| Top 10 Best Medical Schools | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard Medical School | $69,300 OOS | 9.1% OOS | |||||||
| Johns Hopkins School of Medicine | $62,850 OOS | ||||||||
| University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine | $65,940 OOS | ||||||||
| Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons | $70,886 OOS | ||||||||
| Duke University School of Medicine | $68,147 OOS | ||||||||
| Stanford University School of Medicine | $84,996 OOS | ||||||||
| UCSF School of Medicine* | $50,318 OOS | ||||||||
| Vanderbilt University School of Medicine | $66,828 OOS | ||||||||
| Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis | $67,295 OOS | ||||||||
| Weill Cornell Medical College | |||||||||
| NYU Grossman School of Medicine | $3,950 OOS | ||||||||
| Yale University School of Medicine | $70,184 OOS |
*Public medical schools | UR: Unranked | IS: In-state | OOS: Out-of-state | NA: Not available
How to get into top-10 medical schools
Strategy 1: Obtain high stats and develop a unique extracurricular profile.
To make it past the first hurdle when admissions committees review your application, you’ll want to ensure your stats are close to the average GPA and MCAT scores of the schools you’re interested in applying to. To be on the safe side, a 3.9+ GPA and 520+ MCAT score will make you a competitive applicant at all of the top 10 medical schools.
(Suggested reading: How to Get a Perfect MCAT Score: Strategies from a 528 Scorer)
In addition to achieving academically, top medical schools want to see that you’ve completed all of the extracurricular activities required by most programs. However, to be a standout candidate, you should select one or two extracurricular activities that you genuinely enjoy and achieve at the highest levels in them. You’ll want your application to have a clear theme to be memorable—aim to be known as “that guy who spearheaded multiple impactful projects aimed at helping Latino youth” or “that gal who volunteers at the nursing home and conducts Alzheimer’s research.”
(Suggested reading: How to Choose the Right Extracurricular Activities for Medical School)
Strategy 2: Organize your time around secondary essays
After working your way through your AMCAS application and crafting a personal statement that captures your essence, you’ll be invited to complete secondary applications for some (if not all) of the schools you’ve applied to. Each of these applications will require you to write even more essays specific to the school’s program. You may encounter prompts asking about diversity or adversity, or you could find yourself responding to the all-encompassing “Why us?” essay. Still other prompts may require a more creative response.
For the best chances of success on your applications, you should be applying to at least 15 to 25 medical schools–even adding 5 to 10 more if you have the resources. Should you receive a secondary application from each of those schools (or even most!), that translates into a lot of time and effort spent writing and revising.
As each school will have its own number of secondary essay prompts, it’s beneficial to think ahead and plan your time around the number of secondary essays you’ll need to complete. This can help you stay on track and construct the picture of yourself in your writing that you want adcoms to see.
How you plan to approach this task is up to you. Do you want to first tackle the prompts for the schools with more or fewer essays? Perhaps starting with essays by word count is better for you. Regardless of how you decide to plug away at the stack of essays, it’s important to have a plan.
Suggested reading: (Medical School Secondary Essays: The Complete Guide)
Strategy 3: Carefully review each medical school’s mission statement and communicate fit in your application.
Although most top medical schools are seen as “one and the same”, you’ll still need to communicate how your experiences and interests make you a great fit for that program. To learn what each program cares about specifically, read each school’s website and get in touch with current students.
Many students mistakenly believe that by being overly complimentary of a school’s offerings, location, or reputation for excellence, they can win over admissions committees. However, schools already know what they have to offer! Instead, you should aim to discuss your background and why you would be a good fit for the school.
The good news is: there will be many opportunities to do this through your secondary essays and responses to interview questions.
