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...

Applying to medical school is a lengthy process. From the moment you get serious about applying in the current cycle to deciding which school to attend, you will spend more than a year writing, interviewing, and waiting. One of the most important steps you can take to ensure success in...

Knowing what is needed to present yourself as a successful applicant to medical school can be difficult. A lot of different sources and medical schools expect you to have certain achievements and to have participated in a variety of experiences.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)   You better not never tell nobody but God.  —Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982) It was a pleasure to burn.  —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)     Some of the best...

So, you are considering applying to medical school and wondering how to get in? Every year, U.S. medical schools evaluate tens of thousands of applications from some of the brightest and most talented college students and recent graduates in the country. The admissions process is highly secretive, yet we know...

Shadowing is an extracurricular that most premeds participate in to fulfill requirements for medical school. However, it is also an important part of your journey in understanding medicine and connecting with your reasons for pursuing the field.      What Is Shadowing?   When shadowing, you will be following a...

Your medical school personal statement is the cornerstone of your medical school application. As such, your personal statement should be polished, contain a good hook, well thought out, and capture why you want to be a doctor and what life experiences have informed your journey to applying to medical school.

CASPer – not the friendly ghost, but rather, the Computer-Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics – is a situational judgment test graded on a quartile basis, with a goal of measuring ethics, communication, empathy, and professionalism in any number of settings – not just medical ones!

In the last decade, it has become much more common for applicants to take a gap year (or multiple) before completing their medical school applications. According to the 2020 AAMC survey of matriculating students, only 33.7 went directly from college to medical school. The number of students taking gap years...

Pre-med students have plenty of requirements to fulfill when applying to medical school, from filling out the AMCAS application to taking the MCAT. Recently, many medical schools have started requiring pre-med students to complete an additional assessment called the Casper examination. But what is Casper, and how is it relevant...