So, lesson 2 of 5 about premed and getting into medical school is here, and it’s an important one that will serve you well. It’s about not letting others get to you, and although it seems simple, it’s challenging because we are all human.

As I’ve discussed so many times before, on the path of greatness you are going to encounter resistance, haters, naysayers, and others who will try to thwart your efforts with their negative energy or insults.

Perhaps they’re bitter as a result of their own failures, perhaps they just don’t want to see you succeed and are hoping their words discourage you.

How do we respond?

When other people say to you that you can’t do something or when people are criticizing and looking at you and judging you - do you let that affect you? Or let that bring you down? Or let that stop you from getting where you need to go?

How many of you listen to people whom you shouldn’t? For example, you tell your friends that...

How to Effectively Promote Yourself in Premed While Avoiding Gunner Status

Practically anyone who’s stumbled in to an O-Chem lecture can pick a gunner out of a lineup. These are the folks that obsess over getting into med school while displaying little to no understanding of human compassion. They constantly discuss academics and consider how every instance of social participation will look on a med school application.

Gunners will do anything to succeed. With applications just about in and interview season rolling around, things can get ugly. A recent Reddit post described one premed student donning their military uniform for an interview.

For those who have served, wearing your uniform during a non-military function is absolutely verboten. This is an instance of a gunner clearly crossing the line. As one ex-military user wrote, “There is literally zero excuse for it … We honor those that died every day by continuing to live and not forgetting. Wearing your dress...

While Waiting for Med School Decisions, Try These 4 Diversions

As you read this, tens of thousands of premed students are currently at the end of their ropes. I always say that the year you spend applying to medical school can be one of the hardest years of your life because at this point everything is out of your control and it is just a waiting game. Applications for med school are pretty much all in and a few have been playing the waiting game since August. Some have received interview invites, but many are still waiting. Interviews have mostly come and gone. Some have heard back with a few pieces of good news, but acceptance and rejection emails will continue to roll in for months.

During this period, it can be difficult to do anything but sit in front of your computer hitting refresh every few seconds.

https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/9p3tla/every_5_minutes/

Some like to play mental games with themselves, like waiting for a certain time of the day to check one’s...

Session 1: The Systematic Student

I’m very excited to be hosting my 1^st annual “Study Less, Get Better Grades Bootcamp.” This is a 6-week interactive and intensive program designed to make students more skilled, more confident and more independent so that they can get better grades than they ever thought possible, while simultaneously studying less than their peers.

The foundation of the Bootcamp is my course “The 5 Pillars of Studying Less & Getting Better Grades.” Other study books, courses, and programs that bring together a bunch of questionable, random tips and tricks. My course is a complete system for studying smart that gives students a comprehensive and step-by-step road map to getting great grades. There is no guess-work, there is no confusion, there is only exceptional execution. 

In our first session, we discussed how systems allow us to create consistency and improve our performance continuously, making our studying...

Dominate the Medical School Interview Bootcamp

The medical school interview season recently got underway.

Waiting for interview invites can be one of the hardest parts of the entire journey to medical school.

If you didn’t know, after you submit your primary application to medical schools, schools review the hard data of your application (your MCAT score and GPA), and decide whether or not they want to learn more about you in the form of a secondary application. Secondaries come relatively easy, but the real bottleneck occurs at interview invitations. It costs schools a lot of money to host students for interviews, so they are much more selective about who they invite to their campus.

As such, if you receive an interview invite, you should know that you are qualified, otherwise the school wouldn't waste the money on you. That being said, with everyone who makes it to the interview stage being a qualified applicant, how you perform on interview day can make or break your...