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How is medical school different from undergrad and what are some pieces of advice that would help pre-med undergrad students get accepted to medical school?

I am interested in going to medical school after my 4 years in undergrad as a pre-med and I was wondering if there was anything that would help boost my application to med school or ultimately help me in medical school.

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Suzanne’s Answer

Katherine, you are wise to be asking these questions and thinking ahead. The beginning of medical school, in some ways, is similar to undergrad. You will be studying sciences as you did in college. The amount of learning and the pace at which you will be expected to master it is most likely greater than at the college-level. Med schools do vary a bit in their curricula but a typical school teaches this material in a coordinated "systems" way, rather than as individual classes like you have in college. So you spend a block of time on, say, the cardiovascular system, then move on to the gastrointestinal system, etc rather than having classes in physiology, pharmacology, microbiology, etc. As you progress from first through fourth years, you will also transition from classroom/computer learning to learning with, first, simulated patents (paid actors), then real patients in hospital and clinic settings. By the time you graduate, you are working-- at a junior level -- in the clinical setting along side of resident physicians and attending physicians (faculty).

Be sure to connect with your pre-med counselors. They will be sure you are taking the correct premed classes and will help you find shadowing and research opportunities as well as ways to have the clinical experiences expected of you.

Suzanne recommends the following next steps:

See the excellent AAMC.org website. Start here: https://students-residents.aamc.org/choosing-medical-career/what-medical-school-really
How to find the clinical experiences expected of med school applicants: https://students-residents.aamc.org/getting-experience/get-experience-medical-field
How to find the expected research experiences: https://students-residents.aamc.org/choosing-medical-career/how-get-research-experience
Write back with more questions as they occur to you -- best of luck to you!
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