Being a pre-med is no small feat. There are few other pathways in college that involve more “weeding out.” Colleges are often incentivized to make the pathway to becoming a physician as hard as possible in order to keep their internal acceptance rates high. This means candidates with a lifelong passion for medicine like Jonah can often get discouraged after choosing an arduous major or getting a bad grade. Luckily, Inspira has no conflicts of interest or ulterior motives; our goals are simply to help our candidates get in.
We started by letting Jonah know that medical school was absolutely possible for him, and showing him the many examples of successful candidates who have gotten in with very similar grades. Indeed, our consultants understand many medical schools use “growth” as a factor to analyze a candidate’s scores.
Coaching Jonah through his final year at Cornell, we were able to help him achieve the greatest growth possible to help him come out on top for medical schools. Working closely with our team, Jonah gained confidence that his childhood dream was within reach.
Lessons Learned
It’s important to remember that tough classes like organic chemistry or tests like the MCAT are not actually reflective of medical school curriculums. Medical schools use these grades as proxies for how well a candidate may perform on future challenges like board exams. Yet, this isn’t the only way to convince medical schools about a candidate’s future potential.
Thus, a key aspect of Jonah’s application was centered around how he was very much ready for the rigors of medical school. Working with his team at Inspira, Jonah was able to convince med schools he had hit a turning point in his academic career.
Jonah had applied to 30 MD programs. He was accepted into 4 schools including George Washingtion, Virginia Tech, Tufts and Hofstra. He chose to attend GW.