#pre-reqs

It’s tricky because there are basic requirements that all med schools need to see you’ve completed (bio, chem, organic chemistry, physics, math which can be calc or statistics or whatnot). But what gets tricky is the “preferred” requirements, “strongly recommended” requirements, etc. Those will change depending on the med school you’re looking into. Courses that that often get included are biochemistry and molecular biology.

HI anon!

What I usually tell people in high school who are interested in medicine is to live life. One of the most important things you can do for yourself and your future patients is to experience as much of life as possible, so you can better understand where they come from and how to best provide care. 

What does that mean?

Learn for learning's sake

Read. Everything.

Try new things: languages, sports, hairstyles, food, you name it!

Get a job: be it the service industry, babysitting, tutoring, etc. 

Travel

Volunteer not just for your resume but because you give to those who need it most. And in return, you feel good, too!

Fail. Failure is good for us! I almost always learn more from my failures than my successes!

Studying and completing the necessary med school pre-requisites and taking the MCAT are always what people worry about. However, when everyone is taking these exact same courses and getting nearly identical scores, what's going to make you stand out? It's who you are as a person, and how your actions demonstrate that. :)

Have fun, explore, work hard! 

Why thank you, friend! :)

If you want the basic of the basic, these here are the requirements. However, depending on the medical school you go to, each has its own preferred pre-reqs. They can include:

calculus

molecular biology

biochemistry

psychology/sociology/humanities course

So do some research at schools you'd love to go to and see if you notice any recurring themes! :)

Best of luck!

No problem!  I’m glad that you’ve been able to use the links I posted.  I honestly don’t know about any program that does or does not accept without pre-reqs except for Yale - that’s where I went.  I do know that Columbia only needed 7 pre-reqs, half of which were humanities.  I think it was any old English class, Intro to Psych, Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2, Microbiology, and Statistics.  That’s only 6 but I can’t remember the other….  the important thing for me was that there was no Chemistry.  

I did the direct entry program cause I wanted to zoom through school and become a midwife as soon as possible, but I also truly believe that I could have done it a little slower.  I suggest, if you definitely can’t finagle any pre-reqs out of the classes you’ve already taken, apply to the schools that have no requirements.  If you don’t get into either of them, that’s no big deal - take a year to do the pre-reqs, work as a nursing assistant, a medical assistant, something in a clinic or hospital so that you can get experience, become a doula, and then apply again the next year.  I almost wish I had done it that way - it would have been super useful to have that kind of nursing assistant experience before becoming a nurse.

Your questions are definitely not loaded! It goes through many an applicant's mind!

You can totally get in to med school if you've had one or two Cs. I got 2 Cs and plenty others I know did as well. You're in good company! Few people actually have perfect 4.0s. Welcome to the Humans-In-Medicine club!

Whether you retake will be up to you. If the class was a foundational course (basic bio, basic chem) I'd consider retaking so you go into organic chem, biochemistry, molecular biology with more confidence. If it is too costly financially or time-wise (you'd have to graduate a year late and you can't afford that), it will have to be put aside, as painful as that sounds.

All of us who don't have perfect grades fear that it is the GPA that kills our chances of getting in. I promise that while Ivy League schools might turn away, the general name of the game in med school is "big picture". Who you are as an applicant overall counts more than one number or one piece of your application.

You can do it!

Don't worry! Med schools are very aware of the reputations, strengths, and weaknesses of universities. They will take this into account. More importantly, they're going to look at how you handle it. Do you rise above through group/solo studying? Do you take a less traditional path (ex. non-science major)? Do you buff up the rest of your resume (as you mentioned)? 

It can absolutely be frustrating; I sympathize 100% because I come from a similar background. This lack of dedication to teaching was a key reason why I ended up switching from chemistry to bioethics, where the class sizes were smaller, professors were more amenable to interactions and teaching. 

Find the right way for you, it'll work out, I promise!

Best,

I've really got to organize my blog sometime. I feel like I've talked about the process in bits and pieces but never talked about it enough or coherently enough to refer you to a previous post. I'll try to outline succinctly here :)

This is a topic I could talk about for hours, seriously. But real briefly:

How I got in: I applied via AMCAS twice and interviewed, as all of us do in America. Then schools decided to accept me and I chose. I chose to do this once in senior year of undergrad, and the second time when I was working a year later. I didn't get in the first time because my MCAT was inadequate the first time. Which transitions into...

What it takes: Time. Patience. Sacrifices. Hard work. Tenacity. Serious consideration. Exploration before commitment to make sure this is what you really want. 

It comes down to the individual professor and the class.  Some will let you take the class, some won’t.  Some classes are impossible to get into without pre-reqs even if the professor is usually more willing to let people in.