If you plan to apply for medical training after your undergraduate work, you owe it to your future patients to apply to the BEST medical training programs whose standards you can meet.
How do you decide which are the best programs? Look at their admissions standards, including
The school with higher admissions standards and higher average scores of admitted students will almost invariably have better faculty, better facilities and equipment, better paths to your residency and first practice, and most importantly, better training.
You may be thinking, "I just want to be a doctor; any path to that goal is acceptable." Once you are in the profession, you will learn that there are good programs and poor ones, good residencies and poor ones, good practices and poor ones. You want to have choices, and the graduates of the better programs get the first choices.
You may be wondering if you can compete with the students in the best programs. First, if you can get in, you're as good as they are. Second, you are not competing with your medical-school classmates. Medical schools want every student to succeed. Each place in medical school is expensive to provide. They want a to turn every accepted student into a physician.
You owe it to your future patients to follow these guidelines:
If you want to be a first-class citizen in the medical profession, with the best preparation, access to the best tools for treating your patients, the most respected credentials, and the widest array of choices, don't settle for any degree except M.D. or M.D./Ph.D.
OLDER STUDENTS: It is a common misconception that good medical schools will not accept older students. Don't believe it. It is unlawful for a school (or employer) to discriminate against you because of age, or many other attributes you cannot change. Almost any entering medical class in the US this year will include older students, even up to age 40 or so. Don't sell yourself short because of your age. All of the advice on this page applies to you, too.
Good luck!