Becoming a Holistic Applicant: How Collecting “Unfair Advantages” Can Make You a Better Medical School Applicant
You may have heard the term “holistic” being thrown around in the context of medical school admissions, usually in the context of becoming a better, more attractive medical school applicant. I recently participated in a pre-med interest group Q&A where one student remarked: “We keep hearing that we should be...
Add Value as a Medical Student During Clinical Rotations
I must confess that I did not enjoy my clinical rotations. Well… at least not in the very beginning. This was largely due to my feeling that I was not adding value to my clinical rotation team as a medical student. You see, I had grown accustomed to the objective...
Make Your Medical School Group Study Suck Less
I can’t tell you the number of times during medical school I had to feign diarrhea to get out of a terrible group study session. You have to be intentional in your approach to group study or else you run the risk of wasting a lot of valuable time. The...
Which Medical Research Opportunities Should I Partake In
As a premedical student, countless commitments such as coursework, volunteering, shadowing, teaching, and, leadership activities might take up your time. In such a demanding context, adding research on to your busy schedule can seem like a daunting task. However, there are ways in which you can maximize the value you...
Should You Use AI to Write Your Medical School Admissions or Residency Application Personal Statement? Probably Not.
The recent release of the AI writing program chatGPT has brought AI-based writing to a much more advanced level. The implications of this technology on essay writing for medical school applications and residency applications are uncertain but likely profound. Two of the senior members of Elite Medical Prep have written...
Why Using AI to Write Your Medical School Admissions or Residency Application Personal Statement May Not Be Such a Bad Idea
The recent release of the AI writing program chatGPT has brought AI-based writing to a much more advanced level. The implications of this technology on essay writing for medical school applications and residency applications are uncertain but likely profound. Two of the senior members of Elite Medical Prep have written...
What to Focus on In Your Pre-Med Research Position
Taking a research position to gain research experience is becoming an increasingly important piece of the application package for pre-med students. Along with volunteer experience and shadowing or clinical exposure, it is now one of those factors that are technically optional (i.e., not a hard requirement) but widely recommended and...
Writing A Medical School Personal Statement
5300 characters. You have 5300 characters, including punctuation and white spaces, to show a medical school that you are more than the sum of your GPA and MCAT score in your personal statement. This means that your personal statement for Medical School word count will only be around 300-500...
Writing Your Medical School Letter of Intent: a Guide
It’s Spring! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you’re finishing up your medical school interviews. You’re in the home stretch! At the end lies your dream medical school. You (hopefully) have many schools to choose from. However, these schools have many applicants to choose from. How do...
Observations and Trends After the Switch to USMLE Step 1 Pass/Fail: What Learning Specialists Are Saying
2024 Update: This blog was originally posted on April 19, 2022. In 2024, an additional subheading was added to reevaluate the advice given within the context of the 2024 USMLE Step 1 landscape. One of the hottest topics among medical education learning specialists (MELS) is the behavior, motivation, and...