Mdphd Admissions
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The “Why MD-PhD?” question should be approached thoughtfully and well in advance in order to best explain your career aspirations and unique journey. Let’s dive into some dos and don’ts about approaching this classic interview question!
For me, letters of recommendation were one of the most stressful parts of the application process. I had so many questions. Whom should I ask? When should I ask? Should I provide my recommenders with suggestions about what to include in their letters? Is it awkward for me to nudge letter writers about approaching deadlines?
Albert Einstein once said, “The greatest scientists are artists as well.” Many of these great scientists are “non-traditional” MD-PhDs: doctors who pursued their PhD in the social sciences or the humanities instead of the typical life sciences. If you’re interested in taking this road less traveled, start by asking yourself these four questions:
I’ve always been someone who gets caught between cycles of procrastination and wild activity when a deadline is impending. The MCAT was no different for me; however, I really made the most out of those two weeks leading up to my exam date. With the right study execution, the final two weeks can be used to sharpen your exam-taking skills, leading ...
A personal statement is the best (and sometimes only) chance you have to make your application jump off the page. Even if you have outstanding test scores, those scores alone do not guarantee you admission. Which brings us to the personal statement, your chance to show your readers how engaging you are, how you are a future leader in your field, ...
If you did any research work at all before applying to medical school, you are likely to encounter this question. And if you apply to MD/PhD, you will encounter it multiple times at every institution. So it’s especially worth your while to be prepared.
It’s interview season. You’ve spent at least the past six months writing, writing, writing to convince admissions committees that medicine is the only possible career for you, the one that will allow you to fulfill your personal and professional goals, the one your passions have driven you towards. So what should you make of this common interview ...
During the MD admissions process, this question is often dreaded, as applicants reminisce on the mundaneness of premed requirements and volunteer experiences. As with questions of, "What are your strengths?", "Why should we accept you?", and "What makes you unique?", applicants may fear coming off too arrogant and self-promoting. In all these ...
Multiple mini interviews, commonly referred to as MMIs, are a major interview component in the MD admissions process. According to the AAMC, “the MMI is designed to measure competencies like oral communication, social and non-verbal skills, and teamwork that are important indicators of how an applicant will interact with patients and colleagues as ...
Applying to MD-PhD programs is always about striking a balance. As an aspiring physician-scientist, you are in a unique situation that is necessarily distinct from straight MD and straight PhD applicants. Being able to tactfully and thoughtfully navigate this balance is fundamental to being a successful MD-PhD applicant, particularly during the ...
The MCAT contains LOTS of material that can often feel quite overwhelming. With this mountain before you, it can feel like the best thing to do is to memorize as many facts as possible to simply regurgitate on test day. I’m here to tell you: this isn’t your only option!
Even though the application portal isn’t open for enrollment until the end of May, it is time to start preparing for medical school admissions!
Let’s face it: applying to medical school is grueling.
Applying to medical school can be stressful, and many pre-med students worry about interview day in particular. But one of the most common interview mistakes occurs well before the questioning begins: a lack of preparation. Here are some tips to help you hone the content and message that you want to communicate on your interview day so that you ...
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.
First, congratulations if you have received MD/PhD interview invitations! That’s huge. Be proud of yourself and get excited to visit your potential future school and colleagues. As a student interviewer of prospective applicants, here are my suggestions for acing your interviews:
Congrats on making it to interview season! It’s been a long journey with the pre-med courses, long hours in the lab, grueling MCAT prep, and seemingly endless AMCAS and supplemental essays. You’re almost there. I found the interview portion really fun - I traveled to places I’d never been, got wined and dined by students and faculty, and talked ...
As an MCAT tutor and former test taker, I have often encountered a subset of students who struggle with the Critical Analysis and Reasoning section (CARS) of the test. It can become a significant source of frustration during studying, and there are many students who may even have to re-take as a result of a poor CARS performance.
Here are some helpful tips that can make you stand out from other interviewing applicants:
If you’re a college student planning to wait 1-3 years after graduating before attending medical school, I was very recently like you. Yay, we were the same! Although you or the people around you may have doubts about prolonging your training or entering the nebula of a life unstructured, I think the time you spend during your gap years can have a ...
“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 ...
Applying to medical school while abroad can be a wonderful and challenging experience, and will take careful planning to be completed correctly. There are many important factors, but two of the most important factors will be successfully filling out your AMCAS application and navigating interviews. Outlined below are some important features to ...
Unfortunately there is no easy answer on how to do this because it is an extremely personal answer that differs for everyone. Ultimately though, your personal statement must answer two essential questions: Why you? Why medicine?
These are some of the things that I have found super useful in helping me excel in medical school. I hope you find them helpful in whatever area of life or field you are in right now.
Today, we'll be exploring behind the scenes at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with one of our incredible MD coaches, Dan. Dan is currently a first-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Bachelor of ...
We'll be taking a peek behind the curtain at Harvard Medical School with Morgan, one of our incredible medical school admissions coaches. Morgan is originally from Southern New Jersey, spent the past four years in Williamsburg, VA studying at the College of William & Mary, and is now in Boston as a first year medical student at Harvard. As ...
So you're beginning work on your MD applications, and you're trying to bucket your school list. If you have competitive numbers, you've probably set your sights on the top three medical schools for research (according to US News). If you're wondering about what it entails to commit to one of these institutions, read this 2018 at-a-glance guide.
In the competitive world of medicine and medical schools, you should know that there are two types of medicine: allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO). Fundamentally, the two tracks are the same. Both MD and DO students will take the same medical classes, they'll undergo the same training, and their exams will cover the same information. At the end ...
When it comes to choosing a medical specialty, there is no magical sorting hat. Making this decision can involve a lot of soul-searching about the type of career you want. Here are a few reasons why I think this decision can be challenging:
Last time we discussed the general approach to preparing for a medical school interview and went over a couple big picture questions. The ultimate goals are to, one, let the interviewer know how you are different than every other person they spoke to and, two, why you would be a good fit for this program. You want to convey these points in a ...
First things first - congratulations on getting a medical school interview. It is no small accomplishment and you should take a moment to appreciate all the hard work that has gotten you to this point. There is still much hard work ahead, but let the “wins” fuel you moving forward.
Whether you are a high school senior trying to decide whether to play sports in college, or a collegiate athlete beginning to fill out your medical school application, this post is for you. When it comes down to it, admissions committees make their selections based off traits that they recognize tend to help students thrive through school and ...
One morning during winter break, as I was sitting on my couch with a mug of coffee in hand, I remember reveling to my mom: “It’s incredible how much majoring in anthropology kept on proving itself useful in medical school. Who would have known?” In college, I chose to major in a social science, anthropology—surely the less traditional route for ...
If you read my previous post, “What to expect during interview weekend for PhD Biomedical programs” you know exactly what you are in for during interview weekend. Now the question is, how do you prepare? You have two goals during interview weekend: 1) Convince the graduate students and faculty members that you would be an excellent fit for their ...
Somehow, it is May again. In Boston, this means more sun, Swan Boats, and my personal favorite: the turning on of the water fountains along all of the Charles River running routes. To those of you interested in medical school, it also brings the time to work on your primary applications and initial school list. For more information about how to ...
Many problems on the MCAT seem quite complex upon first inspection but can actually be reframed to be more simple. This allows a test-taker to serve time as well as avoid the errors that come with repeated detailed analysis. To demonstrate this tactic, see the example below.
By this point, most of you are up and running in the application process, and either have already had an interview or have some lined up. Sometimes, though, the scariest part of this process can come after the interview. At that point, all there is left to do is wait. The interview typically is the last part of this journey that is “in your hands” ...
As we come into October of the medical school app cycle, several of you will have likely gone on your first interview, or at least have one scheduled coming up. In last month’s blog post, I mentioned a few tips to get your head in the interview game. This month, I’ll delve more deeply into the different types of medical school interviews and how ...
If you’ve been following along with the last few MD Admissions Timeline blogs, August likely brings you to the next step of applying to medical schools - your secondary applications. Last month, I talked about some of the ways to prepare yourself for the barrage of secondaries that will come your way, and this month I’ll talk more specifically ...
If you’re applying to medical school this cycle and were able to get your primary application in by the end of June, July puts you in the first (of many) waiting game. As you are refreshing the AMCAS page to check the status of your primary application, you can make use of the down time to prepare yourself for secondaries. Depending on how many ...
College as a premed can be a grind. Between classes, labs, research, and activities, it can seem like four uninterrupted years of delayed gratification, all building up to that shining moment when you get into the medical school of your dreams (which, as your friends who are wage-earning college graduates will be happy to remind you, involves at ...
So you’re a member of ethics, debate, and math teams? Captain of the volleyball, soccer, and swimming intramural teams? A violinist and pianist in the state orchestra? Chances are, you won’t be attending Harvard.
As most of you who are applying to medical school this cycle are aware, the AMCAS opens during the first week of June. Typically, you are allowed to begin filling it out sometime in mid-May, but can't officially complete it until it opens in June. This is when you can submit the first part of your application - the personal statement, activities ...
Thinking about applying to medical school but not sure what you’re going to need to get in? Desperately searching for lab opportunities but not psyched about spending the summer inside? Frustrated by the constant inunundation of opposing messages and requirements? You’re not alone! Here are some key dos and don’ts that I learned along the ...
Image sourced from the New York Times Picking MCAT test prep resources can feel a little bit like trying to pick one ice cream flavor at Coldstone (although perhaps significantly less fun…) – there are so many options, all of them seem to work, and you don’t want to miss out by picking the wrong ones. Unfortunately, MCAT students too often try to ...
One alternative to applying to medical school.
The practice of medicine has been going on for as long as individuals have been affected by disease. As the population continues to age and technology continues to grow, the need for medical professional and the drive to become physicians continues to grow. Despite the growing need for physicians and growing interest in pursuing a career in ...
The summer may give longer warmer days, but for eager premeds the summer isn’t the restful vacation it should be. Numerous students are filling out their primary applications, in the hopes of achieving admission to the medical school of their dreams.
As MCAT season kicks into full gear, many are beginning to think about their next steps. For those interested in a career in research, the MD/PhD program seems like a likely path.
The MD/PhD admissions process is often time consuming, and anxiety provoking. There are over a hundred MD/PhD programs across the country. Some of them are funded in part by the NIH (MSTP) while others are funded privately (non MSTP). Overall, there are about 4500 students participating in these highly competitive programs across the country. ...
There are 141 accredited MD-granting medical schools in the US, as well as an additional 29 DO-granting schools. Now, how do you choose the right medical school?
Gaining acceptance to medical school can be a Herculean task. Between meeting pre-med requirements with stellar grades, studying for and taking the MCAT, and navigating the medical school admissions maze, it can be quite the effort. Differentiating between the different medical school paths you can take adds an extra level of complexity. There’s ...
The medical school application process is so competitive nowadays that it is easy to get caught up in myths and preconceptions about being premed and applying to medical school. Let’s bust some of those below: 1. You need to start preparing for medical school during your freshman year, or you won’t be able to take all your premedical courses. And ...
After a couple years in an MD/PhD program, you might wear thin and decide you no longer want to pursue this dual degree. Why it happens, and what can you do about it... The path to gaining admissions to an MD/PhD program is difficult, and filled with hurdles. Seeking admissions to these programs can be emotionally draining. At the end of the ...
Taking the MCAT (and the requisite MCAT prep class), filling out applications and writing essays can be a mind-numbing process. However, the process for gaining MD-PhD admissions is not done. This application and your scores only gives a small sense of who you are, and your potential for success. But who you are on paper is only a small part of ...
As you prepare your medical school application, there are many components to consider. One of which is the medical school interview. You should plan to prep for these so you feel confident going in. As an application consultant, I can tell you that at your medical school interviews, you are not expected to be an expert on current events in ...
Nearly 20% of Harvard freshman come to college preparing for a career in medicine: only about 7% of them actually end up going to medical school. The number of pre-med hopefuls is even higher at other schools. Prior to coming to college, most students have little concept of the wide world of potential careers available to them—realizing only when ...
In our post, we’ll tell you what the next steps are and what you can be with an MD/PhD The path to gaining admission to a dual degree MD/PhD program is long and arduous. In our previous blog, we gave the ins and outs of MD/PhD admission, and showed you what the success profiles of accepted students look like:
You’ve spent countless dollars and massive amounts of energy have been drained on MCAT tutors/MCAT prep, applications and application consulting, and interviews. All this, to secure one of those coveted spots in a prestigious MD/PhD program. I can tell you from past experience, with that letter in hand, relief washes over you. However, that ...
How to make yourself a desirable candidate The hard part is over. After much though and deliberation, you’ve decided to pursue an MD/PhD program as part of your training (After reading our previous post, “What are MD/PhD programs and are they for you”, of course). Now, how do you ensure that you get that coveted spot. Having gone through the ...
MD/PhD programs (also known as an MSTP) are found at medical schools across the country. But, if you’re like me, you’ve never heard about them as a training option until now. What is their purpose, how do they work, and who decides to pursue this course of study? The information in this blog post can potentially help you decide if pursing a dual ...