A Med School Memoir

Well, it’s that time of year. The AMCAS is open for this year’s round of applicants, and before long they will begin accepting submissions. If you’re planning on attending an allopathic medical school in the US next year, this torturous little web-app will likely become the bane of your existence at some point in the coming months. It’s a necessary evil that all med school applicants must endure, however, so take solace in knowing that, at the very least, you won’t be suffering alone.

I’m here to give a few pointers that I wish I had known last year when I filled out my AMCAS. I’ll admit, I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into when I started the application last summer. It took a whole lot longer, and required a lot more attention to detail than I had ever expected. I’m sharing this in the hope that I can make someone else’s experience just a tad bit brighter than mine was.

• Start now! Pretty much all med schools say that they review and consider all applications with an equal amount of weight. If this is true, then according to them, applications that arrive an hour before their deadline are considered with equal gravity as applications that arrive an hour after applications start being accepted. Since this is their official stance, we’re expected to assume that it’s true, but I’ve collected enough anecdotal evidence from MDapps and the forums at SDN to see that this probably isn’t the whole story. It seems that people who apply earlier tend to have better luck getting interviews, and really, it makes sense; early on in the application cycle, you still have a chance to stand out amongst the piles of other applicants. As time wears on, however, you must be truly unique to get noticed. If you have a 4.0/40, then you might not need to worry about it, but if your stats are marginal, you might receive a bit of a boost from applying early. At any rate, getting it done sooner than later won’t hurt anything. I suggest you do it now. That leaves you free to not worry about it anymore and enjoy your summer.
• Start now! Seriously. I say this again, because it can take a long time to complete the AMCAS. If you want to have it submited early, you really need to go get started now. It took me a couple months before I had refined mine to a point where I was comfortable submitting it, and I really wish I had started earlier. Don’t put it off. This is especially true if you are applying to schools with “rolling” admission deadlines. If your AMCAS isn’t submitted until September or October, you are likely to get overlooked. GET STARTED NOW!
• Take your time. Entering all your classes and grades is a frustratingly tedious process. But you have to take it seriously. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass, but if you don’t enter your courses and grades as accurately as possible, you will regret it. I advocate double, then triple, then quadruple checking your classes to make sure you’ve entered everything 100% accurately. This is not a joke. If your classes aren’t entered properly, and the grades you entered on your application don’t match the grades on your transcript, the final approval of your application will be delayed. That means the people who applied after you who took the time to carefully ensure that their applications were correct will get to cut ahead of you in the admissions process, all because you were too lazy or inattentive to make sure everything was right. Don’t let that happen.
• Use your “work/activities” section to highlight unique accomplishments. A whole lot of pre-meds have very similar things to put in the “work/activities” section. It almost always goes without saying that you were a member of the pre-med club–so unless you did something more than show up for free pizza, DON’T LIST IT. Instead, use that spot to highlight something unique about yourself. You only have 15 spots, so use them wisely. Instead of using one of your precious “work/activity” slots for highlighting that you did the same activity that 95% of other pre-meds engage in, why not highlight the fact that you are a talented musician or a recognized blogger, or a successful athlete? It goes without saying that you should enter all your academic awards, volunteering experiences, and medically-related work activities here. But, in addition, you really have to stand out in the application process, so if you can add one or two truly unique “personality” items, you will be rewarded by sticking out in the minds of the adcoms.
• Get personal with the personal statement. The personal statement is easily the most intimidating section on the AMCAS–and arguably the most important. Do not take this lightly. You are faced with the practically impossible mission of selling yourself, while simultaneously explaining why you’d be a good doctor–all in elegant prose, no less–and you only 5300 or fewer characters to express yourself. Unless you’re a supernaturally gifted writer, you will need to spend a lot of time preparing your essay. I went through three or four different versions of mine over the course of a couple months, and in the end, I was still dissatisfied with it. One of the keys to success on the personal statements is to avoid clichés. Use your own personal experiences–volunteering, working in a hospital, whatever–and spin it into a tale about why you want to be a doctor. The more unique, the better, as long as you can make it relate to medicine. So, if you can write honestly about why being an gold-medal winning astronaut has influenced your decision to become a doctor, by all means, do it. By the same token, don’t assume that your experiences won’t be interesting to an admissions committee just because they aren’t extraordinary by an everyday standard. Remember, most pre-meds are younger college students with relatively little work experience, so if, for example, you spent several years as a truck driver before deciding to switch to medicine, your story will be unique and compelling–as long as you can justify your decision to become a doctor. The main objective of the personal statement is to speak with authority and convince your reader that you understand the mess you’re getting yourself into with a career in medicine. If you can do this, you should be okay.
• Get some help. The “work/activities” section, as well as your personal statement, are two areas where a lot of applicants go astray. These are two of the most important places for your personality to shine. In order to do that, your writing must be clear, concise, and completely error-free. I’ve heard horror stories about adcoms who will reject an application if even one word is misspelled. Remember, med school admissions are brutally competitive, and they are looking for any reason they can find to reject you. Do yourself a favor and get a friend who isn’t afraid to be honest with you to proofread and critique your essays.
• Let it settle. This is probably going to sound weird, considering the emphasis I’ve placed on getting your application in early, but once you think you’ve completed it, I suggest you set it aside for a few days or a week, and just not think about it. Then, come back to it with a fresh perspective and honestly re-evaluate the writing in you work/activities section and your personal statement. You might be surprised how much different it seems when you approach it after having not thought about it for some time. With this new clarity of perspective, you will be better able to spot things that sound weird or things that are out of context; this will let you polish up that final draft and submit your application in confidence.
• Think positive. This is really important. Don’t think of the AMCAS as an annoying hurdle to overcome on the road to med school. That kind of negativity can creep its way into your application. Instead, think of it as your platform–and your one chance, really–to tell the world why you want to be a doctor, and prove why you’d be the best one out there. I promise you that if you approach the AMCAS with this enthusiastic, do-or-die mindset, it will be evident in your essays. As long as you don’t take it too far and come off as an egomaniacal a-hole, your positivity will find its way into your application, and the adcoms will notice.

The AMCAS is not a fun thing. But in order to do well in the application process, you have to take it very seriously. I hope I’ve shed some light on what it takes to successfully complete this application. I won’t guarantee any results, because med school applications are such a random and perplexing process. But I will say that if you read and follow my advice, the AMCAS won’t seem like a never-ending slog through one meaningless form after another, as it often did for me. If you keep in mind that your application serves a greater purpose, and approach it with the right attitude, a successfully completed AMCAS might just be your ticket to medical school.

Best of luck!

Tags:   advice · AMCAS · Pre-med3 Comments