Advising and Mentoring Tomorrow’s Physicians:
A Look Inside the Medical School Admissions Process

By Theresa Kim and Elena Paik

Day 2: Saturday Morning: October 12th

We woke up bright and early in the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach, California. We had had a taste of the conference the previous day and were excited to see what this second day had to offer.

We proceeded down to a hearty breakfast where we conversed with premedical students from surrounding universities. We looked around and saw students engaging in friendly chatter with peers and advisors. After breakfast, we took a drive-by tour of the UCI campus before finally arriving at the top of a hill, overlooking the campus' preserved lands, to the Beckman Conference Center where the conference was taking place.

Once inside, we took our seats in the auditorium and things got really interesting. All of the medical school deans in California save one sat in a row on the stage. Dr. Thomas Cesario, Dean of the UC Irvine College of Medicine, opened the conference with a warm welcome extended to all the counselors and the students who had come to the conference.

Dr. Neil Parker, the Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs from our very own David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, gave an awesome presentation explaining the AMCAS application: The how to; How not to; Deadlines; And everything and anything else a medical school applicant would want to know about this form. He emphasized the availability of resources out there — the AAMC homepage and the Medical School Admissions Requirement [MSAR] — and that the key information, what medical schools are looking for, were in the first few pages. He stressed the importance of conveying passion, enthusiasm, dreams, desires, and assets into the application and closed with the reminder that “every contact is an interview,” encouraging applicants to be their best self wherever they may be.

Immediately following Dr. Parker’s presentation, we sat through an interactive session on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) led by Hy Doyle, a learning skills specialist, who stressed that long term studying skills and test-taking skills were key in succeeding in this exam. He gave us helpful tips on how to find old tests, encouraged us to practice, emphasized the importance of working with others in order to generate dialogue, explained how to make effective schedules, and suggested reading material such as Harpers or Atlantic Monthly for help on the verbal section. Most importantly, he emphasized the importance of reviewing one's work for mistakes and correcting them.

Following these two informative sessions on how to get into medical school, the conference moved on to how a medical student could actually afford this education. Teddie Milner, director of financial aid at UCLA School of Medicine, gave a comprehensive speech on, “Financing a Medical Degree,” letting us know about web resources and videos to watch that would help any medical student get their finances together. She highly recommended the AAMC financial web site, and she mentioned others which can be found at www.medstudent.ucla.edu/fao.

After a short break to catch our breaths from the whirlwind of information that had been thrown our way, we returned to the auditorium to listen to Dr. Gabriel Garcia, Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine. He explained what kind of “track record” constituted a successful applicant – namely, research, clinical, and volunteer experiences. He discussed the fact that the medical schools were looking for the “distance traveled” as each person has traveled a unique path to get to the point to where they are in their lives. He finished with a description of four stages of contribution as a student — leadership, advocacy, innovation and finally, legacy; this latter stage being the greatest level of achievement in the extracurricular arena. With more than half of the conference left, we wondered what was possibly left to cover; we had heard everything today that a medical school applicant could possibly wish to know.

Yet the best part of the conference was still to come. Dr. Cathryn Nation, Director of Academic Health Services of the Office of the UC president, opened up the Admissions Committee portion of the conference by reiterating the basic traits the medical schools were looking for in an applicant: Outstanding performance; Clinical exposure; And a strong track record. We then proceeded to reenact a medical admissions committee. Led by Dr. Neil Parker, the mock admissions committee gave us an extremely comprehensive view of the medical school admission process. Students and advisors were given numbers to determine assigned seating for lunch, and with the others sitting at the table, reviewed the AMCAS applications of five “applicants” that were applying to the “Beckman Medical School.” Acting as the admissions committee, we debated the strengths and weaknesses of each applicant and presented our assessment of each candidate back in the auditorium with the whole audience participating. The process showed us exactly how time consuming and competitive the applicant pool was, and how applicants can present their information in the best possible way. We also witnessed the passion associated with the admissions process as various members debated the admittance of “Lucia Estudiante” over “Veronica For Medicine,” and vice versa. This last activity really gave us a sense of what happens in the “mysterious” admissions side of the medical school application process and what we, as students and advisors, could do to best prepare premedical students for it.

Due to time constraints, we ended the discussion and proceeded on to an informative presentation of post-baccalaureate programs, presented by Edward Dagang, the Director of Admissions at the UC Davis College of Medicine. He reviewed the different programs available in the California system and gave helpful tips on applying to these programs, such as the importance of getting in applications early and finding out the deadlines because they often overlap with medical school application deadlines. A useful web site he mentioned was services.aamc.org/postbac.

Then the audience was given an opportunity to ask whatever questions they had to the deans, as Erin Quinn, Associate Dean of Admissions at USC Keck School of Medicine, moderated the question and answer session. Counselors and students raised very good questions as they wanted to pass on the information to their students and peers. Questions ranged from individual schools’ acceptance numbers and screening processes, to expectations for letters of recommendations. The deans reiterated all of the points discussed during the entire conference and students and advisors seemed satisfied with the answers.

Finally, the day came to an end as the conference chair, Ellena Peterson, also the Associate Dean of Admissions and Outreach at the UC Irvine College of Medicine, thanked everyone for attending and closed with the remark that she hoped we had gained something useful from the conference. There was definitely no doubt that we had. We walked away as two premedical students, a little wiser and more aware — ready to share what we had learned.