You’re 14 years old. You’ve just exited one of the most awkward periods of your life in middle school, and now you are expected to know what you want to do with the rest of your life? If you want to pursue a career in medicine, you have to start the process now? Not exactly. However, there are some steps you can take as early as freshman year of high school to put yourself in the best position for applying to college and beyond.
Focus on what you can control. This is the best advice I can give to any incoming freshman in high school. No 14-year-old should be expected to know what they want to do with their life, whether it is in the field of medicine or not. However, all students can control the effort they put into their schoolwork. During your freshman and sophomore year, take challenging classes, get good grades, and most importantly develop good study habits. Believe me, these study habits that you develop early on will help set you up for success in both college and medical school.
Overall, I look at freshman and sophomore year of high school as a window. If you work hard and get good grades, that window is open for you to get into great colleges and eventually pursue any career of your choosing. On the other hand, if you are not genuine in your efforts and just expect good grades without working hard, that same window may start to close and you may not have as many opportunities as your classmates who did work hard those first two years. In fact, you may find yourself scrambling during your junior and senior year trying to get your grades up and do well on the ACT/SAT. Try to avoid this situation. Don’t let that window close on you due to a lack of effort.
This is not to say that you should not have fun. You should! Enjoy being a teenager, hang out with your friends, and remember that grades are not everything when it comes to applying to college and medical school. Extracurriculars are just as important, and they can help distinguish you from other applicants with similar grades.
So you might be wondering 1) What extracurriculars look best on a college/medical school applications and 2) How many extracurriculars should I be involved in? And to that I would respond by saying that you are asking the wrong questions. You should never do something for the sole reason that it will look good on an application. Instead, you should look at extracurriculars as an opportunity to pursue something you are passionate about outside of school. Whether that is a specific sport, a school club, or volunteering, it does not matter. What matters is that you are passionate about it, and you can show this in application essays and interviews. Genuine passion for even just a couple extracurriculars will always be better than half-heartedly being involved in ten.
Finally, I’ll finish off this post with my own personal experience of applying to college. After having applied to college, I was fortunate enough to be left with several choices. However, the biggest choice did not have to do with which college I would be attending. Instead, it was whether to go the standard 4-year college route or go to a 6-year direct medical program. This was a difficult decision to make, especially as an 18-year-old. After deliberating for several months, I ultimately chose to go the standard 4-year college route for a couple key reasons. Firstly, I still was not 100% sure I wanted to pursue medicine as a career. Direct programs are great for those who know they are all in on medicine; if I had been 100% sure and took the direct medical path, I would have saved money on tuition, I would have had a guaranteed spot in medical school instead of having to go through another application process, and to top it all off I would have already been a doctor at the time of this post! Even with all of this in mind, if I had the chance to go back in time and make my decision all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
Going to a 4-year college gave me time and experience of taking classes outside of the typical pre-med track to make sure I was not missing out on another potential career and truly wanted to pursue medicine. Additionally, the two extra years of undergrad allowed me to enjoy being a kid in college and gave me more time to mature before starting medical school. Yes, the whole process of becoming a doctor takes a minimum of 12 years starting from where you currently are as a freshman in high school. Therefore, I understand that the opportunity of shaving a couple years off of that may be tempting given this seemingly daunting timeline. However remember that it is all still a process, and before you know it you will be in the position I am currently in! Looking back, the best advice I can give to you is that there is no rush to growing up and becoming a doctor. If you truly want it bad enough, you will get there in due time.
