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3 Tips for Retaking the MCAT
Tweet Share on Facebook July 25, 2011 Comment (2)Perfectionism is a personality trait found frequently amongst future doctors, which most patients would probably consider to be a good thing. But it also leads to intense self-scrutiny when it comes to medical school applications. Striving for perfection is usually a driver of self-improvement—though at its worst, the anxiety and self-doubt produces destructive, rather than constructive choices.
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3 Reasons to Include a Medical School Application Addendum
Tweet Share on Facebook July 18, 2011 Comment (1)When you're working on your medical school applications, you want to do everything you can to make them perfect. However, there's a good chance that you are not perfect and that you have some blemishes in your background. Although medical school applications are standardized and don't necessarily allow for a lot of exposition beyond the standard questions, there is one area where you do have the ability to mix in some additional information about your background: the addendum.
Submitting an addendum is entirely optional. Yes, many applicants do submit them, but it is often out of necessity—they submit an addendum because they need to explain something in their background. If there is nothing in your application that calls for additional explanation, then there is no need for an addendum. Definitely don't create one simply to have one!
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Don't Apply to Medical School Without a Purpose
Tweet Share on Facebook July 11, 2011 Comment (1)Applying to medial school? Take a moment to consider some of the short-term consequences of your enrollment: an intense curriculum coupled with a steep reduction in social and leisure activities, enormous tuition bills with correspondingly large debt, and concerns regarding long-term financial security and medico-legal dangers. It's enough to make any would-be medical student fall prey to at least a few moments of self-doubt.
Admissions committee members know this and are looking for applications that convey a sense of motivation and enthusiasm durable enough to withstand the various assaults (and insults) a medical education will invariably deliver.
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A Day in the Life of a First Year Medical Student
Tweet Share on Facebook July 4, 2011 Comment (6)Many of you are either applying or thinking of applying to medical school—but what is it really like? For some, vivid images of long hours in the anatomy lab or an alarm ringing at 3:30 a.m., summoning you to the hospital, come up.
Akash Parekh, a first year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, was gracious enough to give a window into a day in the life of a medical student.
[See U.S. News's rankings of Best Medical Schools.]
"I'm picking a typical day; however, since Pritzker happens to be on a quarterly system, our class times change every three months (more often than some other schools), but the time frame is probably similar at every school," Parekh says. Below, in his own words, is how he spent a day in March:
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