It is absolutely, ridiculously difficult to get into medical school. This is a well-known fact. In my opinion, as a pre-med student, it’s far more difficult than it needs to be. Pre-med students, like myself, are expected to be just about perfect at everything we do and to get into medical school, it’s necessary to do a lot.
This is what medical schools expect from their applicants: high GPAs, extensive job shadowing and volunteering hours, a good (but preferably excellent) score on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), clinical hours, research experience and at least one other extracurricular to prove that you, the applicant, are in fact human and not consumed entirely by medicine. This is an absurdly hard-to-achieve set of expectations.
While requiring a high GPA makes sense – medical school is difficult, and schools need to see that their prospective students can handle it – the effects of that requirement are brutal. Every single undergraduate course affects GPA, so every course’s grade matters. The popular saying “C’s get degrees” doesn’t apply to pre-meds, because sure, the C might get the degree, but it won’t earn one of the coveted spots in medical school. Speaking from personal experience, that pressure to succeed generates significant stress and an unhealthy sense of perfectionism in pre-med students.
Even so, pure academic success isn’t enough. Everything else on the above list is needed, too. Job shadowing (tagging along after a doctor to see what their job is) demonstrates that a student has seen and understood the realities of medicine, while volunteering shows the student is a good, caring person who would make a good, caring provider. Clinical hours are time spent working in a healthcare setting, to once again show the student understands the realities and responsibilities of healthcare professionals. The MCAT is a formidable exam, yet students are expected to do exceptionally to prove their intelligence and preparedness for medical school. Research experience is important because it demonstrates a student’s ability to learn and keep learning even when they encounter setbacks. Finally, other extracurriculars are expected because medical schools want people who are human, who have diverse interests and skill sets outside of medicine. Being a doctor isn’t all there is to life, and medical schools want students who understand that reality.
This is all hard. It is a lot. It is, in my opinion, way too much. It’s literally impossible to balance all of these things without sacrificing something: sleep, mental health, time with family and friends, time to relax, or multiple of the above. To any medical school admissions professionals who may be reading this: time to give it up. While I understand why each of the extensive requirements for medical school admission exist, it doesn’t mean I agree with them. For instance, clinical hours are gained by working as an EMT, CNA, phlebotomist, pharmacy technician, or in a similar entry-level healthcare position, yet all of those jobs require extra training and certifications that tend to be expensive to get. And job shadowing is near impossible without preexisting connections with doctors, which first-in-their-family physicians (like me) don’t have.
The stress caused by needing to live up to these requirements and the intensive workload they create causes students to burn out before they can even begin a career in medicine, which isn’t good when we’re facing a shortage of healthcare providers in a great many healthcare fields. The system is rough, outdated, and abrasive and we must come up with a better way to ask students to prove their desire to become doctors, in a manner that doesn’t cause nearly as much harm.
