Over the last five years, Dan and I have worked with nearly two hundred postbac applicants and helped them achieve incredible results, the majority getting into top premed postbac programs.

There are a lot of common mistakes we see applicants make prior to, during, and after the application cycle.  To help you avoid these pitfalls, we’ve put together a list of some of the most common mistakes premed postbac applicants make.

We still receive emails from applicants who are about to apply who haven’t yet obtained any relevant clinical exposure. Sometimes, their clinical experience was from high school 15 years ago. The truth is it’s possible to get into a postbac program without much clinical experience. However, it would be much, much easier/ more likely if they took the time to get relevant experience prior to applying. Med schools and postbac programs want you to have clinical experience because (A) they want you to have a good understanding of what practicing medicine in the US in 2025 is like and (B) they want to be certain that you want to be a physician. Yes, your father/sister/aunt/close friend may be a doctor. But that won’t persuade a program director that you know what being a doctor is actually like. This is particularly true for top premed postbac programs like Goucher, Scripps, and Bryn Mawr. For more ideas as to what specific clinical experiences Dan and I recommend, check out this article.

The flip side to #1 is applicants who are over-prepared. They have ten thousand hours of volunteering, clinical experience, shadowing, and research. On the one hand, too much clinical experience won’t hurt your application. However, there are diminishing returns to the 1000th hour of volunteering at a homeless shelter. The downside of being overly prepared is you become more similar to traditional applicants. (See: how to make yourself a diverse candidate.) The most bang for your buck, as far as volunteering is concerned, is the first 100-200 hours. If you want to volunteer/shadow more than this, then by all means go for it. However, doing so will likely have little impact on your acceptance into a top pre-med postbac program.

It’s surprising how many initial personal statements do not simply and coherently answer this question. Who are you? And why do you want to go into medicine? No need to include philosophical musings on what it means to a physician. This is your essay. Leave the unnecessary anecdotes about your family and childhood behind. It should be about you and it should succinctly articulate what you thought you wanted to do prior to medicine and include relevant experiences as well as what has changed so that now you do want to pursue medical school. Most importantly, please, please focus on your clinical/volunteering/shadowing experiences and what you loved about interacting with patients. For more info, check out these essay tips.

There are better and worse letter of recommendation writers. But remember: no one cares about the title of the person who is writing a letter of recommendation. If the chairman of the Harvard medical school admissions committee doesn’t really know you that well, don’t let them write your letter of rec. Our main recommendations are that (1) they know you well, (2)they are able to write great things about you convincingly, and (3) they are able to write well. Here are more thoughts on letters of rec.

This is an area that’s tough to prepare for. You’ve come a long way and now you have an interview with a program you really want to go to. Little things like audio quality or simply not preparing for the most obvious questions “why medicine” and “tell me about yourself” can have negative repercussions for your entire application, even if on paper you seemed like a fantastic catch. For more interview prep tips, check out these articles.