F26 2nd Meeting - 9/22/26

Hey Pre-Meds!

During yesterday's meeting, we gave a pre-med crash course over some fundamental aspects of the pre-med journey. Most of this information is meant for freshmen, or anyone that is new to the process. It may also be useful to look back on throughout your college career to make sure your goals are aligned with the expectations of the medical school application process.

Announcements and Reminders:

- The pre-health volleyball social is tomorrow, 7 PM at the outdoor sand volleyball courts here on the Allendale campus. 

- If you're looking for research, there is an undergraduate student research fair Tuesday, October 6 from 5-7PM. This will be held at the grand river room in Kirkhof. This is a great opportunity for in person networking with GV faculty and researchers. I'd recommend bringing hard copies of your resume or CV, because most faculty will ask for you to email one anyways. 

- All 7 medical schools in Michigan are collaborating and hosting a virtual zoom session for Michigan Medical Education Day (MMED) which will take place October 27 from 7-9PM. This is one of the best resources that Michigan pre-meds have access to. Here is the link to register. https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=yd4c5R2BHUe75t09jVTCizME4O7OltlJrEENCNewBrRUMDZZUVQyNjRYUUcwS1lOWjdYMjRNWjJGNi4u

- Deadline to order your club merch is October 1. Check the attached slides for the design. 

Meeting recap:

- Most people begin applying to medical schools after their junior year, which means you wouldn't take a gap year. Recently, gap years have become much more normalized where students begin applying after their senior year. Most students use their gap years to gain more clinical, research, and/or community service experience. 

- There are a ton of steps during application season. To list a few, you take your MCAT, complete your primary and secondary applications for the schools you apply to, hopefully get invited for multiple interviews, and in the spring you make your decision on where you want to go based on how many offers you get. The July/August following this is when you'd begin medical school.

- All pre-meds need clinical and non clinical volunteering experience. There is not a set number of hours you need to hit, but you should seek meaningful and valuable experiences that you can talk about in your application.

- We recommend searching for a clinical job such as phlebotomy, medical assistant, scribe, EMT, or CNA. These will help give you realistic healthcare experience to make sure medicine is genuinely what you want to do for the rest of your life.

- Shadowing all types of healthcare providers is highly recommended, even if it is a specialty you aren't interested in. Schools like to see that you have taken time to search the field while also keeping an open mind. 

- Research is highly recommended, but not required. If you have research experience, you open up so many more options of medical schools to apply to. Most schools are categorized as "community service" or "research" focused. So without experience in research, you cut out a lot of options.

- Make sure you have personal hobbies and interests that you maintain outside of academics and extracurriculars. Hobbies are what makes you unique. All applicants will have research, clinical, shadowing, and service experience along with a good GPA and MCAT. Hobbies are sometimes the most interesting part of a student's application, and they make admission committees remember you.

- There is a lot of information in the slides, along with links and resources to help you gain all of these experiences and skills. Take some time to look over it, and make a prioritized list of which experiences you want to pursue.

That is all for this week's meeting. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please reach out to any E-Board member and we would be happy to help. Next meeting will be a virtual zoom with Western Michigan Medical School on Oct 6 at 7 PM. Have a great week!