Requirements to enter a medical school

So you're thinking about trying to get into medical school? Congratulations, you've made a difficult decision. The path to get to medical school is quite long and involved. The sooner you make the decision in your educational career, the easier it will be to become a doctor. However, even people who get a late start still have a good chance of achieving their dream. I was 28 years old when I started Medical School and it was the best decision of my life (so far).

The first thing that you're going to need in order to apply successfully to medical school is a bachelors degree. It's important to understand that you do not need to have a biology, chemistry, or any other sort of science degree in order to gain admission to medical school. Your degree, however will have to come from a full four-year college or university. Contrary to popular belief, the choice of your major is not as important as most people think it is. Using myself as an example, I have a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing (of all things). I had numerous friends in medical school who had undergrad majors such as music, mathematics, history, and even business.

No matter which major you choose as an undergraduate you are going to need certain science classes in order to successfully apply to medical school. It is important that you take off of these science classes at a four year college or university. Junior college science classes will generally not count toward the requirements.

The core premedical classes include one year of general chemistry, one year of introductory biology, one year of organic chemistry, and one year of physics. Most medical schools will also require at least some math, potentially up to the level of calculus. In addition, it is quite common to require some courses in English composition as well. Other science requirements, such as molecular biology, psychology or biochemistry, vary from school to school.

Although the course requirements for medical schools are similar, there are some very important differences from one med school to another. The best advice to ensure that you're taking the proper courses is to get a copy of a book known as the MSAR book. This stands for Medical School Admissions Requirements. This book is available in any university bookstore, or on Amazon.com. The book is the Bible of medical school admissions. It outlines in tremendous detail all of the necessary requirements

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