It’s great that you’re the first one in your family to attend college!

You don’t major in “medicine” when you’re an undergraduate, but rather you take a pre-med program. While you’ll have to take certain science and math courses to apply to medical school, you actually can pick almost any major, as long as you get in the courses required by medical schools. While you can certainly major in pre-med at Stanford, there are a lot of good schools for a pre-med student. It’s smart to apply to several schools.

Keep in mind that Stanford is one of the most competitive schools in the country, which can’t accept anywhere near the number of qualified students that apply. So, make sure you apply to a number of schools, including some “safety” schools.

Also, remember that you don’t have to attend Stanford as an undergraduate to apply and/or be accepted into Stanford Medical School. There are many fine medical schools, and I suggest not worrying about which one you might go to at this point. Instead, look at the best schools for your undergraduate education, remembering to consider not just the academics, such as the quality of the pre-med program, but factors such as size, location, student mix and financial aid availability.

The guidelines to becoming a doctor can vary, but generally students obtain an undergraduate degree and then take a standardized test (MCAT) to get into a four-year medical school. After graduation from medical school, students then enter into a “residency” at a hospital, which usually lasts two or three years. You then would need to pass the licensing exam for the state in which you want to practice.

Good luck!  

Typically, schools will make note of their high rate of medical school acceptances somewhere in the literature about their pre-med programs. You can also speak with admissions counselors at the schools which you’re interested in attending to learn about their success at getting students into medical school.

That said, you should be wary of schools that boast of high acceptance rates. Often schools inflate these numbers by telling students who are unlikely to get into medical school to withdraw from the program and find another major. Likewise, these statistics don’t typically account for students who take time off before applying to medical school.

Good luck!

The truth about AIDS care and HIV prevention is that it is needed in almost every community you run across. One potential path you might take is to study social work as an undergraduate, and then work to specialize in HIV or AIDS prevention in your community whenever possible. Volunteer or take an internship at an AIDS care facility, at a hospital, or with an AIDS education community program. There are lots of hospice care opportunities if you do a little poking around. (An important tip is to try to get volunteer experience in the very places you want to be working in the future!)

Then, when you begin a master's program, you will most likely want to do your emphasis in HIV/AIDS prevention and counseling. Plan to do your master's thesis and proposal on the topic. Work in your community to start an awareness project or help to improve programs that may already exist but need some help. It may or may not be the specific school you attend as much as what YOU choose to do with your education and what initiatives you plan to take.

If you still need a starting base, though, I have included a link to the top social work schools in the country, ranked by the Princeton Review and publicized by the Social Psychology Network and the Gourman Report:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/gsocwork.htm

You might want to click through these programs, check out the school-specific websites, and see if any of them do offer a specialization in this particular area. Or, if any of them seem to catch your eye in general, e-mail some professors and inquire with them about options for HIV/AIDS counseling. Or e-mail some professors at the schools in your state and inquire about the same, if you want to stay close to home.

Above all, be creative with your planning and your pursuit of your desires. I wish you the best as you work to help improve society in this very beneficial way. Good luck.

Thanks for your question. The first thing you can do is to read up about pediatricians in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is updated every two years. Write down answers to these questions:

- Who does a pediatrician work with?
- What are the daily tasks of a pediatrician?
- Where do pediatricians work and what is the work environment like?

Think about these questions. Now consider, how can you start putting yourself in these situations right now, as a high school student? For example, you already know that pediatricians work with children. Are you volunteering with children in an after-school program? Helping out in a local church's nursery? Babysitting?

You might also know that doctors of any kind need to have a broad background knowledge of the sciences. You could join the school's science club, work on an independent study project for biology or chemistry, or volunteer at the local science museum. In short, think about what being a pediatrician will "look like," what you'll experience, then see if you can bring similar sorts of experiences into your life right now. You can also ask community physicians to job shadow them for a day.

Also to encourage you to develop a mindset of perseverance, remember that the education and training needed for a physician, according to the OOH, is 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and anywhere from 3 to 8 years of internship and residency. You'll want to select a pre-med or science major in college. The classes you'll need to take range from physics, biology, and chemistry to English and math. You're already thinking ahead, so that's a good step. Your next steps will be to look into applying to schools that offer accredited pre-med and/or science programs. Good luck as you pursue a rewarding career.

Have you thought about finding a surgeon to job shadow? Many medical centers have opportunities for students to job shadow and observe what happens. You may not be allowed inside an operating room, but you could probably gain a lot of observational experience from something like this. You might even want to ask one of your teachers to figure out a way that this could happen.

You could also volunteer at a hospital but specifically request a certain wing or area of the place. I don't see why you would have to do only paperwork and mail. Usually you're able to make a request between a few areas. Hospitals have tons of needs. They need volunteers to take patients to their rooms and down to their cars. They need people to run the gift shop and people that go around and read to patients. If you play a musical instrument, arrange to take it to a hospital or a group home and play it! There are options you may not have thought of. I volunteered at a hospital the summer after high school: I played with little kids while they were waiting for their doctor's appointments. It wasn't anything I'd heard of before then, but it was a really fun way to help out. You can probably ask around in a hospital to see if there is an opportunity that you really enjoy. Don't be afraid to take the initiative.

Oh -- and yes, you can certainly count mission trips as community service. You may even want to explain briefly how you served the communities you traveled to.