Some comments made by the heads of Admissions at both
VCU med school and EVMS at a meeting of pre-medical advisors throughout
Virginia:
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"We look hard at the 'BCPM' GPA. That's the
Biology-Chemistry-Physics-Math GPA. A high overall GPA
but a low BCPM GPA doesn't look good to us." |
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"We never look at the total GPA at our school."
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"What do the above two statements mean?" you ask.
Well, this was brought up by Dr. Neal in our prehealth
meeting in January. Frankly, after talking with the
folks at the prehealth advisors meeting, I believe I
can honestly say the following as a general guideline: |
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I interpret the above statements to mean that you
need to have
a BCPM GPA that is equivalent to Dean's List at your school
if you are serious about medical school. If you can't pull
that off while taking those tough BCPM courses, then
think about another career. As for Radford University,
that means you need to have a BCPM GPA of around 3.5.
|
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This may be disheartening to many of you, but med school
is a serious thing. If you're not willing to work hard
enough for this career, then don't do it. |
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"I'm more impressed by a 'B' in, say, quantum physics,
than an 'A' in Art History." |
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"Biochemistry is impressive. If they avoid the hard courses
then we see that on their transcript and, frankly, we're not
impressed." |
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"If the applicant has no clinical [volunteer, etc.]
experience, we just don't consider them a serious candidate
for our program." |
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"Even though I was in a [fraternity/sorority], none
of us consider [fraternity/sorority] leadership roles to
count so far as the 'leadership' we're wanting to see. We
want community leadership, volunteerism, and things like
that." |
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"One candidate said he wanted to practice rural medicine.
I then asked him to define 'rural.' Well, turns out he had
no idea what 'rural' meant; he was just trying to tell us
what he thought we wanted to hear. You want to guess if he
got in?" |
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Some comments made by 4th year medical students, some
of whom served on their schools' admissions committees
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"Make no mistake--medical school is a scientific
endeavor. Don't think that just because you're smart you're
going to have it easy. You have to take all those hard courses
that some people try to avoid in order to build their GPA."
-from a psychology major who struggled, but persevered |
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"If you think lying about wanting to be a primary
care physician will get you a better shot at medical school,
get real. We can tell if you're not genuine. We figure if
you're trying to manipulate us, then you'll try to manipulate
the MediCare system or your colleagues. No one wants that." |
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"70% of all those who have decided what area of medicine
to practice when they enter medical school change their
minds by the end. You usually really can't make that decision
so early. Tell the interview committee the truth if you honestly
don't know what you want to do. We're more impressed by that
than anything else." |
