As Sophocles said, “No enemy is worse than bad advice.” Take a second and write that down, because it is some of the truest words you will ever read, and something that many pre-meds don’t understand.

I see so many students running in a thousand different directions, none of which is getting them closer to medical school, and in the end, they can’t figure out why they never made it. “I did exactly like Dr. A said… Mrs. B told me I would definitely get in if I did X… The dean said all I had to do was improve Y.”

How many of you have friends who have said similar things? The reality is, there are a lot of people out there claiming to be pre-med advisors, but they simply don’t have the expertise to help you.  The wrong advisor could be intentionally, or more commonly, unintentionally leading you to your doom. So, I thought I would take a few minutes and lay out some ground rules for selecting your mentors and...

Many students feel guilty for going to college while their family is struggling. Making it worse, their family constantly reminds them of how bad they are struggling and how they feel abandoned and like the student doesn’t care about them anymore. Then when the student comes home for the holidays, everyone says “you’ve changed… you talk different, like a braniac… you talk about all this success your having at college, but we are out here working for real… you need to get a job… you need to be here more often… why are you wasting your time in the books?” Anybody ever hear something similar?

Everyone’s life is their own, and the best thing you can do for your people is better yourself.

A perfect example of unwarranted family pressure comes from a pre-med student I worked with a couple years ago. She was a bright student, but she was sabotaging herself so she was struggling in the classroom. Her...

A KFC Fry Cook and a Boy Genius Apply to Med School …

Ask any doctor or medical professional how they became a doctor, and they’ll tell you a different story every time. Premed programs bring together some of the most interesting and diverse peer groups because people from all across the socioeconomic spectrum hear the call to pursue one of the world’s most noble professions.

Take, for example, Franco Jin. His parents moved to Utah from Argentina when he was 12. By the time he was a senior in high school and all his friends were applying for college, he thought he might be content keeping his job frying chicken at KFC.

“I was pretty happy working at KFC,” Jin told the Salt Lake Tribune. “They would let me eat all the chicken I wanted, no complaints.”

But then he got what many young people need: a gentle push in the right direction. Thanks to a pilot program that connects college students with high school classrooms, he heard about the...