The dress code is business attire. For men, that means a suit and tie. Business attire is a little bit more complex for women. A suit is still safe but women can also wear skirts that look professional. Here are some additional dressing tips for women.
In general, it is best to wear conservative colors. You don’t want to wear eccentric colors. Black, gray, or navy blue is best. Avoid striped or polka dotted shirts. Solid colored dress shirts or blouses are best.
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At the end of your actual interview, if you are interviewing one-on-one, ask for your interviewer’s business card or contact information. You will want to send them a nice note (usually a handwritten card) thanking them for their time. When writing your card, try to remember specific details about them and mention these details in your card. For example, if they mentioned that they are doing research in a certain field, you can say something like, “I hope everything goes well with XYZ project”.
It is also good to have your interviewer’s contact information just in case you want to send them any updates. They could potentially serve as your advocate to the admissions committee. You can ask them questions via email but be sure not to annoy them.
After the majority of your interviews are over, if you have one school that you really want to attend, it would be wise to send a letter of intent. This is to inform one specific school that it is your top choice for medical school. You can also send update letters to each of the schools you interviewed at to highlight more recent significant activities or accomplishments.
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The answer to this depends on each school. Most schools have rolling admissions but some schools do not. And the response time post interview is different for each school. Some dates to remember are:
October 15th–The first day that acceptances can be sent out
March 30th-The date when all MD schools are recommended to accept at least the number of students that will be in the upcoming year’s class
May 15th-The date when all applicants must choose one school out of multiple acceptances. This is when most of the waitlist movement begins.
How many extracurricular activities should I enter?
You can enter up to 15 experiences but you only want to include significant experiences. Do not include information just to fill up all 15 spots. Medical schools prefer quality than quantity.
In the Works/Activities section, you may also identify up to 3 most meaningful experiences out of the 15 possible experiences. When you designate an experience as a meaningful, you will be given an additional 1325 characters to explain why. In this section, include how the activity helped you grow, what impact you made, and why it was important to you.
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2023: Every school’s waitlist policy is a little different. Nevertheless, if you are waitlisted, do not lose hope. Waitlist does not mean rejection. At some schools, as low as 10% of the students who matriculate are accepted off the waitlist. At other schools, as high as 50-60% of the students who matriculate are accepted off the waitlist.
In general, the higher ranked schools have less wait list movement while the mid to lower tier schools have tremendous waitlist movement. This is because less people withdraw from higher ranked schools. And these same applicants who were accepted at a higher ranked schools are withdrawing from other lower ranked schools. For example, Harvard has very little waitlist movement because most of the people who are accepted to Harvard actually choose to go to Harvard.
Although it is considered a “waitlist”, you do not want to simply wait around for a school to accept you. It is important to maintain contact with the schools you are waitlisted at, especially if any of these schools are your top choices. Do not let them forget you.
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If you want to inform a certain medical school that they are your top choice, you must write (now usually through email) them a letter of intent. The letter of intent is important because medical schools want to accept applicants that will actually attend their school. If they know that they are your top choice, they are more likely to accept you.
This letter should communicate why you want to attend that school and why you would be a good fit. It should be formal, specific, and direct. This letter cannot be generic. You can write letters of intent to multiple schools if necessary If you have any advocates such as a premed advisor, professor, mentor, research PI, or physician who is willing to call the school or send a letter to the admissions office, that is helpful as well. If you want step by step instructions, please read the following article “How Do I Write a Letter of Intent?”
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Do you have an example letter of intent?
Yes we do. Here is an example of a letter of intent.
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The interview is very important for medical school. In fact, the interview is the very reason why a lot of qualified applicants (on paper) do not get accepted into medical school. To put it simply, this is how medical schools generally work.
Medical schools consider GPA, MCAT, letters of recommendations, personal statements, extracurricular activities, etc to determine whether an applicant is invited to an interview. It is hard to get to get an interview at medical schools. If you get an interview at a medical school, you are more than half way there to getting accepted. Medical schools only accept a small percentage of students for the interview process.
Everyone who gets invited for an interview is considered a qualified applicant by that particular medical school. Generally, everyone is now in the same boat. Now your performance on the interview is generally more important than how you “look on paper.” Unfortunately, if you are horrible at interviews, it will be hard for you to get accepted into medical school even if you have perfect scores. It makes sense though since you need to be able articulate things to patients as a doctor.
Do not underestimate the importance of an interview. If your college offers mock interviews, make sure to take advantage of them.
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Medical schools look for students that display six basic core competencies:
1. The diligence and intellectual capacity to succeed in an intense medical school curriculum and board examinations.
2. An understanding of the physician’s role in healthcare and physician-patient relationship.
3. The ability to communicate effectively and compassionately.
4. Good moral character.
5. An understanding of hypothesis-driven research.
6. Ability to lead and innovate.
These competencies are recorded from the US News & World Report Medical School Research rankings. The first four competencies are almost always required for medical school admissions, while numbers five and six are sought after by schools that place a high emphasis on research and leadership.
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Medical schools want to prepare doctors to serve a diverse population. Therefore your ethnicity does make a difference for medical school.
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There are many factors you should consider when deciding what schools to apply for. Here is a list roughly in order of importance:
1. Would you be a competitive applicant at that school?
This is by far the most important thing to consider. It is common practice to look at the median GPA and MCAT of the matriculants of the school you want to apply to and see how you compare to them. Generally, you want to either be just below, right at, or above the median. You can use the chance predictor, US News medical school guide or AAMC’s MSAR to look at the statistics of different medical school.
2. Where would you want to live?
Four years may not be that long but it is still a significant amount of time. Where you live can play a big factor on your quality of life and happiness. Keep in mind that many students do their residencies in the state in which they went to medical school.
3. Financial considerations
Medical school is very expensive. If you don’t get any financial aid, you may be in tremendous debt when you graduate. Therefore, the price of the school’s tuition and the cost of living is very important. Do you go to a cheaper state school over a more prestigious private school? Are the schools you are applying to incredibly expensive? The tuition differences may not seem too big but they add up after four years and interest.
4. How do the medical school’s students match?
As a medical school applicant, you may not really know how the match system works. However, you do know that you want to go to a school in which the students match well. Schools give statistics about their match rates. Although they are somewhat biased, the match rate statistics are worth taking a look at. Also, if you want to do your residency in a certain city or state, take a look at each school’s match list and see if students match to those areas. If there is a specific specialty you want to go to, perhaps the medical school you want to apply to matches a lot of students into that specialty. You want to make sure that you are putting yourself into a position of getting into a residency that you want.
5. How do you learn best?
Although there is a national standard that all medical schools near to adhere to, every school teaches differently. Look at each school’s curriculum and see how they teach. Some schools may emphasize small group learning. Other schools may be more focused on lectures. There are differences in the quality of facilities that may affect your education. If you know how you learn best, it is good to apply to schools that play to your strengths.
6. What is the school’s grading system?
Medical schools have different grading systems. Some are true pass/fail for the first two years, others are honors, high pass, pass, low pass (essentially a letter grade system), while others use letter grade systems. Some schools have internal rankings. Others don’t. Schools that are true pass/fail tend to be less competitive. This means that students are more collaborative (less cutthroat). If all this is important to you, make sure you have a good idea of the different grading systems each school has.
7. What are your special interests?
Schools have different strengths. Some are better at research while others focus more on primary care. Schools have various programs that enable you to pursue special interests such as global medicine, primary care, specific research, academic medicine and so forth. If you want to do primary care, you would want to look at schools that have a strong emphasis on primary care. If you are interested in research, look at schools that have programs that empower students to pursue research endeavors.
8. What is the school’s vision and mission?
Schools generally have similar vision and mission statements. Nevertheless, there are subtle differences between each school that may make a difference. Carefully read what each school is about and see if they resonate with you.
Where can I find more information?
If you have any other questions, you can go directly to AAMC. If you have any school-specific questions, it is highly suggested that you contact medical school admissions offices directly.
This will depend on how competitive of an applicant you are. If you are a very competitive applicant, who has a high GPA, MCAT, and significant extracurricular achievements, you may only need to apply to 15 schools (mainly top tier schools). Most medical students, however, will need to apply to 20-30 schools in order to improve their chances at matriculating. If you are right at the average GPA and MCAT of matriculants (3.7 and 511), then you should probably apply to 30 schools. The more competitive of an applicant you are, the less schools you need to apply to.