The Interdepartmental Undergraduate Neuroscience Program of Johns Hopkins University

What do you know about the career of a physician?  What have you done to demonstrate that you are willing to engage in the types of intensive caring behaviors that are desired in a physician?  To what extent are you willing to make sacrifices that are required when caring for people?  All of these issues and others can be addressed through volunteer work or paid jobs in a variety of settings.  These include, but are not limited to, hospitals, day care centers, gerontology nursing homes, emergency medical services, tutorial programs, etc.  You should realize that what is important is not just what you did, but what you made of the experience.  What you learned, the experiences that you had, and the changes that it produced in you are all of primary concern.

Are you capable of learning the material that will be given to you in medical school?  Are you prepared to learn that material?  These issues are usually addressed by looking at your academic record.  As mentioned above, only a few courses are required for admissions.  The question is, how well did you do in these courses?  That information will help determine the extent to which you have learned the relevant material, and are ready to acquire the new information that will be given to you in the curriculum.  MCAT scores are also used by medical schools. Certainly, academic performance and the MCATs are important; however, they are not the overriding concern that so many students give to them.

The data from students who have applied to medical school suggests that the probability of getting into a medical school increases with GPA.  At about 3.0, the probability is very low.  It rises in relatively linear fashion so that at about 3.9, the probability is almost perfect.  You should realize that these data are correlational and conclusions about causality can never be drawn from correlations.  Certainly, you can imagine a student with a 4.0 GPA and a score of 15 on every test of the MCATs is one whom you might not like to have admitted to medical school; so can the admissions committee.  Recent data from the Office of Preprofessional Advising indicates the mean GPA for Hopkins students accepted to medical school is 3.50, and the mean MCAT for accepted students is 30 (double points on each section).

What kind of an individual would you like to see as a physician?  What are the personal traits that you have admired or disparaged in physicians that you have known?  How do you assess an individual for these traits?  This is a difficult area in which to obtain objective data.  Admissions committees don’t require personality tests.  The comments from the letters of recommendation of the individuals who have known you are important here, and the way you conduct yourself at the interview is also used to make some inferences about your personality.  The set of activities in which you have engaged can be helpful.  Information about your ability to work with other people, willingness to help them, integrity and personal standards, energy, optimism...you can continue the list of the characteristics that you put together in terms of a desirable physician.  What have you done to determine if you have these desirable characteristics?  How do you document them to the admissions committee?

The most unstructured parts of your application are the written essays and the interview.  You have the opportunity here to choose material to discuss, and your choice, as well as what you say about it, provides an interesting insight into your personality.  The first rule, of course, is be yourself.  Nobody else can be yourself quite as well as you can, and you are probably much better at being yourself than being somebody else’s self.

Interviews and essays are notoriously difficult items to assess, and may have little predictive value for future success.  Nonetheless, your responses in these situations will be used to make some judgments about you.  Consequently, you should choose the material carefully so that it accurately represents you as an individual.  The Office of Preprofessional Advising leads workshops to assist you in writing your essay and practicing your interview skills.  Consult their calendar for specific times and dates.

A certain core of requirements is necessary for successful performance in medical school.  Many of the applicants will have that core.  Consequently, decisions among them are often based on the “extra dimension.”  What makes you different from the other applicants?  What do you bring that is special?  What are the interesting characteristics of individuals that you would like to see in a physician?

This extra dimension can be in virtually any realm of activity: Sports, courses, theater, music, life experiences, counseling at camps, working in a job, medically related experience, volunteer experience (at home or abroad) etc.  This discussion of the extra dimension is obviously a variation on the theme that there is more to life than just getting prepared for medical school.  Again, the issue is not just what you have done, but how you did it and what you learned.  Why did you choose these activities?  How did you pursue them once you were engaged in them?  What aspects of them affected you?  What did you learn about the activity, yourself, other people, and the characteristics of life?

In the application process, you should pay great attention to details.  You should not be paranoid, but conscientious.  The way your application looks (spelling, typing, organization, etc.) will be used to make some judgments about you.  Likewise, your general conduct at the interview will also be influential.  In short, any information that the admissions committee can obtain about you in any form will be used to make a judgment about your appropriateness for medical school.  Pay attention to details.

Medical schools have a very high regard for the Johns Hopkins Health Professions Committee process.  The committee will be part of your support for a health professions program when you begin the actual application process.  It consists of members of the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, the Whiting School of Engineering, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and emeritus faculty.  The Preprofessional Advising Office strongly recommends that you work closely with them, attending program informational meetings, in order that you are well prepared to garner the strong support of the Health Professions Committee.

When your recommendations are received by the Preprofessional Advising Office, and you complete the informational paperwork for the office, you will be assigned a committee member who will interview you and present your credentials to medical school admissions committees.  The opportunity to enjoy the support of the Health Professions Committee is one of the unique features of the Johns Hopkins prehealth program.  Be sure to do all you can to take advantage of this opportunity.

Have some sympathy for your admissions committee.  The committee is trying to make the best decision with the available data in a minimal amount of time.  The number of applicants is large, and the importance is substantial.  Put yourself in the place of the admissions committee members, and ask yourself what you would like to know about applicants and how you would like them to help you.  Our own experience with admissions committees found them scrupulously honest, very dedicated, highly intelligent, and well aware of all of the tricks of the trade that may be attempted by applicants.  We have also been impressed with the fairness of their decisions, and believe that if you are qualified to enter medical school, you will get there.  So prepare yourself for the admissions process, but remember that life doesn’t begin with medical school.