Prepare for Medical & Health Profession Schools

Gain medical exposure

Wondering if a health field is really the right choice for you? Take the time to explore while at MIT or beyond. To get a realistic sense of health profession careers, do research, shadow, and find hands-on opportunities to learn. Start early, ideally, you can do some of these activities as soon as your first year and continue throughout your time at MIT.

Learn how to get hands-on experience

Gain skills for medical school

You know that managing your coursework, getting good grades, and doing well on the MCAT are important. Medical schools also want to see that you have non-academic qualities. The AAMC includes these personal qualities in their list of core competencies.

Gain key skills

Prepare academically

The MIT Committee on Prehealth Advising has provided the following information to guide MIT students on how to fulfill the academic requirements for admission to most U.S. medical schools. Since specific requirements may vary for particular schools, this resource also provides advice on how to find a school’s guidelines.

Plan courses and prepare academically

Prepare for standardized testing

If you apply to medical school, you will have to take a standardized test, the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT). If you are a predental student, you will take the Dental Admission Test (DAT). These standardized tests measure your knowledge and critical reasoning skills. They provide an objective score for medical schools to use along with your GPA.

Learn how to prepare

Reach out to us for support

Prehealth Advising is here for you through every step of the process. Need advice? Plan an appointment that fits your schedule or join a virtual Prehealth Advising Drop-In session. Stay up-to-date by joining the prehealth email list; just email prehealth@mit.edu with the subject: “Please add me to the [year] prehealth email list.” (Use the year you plan to enter medical school, not the year you graduate from MIT.) Also, find your MIT prehealth community by joining the Prehealth Advising Facebook group.

Set up an appointment

Consider applying to medical interpreting courses

This 4-week IAP course trains multilingual MIT community members in core principles, standards of practice, ethics, and medical terminology. Participants will be qualified to work or volunteer as interpreters in healthcare settings upon completion of the 40-hour course.

In IAP 2023, this course will be offered by CAPD’s Prehealth Advising Office and MIT ActLingual with support from the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund, MIT Medical, MIT Coop, and the MIT Community Service Fund. Class facilitated by UMass Chan Medical School.

The application for the 2023 IAP Medical Interpreting Course is now closed. Please check back with us next fall.

Learn more