Getting rejected from medical school can be crushing. But it’s not the end of your journey toward becoming a physician. Instead, look at it as your first step toward becoming a better candidate.
Reapplying to medical school successfully requires strategic planning. This is more important than ever given that medical school applications to both MD and DO schools have greatly increased for the 2020-2021 application cycle. According to the AAMC, the number of applicants is up by 18%. At Boston University School of Medicine, the number of applications is up by 27%. Stanford University School of Medicine reported a 50% increase. Many have called this the “Fauci Effect” due to the pandemic and students looking to make an immediate impact. Unfortunately, however, the number of seats has remained the same, making the landscape even more competitive.
Despite these daunting statistics, here is how you can increase your chances of success!
Have Appropriately Sufficient Experiences
Sometimes, a client is missing one or even a few critical experiences, such as community service or clinical work. Therefore, we encourage them to get involved with the missing experience(s), as well as provide advice on how to optimize each one. Other times, the client hasn’t done enough of a particular experience in terms of hours. Therefore, we encourage them to not only get more hours, but to do so on a regular basis. Given the pandemic, many of these experiences will most likely have to be done remotely.
Raise Your MCAT Score
Not surprisingly, a poor MCAT score can be a major barrier to getting into medical school. However, beyond just telling a client to retake it and get a higher score, it’s important to analyze why the client struggled the first time around and fix the issue. Did the client not study the right way? Did the client not have enough time? MedSchoolCoach has 99%th percentile scoring MCAT tutors that can help you.
Submit Your Med School Applications as Early as Possible
Not submitting primary and secondary applications as soon as possible (without compromising quality) is a very common problem. This in turn often has significant consequences for the rest of the application process. Ideally, primary applications for MD and DO schools should be submitted by the end of May or early June. We often have clients who submitted theirs in July and sometimes even August! The longer you wait, the longer it takes to get verified. This in turn has a domino effect in terms of submitting secondaries later and potentially decreasing your chances of an interview invite. Remember: Each student who is accepted before you submit your applications means one less spot for you.
Write Your Personal Statement Correctly
Many personal statements resemble a glorified laundry list of a client’s experiences instead of a cohesive essay told in story form that explains why the client is passionate about medicine and what makes the client uniquely qualified as a medical school applicant. Make sure you’re not writing a glorified laundry list! If you need help editing your personal statement, we can help you with that.
Have a Realistic Medical School List
Usually, the two biggest problems are that a client doesn’t apply to enough medical schools (at least 25) or the client is applying to too many where they are not competitive in terms of GPA, MCAT or where the out-of-state acceptance rate is too low. Make sure you’re applying to schools where you are competitive!
By addressing these issues and more, advisors at MedSchoolCoach have been able to help many reapplicants get into medical school!