10 medical school application myths

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.

Why did I decide to pursue osteopathic medicine?

Why did I choose osteopathic medicine? I first found out about osteopathic medicine in the mid-1980s as a high school student. Oddly enough, I had a Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine catalog in my book collection; don't ask me how I got it. I've no idea to this day, where that came from. Anyway, I remember looking through the catalog and thinking, "Wow, this Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy sounds neat!" I was a football player and suffered a whole litany of injuries year in and year out. I didn't like taking injections and I thought that it would have been neat to experience OMT as a means of dealing with my achy knees and ankles. I asked my dad about it and his response was that osteopathic medicine was nothing more than chiropractic medicine and that I shouldn't waste my time with it. That was the end of my thoughts about osteopathic medicine.

Flash forward to the spring and summer of 2020. I am staring at my computer trying to decide what medical schools to apply to. At the time, I hadn't quite turned 49 but I knew that many medical schools, while not practicing outright age discrimination, don't look terribly kindely on older applicants. I spent a LOT of time reviewing AAMC and AACOM admissions and matriculant data for the last several years. I also reviewed a lot of schools websites. What I noticed is that there were far fewer students in their late 30s to late 40s who had been admitted or were attending allopathic medical schools. This isn't to say that osteopathic medical schools are a deep and welcoming haven for older students such as myself but a review of the numbers showed me that I would have significantly better odds of getting into an osteopathic program as opposed to an allopathic program. I saw that some DO programs had acceptaed students as old as 61 and I found out that ATSU-SOMA, the school where I will be starting in the fall, had a student who was 57 years of age just a few years ago!

The next thing that I considered was how schools would view my undergraduate studies. As you've probably heard, there are things that students can do to reinvent themselves, academically. You can attend a post bac or SMP program; these programs can allow you to demonstrate that you have the ability to succeed in hard sciences and to a degree, they can help you to make up for a lower undergraduate GPA. While I did have a 3.67 in my pharmacology & toxicology masters and a 3.778 from one semester spent as a non-degree seeking student in an SMP program (21 credits), the reality as I have found out is that some schools will still place a great deal of emphasis on your undergraduate work. I started calling several allopathic programs, most notably Howard University, Meharry, and Morehouse School of Medicine, to find out how I might be percieved as a candidate. I will just say that with the exception of my home state allopathic program and one out of state program, U of Arizona and the U of Iowa, no allopathic program seemed to view me as a viable candidate. The admissions counselor that I spoke with at Howard was particularly pointed when she said that I would be wasting my money by applying to Howard. My experience was different with the D.O. programs that I was able to make contact with. I remember in particular a visit that my wife and I made to Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine. I was able to sit with the guy who was the director of admissions at the time and he reviewed my transcripts. As opposed to dismissing me outright, he made a few suggestions on how I could word things in my application to explain my academic performance as well as discuss what was going on in my life that led to some of those grades. I also had similar experiences with ATSU-SOMA and West Virgina University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Overall, it just felt like I wouldn't have to continue to pay for the poor grades that I made as a 17 year old freshman student at Texas Southern University in 1989 and later, as a newly returned undergraduate student at Arizona State University in the spring of 2004.

In 2012, I ruptured my left Achilles tendon and after the surgical repair, I needed to seek rehabilitation. A colleague suggested that I see a sports medicine physician in Chandler, AZ who also happened to be a D.O. Through the use of a combination of OMT and traditional physical therapy, I was able to resume jogging 3 to 4 months ahead of the original schedule that my surgeon had laid out for me. Since that time, I've seen two D.O.'s as PCP's and I've noticed a few differences between them and the M.D.'s that I've seen. For starters, I feel like the two osteopathic physicians that I have seen have been more thorough with my H&Ps. For example, each time that I saw them, there was a discussion about my selcual health and whether or not I needed PrEP. Prior to that, I have NEVER had a doctor ask about my sexual health; now that I am married, many doctors just assume that I and my wife don't need to have a sexual health assessment. I believe that EVERY patient should have their sexual health assessed no matter their marital status and if you have a single, sexually active patient, they should be assessed for PrEP needs. The two D.O.'s that I saw took more time with me; when I was a new patient, I particularly remember my first D.O. giving me 45 minutes of time. Every visit thereafter, he would spend 15-20 minutes going over my chart and talking to me about my health. My mother-in-law was also seeing a D.O. at Western University-COMPs Patient Care Center around this same time and her experience was similar to mine. There was a large focus on getting to know her and he spent a lot of time carefully explaining things to her, answering her questions, and making sure that she was OK with treatment plans. In short, he made sure that she felt like she was the driver of her care. I don't mean to suggest that there are not M.D.'s who don't take this sort of care and time with their patients, I know that there are. My dad's PCP is a wonderful doctor who practices integrative medicine. Its just that in my experience with M.D.'s, this isn't something that I'd experienced.

One of my undergraduate degrees is in community health promotion and sociology and my second masters is in public health. My PhD is going to be in Nursing & Healthcare Innovation; my specializations are community based participatory research and clinical & translational research. I've got years of experience teaching and working in public health industry. When I decided that I wanted to attend medical school, I said that I wanted to be able to blend what I know in public health with the practice of medicine. In my research about osteopathic medicine, I discovered that social justice and public health is built into its DNA. For example, A.T. Still, the founder of the osteopathic profession, was a very early abolitionist; like his father, he did not believe in slavery and he followed his convictions by fighting against slavery; he served in the 9th Kansas Cavalry (US) on the side of the Union during the Civil War.

Other osteopathic physicians have also loomed large in the fight for social justice. For example, Dr. William G. Anderson worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. David Abernathy to help African Americans gain voting rights in Georgia. Dr. Anderson was later the first African American President of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). Dr. Ashley Denmark has taken on the task of normalizing academic success in minority youth. Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee, the sister of Diana Ross, broke a major barrier by becoming the FIRST African American woman to be a Dean of a U.S. medical school and the first osteopathic physician to earn the title "Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow." In 2017, she retired as the Vice President of for Health Sciences and Medical Affairs at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine. I could go on and on but you get the point. There have been a great number of African American D.O.'s, both past and present, who have taken a leading role in breaking down barriers and fighting for social justice.

Dr. Still also believed in early ideas surrounding the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and public health. Tragically, Dr. Still lost several children due to infectious disease. He did not trust the commonly used medicines and treatments of the day and this is how he came to develop his concepts of osteopathy. However, in reading some of his history, it became clear to me that Dr. Still also understood that the conditions that we are born, live, and die in have an influence on our health as well. He understood how diet could influence health. I believe that some of his writings suggest an understanding of the role of stress and bad health. While many of his ideas about medicine have not withstood the test of evidence based medicine and time, his ideas about the SDOH (even though they were not called that at the time) and how they influence health have not only withstood the test of time, they are gaining renewed interest as we look for ways to modify health and disease that do not require medical intervention. So I view osteopathic medicine to be a very good fit for my background and training in public health as well as my interests in social justice, particularly in the realm of increasing Black male representation in medicine and the Black Lives Matter movement. In short, osteopathic medicine is a natural fit for me.