If you’re a fan of BBC’s Sherlock or have devoured Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels, you’re probably wishing you had the memory prowess of Holmes, and not Watson. At least I sure did when I began my MCAT journey. Sherlock’s seemingly inhuman ability to recall even the most obscure details derives from a Roman legend about the poet Simonides of Ceos, who retraced his steps through a collapsed dining hall to identify unrecognizable guests who had been crushed during the incident. 

Let’s face it: applying to medical school is grueling. 

1. What do I talk about?

Think through life experiences that have been meaningful to you; think about what emotions you felt during and after those experiences, what you learned, and how it impacted your perspective for the future.

It can be daunting to reach out to a professor or doctor you’ve never met and ask to work with them or shadow them in a clinic. In this post, I’ve outlined how I like to approach cold-emailing research and clinical faculty, usually to great success.

Everything about the MCAT is stressful, from creating a study plan to fine-tuning your test strategies. And then there’s the day of reckoning when you take the exam. If that’s not enough, perhaps the most stressful day is score report day. After working so hard for so many months towards the exciting and honorable goal of attending medical school, it can be crushing to score lower than expected. If that’s the case, you may be asking yourself: “Is this enough? Should I take it again?”

Whether it is for a personal statement, medical school interviews, or networking events, you will undoubtedly be asked: “Why medicine?” Though a seemingly simple question, coming up with a unique and comprehensive answer can be challenging. In this post, I outline how I approached this question by breaking it down into specific components. Use these steps as a guide for brainstorming a personal answer to a very common question.

Clinical clerkships can be some of the most exciting times of medical school, but they can also be some of the most frustrating. Academic medicine can be very hierarchical, making it difficult for students to advocate for their own learning. Residents are often busy and stressed. Asking questions is often disincentivized – shouldn’t you just look it up on your own? Ultimately, every successful medical student learns how to navigate this quagmire over time. Here are some of the tips and tricks I used to be successful as a third-year medical student:

Here are some helpful tips that can make you stand out from other interviewing applicants:

The purpose of this post is to update a previous I had written about MCAT practice tests. Since that post, my recommendation for practice tests has remained the same. AAMC tests (sample test, practice 1-3, in total 4 tests, practice 1-3 are scored) are still your best resource. After that, the next best thing would be the Examkracker tests for the c/p, b/b and psych/soc sections but not necessarily for the CARS. Generally, if I have a student take an EK test, I tell them to skip the CARS.

“Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.” Rudolph Virchow, the father of modern pathology, devoted an equally large portion of his life (when he wasn’t classifying thrombosis risk factors into a triad) to social medicine. Medical history is filled with countless examples of physicians serving as activists, and much of the advances made in public health are through the political advocacy of healthcare professionals that noticed a problem in their community.