As a pre-med or career changer, you are going to get a lot of advice. Some of it will be factual while much of it will be utter bullshit. How do you know what to believe? I say that you should contact medical schools and ask questions, speak to medical students and medical school applicants, talk to practicing physicians, talk to CARING and knowledgeable pre-health advisors, etc. I tend to stay away from Value MD and Student Doctor Network for the most part and I tend to scoff at the outwardly aggressive, gunner-type pre-meds.
Myth 1: Grades taken early in my academic career do not matter.
False: Any and all grades that you earn as an undergraduate / graduate student will matter. The issue is that as time goes on, these grades may not matter as much as grades that you earn in your later years. So, for example, I started my undergraduate studies at Texas Southern University and earned a 1.67 overall GPA after a summer and fall term. Since that time, I’ve had a strong upward trend in my grades. When I applied to medical school via AMCAS and AACOMAS, the grades were listed and calculated into my GPA; however, when I was interviewed, these grades did not get much attention as the grades that I earned after I returned to school in 2005. But make no mistake about it, every grade that you earn will be counted towards your GPA when you apply to medical school.
Myth 2: A high GPA will make up for a low MCAT or a high MCAT will make up for a low GPA.
False: If your GPA is sitting at say, 2.75 and you score a 515 on the MCAT, you may still not even pass the screening process of most medical schools to get a secondary application because of that low GPA. If you have a GPA of 3.97 and score a 495 on the MCAT, you may or may not get an interview depending on the school and if you do interview, your odds of gaining admissions may still be on the low end. You want to aim for as high of a GPA and MCAT as possible. This does not mean that people with lower GPAs and MCATs don’t get interviews and eventually admitted; however, the higher your numbers, the greater your odds of gaining that interview and eventually, an admission offer.
Myth 3: If I retake a class, medical schools will only see the newer grade.
False: Every class that you take is on your transcript. When you complete your AACOMAS and/or AMCAS, you must list every course and grade that appears on your transcript. So, let’s say that you took Calculus I and earned a D in the fall of 2018. You retake the class in the spring 2019 and earn an A. Both attempts will show on your primary application and will count in your GPA. Now, I have heard that some schools have an academic forgiveness policy whereby classes that were earned prior to academic forgiveness are literally wiped off of the transcript. I don’t know if this is true or not. At my undergraduate alma mater, we had an academic forgiveness policy and the way that it worked was any credits that were forgiven, would still show up on the transcript but were not calculated into your undergraduate GPA. However, if a student who had taken academic forgiveness applied to medical school, they would still have to list those forgiven classes in their medical school primary application and the grades would still show on the transcript.
Myth 4: You cannot take pre-requisite classes at the community college.
False: Many students have to take classes at the community college because of cost, the need to have flexible schedules to accommodate childcare and/or work needs, transportation, etc. I had to complete my entire general physics & general chemistry, along with trigonometry, an English literature, and college algebra at the community college. I was in the military at the time and had to “get in where I fit in” so to speak. Further, if I had known better, I would have just finished my entire first two years at the community college because it was far less costly than taking classes at Arizona State University. Because of rising tuition costs, many students are opting to take classes at the community colleges, and I think that medical school admissions committees are starting to recognize this. While there are still some schools that will frown on prerequisite courses taken at the community college, the taboo against them is not what it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Myth 5: If I double major or double minor, this will give me an advantage over other applicants.
False: A second major or minor does little to nothing in comparison to other applicants. I completed dual degrees in Microbiology and Community Health Promotion with a minor in Sociology. This came up 0 times during my interviews and in fact, by doing both degrees, my science GPA was hurt because some semesters, I carried upwards of 24 credits. While I enjoyed both programs, if I could do it all over again, I’d have only chosen one, probably Community Health. If you truly have a desire to do a double major or minor, do it because you want to. Don’t do it with the expectation that it will increase your odds of getting into medical school.
Myth 6: I need to have research experience to get into medical school.
False: Plenty of students get into medical school without research experience or publications/poster presentations. I have over 3,500 hours of research experience from undergrad and in my PhD. I’ve got four publications, two conference presentations, two grant submissions, and soon, I will have completed my dissertation. Of the three interview’s that I’ve had, my research experiences have come up a grand total of one time. This is not a make-or-break thing unless you are applying for a DO/PhD or MD/PhD program or a school that otherwise places a great deal of emphasis on research.
Myth 7: I need to major in a science to have the best chances of getting into medical school.
False: You can study literally anything and gain admissions to medical school. I’ve got a friend who was a Religious Studies / Arabic major and got to medical school. I have another friend who majored in Women’s Studies and is now a 4th year medical student. I have a former student who studied Health Promotion and is applying to medical school now. One of my co-workers is a Social Worker and is now in a post bac to get her science pre-reqs and I know a ton of nurses who are headed back to medical school. The key is to take the medical school pre-requisite courses. You can study anything and while studying a science is the most common degree type that applicants have, you don’t get any special leg up or consideration in the medical school admissions process. Study something that you have an interest in and take those pre-reqs and you’ll be good.
Myth 8: If I get a letter of recommendation from Dr. X who is influential, that will get me into medical school.
False: For starters, you should get letters from individuals who know you well and can speak to your strengths. You do NOT want letters of recommendation that are generic or from people who do not know you well. Next, while having a letter from someone well known can open a door, that in and of itself will not get you into medical school. I had a letter of recommendation from the Director of the Practice Based Research Network at SOMA (and director of a whole bunch of other stuff); she and her father are very well known at the school and nationally for their research. It was a super strong letter of recommendation and because of her letter, I received a “Home Town Scholar” designation on my application. This helped to propel me forward in the interview process, but I still had to interview and discuss my credentials and my undergraduate GPA red flag. You should always seek to network but knowing people will rarely guarantee anything beyond the possibility of an open door.
Myth 9: If I get an A in a course, I can ask the professor for a letter of recommendation.
False: This goes along with what I said above. Only ask for letters from people who know you well. Simply earning an A in a class does not guarantee a good, strong letter. I have had many students ask for letters of recommendation and the students who get strong letters are the ones who come to office hours, meet with me over Zoom, and send me emails. You know, the ones who attempt to establish a relationship. Those students who didn’t take the time to do so usually get a letter that says something like “So and so was in my class and they earned such and such grade.” If the professor who knows you best gave you a B but can write a strong letter of recommendation, that’s what you go for. My strongest letter of recommendation was from a member of my dissertation committee; I earned a B+ in her Structural Equation Modeling course and I believe that her letter was instrumental in the ultimate decision to grant me admissions at all three of the schools that I was admitted to.
Myth 10: Going to medical school is not worth it unless I go to a top tier school.
False: This is literally the stupidest myth that I hear from pre-meds. The goal is to be a physician. Go to the medical school that you can get into. Period. If that is Harvard, so be it. If that is ICOM, so be it. At the end of the day, what matters is how well you did in your coursework and what your board scores are. Most patients will never ask you where you went to school; those few patients that do care about such things will usually have taken steps to ensure that they are seeing the doctor that they want to see long before you ever have to worry about them. Beyond that, what is a “top tier” medical school anyway? For me, a top tier medical school is one that has an environment that I can thrive in, a curriculum that allows me to have a life outside of class, and a history of placing candidates in the specialty of my choice. Getting into any medical school is hard. If you get into one, D.O. or M.D., consider yourself blessed and run with the blessing.
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