• If you want to get into medical school, you'll need to work hard in high school and college, get great grades, and assemble a resume that includes leadership positions and medical-related experience. This may not be sufficient, however, as medical schools admission is very competitive. There are some additional steps you can take, however, that will improve your odds of being accepted at medical school.

• While you may dream of going to one of the top medical schools in the country, you should cast a wide net when assembling the list of schools you're applying to. First-time applicants have a slight edge, so you want to make sure you get accepted on the first round. If you only include dream schools the first time you apply, and don't get in, you're chances of getting accepted to other schools are lower the second time around.

1. Include one or two stretch schools in your application pool.
2. Research the class profiles of medical schools, making sure you include one or two schools where you're qualifications exceed their average accepted applicant.
3. Apply to schools in different geographic areas.
4. Recognize that schools that have combined BA/MD, or MS/MD programs have fewer spots available, as these programs directly feed into the medical school.
5. Apply to a medical school associated with your state university systems, as state medical schools usually give priority to in-state applicants.http://www.studentdoc.com/medical-school-plan-2.html

• 1 year of biology
• 1 year of inorganic chemistry
• 1 year of organic chemistry
• 1 year of physics

Medical schools may also require successful completion of other courses, such as calculus, statistics, english, and psychology.

• The Medical School Admission Test (MCAT) is required as part of the application process by most medical schools in the United States. You'll want to have completed it successfully before submitting your application, so plan on having taken it before the fall of your senior year in college.

• Medicals vary in how they treat multiple MCAT scores. Some schools will only look at your highest score, but other schools will take all scores into consideration. Because of this, you should aim to score well enough on your first exam so that you won't have to take the MCAT twicehttp://web.jhu.edu/prepro/health/Applicants/mcat.html

MCAT Scores

According to the Princeton Review, most medical scores "give the MCAT as much weight as the GPA" in the application process. The lowest score you can get is a 3; the highest, a 45.http://www.princetonreview.com/medical/mcat-test-preparation.aspx The average MCAT score is a 24. Each score has it's own threshold for what a good MCAT score is, but here are the average MCAT scores for students accepted by several medical scores:

• Harvard University, 35
• Johns Hopkins University, 34.9
• University of California, San Francisco, 33.8
• Washington University in St. Louis, 36.3
• Queen's University, 32.9
• McGill University , 32