SO maybe you’re starting your premed career, or you’re already at the battlegrounds getting destroyed or destroying as we speak. Either way you’ve heard it over and over again. What is it you need to be accepted to medical school? You might have heard the following:
Image Source: Lambert
REQUIRED: (based on quarter system)
1 year of Math (2 Q Calculus+ 1 Q Statistics)
1 year of General Chemistry w/ lab
1 year of General Biology w/ lab
1 year of Organic Chemistry w/ lab
1 year of English
1 year of Physics
1 quarter of General Psychology
1 quarter of General Sociology
4 years of everything else
A lifetime of wealth
HIGHLY PREFERRED (BASICALLY REQUIRED):
Volunteering,
Clinical experience
Research
Leadership experience
1 quarter of Biochemistry
AND A LOAD OF OTHER THINGS.
Everyone and their mothers are going to tell you a different, albeit somewhat similar, list of what you need before you apply for medical school. The truth is simply that there is no guaranteed recipe that you can follow which will miraculously grant your acceptance into medical school. The only things actually required to have for medical school are the following:
1 year of Math (2 quarter of Calculus+ 1 quarter of Statistics)
1 year of General Chemistry w/ lab
1 year of General Biology w/ lab
1 year of Organic Chemistry w/ lab
1 year of English
1 year of Physics
Clinical Experience
AND THAT’S IT!
Image Source: Lambert
The most important thing to keep in mind when you’re going through your four years in college is that acceptance committees don’t care what you do outside of what was listed, but WHY you did them. So don’t waste your precious time at your university doing what everyone tells you. Instead, seek the advice of professionals and then YOU decide what you want. Do research in the linguistics department, volunteer at a soup kitchen, write articles for a health education blog. Do what you feel strongly about, what you care about, and what you feel driven by. When it all comes down to it, that’s what matters most!
