Getting through pre-med can feel like a struggle at times but it really is manageable if you have the right approach! Here are my top 5 tips to help you ace pre-med.
1. Set Up A Long Term Schedule
One strategy that ensured I got all my prerequisites done in time to be able to apply straight through to medical school was to lay out 4 year plan starting freshman year. I know this doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I had many students who told me they didn’t want to take a gap year or only wanted to take one year off, who were unfortunately not going to be able to stick to that schedule based on their course scheduling or MCAT date.
Planning a schedule allows you to have a foundational plan to refer back to and will set you up for success so that you can be on the timeline that you want. Also, this plan is by no means concrete. Mine changed a number of times throughout the years but I was always able to make informed decisions when choosing my classes since I had a tentative schedule to refer back to.
2. Finding Pre-med Friends & Peers
Premed is generally an extremely competitive track as a majority of the classes are graded on a curve. This means that the worse your peers do the better you will do. This is not the case for all schools but i have found it to be the standard for most. Unfortunately, this curve system usually fosters a cut throat environment where people don’t want to study together because they don’t want their classmates to do well. While some may buy into this system, I encourage you to take the opposite approach. I have found that studying with other people can be very advantageous if done properly, usually as a way to solidify your knowledge after studying alone. By working together you and your study partners could all do well as there is plenty of room for all of you to be on top of the curve.
3. Find an older student mentor
By far the greatest support I received as a pre-med was through upperclassmen who were a year or two ahead of me in the process. I found my mentor in a the Pre-Medical Fraternity I joined sophomore year called Phi Delta Epsilon. Having an older student to ask advice can be extremely helpful when trying to decide which classes to take or which professors to try to avoid. Also, they can help tell you the best way to study for each class, because what works for one subject may not work for another. I highly recommend trying to meet other pre-meds and build a support system so that you don’t have to go at it alone!
4. Do Extracurriculars You Actually Enjoy.
If you take anything away from this post I hope it is this. Please do not try to be the perfect cookie cutter applicant or you are going to drive yourself nuts. There are too many times where I see pre-med friends or students I’ve worked with joining a club solely because they think it would look good on an application. Medical schools use your extracurriculars to paint a picture of who you are as a person outside of the classroom and they want to see what you are passionate about. While there are certain extracurriculars that are important like research, you do not have to do basic science benchwork. I did my research in nutrition and I have seen students who have done research in areas completely unrelated to medicine that did extremely well in the application process. It is even possible to get in without doing any research, although if you are shooting for a top school that is research heavy, then I would still recommend having at least a year or so of experience.
Ultimately, with the amount of pressure that can come from being pre-med, it is important to spend your free time doing things that make you happy and not doing things because you feel obligated.
5. There’s no one right way to be Pre-med.
As a pre-med student you are going to hear advice from everyone, even people who don’t know a thing about being pre-med or med school (those people may even be your parents). It definitely can be overwhelming at times but I suggest that you find a few people who you trust, listen to what they have to say, and in the end make the decisions that you feel are best for you.
I remember my old advisor telling me that I needed to retake calculus even though I had AP credit for it because “about one and four schools said that they won’t consider an applicant who hasn’t taken calculus in undergrad.” Well, I really just didn’t want to retake calculus, so i didn’t and as you may know it still turned out fine. I am not saying you should look for shortcuts, but my point is that it is simply impossible to be the perfect cookie cutter candidate, so don’t try to be that person! Do things you enjoy, work hard, and let who you are get you into med school not who you feel you need to be.
Adam Nessim
Founder of All Things Healthcare
MD Candidate at Albert Einstein College of Medicine