A Guide for Success as a Pre-Medical Student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Written by Justin Laube

The goal of this guide is to give you the information that you need to make informed decisions about your courses, ways to strengthen your resume, and to be on top of the entire process of applying to medical school. This is an insider’s guide, meaning it was written by a student for students. Please use the Pre-Medicine at Wisconsin guide book published by the L&S Advising Center as a reference to supplement this information as well as the L&S Advising website at http://www.lssaa.wisc.edu/lsac/general/advise.php.

The Not-So-Short Introduction To Getting Into Medical School
Written by Ryan Aycock

Applying to medical school is by far the most difficult, time-consuming, and expensive process among all graduate school admissions. This mini-book will give you a jump on the competition. It details every step of the application cycle and what you should do ahead of time to be prepared. Written entirely from personal experience, I can attest that the methods set forth in this guide will make you stand out amongst your peers.

Class Advice

You've all heard enough about GPA, MCATs, courses and professors to take, hours of volunteering needed, requirements, etc. etc. etc. That's why you're in this group. I'm here to tell you something you don't get told enough: ENJOY YOURSELF! As the social chair this year I firmly believe this is utterly important. What kind of person you become has a much bigger impact on your future quality of life than any semester will. If hours of reading textbooks and studying, and living in the library is what you love to do, then more power to you. But if you're like the rest of us 18-22 year olds, you probably wish you could spend less time doing those things. So here's my message: do them. Go out, watch movies, hang out with friends, date, heck, do nothing every once and a while! A positive attitude can take you a long way. You're patients will remember you someday not for the statistics you recited about their medical condition but rather how you treated them, the way you told them it would be alright, and the concern you showed while doing it. Life is about the relationships you make and the differences you make in other people's lives. So study, read, do your homework, and work for those scores. But most importantly, and I mean this, keep a positive attitude, have fun, and enjoy life. Sometimes it's easy to forget this on our hard-earned career paths, but if you can remember to laugh once and a while, it will make physics lab go by that much faster! (Dan Beardmore)

Make sure to take time to plan ahead for medical school. It's easy to get caught up in everything you need to do to get your undergrad degree and forget that there are still a lot of extra things you need to do to prepare for medical school. Map out what you're going to need to do before you apply to medical school (MCAT, letters of recommendation, volunteering, research, etc...) in order to make sure you'll be prepared to apply when you want. AED provides a lot of resources for planning all this whether it is pre-med advising, seminars, or even just asking an older member. It's also important not to get too caught up in all the planning that you get tunnel vision. Talk to people in different majors; take classes you normally wouldn't, and explore anything that might sound interesting to you. All of the planning you put into going to medical school won't matter if you realize that you don't want to be there once you're accepted. (Mike Strupp)