Building a Competitive Pre-Med Profile Before Senior Year

Webinar Transcription

11-10-2025-Building a Competitive Pre-Med Profile Before Senior Year

Ishaani: [00:00:00] A, a recent graduate of Brown’s, Warren Alpert Medical School, and also of Brown’s undergraduate, um, program. Brown. I was a member of Brown’s eight year BSMD program. The program and liberal medical education are PLME for short. Um, I’m currently an internal medicine resident, um, in New York. And yeah, that’s a little bit about me.

Ishaani: I also, for a little bit more background, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, so I’ve lived in end area. I’ve lived in, uh, Rhode Island, and now I’m in New York. Mm-hmm.

Anesha: Oh, sorry, Ishaani. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Ishaani: Yeah. And then when it comes to my background in advising, so I’ve been in the, uh, college advising space.

Ishaani: It’s crazy to say it, but I’ve been in this space since the sophomore year of my undergrad education, so it’s been about seven or eight years. I applied to, um, a, a handful of [00:01:00] BSMD programs when I was in high school. Um, so I have experienced both being the applicant and also advising tons of applicants for the past few years.

Anesha: Cool. Sorry. Okay. Thank you so much Ishaani for, uh, telling us a little bit about yourself. Uh, we’ll just before we let Ishaani jump in, just take a quick little poll. So please tell us what grade level you are in. If you’re a parent or a teacher, you can go ahead and select other, um, to, to address some of the questions in the chat.

Anesha: Yes, this session will be recorded and once um, and after we finish, it’ll be up on the CollegeAdvisor webinar website. Tomorrow. Um, but we’re gonna go ahead and do our poll. We have a pretty group, big group, as I shared already, about 158 people in the room with us. Um, the majority of them looking to be ninth graders.

Anesha: Um, so I think appropriate for, um, today’s focus on today’s topic. We’ll let a few more folks come in and then I’ll go ahead and close us now. Uh, so we have about 290 folks in the room with us, so very [00:02:00] big group. Welcome everybody. Thanks to the parents and teachers that are in the space. As I mentioned, we have, um, everybody from eighth through 12th grade in the room with the largest group being a lot of ninth graders and some 10th graders.

Anesha: Excited to have everybody in the room. I’ll stop talking. Hand it over to you, Ani, and be back a little bit later for the q and a.

Anesha: You are muted, Ishaani.

Ishaani: Hi everyone. Um, as Anesha said, today’s talk is all about building a competitive pre-med profile. Um, like I said, I’ve been in this advising space for a bit and I find that when it comes to advising ninth, 10th, and even 11th graders, I tend to focus on. How to build a competitive profile.

Ishaani: Um, so what that looks like extracurricular, extracurricular wise, but also how to take all these incredible extracurriculars, um, that students do and kind of weave into this cohesive story. [00:03:00] Um, I also find that with my 12th grade, uh, students who are currently like applying to college, I, you know, really focus in on the writing and the details and how to really make that story shine in your writing.

Ishaani: I, so we talked about what grade we’re in, so I think first, before we even start talking about building a competitive profile. I think it’s a good place to start is to talk about what it even means to be pre-med. So being pre-med means you’re interested in a career in medicine and more specifically as a doctor or physician.

Ishaani: So when it comes to, uh, you know, what do you do after med school or after undergrad to become. Uh, a doctor, you have to get your, uh, degree. So there’s, you know, MD schools, there’s do schools. Both of them set you up for a career in medicine. They set you up for a career in [00:04:00] variety of different specialties.

Ishaani: Um, and then one thing that I like to be really clear about is that pre-med and pre healthcare are two different things. And I also always like to remind my students that. There are so many fantastic careers in healthcare. I think, um, and I had this misconception myself too, I think when you’re younger, when you think about medicine, you think about doctors.

Ishaani: But as you kind of go through training, you realize how many amazing colleagues there are both in the clinic and in the hospital that do such important work. For example, like the nurses are so, um, incredibly helpful. We also have our, you’ll kind of see this alphabet soup I have here of the different special or different other healthcare careers that are beyond being a doctor.

Ishaani: Um, there’s physical therapists. You could be an occupational therapist. We have the speech language pathologists and then [00:05:00] also, um, like physician assistants and nurse practitioners. So there’s so many different ways you can have a fulfilling and exciting career in healthcare without necessarily being.

Ishaani: Um, you know, like an MD or a DO. So I always, you know, recommend, um. People look into these other specialties too, if they’re interested in healthcare more generally. Um, and especially depends on, I don’t know too, to be really frank about PT and OT and SLP, um, but I know that being a, you know, doing med school and doing residency, it’s a very long path and I think some people are deterred by that.

Ishaani: So there are obviously other ways to have a career in healthcare and that sometimes maybe may take less years. So now, now we’ve kind of defined what pre-med is, and we’ve talked about different careers in healthcare. Let’s focus in on pre-med specifically. So you wanna become a physician or a doctor.

Ishaani: And so what do med schools look for in applicants? So this is a pretty forward [00:06:00] thinking question. Um, ’cause right now you’re high school students, you’re probably thinking about what do I want to get from my college experience? But to look even a step further, what are the med schools like? What do you wanna do in college?

Ishaani: How do you set yourself up for success in college? Um, so. I think the big thing that med schools look for to applicants is really understanding why you want to go into medicine. Again, it’s always about the story and tying together all your interests and curriculars into this cohesive piece. That show your passion and your desire and how you specifically want to contribute to the super broad and huge field of healthcare.

Ishaani: ’cause there are so many different ways that you can do that. Um, and the next piece of advice, I think this goes for applying to college, applying to med school, applying to jobs and writing cover lever cover letters. You always wanna make sure you answer as I like to think of it as like. If there’s you and then you have the school [00:07:00] or whatever you want, the school, the job, whatever it is, and you wanna think about it as like a, like a symbiotic relationship.

Ishaani: So why do you want to go to that med school? That needs to be really clear, um, why you want to go to that specific place as opposed to any other med school. And then also why does that med school, why do they want you, what do you specifically bring to the table? So a strong essay will be able to answer both questions really, really well.

Ishaani: Why do you want them and why should they want you?

Ishaani: This is a question. Um, so now the next question is, how early in high school should you start thinking about, you know, shaping your pre-med profile? This is something, so I’ve worked with so many highly, highly motivated students at college advisors and we have such fantastic students that we work with.

Ishaani: Um, and I always like to remind people to. Take a step back. Um, you guys are in high school, [00:08:00] you’re really young. Um, oftentimes you’re like, oh, I want, you know, like, I envision myself having a career in X, Y, and z and I think it’s really easy to envision that and not fully know what that entails. So. I always tell people, you know, it’s okay to have an idea.

Ishaani: Like, I’m not saying don’t go into medicine. I’m saying, you know, it’s okay to like be like, okay, I wanna go into medicine, but be flexible. You know, think about in college, keep yourself open to other career ideas as well. ’cause you don’t wanna lock yourself in so early and get your blinders on so early that you don’t really fully explore other careers as well.

Ishaani: Also kind of how I alluded to previously, medicine is a really long journey and it’s a really big commitment. Um, and I’m so glad and excited for my career in medicine, but I know that, you know, my piece of advice is only considered career in medicine. If you’re a hundred percent sure that’s what you want and you really feel [00:09:00] like you’ve explored.

Ishaani: Other interests in other parts of careers as well. Like, I know I had friends, for example, um, who were considering a career in medicine, but they also really interested in law. So they really had to explore both those fields and then make a, a really good educated guess from that. Um, my biggest piece of advice is, you know, really think about.

Ishaani: The attendings and like what the final lifestyle look like, what the job looks like at the end of the road when you’re like in your thirties and forties. And again, you guys are young and so don’t know anything about that now, but start, that’s what you wanna ask yourself. Like, do I want to live like that when I’m in th when I’m 30 or 40?

Ishaani: Um, that being set, if. You have an inkling like, Hey, I might be interested in pre-med. It’s never too early to start exploring and considering and start shaping your pre profile. Um, so to answer this [00:10:00] question, in short, if you feel like you wanna start exploring and looking into this pro looking into things, you can do it as early as ninth grade.

Ishaani: Um, if you feel like you want to hold off, you could do it later as well. There are also students that, you know. Come into college being like, oh, I wanna be a computer science major. And then, you know, as late as their sophomore year, they might, or junior year, they might decide, Hey, I actually want a career in medicine.

Ishaani: It’s also important to remember that there are post-bac programs. There are so many people in my med school that, you know, went through college, weren’t really, weren’t really sure about a career in medicine, and then. They left college. Sometimes people had separate like careers and then they realized they wanted to become a doctor, got into a post-bac program and then applied to med school.

Ishaani: So it, it’s never too late. Don’t feel like you need to know if you’re, if you’re pre-med or you wanna be a doctor in high school, there are people that even figure out after college

Ishaani: now, kind of [00:11:00] asking yourself, okay, I’m in the, I’m thinking about pre-med. I’m thinking about applying to med school after college. What should I think about now? Um, again, my biggest piece of advice is just getting a sense of what does being a physician really mean? And the best way to do that is to gain clinical experience.

Ishaani: Um, so for example, if you’re able to try securing opportunities, shadowing, learn what the clinical environment is really truly like, try understanding what a physician does. Then try seeing if you could envision being that doctor. Um, years from now, I will say, I’m gonna be really honest. When I shadowed, when I was in high school and even college, when I shadowed before I really had the medical background that I gained during medical school, I didn’t, I didn’t always like fully understand what was going on, why people were making decisions they were making.[00:12:00]

Ishaani: I think med school, you really learn how to put all the pieces together. Um, what thinking about the human body and all the diseases and the social things that affect people’s health, that’s when you really start understanding it. So you might have these shadowing experiences and, and you might ask yourself like, huh, I’m not really sure what I gained from that.

Ishaani: Like, that was interesting, but I don’t like fully get it. That’s okay. No one’s expecting to fully get it. Um, but really ask yourself, could you envision yourself doing this day in, day out? And one piece of advice that, uh, I’ve gotten even as, you know, a like young doctor thinking about what I want for my career is people always ask, tell you to seek out mentors and seek out people and ask them whose life that you aspire to have.

Ishaani: So if you see, if you’re really, you know, impressed or inspired by a certain doctor, um, you might not understand the minutia of why they’re making every single clinical [00:13:00] decision that they’re making. But you can always ask them about their career journey. Ask them, you know, why did you pick this field?

Ishaani: You’re a plank specialist. Why did you pick that specialty? Um, uh, think about how it affects their personal life, you know, their, your, your personal life goals and how you envision, you know, your working hours and stuff like that. Um, and then my biggest piece of advice for how to prepare as a pre-med student is kind of lean into what I think of as the two big aspects of medicine.

Ishaani: I always think of medicine as like there’s the art of medicine and there’s also the science of medicine. And so what do I mean by that? I think, um, medicine is a really lovely career in that you know, you have to use your logical brain. You have to learn so much about. Um, how to like memorizing which medications are appropriate, how to work up certain conditions, et cetera.

Ishaani: So, so much of it is science, [00:14:00] nursing, pathophysiology, and anatomy. That’s like the science of medicine, but also especially, um, with more people facing specialties of medicine, but also the art of medicine. Um,

Ishaani: and what I mean by that is there is thinking about. How to talk to people, how to talk through challenging questions, how to, um, interview people about sensitive topics. I mean, so for example, I’m, um, a clinician and some part of my work is asking people about things that are pretty private, you know, about their use of certain substances.

Ishaani: You ask people about. Um, like their family and personal details about their life, and how do you do that in a way that’s kind and, um, thoughtful and also like in a very nonjudgmental way. So lean into those two aspects, you know, like the human [00:15:00] aspect and the science aspect essentially.

Ishaani: And I also got a lot from students as they’re asking like, okay, I’m thinking about pre-med. What are the best courses that I can take as a student? Um, my piece of advice always is to take the most challenging science classes that you can. So when I’m, I think, of course, pre-med, unsurprisingly, I’d recommend taking a biology course.

Ishaani: Chemistry. I think biology and chemistry rates are like probably the big two. You should take. If you’re able to take physics on top of that, that’s helpful. But again, biology and chemistry, I’d say are the most important If you go to a school that offers aps and if you’re able to take either or both of these classes ap, that would be extra great.

Ishaani: Um, I will say for me personally, this is something that surprises people a lot. I think. I didn’t really like biology in high school that much. Maybe it was just the way [00:16:00] it was taught. Um, it just felt like a lot of rote memorization and sometimes I was like, why is this important? I don’t like get the point.

Ishaani: So I actually fun backed, I took AP chemistry and AP physics in high school and just, I didn’t take AP biology, just didn’t have time for it in my schedule. And I still got into great pre-med programs, um, great BSMD programs. So I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves. Like I have to check every single box and like, if I don’t do this, they’ll never look at me.

Ishaani: Um, also, you know, follow your interests as well. Um, everyone’s different, but I think biology and chemistry are probably the ones you should definitely focus on. Um, also, you know, you need to be a strong STEM student, so if you can take advanced math classes, that’s great as well. That being said, big picture and I took very advanced math classes as a high school student.

Ishaani: I was great at math. How much math do I really use day to day? Um, as a doctor, I’m gonna be really honest, not that much. Um, so big picture if you’re [00:17:00] like, oh, I’m not that good at math. Am I meant to be a doctor? I promise you, not being good at math is not gonna hold you back from being a good physician. Um, humanities classes again.

Ishaani: Doctors are very thoughtful people. So try taking, um, you know, advanced humanities classes. Really think about the change the way you think about the world, really get a sense of public health, how to read thoughtful pieces. There are also a lot of physicians out there that do like a lot of medical humanities work, you know, medical journalism.

Ishaani: They talk about. You can read lots of like lovely thought pieces of it, doctors writing about the relationships they have with special patients or cases that really stood out to them. So I always advise leading into that humanities bit as well.

Ishaani: That being said, it’s important to remember that of big, a huge variety of people become doctors. There are some doctors with way more, um, quantitative backgrounds. There are some doctors [00:18:00] that have way more humanities backgrounds. So as long as you get those pre-reqs done when you’re in college, you can really have any kind of background that you want.

Ishaani: I always advise my students, don’t feel like you need to fall into this certain cookie cutter of like, I’m a pre-med. I have to take X, Y, Z. Yes, you have to take your pre-reqs, but have your own personal interests. And honestly, having unique personal academic interests and having like kind of academic niches outside of medicine are really gonna, that’s gonna be what makes you stand out.

Ishaani: So if you’re someone that, um, for example did a lot of computer science and you like applying like AI and machine learning and thinking about how that affects, uh, medicine and how that can be positive or negative for medicine, that’s really u unique perspective that you’re gonna bring into medicine. So that’s awesome.

Ishaani: You might be a student that has like in high school or in college majors in like ethics a lot. You might bring like a very [00:19:00] like ethics perspective into medicine. Like there are bioethicist specialists in the hospital, that could be your niche. So it’s important to remember that you should bring your own niche and your own interest to medicine.

Ishaani: So there’s really no cookie cutter correct pre-med courses you have to take. Just try your hardest and especially in your math and science and humanities classes, try to get as best of the grades as you can. But outside of that. Follow your own interests and your own passions. And of course for these more competitive schools and competitive programs, if you’re ahead of school that offers APs, take APs.

Ishaani: Um, what types of extracurricular activities are recommended for premed students? So again, I kind of like thinking about this in a similar way of like. The art and science of medicine. So the science of medicine is [00:20:00] thinking about, um, research and kind of those science extracurriculars. So what do I mean by that?

Ishaani: Um, so some people I know I was lucky to, again, live in the Chicago suburbs. So I lived in a city that had so many amazing hospital systems. Um, so because of that, I was able to. Secure a research position at a local, um, hospital. And that’s why I did one summer between my junior and my senior year. So if you’re able to find those opportunities, go for it.

Ishaani: I know a lot you might, if you might be asking, okay, like there is this university nearby me, how do I actually get an opportunity there? And that’s a, it’s, you know, it’s hard as a high school student, it’s hard as honestly a college student and even a resident and a medical student to do research. Um, my, what I always advise my students to do is just cold email people, um, expect to not get responses from a lot of [00:21:00] people, but because of that you gotta cast your net wide.

Ishaani: So what I always advise my students to do is think, you know, look into a university near you. Open up, make a Google Sheets or an Excel spreadsheet, write people’s names down. Write email addresses like one column with their name. One column is like a link to their lab website. Call ’em with their email, and then a column that says like, did I email them and on which day, like a date contacted column, and then just reach out to a bunch of people and see who responds.

Ishaani: Sometimes you have to reach out to like 20, 30 people to hear back from maybe one or two, but some that’s, that’s if you really are motivated to find research, that’s sometimes the best way to do it. Of course look into formal internships, um, around you as well. But to be honest, there’s not usually that many offered.

Ishaani: But look into it. And if you’re interested in summer programs and summer research programs, I always recommend starting to like honestly look into things by November, December. [00:22:00] I think sometimes the more competitive programs, the applications are sometimes due as early as like Jan Feb, the later ones in March for summer positions.

Ishaani: So that’s speaking to the research and science extracurriculars. Uh, then clinical extracurriculars. So that’s things like shadowing. Um, if you’re able to, I know some students are able to like volunteer in hospitals.

Ishaani: But I always like to remind students here, take a really broad definition of health. Health does not just exist in hospitals. It exists in clinics, it exists. Um, and also health does not just exist in healthcare. There are so many things that impact your health that are not within the clinic, that are not within the hospital.

Ishaani: Um, there are places you could work at, like, like literacy programs. I have had students [00:23:00] that have signed up to volunteer and this kind of now goes into volunteering. In programs that they’re reading to students in the area at their local library. And you know, it’s thinking about how can, you know, signing up for these reading programs and being a great mentor to young people and people that are in middle school or elementary school and thinking about how social determinants have helped, such as like having a, a place to learn and study and practice reading with really affects these kids’ health outcomes so many years later.

Ishaani: So take a really broad definition of health. I know I’ve had some students, um, volunteer in, um, assisted living facilities by them where they work with, uh, residents there and don’t even do anything healthcare related. Like no one’s expecting you to take up a clinical role, but sometimes doing things as little as like spending time there and talking to the patients [00:24:00] there.

Ishaani: It really opens your eyes to so much. I know in high school, um, I actually had a, as I said, living facility just like a block or two away from me, and so I’d pop in and volunteer there. And even looking back, I think I, I, I learned so much from that. I think, um, I was really fortunate in high school that there was no one really like sick in my life and so.

Ishaani: Seeing people that had a lot of chronic conditions and were sick and also weren’t always, you know, like having full, their full mental and cognitive, um, ability with them. It was my first time really being exposed to people like that. Um, and I think it’s still shaped the way that I understood healthcare as a high schooler and I was able to speak to that experience and what it showed me.

Ishaani: In my applications.[00:25:00]

Ishaani: So I kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier, but thinking about summer activities. So again, we talked about volunteering. Again, I’m my big pe, my big piece of advice here is take a very broad definition of health. It doesn’t just have to be in the hospital. It can be in the community, um, it could be in an assisted living facility.

Ishaani: It could be like, for example, in the community. I talked about that example with the reading program, with, with the students and younger kids. You could work at a summer camp. You could work at some place that provides, um, resources to individuals, for example, who are. Unhoused. Um, so thinking about the different ways you can just connect with people, because contributing to someone’s life, whether you’re in a hospital, outside of a hospital or clinic, can obviously have effects to their health.[00:26:00]

Ishaani: We talked about research, I talked about my piece of advice of just emailing a bunch of people, 20 to 30. I’ve had students reach out to like one who’s like 40 people and just seeing who bites and seeing what you, you can hear back from, I talked about shadowing and also being mindful of you may not understand every single clinical, um, decision that the provider that you’re working with does.

Ishaani: That’s okay. Um, you know, doing your best to try asking questions, but you know, also not trying to get instructor workflow as well. Um, and then maybe after their day of patients, just really getting to know why they, and how they got into their career in medicine and what they like about it. And this is sometimes hard to ask, but you know, you can be like, what are your three favorite things about your job?

Ishaani: And what are your three least favorite things about their job? And really get a sense of what they love about their job. And what they change about it and really think about, okay, every job is gonna have something you love about it [00:27:00] and something you don’t love about it. And are the things that they don’t love about it are those things that you feel like you can handle?

Ishaani: Or if you hear about that and you’re like, wow, that sounds really hard. I dunno if I can handle that, then maybe it’s not. Um. Then the last thing I also wanna talk about is passion projects. So something that I do with my students quite often, especially the ones that are more ninth, 10th graders, is talk about passion projects.

Ishaani: Um, and so a passion project essentially is a project in that you pretty self-motivated, um, and you essentially just really explore an area of interest of yours and try having some kind of tangible output. After the project, I like to think of passion projects as like a way to kind of go off script, explore something that you can’t really explore formally through school and build something that you’re really proud of.

Ishaani: At the end of the day, [00:28:00] my 2 cents, especially if it’s interested in being pre-med, is that for passion projects, my kind of starting point for these, I first like to ask my student, you know, like, what are you interested in? Make like a big word, cloud. Kind of think about their interests, and I always like to think of like a niche within medicine.

Ishaani: Um, so like I was saying, there’s so many different types of people that enter a career in medicine and there’s like so many different ways you can contribute to the career of medicine. So I like asking my students. Okay. I know you’re pre-med, but what else do you like, are there sports that, that you like, are there.

Ishaani: Is English your favorite class? Is it social studies and thinking about how you can look at medicine through all these different lenses? Like are you more of a quantitative like math person? Um, are you more of like someone that likes to think big picture about like the history of medicine? What kind of lens or project do you wanna let, what, what kind of skill set do you wanna use in medicine?

Ishaani: That’s like I, how I like to think about passion projects.[00:29:00]

Ishaani: Mm-hmm. So this is a great question. How do you avoid looking like you’re just checking boxes for pre-med program? Um, I think this is, this is a tough question because there are obviously things that you need to do to like apply to these pre-med programs, but how do you avoid. Looking like you’re just doing it to do it rather than like, you’re doing this ’cause you’re interested.

Ishaani: My biggest piece of advice for this is quality over quantity for extracurriculars. Remember, when you fill out your common app, you can only do and only put 10 activities. So if you volunteer at like one healthcare twice for two Sundays for one year, and then you also do like, oh, you volunteer for like.

Ishaani: Five hours like once and then like you put a bunch of different events, we can still see that like, oh, this, this, you know, we’d rather see someone being like, [00:30:00] I was part of this volunteer program. I worked at this assisted living facility over the span of like two to three years and like, oh, I worked at this health fair like for two Sundays.

Ishaani: So really think about the length and how much time you do for each extracurricular. I would much, I’d be so much more excited to see a student that had a common app with like. Not all 10 spots filled, maybe seven extracurriculars, but like the first three that they have down there are things that they really invested their time in.

Ishaani: Then someone that did like one year of this club and one year of that club and like two years of this other club and this volunteering. So really think about quality over quantity. Um, it’s also important to remember that, you know, if you do a bunch of different things when you actually write these essays.

Ishaani: You’re not gonna be referencing every single all 10 or what, however many common app activities you did. You’re really probably gonna be focusing on like one to three at the absolute most throughout [00:31:00] the entire application. And no one wants to read a regurgitation of your essay, so you’re gonna have to.

Ishaani: Another way to realize that, to look like you’re not just checking the boxes, is to have really thoughtful and insightful things to say about things. You know? So don’t be like, oh, I just, I just did this activity. But if you’re shadowing, don’t be like, oh, I shadowed for this many hours with this doctor.

Ishaani: That’s impressive. Of course. But I’d much like rather like to hear about it in your essay and talk about a patient encounter that really stuck with you like. Wow. My, the doctor I shadowed had to have this really challenging and thoughtful conversation about this topic with the patient, and it was amazing to see how he navigated X, Y, Z, or how he broke and gave this really bad news to the patient.

Ishaani: So my piece of advice for all my students, that shadow is after every single day of shadowing, come home, write in a little bit a journal of like, what did you, what really stood out to you that day? [00:32:00] Then when you are writing your essays, ’cause you know you might be shadowing over the summer, then like you apply to college and start writing your essays a couple months, weeks, maybe even a year later, you want something to look back on.

Ishaani: So write down those experiences and then you can kind of just use those to like jog your memory and then you’ll look back but two years ago and be like, oh my goodness, I remember that patient or that stood out to me or how this was handled. And that’ll. Help these stories from just being like, oh, I did X hours for this many weeks, or this many days.

Ishaani: Turn into like real life stories that showed how this experience shaped you and shaped how you thought about things and now made you think about what kind of doctor you want to be and why you wanna be a doctor in the first place.

Ishaani: So the next question is, how can students assess what pre-med programs are best for them? So my first piece of advice is think about your niche within medicine. And this kind of goes back to what I was talking about before with the passion projects [00:33:00] of, you know, so many different people go into medicine and what’s gonna be your angle and what are you gonna bring into medicine that’s a little bit different.

Ishaani: Are you gonna look at, think more about like the bioethics of medicine, the history of medicine, et cetera. And these are just a few things I’m listing. There are obviously so many more things beyond that, how. Think about how can you combine your interests outside of medicine with the field of medicine.

Ishaani: Um, so certain if you have a niche like that identified, you can look into like how people at the school you’re interested in, explore that niche, if that’s already an existing thing. So for example, I was interested, I loved computer science in high school. Um, I took AP Computer Science. I was like a senior TA for AP computer science.

Ishaani: So I was interested in computational biology. So when I was applying to colleges, um, I looked for programs that had computational and biology for departments and I really was especially excited by schools that [00:34:00] even offered that as a major. I think a lot’s changed in the last 10 years, but I think that’s giving something more and more.

Ishaani: Common of any major. Um, also look into, not all programs have these combined BSMD programs, but certain institutions have kind of pipeline or early acceptance programs where they essentially say, okay, as a sophomore or a junior, you can apply for this program and get an early acceptance into our medical school.

Ishaani: So think about that. Not all the schools have them, but if it does happen them, maybe it’s worth noting and maybe it’s college that you’re especially excited about. Then another thing that I feel like we don’t talk about, um, we should be talking about a lot more with medicine. It’s a very long journey.

Ishaani: Yes. And also it’s a very expensive journey. Four years of medical school, four years of undergrad, it’s a lot of money in loans. Uh, I think the average, Hmm. S person coming out of med school is approximately like, I wanna say like 200 K in debt is the [00:35:00] average, which is a staggering number. So if you’re able to find opportunities for scholarships, if you’re able to think about going to an in-state school that has lower tuition and you get in-state tuition, think about that as well.

Ishaani: Um, also think about whatever institution you’re going to think about the strength of their pre-med advising. Advising is so key. If you’re, you know, connected to current students at all, maybe ask them like, what’s the pre-med advising all? Like, like, and I think this is gonna be true for any career, as you kind of move into being an adult in the real world, you have to be very self-directed and self-motivated.

Ishaani: Um, so that’s just important to remember. If you bring that to any institution, if you know what you want and you. Really goal, goal oriented, and self-directed, you will succeed at whatever institution you go to.

Ishaani: So my final tips for building [00:36:00] this competitive pre-med before profile, before senior year, um, be yourself, this piece of advice. Think about what you’ll uniquely bring to the table as a physician. Honestly. Great piece of advice, but I would, this is honestly maybe a better piece of advice for someone who’s actually applying to medical school, not pre-med, but that when you’re applying to medical school, this is kind of what you should think about.

Ishaani: How, how do you, what makes you different? Like what is you going into medicine? How’s that different than anyone else going to medicine? Again, I feel like I talked about this a lot, but focusing on quality over quantity of extracurriculars. Um, the third bullet point, I’m sure you guys are all very aware of, making strong grades is important, especially in these science classes, and then standardized testing.

Ishaani: And I think it’s also important to remember if you are willing in to put the hard work and if it’s what you want, you can become a position. Um, I, again, I just completed four years of [00:37:00] medical school. There are. So I had so many amazing and like, inspiring classmates and they all had such different backgrounds, you know, in so many different ways.

Ishaani: Um, different from different parts of the countries, from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, from different career backgrounds. So there are really so many different paths to becoming a position. So there’s no one right way to do it. Um, I’m sure. You know, it’s like some people who are doctors now maybe didn’t have the best grades in high school, but they’re still fantastic clinicians now, so don’t feel like limited or like, oh, well I did bad in these classes in high school, so now I can never become a doctor.

Ishaani: That’s not true. If you really want this in your life and you work towards it, it can be done.

Ishaani: Okay. That’s really all I have to say. Um, it was such a pleasure speaking to all of you and. Talking about this whole conversation. So now I’m ready to open it [00:38:00] up for some q and a.

Anesha: Awesome. Thank you so much Ishaani, for that thoughtful presentation. We are gonna open it up in a live q and a. The way that the q and a will work.

Anesha: I will read through the questions that you submitted. Um, share them in the public chat so others can see them, and then read them aloud. So. To give Ishaani an opportunity to answer. If you are not able to submit questions, you might have to double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from our webinar landing page.

Anesha: You might have to log out, log back in, um, through the link in your email if you cannot submit questions. All right. We’ll get started with our first question for you, and I’m gonna go in order, uh, of like, I think terms and, and things that came up throughout the presentation. But the first question that we got a couple times that I think would be helpful, some folks have asked, what is the difference between pre-med.

Anesha: And medical school.

Ishaani: Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, sorry to make that clear. So pre-med I like think about is before med school. So when you’re a college and you’re an undergraduate student, majoring in, you know, for me it was when I was an undergrad at Brown majoring in computational biology. Those were [00:39:00] my four years of being pre-med.

Ishaani: And then med medical school is like the four years of being in medical school.

Ishaani: Do you like it? Mm-hmm.

Anesha: Yep. Yep. No, sorry. Thank you. I was, uh, trying to find my mic. Um, okay. Thank you. Someone asked regarding the courses course loads they should take, which academic program would you recommend? Um, comparing APS to IB or dual enrollment courses?

Ishaani: What was the last thing you said?

Anesha: Dual enrollment courses.

Ishaani: Okay. Um, so I personally went like to a high school that only had APs. IB wasn’t really on the table for me, so, and I’m, I’m not even sure I know what dual enrollment courses are. Do you know what those are? Anesha?

Anesha: Yeah. So there are some programs within high schools where students are taking their high school courses and then they can start taking classes, college classes, sorry.

Anesha: Um, maybe there’s a partnership with the community college or they do two years. In high school then do, do two years and various different setups. But that’s the, the gist.

Ishaani: Yeah. [00:40:00] Okay. So that’s a great, great, great point. Um, my biggest piece of advice for that is just try challenging yourself ac academically as much as feasibly possible.

Ishaani: So like if you go to a high school that is APs, take the APs, you can, if you’re able to do dual enrollment and it’s feasible and people do it, do it if you can. Um, and the same goes for IB. I think when you, this is kind of more just like general college advice, but when you apply to colleges, every high school has kind of what’s considered like a high school profile.

Ishaani: So the colleges get a sense of like what your high school is like and what a rigorous course, what your high school is like. So no one’s going to be, if you go to a high school that offers no APs, but you’re taking the hardest class, you absolutely can. No one’s gonna be dinging you for, you know, comparing you to a student and like some other part of the country who has like taken.

Ishaani: 20 APs because they go to like this massive high school that has APs offered since freshman year.

Anesha: All right. Uh, my next question for you, um, you mentioned a lot about the [00:41:00] different extracurriculars that folks should pursue. So I’ll ask a few different questions like this, but the first one is, um, how can I get involved in research opportunities while in high school?

Anesha: What does that process look like?

Ishaani: Yeah, so I think I spoke to this a little bit in the presentation. So this, my biggest piece of advice is if you live in an area that is close to an institution like institutions, academic institutions, making that spreadsheet, um, of, you know, different people you can work with potentially.

Ishaani: So. Like, uh, how I envision, like I’m a big spreadsheet person. I think a spreadsheet I used, I like used a spreadsheet when I was applying to summer programs myself. So make you know, column one is what’s the researcher’s name? Column two is a link to their lab website. Column three is their email. And then column four is, Hey, did I reach out to this person and what date?

Ishaani: Like a date contacted? So make that spreadsheet, reach out to a ton of people, um, look into things, see what really excites you. But also at the same time, you’re gonna reach out to like 20, 30 people. You’ll see what, what you get, what you [00:42:00] get, who responds is who responds. So you might, might not, might not be doing the thing that excites you the absolute most, but to see who is responsive and open to taking a student and just reach out to a tons of people.

Ishaani: Honestly, you could look up like a, a template email. Honestly, at this point. Maybe even chat. GPT could write one for you. Um, but of course, include personalized details for every single, um, person that you email. And then if you’re gonna be emailing these professors, they’ll also recommend getting like a, a little resume or CV put together just so you can attach something.

Ishaani: It shows that you’re like, no one expect, like your high school student know, especially you have like a sanely, um, a seat, like a packed cd. But the fact that you’re putting it together shows that you’re thoughtful and motivated to at least do that.

Anesha: They definitely find ways to pack the c, the cvs. Um, but yeah. Uh, so, oh, then this was a personal question. Someone asked, what was your research project about? They wanted us to understand what kinds of research students typically do through universities [00:43:00] or hospitals. Yeah.

Ishaani: So that, my research project, again, this was like eight, nine, honestly, maybe even 10 years, no, like 10 years ago at this point.

Ishaani: Um. I, I don’t even know if I fully remember what my project was about. It be really like the specifics of it. It was a pretty mi and looking back, as you can tell, it wasn’t like a super impactful, it was a pretty minor project. Um, I worked in a lab that I, I think, like studied, uh, the, the cells that produce insulin and that like, that stop functioning in patients with diabetes.

Ishaani: Um. So I don’t even remember the specifics of my project to be really prick.

Anesha: Okay. Um, and then the last question I’ll ask here is, um, someone was asking about shadowing opportunities. Mm-hmm. Are there a couple questions? How do I find them? And then another question of what does it look like? What does shadowing

Ishaani: Yeah, that’s a great question.

Ishaani: Um, so how do I find shadowing opportunities? That’s great. So think about just [00:44:00] doctors in the area. Um, is there a clinic nearby you? Is there a hosp? Like, do you wanna. Shadow in a, in a clinic. Do you want a shadow in a hospital? Think about that. Just, and again, this is kind of like, same with the, the volunteering opportunities.

Ishaani: Um, just send a bunch of cold emails to people if you can. Um, if you feel comfortable enough even going into the clinic and saying, hello, like, I, I’m so and so. I’m a student. I’m interested in shadowing here. Might be talking to the receptionist, maybe like pass along like a letter or something just with your name and expressing your interest.

Ishaani: Um, I know that especially in COVID times I was, I had students, I was like very challenging for ’em to find shadowing opportunities. Um, so if you’re unable to shadow. That’s okay, but if you’re able to always try going for it. Also, some hospitals put together like shadowing programs for CO, for high school students, so also look into like formal programs if you can.

Ishaani: The kind of [00:45:00] my piece of advice is always look for formal programs first, if you’re unable to find them. Then kind of this cold emailing process, but really look into formal volunteering programs, shadowing programs, research programs in your area as well.

Anesha: Okay, we’re gonna take a quick little break, um, just so that I can talk a bit about CollegeAdvisor.

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Anesha: We are here for the whole process. Uh, we will go ahead and leave that QR code up and move forward with our next set of questions. So there were a few questions that jumped up, uh, when you mentioned passion projects and so someone asked if you could give a few examples of passion projects, um, that you’ve seen be successful or effective.

Anesha: You’re muted.

Ishaani: Great. So passion project that I think be successful. Um, I’ve [00:47:00] had students that, um, wrote like kind of like a, a blog style thing where they talk about like health current events and their thoughts on them. Um, I’ve had students do like kind of coding projects of like, Hey, I am gonna look at.

Ishaani: I found this cool public data set and I’m, I love, I have a CS background and I’m gonna look at like incidents of X disease and across all these different zip codes and can I find some like variable that connects ’em all? Um, I’ve had students do research at a local institution. That’s their passion project.

Ishaani: Um, I’ve had students like start, um, you know, volunteering opportunities and like, kind of like nonprofits in the area. I’ve had students even do stuff that’s not really fully related to medicine. I’ve had students like, um, work at a local, maybe slightly like underserved elementary, middle school and like teach music lessons.

Ishaani: Like, oh, they like played the piano and they would teach piano lessons, um, for students there that like maybe [00:48:00] piano lessons were kind of, um, not possible, just like due to the financial constraints. So a lot of different things. Just think about how can you contribute. What someone, an area of interest. How can you contribute in your community?

Ishaani: And again, not, I think it’s really important. A lot of people are like, oh, I’m pre-med. Every single extracurricular I have to do has to be related to medicine. That is not true. And honestly, we love, like doctors are multi-dimensional people. They don’t, aren’t just doctors. They also like have music interests, they have sports they like, et cetera.

Ishaani: So really be sure to. Build a well-rounded pro profile. ’cause in addition to, you know, being pre-med and being wanting to be a doctor also, you want to see people that are cool, interesting, exciting people.

Ishaani: Oh, I think you’re muted.

Anesha: Um, okay. Sorry about that. Um, so folks were, um, curious about the different academic pathways, I guess, that they started to [00:49:00] build, or sorry, extracurricular pathways they’ve started to build in high school and how those might affect someone. Students said, if my electives thus far have focused on finance and engineering, but I later discovered a strong passion for medicine.

Anesha: How can I explain that?

Ishaani: Yeah. So again. People change their careers and like change their pivot all the time. That’s awesome. Um, that definitely will not be helped against you. Um, you could explain that as like, hey, I was interested in those things before and then I realized I like medicine better. Uh, also since you’re honestly as young as being in high school, I don’t even know if you have to necessarily explain it.

Ishaani: Um, you could also kind of use like this niche idea, like you bringing a different lens into medicine. ’cause you could have like a more finance and engineering background. Bring that different perspective into medicine. That could be your strength in a way. Um, so I don’t think you even need to explain it.

Ishaani: Just continue doing the medicine things that you enjoy doing. Maybe think about how you can apply, um, finance to medicine. I know [00:50:00] certain people like analyze, like healthcare economics and trends in consolidation, um, of like private equity and how it affects healthcare. So there are really cool ways you can think about the intersection of healthcare.

Ishaani: In whatever field.

Anesha: Yeah, I, I, no, I know, I know that to be true with friends and then with also students thus far. So I appreciate that context. Um, I’m gonna ask a question of somewhat similar, but students are asking it in the context of applying to medical school. So if you major in something that’s not medical or science related, does that impact you, um, when you’re being evaluated for medical school or your pre-med kind of portfolio?

Ishaani: So, no, it doesn’t, um, because as a pre-med, you have to take the pre-med requirements. Um, so whether you major, like if you major in English, but you still have to take the pre-med requirements and take those, like those classes that all the pre-meds take. So it, it does not, um, affect how you’re viewed. Um, it’s just, you know, thinking again about how when you write your story, like if you [00:51:00] like majored in English, you’re gonna have to, you know, talk about how, how does you, as an English major.

Ishaani: How was that gonna shape how you practice as a doctor and how is that gonna change the lens in which you become a doctor?

Anesha: Um, someone then asked about a little bit more about your personal experience, but how did you manage the stress, um, and avoid burnout while still staying on track academically? And I guess let’s take it from the context of during high school.

Ishaani: Yeah. During high school. Um, high school again was a little bit away for me now, but I’m trying to look back. I think what kept me not like destra in high school is I think maybe this was just me. I just like really liked what I was learning. I’ve always been someone that, um, like I, I enjoyed school, so it was like hard work for sure, but.

Ishaani: I liked what I was doing, so it didn’t feel as like hard work. It was just like, oh, I have to put in the work, but now I understand it better and it’s more fun that [00:52:00] way. Um, so trying to, if you’re able to, I know, I, I say that positively now looking back, there are definitely times in English class where I was like, I don’t really get this book.

Ishaani: Like, why am I reading this? Like, it doesn’t really make sense to me. Um, but trying your best to like really like dig into it, into the classes you’re learning. Trying to actually like, appreciate the learning for learning’s sake. Um, I think also I had like amazing friends in high school that kept me, um, like, and also there were like a lot of, in a lot of my classes, so we like helped each other out with homework.

Ishaani: Um, I always had like, you know, a good supportive group of people around me. Um, so that also made studying fun ’cause I was also a little bit social, like talking to my friends about like a problem set or like, how’d you do this problem? Um, and remembering that you can like learn a little bit. And teach a little bit and learn from all your friends.

Anesha: Okay. Um,

Ishaani: also, one more piece of advice on that is prioritizing sleep. I always, I always, always someone who that, like, there were like a couple nights I had to stay up late, but I always got minimum [00:53:00] like seven hours of sleep and minimum like, usually like eight to nine. But like on a, a bad day for me would be like seven or six.

Ishaani: That was like. Blue Moon.

Anesha: Is this in high school?

Ishaani: Yeah.

Anesha: Oh, wow. Okay. I’m very impressed. Um, that’s amazing. Um, okay, sorry, I got distracted by that. Someone asked, um, if you could de, if you could explain BSMD programs. I think you mentioned it a couple times. Yeah,

Ishaani: totally. Yeah.

Anesha: Sorry. Compared to pre admit programs or the guaranteed admissions programs?

Ishaani: Yes. Okay, so the, so BSMD versus Premit programs, is that it?

Anesha: Yes.

Ishaani: Okay. Um, maybe, uh, we’re referring to the same thing. So I, I think of as BSMD programs, as like the programs you apply to in high school where you get into, um, you know, an undergrad somewhere and middle school somewhere. So you get com It’s like a combined.

Ishaani: Conditional acceptance into the med school. Some of these programs are like kind of, uh, accelerated, so they’re like six years, seven years, as opposed to like, it would normally take be like four plus four, like four years of [00:54:00] undergrad, four years of med school. So those are what BSMD programs are. If you Google like BSMD programs, like there’s like usually the list of them online.

Ishaani: Um, then there’s also like the, maybe the pre-admit programs are sometimes programs that exist within a college. So, you know, like maybe at a certain college. You do one or two years of undergrad and then you apply to, um, like a pre-admit program at like the, the program’s associated medical school. So correct me if I’m mistaken, um, I believe Northwestern has something like this, like where people apply like sophomores and then they like get acceptance in Northwestern, Northwestern Medical School after like having a year or two of Northwestern.

Ishaani: Undergrad under their belt. I, again, this is like stuff I like heard about from friends of friends, so I dunno if these programs still exist. No, you’re right. Yeah, they’re

Anesha: good. Yeah,

Ishaani: I know Mount Sinai has like a similar program. Again, Mount Sinai doesn’t have, um, an undergraduate institution affiliated with them.

Ishaani: So it’s like people from a bunch of different [00:55:00] undergrads, um, apply to this like early acceptance program at Mount Sinai Medical School.

Anesha: Sorry. Are you okay? Uh, I didn’t wanna cut you off again. Um. And then, oh, sorry. I wanted to clarify one thing you said when you’re a sophomore in college, you can apply.

Anesha: Um,

Ishaani: it’s like sophomore, junior. I, I believe it’s sophomore.

Anesha: No, I just wanted to add the parenthetical of in college so that folks were confused. Yes. Not in high

Ishaani: school.

Anesha: Yeah. Yeah, not in high school. In college. Um, okay. Then I think what might be our last question for you, um, similar to the question I asked a little bit before, but someone was asking, how was your medical school experience overall?

Anesha: Did you find it. Or challenging, or maybe it was similar to high school for you in that you were just fascinated. Um, but, but yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Ishaani: Yeah. I loved my medical school experience. I was really, um, lucky to have just like, it was such a supportive, amazing community of students and like friends around me.

Ishaani: I think that really made my medical school experience. I think, I’m gonna be really honest, the first years of medical school when I was like very like patho, [00:56:00] fizz heavy, um, I couldn’t always like see like the clinical relevance. And I was like, oh, this is just okay. But then once you really hit the third and fourth year of medical school and you can like see the impact of like, wow, like having this knowledge allows me to understand this better and allows me to like change how I think about a disease that affects a person and like provide them with the very best treatment.

Ishaani: It’s like you realize what you learn really affects people’s lives and like how you think about things. That’s when it really all clicked for me. And I like love the third and fourth years of medical school for, were hard, don’t get me wrong, but just like seeing it all come together and have all these years of like studying and being like, oh, this is like why I did all this.

Ishaani: Like, it’s so fun. And even as a resident physician now, um, there are definitely weeks that are like tough. Like you, you work pretty hard. I just think, honestly, maybe this is something I haven’t discussed today explicitly. But like, to be clear, um, you know, career in medicine’s, like hard residency’s, hard, you, [00:57:00] you know, like work 60, 70.

Ishaani: I personally like, it depends the program in, but I have co like friends in residency and other programs working over 80 hours a week. Like the hours are tough. It’s not an easy career. So if, if it’s not what you want to be doing something that you don’t like doing for like over 80 hours a week is hard.

Ishaani: But even for me, when there are hour weeks that I work a lot. I am. I like, when I’m at work, I’m like happy when I’m there. So I always, you know, say like, I’d rather be working 70 hours a week actually enjoying my work than like being working 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week and counting down the minutes to like clock out.

Ishaani: That’s me personally, but, and I feel really lucky that I found a career where I feel this way, but yeah.

Ishaani: Oh, I think you’re muted.

Anesha: Uh, one question about your medical career. Someone asked, what is your specialty?

Ishaani: Oh, I’m an internal medicine resident, so bias, but I love internal medicine. It’s nice being able to like, think about all the [00:58:00] systems, not all placed together.

Anesha: Um, all right. I guess we will leave it there, uh, for tonight.

Anesha: Thank you so much, Ishaani. Thanks to all the folks. Um, with your questions, we try, I tried to get to as many as possible and, and cover categories, um, but we really, really appreciate all of your feedback today. We do hope you will join us for, um, our future webinars, but that is it for tonight. Take care and have a good evening.

Ishaani: Bye everyone.

Anesha: Thanks Stephanie.