- Hey everyone!
Welcome back to the channel.
If you're new here, I'm Dr. Shemmassian
and I've been helping students get into med schools
like UCSF, UCLA, Northwestern and Yale for over 15 years.
Today I'm going to discuss the top four reasons
why medical schools reject qualified applicants.
Every year, roughly 60% of students apply
to medical school unsuccessfully.
Of these students, a significant number
are qualified applicants.
That means tens of thousands of students
who have the grades, test scores and clinical experiences
to get into medical school get rejected.
After sacrificing countless hours
to ace your med school prereqs
and gain the necessary clinical and research experiences,
the last thing you want to do
is make a fatal application error
that leads to rejections across the board.
In this video, I'll list the four most common reasons
why med schools reject qualified applicants
and provide you with strategies you can use
to make sure you don't end up
having to reapply.
Let's get into it.
Number one: Applying to the wrong schools based on stats.
I routinely observe students applying to medical schools
that they have little to no chance of getting
into based on their stats.
Many schools state that they don't have
GPA or MCAT cutoffs,
citing a holistic approach to admissions,
but this is misleading.
Most medical schools list the average GPA and MCAT
of accepted students.
So the truth is, if your stats consistently fall below
a medical school's expectations,
your admissions odds will be quite low.
For example, if your heart is set on applying
to NYU Med School, but you have a 3.5 GPA and a 513 MCAT,
your odds of admission are slim.
Why waste your time completing applications for schools
that you're highly unlikely to get into,
when you can focus on improving your applications
for schools within your reach?
Please note that my intention
is not to discourage you.
Instead, I want to encourage you
to be realistic about your admissions odds
based on your GPA and MCAT score.
By applying strategically,
you'll maximize your chances
of getting into med school.
Reason number two:
Submitting a cliche personal statement.
Grades and test scores tell admissions committees
how academically high achieving you are,
while extracurricular activities demonstrate
what you're passionate about,
how you spend your time and so on.
On the other hand, your personal statement
is a chance to share your background, your values,
your thought processes and your goals.
Students often read successful medical school
personal statement examples
and use others' framework to write their own essays.
But as a result, their personal statement
ironically sounds like everyone else's
and it's totally unmemorable.
By first reflecting on the qualities
you want to highlight to admissions committees,
you can identify the topics
that will best convey why you
would be a great fit for a particular program.
Reason number three:
Submitting applications too late.
Since most medical schools practice rolling admissions,
the earlier you apply, the better.
If you apply early,
you'll be competing with a smaller pool of applicants
for the largest number of seats.
Conversely, if you apply late,
you'll compete with a larger pool of applicants
for a smaller number of seats.
You'll want to submit your primaries
as close to the open date as possible
without sacrificing quality.
For secondaries, make sure to submit
within two weeks of receipt.
If you work on your applications way ahead of time,
you can even pre-write many of your secondaries.
However, be careful not to sacrifice
the quality of your application
just because you want to submit as soon as possible.
It's better to submit an excellent application
a few days later
than to submit a mediocre one early.
At the same time, perfectionism will inevitably
cause you to stall.
If your application is already high quality,
marginal improvements aren't worth the penalty you'll suffer
for delaying submission.
Finally, reason number four:
Preparing for interviews the wrong way.
In preparation for medical school interviews,
many applicants focus on memorizing the right responses
to common interview questions.
As a result, their answers may seem canned
and can negatively impact
the interviewer's impression of them.
For example, how many people have answered
the greatest weakness question
with something about being a perfectionist?
Focusing on sociability and delivery of responses
is just as important as the content of your answers.
Spend time doing mock interviews with people
who are familiar with the process
and get feedback on the content of your responses
and the way you presented them.
If your interviewer likes you as a person,
they'll be far more likely to forgive minor flubs
and recommend you for admission.
Now that we've covered the top four reasons
why qualified applicants are rejected,
let's recap the four strategies you can use
to avoid compromising your admissions odds.
Number one:
Apply to schools strategically based on your stats.
Strategy two:
Write a unique personal statement
that highlights your best qualities.
Number three:
Apply as early as possible
without sacrificing application quality.
And finally, strategy number four:
Prepare for interviews the right way.
If you found this video helpful, hit the like button.
And if you haven't subscribed yet,
you can do that here so you don't miss out on new videos.
If you'd like to learn more,
click the link in the description
to get a free copy of my book,
"How to Get into Medical School",
which contains all the strategies we use
to help students get into schools
like Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and UCLA.
Alright, thanks so much for watching.
See you next time.