Like medical school admissions committees, the post-bacc admissions committees emphasize diversity. While certain forms of diversity are immutable (e.g., racial/ethnic background, sex, country of origin, age), other aspects of diversity are within your power to change.
Medical schools — and especially the most desirable programs — consider diversity of life experience an invaluable form of diversity. Even if you do not have a 4.0 GPA or a perfect MCAT score, admissions committees will be much more likely to interview you if you have had unusual life experiences.
Our advice for how to make yourself diverse depends on your timeline. If you are applying to medical school or a post-bacc right now, you can focus your personal statement on particular aspects of your life story that are unusual (see the SPIN section below). Alternatively, if you are looking at this from a longer time horizon (months or even years), there are numerous discrete steps you can take to increase your diversity.
The easiest way to gain points here is to complete a prestige-granting program that marks you both as non-traditional and prized. Here are several programs that will make you more diverse for the post-bacc/med school admissions process. More importantly, they will make you a more interesting human being (which can also be valuable!). Note: these are time intensive and can take months of planning followed by a year or two of your life.
If the prospect of living abroad and teaching appeals to you, you should consider a Fulbright fellowship which is a 10-month to year-long program, where you are immersed in a foreign culture.
If you’re not familiar, Fulbright is in fact a few different programs. The most prominent two of which are (1) a very competitive research fellowship, and (2) an English teaching program. The latter has the same name and carries the acclaim of the former but there’s a little secret: it’s much easier to get into this program. On Fulbright’s website, you can find countries that have no language requirements. They even show the number of applications received annually and the slots available, so you can calculate your likelihood of being accepted.
I’m going to level with you: when I was a senior in college, I was actually rejected from Teach For America. Despite their evidently poor selection criteria, doing Teach for America is a good option for non-traditional medical school entry. It is a 2-3 year commitment to serve and teach in some of America’s most underserved school districts. While Teach For America has been criticized for a variety of reasons, if you are able to get into this program you will have garnered some pedigree, which strengthens your application.
One quick pearl here: the medical school admissions officers do sort applications by GPA and MCAT, but they also sandbox certain applicants who meet particular criteria even if they fall slightly below the GPA or MCAT requirements. Teach For America – along with a number of other similar programs – can get your application sandboxed depending on the medical school you are applying to.
The main downside of TFA is it is a long commitment. Also, though competitiveness has allegedly waned in recent years, it still tends to only be available for applicants from more competitive undergraduate programs. However, if you are interested in teaching and are willing to put in the time, becoming a Teach for America fellow could help solidify your Pre-med Post-bacc or medical school application.
Peace Corps was founded by President Kennedy in the early 1960s. It’s a two-year program with the possibility of a year-long extension. Peace Corps volunteers work abroad in just about every sector imaginable: education, non-profits, agriculture, community health, etc. In addition to the lengthy time commitment, Peace Corps are paid extremely poorly. Like bad enough that you may actually have to scrape by even while living in a lower income country. The goal is to make you understand what it is like to live in a developing country, but I understand that is not everyone’s cup of tea.
If all my commentary on the how you can gain diversity through various prestige-granting programs isn’t persuasive enough, go check out Goucher’s Pre-med Post-bacc website: “many of our students have worked in public service, both in the U.S. and abroad, with organizations like Teach for America, Peace Corps, UNICEF, USAID, the U.S. military, and Human Rights Watch…The class continues the trend of a large percentage having had experience living and working abroad after college, with more than half spending substantial time in 20 different countries ranging from China, India, Uganda, Germany, Thailand, Brazil, and others.”
Other programs to consider include City Year, Venture for America, and AmeriCorps.
Final Thoughts and SPIN AKA how to tell a good story
While there are numerous ways to become a diverse candidate, it is possible you already embody diversity in a way you haven’t fully recognized. Honing in on this and presenting it effectively in an essay may be your ticket to admission in a post bac program or med school. Any interest you have explored deeply is a possible jumping off point to tell a good story.
My brother and I have advised dozens of students during the personal statement writing process. Over 90% of the applicants we work with purchase repeat services during the same admission cycle. Our success speaks for itself. If you’re interested in a conversation to help you get into the increasingly competitive pre-med post-bacc programs, contact us at [email protected].