By: Savvy Pre-Med Staff
You made the decision to apply to medical school. You understand the requirements and what you need to do to get in, but have you decided which medical schools to apply to?
Selecting medical schools that fit your goals and credentials is one of the most significant decisions during the admissions process.
We know that not everyone has the time or money to apply to 151 medical schools, so we understand that you need the tools to effectively research medical schools and create your path for your admissions process.
After all, having a well thought out list of medical schools will make a difference between being denied acceptance or becoming a first year at your dream school.
So what tools are out there to help you create your list of medical schools?
Well, we can tell you this right off the bat: it’s NOT just the MSAR!
We searched up and down the internet world and created this list of five medical school search tools.
As we all know, not all databases are made equally, so we ranked the tools based on:
We hope at least one of these tools below will help you navigate the admissions process with a tiny bit more ease.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) created the Medical School Admissions Requirements, also known as the MSAR, to help you learn more about the admissions process for medical schools in the United States and Canada.
The MSAR provides detailed information such as:
It has great information, but it tends to get a bit overwhelming. What do you do with so much information, and how do you know what to focus on?
Also, there’s a cost!
For a one-year subscription, you must pay $28 upfront. That’s pretty much your Netflix subscription for three months.
If only you could get all this information for free…
Although it’s not the easiest tool to read due to the immense amount of information and the cost of $28, this medical school search tool is the godfather of all tools and deserves its spot at number one.
With the Savvy Pre-Med medical school search tool, you get all the information you need. You can search for:
It’s also easy to use. Instead of unleashing all the possible information out there, the Savvy Pre-Med tool uses icons that are easy to read and eliminates the overwhelming feeling of too many words.
And best of all, it’s FREE!
With a FREE Savvy Pre-Med account, you can save a list of all your medical schools by clicking on the heart icon.
Sign up for your account and start creating your list here.
U.S. News ranks the top medical schools for research, and you can search by school name, location, full-time tuition, and enrollment.
Although easy to use, the information is not as in-depth as the MSAR and the Savvy Pre-Med medical school search.
In order to get full rankings, including MCAT and student debt data, you need to sign up for U.S. News Medical School Compass for $29.95.
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One nice feature of the U.S. News Medical School Compass is that you can sign up for a free account to create a customizable list of your favorite schools.
ChooseDO.org focuses on osteopathic medical schools, otherwise known as DO schools. They have created a medical school search tool known as Choose DO Explorer.
If you’re applying to MD schools, this tool will not be suitable for your needs.
The Choose DO Explorer allows you to search for:
Unfortunately, you can’t test the tool first to confirm this information. ChooseDO.org provided the below screenshot of their tool, but you will need to register to view the database.
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Since we’re not sure whether the tool is easy to use, we ranked this tool fourth on the list. It’s also not clear whether there is a cost.
With the Motivate MD medical school search tool, you can filter by MD or DO, average GPA, average MCAT, and average class size.
The searchable database lacks valuable information, such as out-of-state friendliness, weather, research orientation, secondary essay difficulty, or the ability to save and rank your favorite schools.
This tool is free, but unfortunately the database would not load.
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All databases encounter these issues due to the amount of information, but we’re sure they’ll be up and running in no time for you to check it out.
Whether you’re using these medical school search tools to begin your search or narrow down your list of schools, information on these databases will help you feel confident about your decisions to apply to certain medical schools.
We are certain that any tool you use will be worth it!
Have any great medical school search tool recommendations that we missed? Let us know in the comments below, and we’ll respond to you personally!
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