so how hard is it to get into medical school?

Factual Questions
1

on one hand, you’ve got a chronic undersupply of doctors in this country*

on the other, you have carribbean medical schools galore, D.O. programs, and your run-of-the-mill state-run medical colleges that no one’s really heard of…
so, is med school hard to get into like law school (meaning, if you don’t really care where you go to law school, you just want the professional credential, you’re willing to take on the debt to pay for it, and you have decent-ish grades from a 4-year undergraduate college, you can get in)

or is it actually hard to get into (meaning, that even if you really wanted the credential, you would have to score in like the 90th percentile of the MCAT, be a stellar med-school interviewer, have over a B+ average in molecular biology at a well regarded university, the odds are still against you becoming a licensed physician)
of course, going to the Dr. Nick Riviera school of medicine wouldn’t land you the gazillions of dollars that a Harvard cardiologist would make, but hopefully that’s not what anyone means when they say “med school is hard to get into” like they mean in the law school sense… or is it?

*thanks, AMA!

2

I am not a doctor but I did get a degree in the biological sciences and took some med school classes in grad school and there is a doctor in my family. Getting into medical school is really hard and you have to start early as an undergrad. There are lots of people that intend on being doctors when they are about 18 and some college classes, especially things like organic chemistry, are set up to knock that notion right out of their head if they don’t have what it takes and most don’t and move on to something else. That kind of sucks if you are just one of the ones there that wants to learn the subject reasonably well but not major in the subject or become a doctor.

I am not sure why people always make the antiquated “doctors and lawyers” comparison. I don’t want to offend any lawyers but the training is not equivalent at all in terms of years of training and initial preparation for the professional schooling. You can screw off in undergraduate school and still make it into some law school if you are bright but you can’t do that to prepare for medical school. It is really hard and focused.

I will leave it up to the actual physicians that have completed the entire process to comment on the details but it seems like one of the most difficult things you can do from what I have experienced.

3

Easier than getting into Veterinary school…

4

I have no idea how hard it is to get into medical school, but I am reminded of an actual study I read way back in uni. It showed the percentage of medical students with some form of mental illness increased each year, with the lowest percentage among first-year students and the highest among fourth-year students. It was undecided if medical school drove you crazy or the sane ones tended to drop out, leaving the crazy ones behind.

5

It was def. rough for me- if you want to try to get into a “known” or “competetive” school you’ve got to have good MCAT scores (the “Golden number” used to be cconsidered 27-28, where that was said to be the number where the MCAT didn’t hurt you anymore, but at some schools they say they its been on the rise as of late so a 30-31 is the score you should try to strive for). You’ve got to have competitive grades, my GPA was considered low the first time around (3.4 out of a 4.0 system) and I had to take some classes to pull it up in my off year.
Also, the little things like interviews, essays, and personal statements all go a long way towards why you want to be there. Same with the letters of recommendations.

I went to my counselor as a 3rd year, because I decided to apply to medical school and basically was told that I had no chance to get in because I hadn’t talked to her from freshman year and that she “didn’t have the time to know me” nor be willing to write me a letter of rec, as she already had had 20-40 students that had apparently taken her freshman seminar back in the day and were basically being groomed by her for medical school.

It’s def. rough. You’re basically competing against some of the MOST Type A people out there, who are willing to do anything and everything to get into their desired medical school…

Now if you WANT to just GO somewhere, I’m sure that’s certainly possible- I thankfully didn’t’ have to apply overseas, or try something else but it def. took me several tries to get into school and I had better than avg. MCATs, but mediocre grades, and only a decent amount of volunteering and such things, because the scale on that varies- some places I had tons of it, others felt it was too little compared to students that had spent like 6+ years (basically since high school) volunteering with operation smile and going on overseas missionary work and that sort of thing… And I didn’t have much in the way of research, I was a Lab TA but I wasn’t published. I know people in my entering medical school class that have PhDs; others with 6 published papers, others with years of research, and another who is a 42 year old mother of 3 and that’s her credentials.

So it takes all types, and it’s sort of a crapshoot at times, and it’s extremely stressful. There isn’t one easy set method to get into medschool, but if you keep at it, have the decent minimums or so and good recs you SHOULD be able to get into a location SOMEWHERE…

6

The bottom line is that in any given year less than half of applicants (about 18K/42K) are accepted to US MD schools. Individual schools tend to accept less than 5% of applicants, everyone applies to 10+ schools, most applicants aren’t accepted anywhere, but some have multiple acceptances. This 5% figure is true of low ranked medical schools. In-state acceptance rates for state schools will be somewhat higher, but I doubt any of them approach, say, 25%.

DO schools accept applicants with slightly lower stats, but AFAIK it’s still fairly competitive.

Caribbean schools are a mixed bag. There are 4 or so which are quite good, but then there are plenty which will take your money for a few years even if you have no chance of succeeding. So yeah, if you just want the credential, you’ll find places in the Caribbean which will take you, but you might want to think carefully before going there - their acceptance can’t be considered a vote of confidence in your ability to complete the coursework and pass the boards. OTOH, MD schools in the USA do the weeding out during the admissions process; the percentage of matriculants who pass the boards and graduate is in the high 90’s.

BTW, ToeJam, the average GPA and MCAT scores at my unranked medical school are higher than that.

7

There is no comparison. Things may have changed a bit over the last twenty-thirty years since I was in college, but no that much. Back then, med school did not require a B+. It required a solid A, with many schools unwilling to look at someone with so much as a single B.

And of course, while law school probably isn’t easy, it sure is compared to med school. You can get a law degree in 2 or 3 years of postgraduate education., which is akin to getting an MS in most sciences. Med school takes far longer, and then there are reqs beyond that.

8

I am a medstudent myself. It was quite easy for me to get in MedSchool. I even got in the bursaries group (State pays for my studies). I don’t remember all the requirements, but the required exam results were not less than level C in Biology, Chemistry, English. There was something like a test, as well, but it was of minor importance. Oh, and it was necessary to have been passed Physics. My graduation year score in Physics was 9. My exam results were: level A in Biology, B in Chemistry and A in English (I passed two more, but they weren’t required for MedSchool). My mean score after graduation was 8,6 or 8,8 (I don’t remember exactly).

I don’t remember how many doctor-wanna-bes there were, but finally there were 275 reflectants taken in my year - 250 in bursaries group and 25 in fee charged group (the fee is something over 2000 LVL per year). Plus there were about 35 students from academic year.

Oh, and health test results were required, as well, especially those of colour vision, because daltonics are not allowed to be medstudents (though just theoretically - because I know a cardiologist who is daltonic).

p.s. Sorry, if terminology isn’t correct. I am a fourth year student in Medicine School at Riga Stradins University (www.rsu.lv). We have 10 point score system in elementary school and secondary school (1 is the worst score, 10 - is the best). As to graduation exams, they are scored by levels (A is the best, F is the worst). The levels are scored in the following way: firstly the exam results are evaluated through out all the country and the best results are marked as A, secondly the next best result group is marked as B and so on (there are no strict rules for choosing the border value - it is examination commitee who decides that).

p.p.s. I don’t know the entrance order for foreign students. I guess that the entry conditions are different - because the education systems differs in other countries. All I know is that they all are fee charged students. But in Latvia it’s far less expensive to study than in other countries.

9

Yeah, I know, I was just giving my stats the first time around on GPA, I didn’t give an average GPA.
Though the average MCAT score was above a 30? Really? That’s interesting. I know it’s been going up but I figured the average was around 28-30.

10

Yes, that is because there are not many vet schools, most states only have 1 and some states have none. Here in NC we have 4 med schools and 1 vet school.

11

Here are the statistics for the Fall 2009 Class of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine,Fort Worth, TX:

2,047 Applications
669 Interviews
439 Offers of Admission
186 Accepted

Overall GPA 3.57
Mean MCAT score - 28

Mean age - 25 (range 20-54)

9% acceptance rate

UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX

230 admitted (no info that I could find on applications, etc.)

Average GPA - 3.81

Average MCAT - 33

Age: 69% 22-23 years, 10% 21 or younger, 4% 29 or older.

Both schools ranked in the top 50 in the US for training Primary Care Physicians

12

Oh dear…
This makes very depressing reading.

All I had to do (back in the mists of time…1999 to be exact) to get into medicine in Dublin was to get 3 A’s at A-level and be one of the UK applicants pulled out of a hat.

Seriously, that was how my university decided it. There is a minumum academic requirement (in my day I think 3 A’s at A-level for UK applicants and 540 points for Irish Leaving Cert applicants- I think it is 4A’s or 560 points now) then they basically randomly picked the applicants, with a certain number of the places reserved for UK applicants.

The overseas applicants had interviews, but not the Irish or UK applicants. Overseas applicants also pay fees, while Irish and UK applicants don’t.

There were 120 in my year- about 25% overseas, and about 10 UK places.
Bear in mind, this was a 6 year degree you enter straight from school at 17 or 18.

So all I needed was the ability to get good A-levels…and luck.

I did get offers from 2 UK medical schools for their 5 year degrees. For those I had to submit personal statements, references from my school and go to interviews. One offer was conditional on receiving AAB at A-level, the other was for ABB.

Looking back now, as a doctor, all I can say is that people who are good at exams and interviews are not necessarily good at being doctors and vice versa*. The Irish system, arbitrary as it seems, strikes me as about as fair as anything else. It ensures a minimum academic standard and then assigns places based on chance rather than the ability to answer questions well under pressure or having the “right” connections.

The truth is, you don’t need to be super smart to be a doctor, academically the course isn’t that tough and the profession doesn’t require genius level IQ on a daily basis. IMO pushing the academic requirement to get into medical school into the stratosphere (due to demand for places) is going to lose us some great potential doctors.

*I happen to be someone who is good at taking tests and in interviews. These skills, however, have nothing to do with my ability to practice medicine, but have come in very handy at ensuring I get the jobs I want.

13

I sat on the admissions committee for a US Med School for a number of years in the early 80’s. At the time when I applied, and for some time thereafter, about a third of all applicants were admitted. Of course there is a natural tendency to not apply in the first place if the chances are not good, so it’s hard to really give you a direct answer. The Medical profession in the US is increasingly less attractive because of various factors, so it’s also hard to absolutely quantify what the real competitive field is like.

As a rule of thumb, we looked at undergraduate MCATs as an initial gross screen, with grades being considered but placed into perspective against the rigor of the academic schedule and the college. We placed a great deal of emphasis on well-roundedness and non-academic accomplishments, trying to sort out the resume-builders from those truly interested in volunteer work or significant research.

Underrepresented minorities were placed in a separate category (and still are) because their performance on standardized exams and high grades in quantifiable disciplines such as sciences were so far below everyone else we would have ended up with no minorities unless we handled them separately. http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgparaceeth08.htm

You can look at current MCATs and grades online for a given medical school or for the whole country if you do research, and you can also inquire into a given school to find out their policy.

14

Yeah, it’s hard. As someone above said, you don’t have to be a genius to survive or even excel in med school. I don’t think that the constantly increasing averages of MCATs and GPAs and such are a result of a conscious effort on the part of schools, however. I think it’s just the demand for each spot is increasing greater than the rate of new spots. Unlike law schools which seem to be pretty much everywhere you look, there just aren’t that many med schools. The average MCAT at many schools now is above 30, and the GPA is above 3.5 at probably almost all of them.
The unfortunate relative lack of respect for DO schools contributes to their lower admission averages, but it’s still fairly competitive, as somebody posted above.
I’m a second year student at a fairly competitive school, and it took me 3 tries plus a host of other things (probably biggest was just luck) to get my spot.

15

Actually I should have just focused on this- yeah, there’s an undersupply of doctors in this country.
But there’s STILL a fixed number of slots for students to be let in. So even though one would think the demand is high for doctors- because there is a limited amount of seating, it’s actually a buyers market- they can pick and choose the best applicants as they see fit to fill their seats, and hope that another medical school doesn’t come along and take their pick.

16

Completely different for the Americans. In the USA, Medical School is graduate school: you must already have a Bachelor’s and there is such a thing as a “PreMed Bachelor’s,” that is, a Bachelor’s specifically geared for entering Medical School. There are parts of the process (“the little parts” as ToeJam put it) which are specifically geared towards weeding out the people who “want to be a doctor because I want to be rich” (that would be over 90% of the PreMed students I had) or the ones who think they’re God’s gift to patients, or… basically, the ones whose mindset indicates they should never have someone’s lifes in their hands. Many of those are weeded out directly by having “socialized medicine:” the average Spanish doctor (and the country’s mental image of them) works for the government, has somewhat-weird hours but not particularly long ones (except when “on ER duty”), and has a decent salary but nothing spectacular. Nobody would try to enter medical school in Spain “because I want to be rich” (it’s been almost 20 years and I’m still traumatized by those premeds…).

If I read your post correctly, in Latvia Medical School is at the “Bachelor’s” level, that is, you don’t need to have spent four years in the university already before you can even apply. That’s the way it is in Spain, France or Italy, for example (Spain’s grade system is 0-10 as well, none of those letters Americans and Brits use).

The American grading system is also different from the system used in (most of if not all) Europe, in that Americans “curve” grades. There’s been threads about that before, I won’t try to explain it but it’s possible to get a 9 and have a B (“not good enough” for an American medical school) or get a 6 and have an A depending on how the teacher curves. You’re rated both against objective criteria and against the rest of the class.