Anyone have tips on getting into a top medical school?

I have about a 3.8 GPA at a state school right now, I have a research job over the summer working in an R%26amp;D lab in a cosmetics company, I'm going to start volunteering at an animal shelter, I have taken many bio and chem classes.





Do I need to do medical type research?


What are some things I can do to really stand out?


What school do you think would be good for me, based on the above credentials?


please only serious answers, esp. from medical students

Anyone have tips on getting into a top medical school?
some schools, such as the one i attend (northwestern) require medical research of most of their admitted students, but most dont, although they definitely give preference to med research participants. the students who stand out most are those with majors other than a hard science and especially those who have a lot of volunteer or extra-curricular activities that pertain to medicine. i also highly recommend shadowing a physician or volunteering in a hospital (you get the most diverse exposure in the e.r., which is what i did); if you check out barrons guide to medical and dental schools, most will emphasize the importance of the applicants pre-exposure to a medical setting. your gpa is pretty high, so that shouldnt concern you; in fact, if you look at ranking and mean gpas of all the schools in the u.s., the top schools in the country's (harvard, johns hopkins, yale, etc) students have an average gpa of about 3.75. that said, there are plenty of seemingly stellar applicants who are rejected for no good reason, so to up your chances of acceptance, apply to as many schools possible. the rank of your med school matters very little in the end- almost noone cares where their dr went to med school- if you really want to be a dr. just make your goal getting in SOMEWHERE. they are all difficult, all train you thoroughly in medicine, and all send their students off well-educated. make sure you participate in things you enjoy, not just things you think will look good on your application, and dont hop around from volunteer project to volunteer project; med schools want to see long committments to projects and hospitals.
Reply:Honestly, get as much experience as you can. Volunteer at hospitals, clinics, nursing homes .....and if you know what you want to specialize in then a place that caters to that. For instance, I want to treat HIV patients someday so I volunteered at an organization that counsels/provides treatment.


A great GPA and MCAT score are crucial, but pretty much anyone even tackling the application process for med school already has these! Experience is crucial.
Reply:Study hard