Guide to Successfully Applying to Osteopathic Medical School
Applying to an osteopathic medical, or DO, school has similarities to the application process for an MD school, but there are definite differences. You need to start planning things as early as your sophomore year of college if you want your application to truly shine.
Experience
The first thing you need to do to prepare for your DO application involves clinical shadowing or experience, and volunteer work.
Admissions coordinators at almost all college campuses are going to want to see at least a few volunteer activities listed in your application. If you want it to look like you have a vested interest in volunteering and aren’t just doing it to get into medical school, then spread out your volunteer work over your college career and don’t do it all at once. Remember that you will be starting your application process as early as June/July right before your senior year and plan appropriately.
All schools want to see that you have had exposure to the medical community in a professional setting. This shows that you know generally what you are getting in to. The best way to do this is to shadow physicians. Most of the DO schools that I looked into required a letter of evaluation or recommendation from an osteopathic physician. Shadowing or working with a DO will allow you to both gain the experience that the schools are looking for and help you in establishing a connection with a DO that can lead to a recommendation letter or evaluation.
Many DO schools put an emphasis on creating doctors for rural or underserved areas. Many recently formed schools have been built specifically for this purpose. LMU-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine was built with this idea in mind and was placed near some of the poorest counties in the country. If you have chosen to become a DO because of this, then you can combine volunteer work with clinical experience in a useful way. Many communities have free clinics, rural health clinics, or other government funded clinics with sliding-fee scales. Chances are that you can find a location like this in your area that has an osteopathic staff member. These locations often need volunteers and will gladly accept interns to help the doctors. This kind of experience helps you develop your application and allows you to give back to the community.
Anyone applying to MD or DO school must take the MCAT and report their results to the schools they want to go to. MCAT stands for medical college admissions test and is the standardized test used to understand how well you understand the preparatory material that you have been required to study. A strong score is essential and there are many programs and books available commercially to help prepare you.
Take the MCAT early. You may need to take the test more than once if you have a bad test day and turnaround time is slow. You often have to book months in advance for a seat. It then takes on average about a month for your results to be sent to you. If you take the MCAT on May 1 before your senior year, you will likely get your results around June 1. If you do poorly for some reason and decide you need to study and take the test again, you are well into the danger zone. If you manage to get a seat for another test by August 1, it will be September 1 by the time you get your results. Some students are already interviewing at this point.
The Application
The initial application to DO schools is handled through the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, or AACOM, and the application is called the AACOMAS. This is an online application. All initial applications to DO schools in the United States are done through this site. You will need a few things for this.
Your Grades – In the application you will have to fill out all the classes you have taken and the letter grade you received. You will have to have your school send your transcript to the AACOMAS. This will come up in the application process where you will receive instructions on how to do this.
Your MCAT Scores – You will have to fill out the information and have a copy of your scores sent to the AACOMAS to confirm them.
A List of Schools – You can apply for one to as many as all DO schools through the AACOMAS system. It is priced accordingly. Decide which ones you want to apply to and select them on the application.
A Personal Essay – You will be required to write a personal statement for your application. This should discuss things like why you want to be a doctor and show a few things that support this. You should know at this point which schools you want to apply to so you can tailor your statement to them. Some schools tend to pick students based on the need in their area. Some prefer students who want to work in rural or Native American health. Some prefer students who have a vested interest in osteopathic manipulation. Find out what the schools you want to go to most are searching for and cater to it.
Just like the MCAT, you should get your application done early. It may take a month or more to process your application before it is sent to the schools you chose. From this point it may be a few days to a few months before you are sent a request for a secondary application or a denial.
Secondary Applications
After you have submitted the AACOMAS application, the schools interested in you will send you a secondary application with information that they want to know. This usually asks for essays, references, a processing fee, and random other questions. Each school will have different secondary applications. It is a good idea, even if they don’t specifically request it, to send a reference from a DO.
This is the best time to gain your interview. Cater your essays and references to what each school is known for or what they want. Find out facts about the school and incorporate them into your application. Whether you do one or ten secondary applications, treat each school like it’s the one you want to go to the most.
I personally have an interest in primary care and rural health. Many osteopathic schools are looking for this. For each of the schools I applied to I spoke of my desire to practice rural health and my reason for that desire. I then looked into the areas in need of rural health in the state surrounding that school and spoke of them and how I wanted to use my degree to help them.
Find out what your reason is for becoming a DO and stress it. If you have a reason, you are more likely to excel in the field and for the school. This is what they are concerned about most.
If a school grants you an interview, you should prep for it smartly and intensely. Your application gets you an interview. Your interview gets you in to school.
For more information on how to successfully apply to a DO school, check out the article entitled How to Succeed in an Osteopathic Medical School Interview.
