How to get accepted into Stanford University’s School of Medicine

  • On aver­age, 90 stu­dents out of 7,500 appli­cants are admit­ted every year.
  • Insid­er asked alum­ni and admis­sions offi­cers for their on how to make it to the top of the pile, which includ­ed sub­mit­ting top-notch ref­er­ence let­ters and telling your authen­tic sto­ry in the per­son­al essay.
  • Be sure to how Stan­ford Med­i­cine’s mul­ti­ple-mini- sys­tem dif­fers from oth­er schools.
  • Click here for more BI Prime sto­ries.

Estab­lished in 1908, the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine is one of the most high­ly regard­ed med­ical pro­grams in the coun­try: It ranked third in the coun­try for best med­ical schools in the 2020 rank­ings pro­duced by US News World & Report, and it has long been high­ly com­pet­i­tive to make it into the pro­gram. Accord­ing to Dr. Iris Gibbs, the school’s asso­ciate dean of M.D. admis­sions, an aver­age of 7,500 stu­dents apply to the School of Med­i­cine every year and about 90 are accept­ed.

“Dis­cov­ery Walk” at Stan­ford Med­i­cine.
Nor­bert von der Groeben/Stanford Med­i­cine


Busi­ness Insid­er has curat­ed tips and advice from Stan­ford insid­ers who rec­og­nize what works and what does­n’t for inter­est­ed appli­cants. Find out what has helped these Stan­ford grads and which rec­om­men­da­tions admis­sions offi­cers and con­sul­tants regard as too valu­able to ignore.

Don’t stress too much about MCAT scores — but you do want to hit the threshold Stanford sets

It’s an oft-told nar­ra­tive that get­ting high marks on the MCATs may help pro­pel an appli­cant into Stan­ford Med­i­cine. But don’t heap too much weight on the test.

Brian Courtney, CEO of medical device startup Conavi Medical and 2004 graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine

Bri­an Court­ney.
Bri­an Court­ney


Bri­an Court­ney, a 2004 grad­u­ate who is now the CEO of the med­ical-devices start­up Conavi Med­ical, said when it comes to MCATs, “once an appli­cant gets above that high thresh­old Stan­ford sets, then it like­ly becomes less impor­tant what your score is on the test beyond that bench­mark. What then becomes more impor­tant is how the stu­dent them­selves to tell a mean­ing­ful sto­ry on the vision of their career and how get­ting into an insti­tu­tion such as Stan­ford is part of that vision.”

Gibbs agreed. “As part of our holis­tic approach, oth­er fac­tors of the appli­can­t’s artic­u­lat­ed vision … help in the assess­ment of the appli­can­t’s align­ment” with the pro­gram, she said.

Get the right reference letters, and get them early

Apply­ing to Stan­ford Med­i­cine requires a min­i­mum of three pro­fes­sion­al ref­er­ence let­ters, accord­ing to its admis­sions page

“It might sound trite, but the most com­pelling rec­om­men­da­tion let­ters come from those who know the appli­cant best,” Gibbs said. “If the appli­cant wants to be a world-class researcher, and is con­vey­ing that in the app, he or she should­n’t exclude a ref­er­ence let­ter from that researcher who coun­seled them in their under­grad.”

Bea­ta Williams, an inde­pen­dent admis­sions con­sul­tant based in Chica­go, rec­om­mend­ed find­ing fac­ul­ty mem­bers who know you best, as opposed to get­ting let­ters from, say, a man­ag­er at a part-time job.

“Don’t ask for these let­ters with­in sev­en days of sub­mit­ting them because every­one has a life, and you need to give these enough lead time to be com­fort­able writ­ing a strong let­ter for you,” she added.

Beata Williams, Chicago-based admissions consultant, offers advice on getting into Stanford's School of Medicine.

Bea­ta Williams.
Bea­ta Williams


Court­ney said ref­er­ence let­ters should car­ry a tone that the appli­cant is some­one who is teach­able, moti­vat­ed, “and per­forms well and can inter­act effec­tive­ly with a broad range of peo­ple.”

“There’s also ben­e­fit in hav­ing some­one write that ref­er­ence let­ter who under­stands the appli­can­t’s aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance, research poten­tial, and clin­i­cal inter­ests over an extend­ed peri­od of time, rather than from a sin­gle course,” he added.

He added that when it came time to select his ref­er­ences, “most of them were super­vi­sors of my research that had known me for a long time and were famil­iar with my capa­bil­i­ties, inter­ests, and work eth­ic.”

Use your essay to talk about not only your science background but also your longer-term goals as a doctor 

Gibbs shared that the admis­sions team for essays that shine with authen­tic­i­ty.

“The essay is not telling any­one else’s sto­ry but your own, and it should con­vey a sense of pas­sion for what­ev­er the appli­cant has been inter­est­ed in and hopes to achieve in med­i­cine,” she said.

Dr. Daniel Kraft, a 1996 graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine

Daniel Kraft.
Daniel Kraft


When Daniel Kraft, a 1996 grad­u­ate, wrote his appli­ca­tion essay, he want­ed to stress how well-round­ed he was in his med­ical inter­ests, along with his clin­i­cal and EMT expe­ri­ences in col­lege. He told Busi­ness Insid­er, “I empha­sized how I had a sci­ence back­ground at Brown, focus­ing on the micro­bi­ol­o­gy of HIV infec­tion and how that was a rich envi­ron­ment to become a physi­cian sci­en­tist.”

He said that not every appli­cant would have his sci­ence-heavy under­grad to draw from, so he advised appli­cants instead to demon­strate a curios­i­ty for how the world works.

“The essay should show you as a whole per­son, show the human side of you, because to be a good physi­cian is blend­ing the art of health­care with approach­a­bil­i­ty,” he said.

Chan­tal Lun­derville, a coun­selor from the col­lege-admis­sions con­sul­tan­cy group InGe­nius Prep, often advis­es appli­cants vying to get into med­ical school to write essays that take a long-term approach to where want to go with med­i­cine.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘I want to be a doc­tor; I want to get into Stan­ford,’ because you need to explain how you’re going to use med­i­cine to change pub­lic health or the deliv­ery of bio­med­ical break­throughs. Write down how Stan­ford will help you achieve those goals, and that’s why I often encour­age stu­dents to craft a five- or 10-year plan that comes through in that essay,” she said.

Chantal Lunderville

Chan­tal Lun­derville.
Chan­tal Lun­derville


Final­ly, find at least three peo­ple to read your essay before sub­mit­ting it, Lun­derville added. “Ide­al­ly, those oth­er read­ers should have a back­ground in writ­ing so they can give advice on how well the essay is writ­ten too,” she added.

Prepare to answer critical-thinking interview questions, and avoid bringing up controversial topics 

Stan­ford Med­i­cine is one of the few Amer­i­can schools to eval­u­ate can­di­dates using the mul­ti­ple-mini-inter­view sys­tem devel­oped at Ontar­i­o’s McMas­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical School. Stan­ford said in a 2011 blog post, “It’s a timed cir­cuit of short inter­views with script­ed ques­tions. The process is com­plet­ed in a two-hour peri­od and is designed to mea­sure char­ac­ter and crit­i­cal-think­ing skills rather than sci­en­tif­ic . Its goal: to pick out the best future doc­tors.”

“These are not as struc­tured as oth­er inter­views and can be more flow­ing,” Gibbs said. “So appli­cants to our school should research how these inter­views are con­duct­ed so they can best be pre­pared once they take part.”

She said the ques­tions weren’t all focused on an appli­can­t’s sci­ence or health­care back­ground. “With­out giv­ing too much away, these are real-world ques­tions we’re ask­ing, so it helps to be intel­lec­tu­al­ly curi­ous,” she said.

Lun­derville said it nev­er hurts for an appli­cant to con­duct mock inter­views with friends or fam­i­ly before tak­ing part in Stan­ford Med­i­cine’s inter­view process. “Tell your sto­ry in these inter­views and what chal­lenges you faced. And you should always review your CV the night before your inter­view so the exact details of what you did is fresh in your mind,” she added.

Chen Yu, 2003 Stanford Medicine graduate and 2004 Stanford MBA graduate

Chen Yu.
Chen Yu


When Chen Yu, a 2003 Stan­ford M.D. grad­u­ate and lat­er a 2004 MBA grad­u­ate, vol­un­teered to take part in appli­cant inter­views to help the school’s admis­sions team, he came across sev­er­al cau­tion­ary notes worth high­light­ing. “Don’t talk pol­i­tics or reli­gion at these inter­views. Like, these days, don’t talk about Trump,” he said.

He remem­bered one appli­cant men­tioned their antiabor­tion stance in the inter­view and said those “kinds of con­tro­ver­sial state­ments can dis­qual­i­fy you as an inter­vie­wee.”

“It just isn’t nec­es­sary,” he added. “It’s com­mon sense to avoid con­tro­ver­sial polit­i­cal com­ments in an inter­view. You just don’t know the beliefs of your inter­view­er, and there’s no to end up offend­ing your inter­view­er.”

Stan­ford Med­i­cine appli­cants may think they have a slim chance of mak­ing it into its hal­lowed halls, but Gibbs was quick to assert that the school is cast­ing its admis­sions net far and wide.

“Stu­dents should­n’t dis­count them­selves when they see our accep­tance-rate num­bers,” she said. “If they are able to tell us their authen­tic sto­ry, they might be very sur­prised by the result. We always want a wider range of indi­vid­u­als apply­ing from all types of back­grounds, eth­nic­i­ties, and abil­i­ties.” 

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