IF YOU ARE applying to medical school, you have probably heard cautionary tales about applicants receiving rejections due to imprudent social media posts.
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You may have been told to delete your social media accounts or to make them private during your application process, lest an untoward picture from freshman year of college finds its way before the eyes of an admissions officer.
But in an age when social media is a main avenue of communication, is clearing your name from the internet reasonable or even attainable? And what if having a thoughtful social media presence could help inform your med school admissions process?
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Consider these three social media advantages before and during the medical school admissions process:
- Connecting with potential faculty.
- Connecting with current med students.
- Staying on top of application deadlines and changes.
Connecting With Potential Faculty
While many prospective medical school students have not yet fully discovered their academic or research interests, perusing the social media accounts of faculty members can help you learn about the opportunities that are available to students at your potential med schools.
Most med schools maintain webpages with faculty profiles that list their publications and interests, and these pages can be a good place to start identifying faculty members whose projects interest you.
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Once you have chosen several faculty members to learn more about, reading their public blogs, Twitter feeds or LinkedIn pages may give you more insight into their work, as well as the opportunity to ask questions.
However, ensure you avoid contacting faculty through private or personal pages and instead focus only on their professional public pages as points of contact.
Connecting With Current Med Students
Getting in touch with current med students can help you with everything from finding transportation to the campus on interview day to identifying the places where your interests connect with the mission of the school.
Because they have been through the admissions process before, current students understand the anxieties that applying to med school brings, as well as how you might best represent yourself on an application.
Students who serve as admissions ambassadors or medical school tour guides may be the easiest to contact, and they may be the most open to answering questions. In addition, contacting students affiliated with organizations that interest you may help you learn about aspects of student life that may not be covered elsewhere.
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Like contacting faculty members, be sure to avoid contacting current students through private pages unless you have their permission to do so. Using the message function on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is a good way to briefly introduce yourself and seek permission to communicate.
Staying on Top of Application Deadlines and Changes
The Association of American Medical Colleges maintains several Twitter accounts for premed students and posts about application deadlines, MCAT information and useful seminars and articles geared toward making the application process go smoothly.
Additionally, individual schools maintain their own social media pages on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where they cover school-specific announcements that may be relevant to applicants. Following their social media pages can help you stay abreast of updates to the application process, as well as lead you toward materials that may make the process easier.
