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Episode 2:  Know the medical school entrance requirements and 4 different electronic application services.
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This topic is covered in Chapter 3 of my book, Diary of a Pre-Med Student. You can get the entire book emailed to you automatically by signing up for FREE updates in the upper right corner of www.MedicalMastery.com!

Now, reading the lists of medical school entrance requirements is dry. As much as I have tried to avoid using boring lists, they simply can not be avoided when discussing the subject of entrance requirements for medical school.
COMPONENTS OF THE MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICATION:

• Demographic Data (some of it is optional)
• MCAT – submitted indirectly by the New MCAT Testing History (THx) Report System.
• Official DAT/MCAT/GRE/ACT/SAT Score Reports
• Personal References
• Letters of Recommendation/Evaluation – provided by application service
• Personal Essay
• Volunteer, Research, Work Experience
• Application Fee
• Certification Page
• Photos
• Copy of Visa or Permanent Resident Card (if applicable)
• Secondary Applications

Undergraduate Prerequisites:

• 30 credit hours minimum (unwritten requirement for a bachelor’s degree)
• 1 academic year of Physics
• 1 academic year of Biology
• 1 academic year of General Chemistry
• 1 academic year of Organic Chemistry
• 1 academic year of English

Additional courses are sometimes required. The most recent statistics are from 2005 (yes I know it’s 2008) and they show some medical schools requiring college mathematics, calculus, humanities, biochemistry, and behavioral sciences. Other helpful courses are computer science, genetics, and statistics.

 For the MCAT itself, advanced courses in literature interpretation and critical reading will help science major perform better in the Verbal Reasoning section.

Unfortunately, the list of undergraduate courses required varies among the schools themselves. It doesn’t pay to memorize these lists. We recommend that you obtain hard copies of the school catalogues from the institutions that interest you. You can search a specific medical school for its entrance requirements here: http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section2/courses.cfm.
Personal attributes are increasingly important and medical school applicants are under intense scrutiny in this area. Here’s a list of more intangible qualities that medical school admissions committees are looking for in a candidate:

• Altruism
• Compassion
• Humility
• Practical application of knowlege: wisdom
• Life Experience
• Demonstration that you know what you’re getting yourself into
• Knowlede of our nation’s health care crisis
• An idea of what you want your life to be like – take a wild, but honest guess.

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QUICK TIP: You’ll need these too:

• Access to a computer that is able to connect to the internet
• An e-mail address is required
• Applicants must use only Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator exclusively to complete the application . Do NOT use Mozilla/Firefox (TMDSAS)  
• A laser or ink-jet printer is required to print the Certification Page, Health Professions Evaluation Forms and Transcript Request Forms

QUICK REFERENCE: Application Services

Investigate information about medical school application services:

• American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS)
• Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service (TMDSAS)
• Ontario Medical School Application Service (OMSAS)
• American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM)
• American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine Application Service (AACOMAS)
• AAMC Curriculum Directory for information about medical school curricula and joint, dual, and combined-degree programs.

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