan consistently for the last 24 months. It will be paid off in July; 3) I have lived within my means religiously. All of these things combined have helped my FICO scores across all three credit bureaus to reach the 680-690 range. Once those last two negative items drop off my report, I should see a boost to 700+.

A lot of my friends tell me that I am overly anal about my financial health, saving, and monitoring my credit but it is so VITALLY important. Let’s say, just for example, you want to apply for a military Health Professions Scholarship. Guess what? They run a credit check to see if 1) You are a potential security risk and 2) To see if you have a history of honoring your commitments. If you apply for a National Health Service Corps Scholarship or Loan Repayment, the government runs a credit check to see if you pay your bills on time (i.e., honor your commitments). I even know of one medical school, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, that runs a credit check as part of the admissions process, or at least they did. Back in 2011 or ’12, I thought about applying to their SMP program and I saw on their financial aid website that as part of the admissions process, they ran credit checks on every accepted student. I don’t know if this is still the case, but as you can see, your financial health is VITALLY important to being able to secure the financing that you will need. For medical school. The Grad Plus loan, private loans, and many of the federal and state-level scholarships and loan repayment programs require good credit. When you start the application process, you may need to apply for a credit card to pay for your MCAT, the primary and secondary applications, and the cost of interviewing. To give you an idea of what my application costs were this cycle, here is what I have spent so far:

MCAT $320

MCAT reschedule $95

AACOMAS application, 32 programs $196 for the first program, $46 for each subsequent program = $1,622

AMCAS application, 4 programs $170 for the first program, $41 for each subsequent program = $293

Ross University School of Medicine application $100

AACOMAS transcript entry fee $145

Transcripts ~ $95

12 secondary applications. Ranged from $50 - $100. ~ $750

1st seat deposit for Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine $250 (I will be withdrawing my application here)

Seat deposit for A.T. Still University – School of Osteopathic Medicine, Arizona $1,000 (I will be attending SOMA in the fall 2021 so I’ll pay the seat deposit on Monday, Dec. 14th. I will have to pay another $1,000 sometime in January)

Suit - $500

Total: ~ $4,170 (And this does not include the seat deposit that I will be paying on the 14th or the final $1,000 that I will have to pay to SOMA)

Keep in mind that all of my interviews were virtual. If I had to attend traditional face-to-face interviews, the three interviews that I had would have added another $1200-$2000 between air fare, hotel stays, food, and rental cars).

I was fortunate that I didn’t have to dip I into my credit card until it was time to pay my first seat deposit. Part of the reason why is that I budgeted $2,000 up front to start this process and I had a job that paid me enough to pay for much of this out-of-pocket. Many applicants don’t have these luxuries however so financial planning becomes key. Don’t let your medical school dreams go unrealized because of poor financial planning!

In my next post, I will discuss some of the resources that you might consider to help minimize the amount of student loans that you have to take for medical school.