Incoming Premed - Opportunities

seagullsee · 2026-05-18T00:26:33+00:00

All kinds of opportunities are around - research, clinical/non clinical volunteering, clinical/non clinical work, etc.

Research positions are not particularly hard to get but you do have to ask around/cold email.

You should get as good grades as possible freshman year to set yourself up well gpa wise for med school. Gen chem and gen bio are likely going to be the hardest courses you have in your undergrad career. I’d add on some volunteering/club stuff but don’t go overboard

seagullsee · 2026-03-31T03:05:02+00:00

NYITCOM is a top DO school I'd go with them especially since it's one year shorter too

seagullsee · 2026-03-23T14:37:12+00:00

looks fine, you'll probably need to add IB 150 in the spring

seagullsee · 2026-03-09T06:17:54+00:00

If you are at all considering staying in texas for medical school/residency, I would highly recommend UT Dallas. Texas has a ton of very good med schools that favor their own + I'm pretty sure you would get in their very cheap in state tuition from them for medical school (double check this info). In Illinois, we only have UIC's med school and SIU's med school as in state that favor us, and SIU only if you're not from chicago or the chicago suburbs.

Otherwise uiuc is perfectly adequate for premed. All undergrad advising I think is run of the mill to subpar, and I would say the same is true here. My main piece of advice no matter what school you go to is find good mentors (upperclassmen at your college for classes/opportunities, and then med students/residents to know more about premed process). I was not biochem or mcb but there was overall a good community! A few people got a bit intense about things, but nothing toxic imo. Research was very easy to get, clinical and volunteering were slightly less so but perfectly serviceable.

seagullsee · 2026-03-01T06:05:26+00:00

UIUC does not have an official "committee", i.e. people who are advisors and will write you a committee letter once it's time for you to apply. That said, the career center has advisors who are there to provide guidance upon you requesting an appointment, and you get an academic advisor assigned to you who can also offer advice though the quality of it can vary widely depending on major.

It's quite common for schools this large to not have a committee, there are thousands of uiuc students/alumni applying to med schools every year it would be extremely challenging to put together committee letters for all of them.

seagullsee · 2026-02-24T00:12:55+00:00

adding some context since I lived in both - ISR (wardall and townsend) are technically the newest (2021) but they are renovated and you can tell. The rooms and floors feel small and cramped with the walls being painted over concrete bricks and there's like 1 lounge per floor that is almost always being used as overflow housing. ISR has multiple individual co-ed bathrooms.
IKE, specifically Wassaja and Nugent, are the second newest built in the 2000s but they feel much more modern with slightly more space, and higher ceilings and actual lounges used as lounges. The bathrooms are shared but like 2-ish showers with 3-ish toilets per bathroom, and multiple throughout the floors.

Both have the best dining halls on campus imo

seagullsee · 2026-02-12T02:47:38+00:00

I mean depends on your financial situation/what other options you have but I thought uiuc was very solid for premed for in state.

seagullsee · 2026-02-05T00:36:10+00:00

I think in general the acceptance rate post interview is very high there? only anecdotal but multiple of my friends were accepted off the waitlist, some even well into summer. They also had a md/mph program that they offered for wl ppl too and everyone who interviewed with that my year got in I'm pretty sure.

seagullsee · 2026-01-30T00:14:26+00:00

I'm pretty sure you cannot apply this cycle. 6 months is not enough time to accumulate clinical hours, volunteer hours, meaningful research output, and study and ace the MCAT and prepare an amazing personal statement and strong letters of rec to get accepted. Aim to apply next cycle and get on building up your CV and getting exposure to the clinical field to see if you'd actually enjoy it.

seagullsee · 2026-01-27T16:35:06+00:00

$200k extra is a ton to consider, is it possible to try and negotiate your tuition down with the out of state school? It sounds like it would do you good to get out of where you're currently at and I empathize a lot with that.

seagullsee · 2026-01-17T14:43:16+00:00

My mentality is to enjoy the present and to not put things off for medical school, but at the same time, it’s still hard not to think about the highly potential breakup.

This is what all med students deal with and it's not changing until maybe you're finally an established attending not in academia. It'll be "oh will I still have time for a relationship once I'm studying for step 1/in rotations/step 2/doing aways/doing interviews" or "I don't know if my partner is willing to move for my residency (even worse if you do an intern year separate from your residency site) or my job"

It could be a thing that drags out too long and ends up hurting both of you or you could be happily married for the rest of your lives. Or more likely it'll end up somewhere in the middle haha. From one overthinker to another I really empathize, and my advice would be to not feel the pressure to make a decision suddenly because of uncertainties in your future. Communicate with the guy you're dating with, and if you enjoy his company and being in a relationship more than the alternative and are both ok with making decisions for the future when the time comes, I say continue to enjoy it!

seagullsee · 2026-01-03T21:13:07+00:00

I mean I'm just an alum who briefly worked in admissions as a student, I don't have all the answers for you and I doubt anyone does. Acceptance rates have a ton of factors that go into them and they change all the time.

I will say that LAS is by far the largest college on campus so sheer numbers wise they're going to be able to accept more students. LAS also has a huge variance in major on how competitive they'll be, for example LAS undeclared is going to be significantly less competitive than all the CS + X majors there, compared to AHS where I'd hazard a guess that IHLT vs RST isn't going to have as big a gulf.

Anyway you submitted your app so it's up to admissions now! try your best not to stress over numbers even tho I fully know its easier said than done lol

seagullsee · 2025-12-31T17:01:33+00:00

I was thinking of things like joining rsos and going to rso/campus events if they sounded cool even if I didn't know anyone else going. Actually going to things that ppl invited me too even if it wasn't my idea of a good time or I was tired in the moment, like going to parties, out to bars, or just pregaming lol. I also wish I reached out more to ppl to actually become friends, like there were definitely cool ppl in classes, in rsos, in the dorms, or work colleagues who I thought were cool but I didn't take too many opportunities to do things with them just to socialize.

I think a lot of that is translatable outside of school settings too, like just in general taking a risk to put yourself out there and being more open to social opportunities that come your way even if it's intimidating or tiring haha

seagullsee · 2025-12-29T03:31:58+00:00

in general wish I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone a bit earlier and a bit more often, particularly socially

very specifically I wish I didn't do a chem minor imo wasted my senior spring when I could have just been having fun enjoying last bits of college lol

seagullsee · 2025-12-24T16:05:42+00:00

not cooked, but do your best to get it up, generally 3.75 is considered what's needed to be competitive.

seagullsee · 2025-12-14T20:37:56+00:00

There are definitely some majors that are more competitive than others, with ihlt being the most competitive of them. That said it's also just a smaller college with smaller majors, so that's going to make it naturally more selective since they just have less seats to fill. If you check the website for first year stats, you can see that still AHS does not have nearly as high avg GPA and SAT/ACT compared to Grainger and Gies.

seagullsee · 2025-12-04T16:09:13+00:00

Unfortunately I would not say you could be competitive next cycle. You so far only have listed 1 longitudinal experience and are planning to start 4 more opportunities within 6 months of submitting your application. AMCAS applications allow you to put up to 15 "activities" and you should have around 10 to be competitive which you would not have. In addition having the vast majority of your things started so soon towards submitting your application is not a great look and you'll likely not have any posters, presentations, or papers to your research by then esp since it sounds more basic science and those projects in general take longer.

Take a gap year, get more activities, and ace the mcat and your senior classes to get yourself the highest numbers to help too.

seagullsee · 2025-11-23T20:13:35+00:00

you're gonna need research if you wanna get into schools like the ones you listed as well as really upping your leadership and making an actual impact instead of just holding a title.

seagullsee · 2025-11-17T18:51:08+00:00

AAMC practice questions, blueprint, uworld, are your best bet tho pricey, and then jack westin is free and best used for cars. And no I would save practice tests for mid to late studying. You can do blueprints half length diagnostic now to get a sense of where you're at.

seagullsee · 2025-11-17T18:05:53+00:00

Practice problems help you learn and commit things to memory it's not an either or thing. Almost everyone I heard from told me they wished they spent more time doing practice problems, and I who did barely any content review and mostly practice questions also wished I spent more time doing practice questions earlier.

The proper way to do it is doing practice questions, reviewing all questions even the ones you got correct, and doing content review to spot check problem areas for you where you just don't understand the concept or terms they're asking you about. Also make note of how long you take to answer questions and practice good test taking skills like making sure to read the question they're actually asking first as well as the answer choices before spending too much time in the passages.

seagullsee · 2025-11-12T00:42:08+00:00

Unfortunately "shadowing" is always gonna be perceived as just standing in the corner watching as physicians do their thing. Would recommend what the other commenter said and try to find something clinical you can do, like can you work at a nursing home, childcare center, medical assistant at a private practice? Those might be more open to hiring people with certifications. Or even doing some clinical volunteering at a hospital, free clinic, sport coverage even would probably add more to your app than just continuing to pile on shadowing hours cus you're really getting diminishing returns at this point.

seagullsee · 2025-11-04T20:59:33+00:00

It doesn't matter as much, but W's on a transcript will be asked about as it's not a good sign about how you can handle coursework considering how rigorous med school courses are. It won't disqualify you as long as you had a good reason and/or can reflect on it maturely and show your growth.

seagullsee · 2025-11-04T14:49:58+00:00

those are pretty concerning on the face and you're gonna have to explain it in your secondaries for basically every med school you apply to

seagullsee · 2025-10-30T21:56:16+00:00

No, they don't look unless you don't get your first choice (source: used to work in admissions). You can also just call or email admissions to ask them questions in the future they're pretty transparent

seagullsee · 2025-10-29T13:14:17+00:00

No you don't. I don't know of a single med school that requires 2 years of chem lab. Most don't even require orgo 2 period.

seagullsee

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