Applying to medical school has never been mistaken for a relaxing hobby. There are transcripts to verify, recommendation letters to request, essays to polish, exams to schedule, and secondary applications that somehow arrive together like a flock of hungry pigeons. Since COVID-19 disrupted higher education and health care, however, the process has changed in ways that go far beyond replacing handshakes with video calls.
Some emergency accommodations have disappeared, but several pandemic-era innovations have become permanent or semi-permanent features of medical school admissions. Virtual interviews remain common. Admissions committees increasingly emphasize competencies, context, resilience, service, and mission alignment. Situational-judgment tests have gained visibility, artificial intelligence has entered the review process at some institutions, and applicants must navigate a new legal environment surrounding diversity and admissions.
Meanwhile, competition has not followed a simple upward or downward line. U.S. MD-granting schools experienced a dramatic pandemic-era application surge, followed by several years of decline. Applications rose again for the 2025-2026 academic year, while total medical school enrollment surpassed 100,000 students for the first time. In other words, interest in medicine remains strong, but the applicant pool is no longer behaving exactly as it did during the height of COVID-19.
The Medical School Application Process Did Not Simply “Return to Normal”
During the early pandemic, medical schools had to improvise quickly. Campuses closed, MCAT dates were disrupted, clinical volunteering disappeared, laboratory courses moved online, and applicants interviewed from bedrooms, kitchens, libraries, and occasionally locations with suspiciously tropical virtual backgrounds.
Those disruptions forced admissions leaders to ask an important question: Which traditional requirements were truly essential, and which existed mainly because “that is how we have always done it”?
The post-COVID medical school application reflects the answers. Academic preparation still matters enormously, but many schools now examine the circumstances under which an applicant earned grades, found clinical exposure, served a community, and responded to uncertainty. The process has become more flexible in some areas and more complicated in others.
Virtual and Hybrid Interviews Are Here to Stay
Interviewing no longer automatically requires a plane ticket
Before 2020, applicants often traveled across the country for medical school interviews. That meant airfare, hotels, meals, local transportation, missed work, and frantic attempts to prevent a suit from becoming modern art inside a suitcase.
COVID-19 pushed schools toward video interviews almost overnight. Many institutions discovered that virtual medical school interviews could reduce costs, limit time away from work or school, and make it easier for applicants to consider geographically distant programs. AACOM later endorsed virtual interviewing as an effective option for osteopathic medical schools, noting its convenience and cost-saving benefits.
Research on virtual medical school admissions has generally found high applicant satisfaction, although candidates frequently report that it is harder to judge a campus, city, student culture, and interpersonal atmosphere through a screen. Studies of virtual processes implemented during the pandemic also showed that schools could successfully conduct structured interviews and multiple mini-interviews online.
Virtual does not mean casual
A virtual interview may feel less formal, but admissions committees still treat it as a serious evaluation. Applicants need a reliable internet connection, clear audio, professional lighting, a quiet setting, and a backup plan. They also need to practice looking toward the camera rather than watching their own tiny face in the corner of the screen for 45 minutes.
More importantly, applicants must communicate warmth and authenticity through a digital format. Strong answers remain conversational, specific, and connected to the experiences described in the application. Interviewers want evidence that the person on screen matches the values, judgment, and motivation presented on paper.
Campus research has become more important
Because applicants may not visit before receiving an offer, they must investigate schools more deliberately. Virtual information sessions, student panels, recorded campus tours, curriculum webinars, social media accounts, and conversations with current students can reveal important differences among programs.
Applicants should examine clinical sites, grading systems, student support, research access, community partnerships, residency outcomes, cost of attendance, and the school’s approach to wellness. A beautiful anatomy building is nice. A culture that supports students when anatomy becomes overwhelming is nicer.
Holistic Review Has Become More Visible and More Structured
Grades and MCAT scores remain important indicators of academic readiness. However, post-COVID admissions increasingly emphasize what the AAMC calls mission-aligned selection, an approach that considers academic preparation alongside experiences, personal attributes, competencies, and the contributions an applicant may make to a school’s educational and service goals.
This does not mean that numbers no longer matter. It means that numbers are interpreted within a fuller story. A strong GPA earned while working 30 hours per week may reveal something different from an identical GPA earned with extensive financial support and fewer outside responsibilities. Neither story automatically wins, but context helps reviewers understand what an applicant has demonstrated.
The 17 Premed Competencies shape applicant evaluation
The AAMC’s updated framework identifies 17 competencies that medical schools may consider when evaluating readiness. These include scientific inquiry, quantitative reasoning, written communication, teamwork, empathy and compassion, reliability, ethical responsibility, resilience, service orientation, and understanding others.
The updated competencies began informing admissions evaluation in the 2024-2025 cycle. They encourage applicants to demonstrate qualities through actual behavior rather than merely declaring them. Writing “I am resilient” is easy. Explaining how you reorganized a community food-delivery project after half the volunteers became unavailable is evidence.
Applicants should therefore review their activities as a connected portfolio. Clinical work might demonstrate empathy and reliability. Research can show scientific reasoning and teamwork. Employment in retail may demonstrate conflict management, communication, and accountability. Not every meaningful experience needs to occur in a hospital corridor.
Clinical Experience Has Become More Flexiblebut It Still Matters
COVID-19 temporarily eliminated many conventional shadowing and volunteering opportunities. In response, applicants explored telehealth observation, virtual shadowing, public-health outreach, crisis-line volunteering, remote research, caregiving, and community-based service.
Virtual shadowing can help students understand specialties, clinical reasoning, and telemedicine. The AAMC has shared examples of students observing telehealth encounters and learning how physicians communicate with patients remotely.
However, virtual exposure should not automatically be treated as a permanent substitute for direct human contact. When safe and accessible, applicants benefit from in-person experiences that allow them to understand patient care, teamwork, emotional discomfort, confidentiality, and the daily realities of health care.
The strongest post-COVID application does not chase an arbitrary number of shadowing hours. It shows that the applicant has tested the decision to become a physician in meaningful settings. Working as a medical assistant, emergency department technician, hospice volunteer, medical scribe, caregiver, or community health worker may provide deeper insight than quietly following ten physicians for a few hours each.
Online Coursework and Pass/Fail Grades Require School-Specific Research
During the pandemic, many colleges converted courses to pass/fail grading and moved science laboratories online. Medical schools responded with temporary exceptions, but those policies were not identical and did not all continue indefinitely.
Current requirements still vary considerably. Some schools accept particular online prerequisites, community college coursework, or pandemic-era pass/fail credits. Others prefer letter-graded science courses or require certain laboratories to be completed in person. The AAMC continues to publish school-specific reports covering admission policies, prerequisites, deadlines, letters, MCAT dates, and related requirements.
Applicants should never assume that a policy adopted in spring 2020 still applies to a future cycle. Check each school’s current admissions page and its Medical School Admission Requirements entry. When a policy remains unclear, request an answer from the admissions office in writing. “Someone on a forum said it was fine” is not an ideal prerequisite strategy.
Situational-Judgment Testing Has Expanded
One notable post-pandemic development is the growing use of assessments designed to evaluate professional judgment rather than science knowledge alone. The AAMC PREview professional readiness exam presents workplace and educational scenarios and asks applicants to evaluate the effectiveness of possible responses.
A growing group of schools requires or recommends PREview, while many schools do not use it. Applicants must check the current participating-school list before registering. The exam does not replace the MCAT; it measures a different part of readiness, including professionalism, communication, teamwork, and ethical judgment.
Applicants may also encounter other situational-judgment tools, such as Casper, depending on the schools to which they apply. This means school-list planning now involves more than GPA ranges, MCAT medians, and geography. It may also involve comparing supplemental tests, fees, scheduling windows, and score-release dates.
Personal Statements Must Show Reflection, Not Just Activity
The pandemic generated countless essays about uncertainty, masks, canceled opportunities, and health-care heroes. Those experiences can still be meaningful, but admissions readers do not need another generic declaration that COVID-19 “showed how important doctors are.” They lived through it too.
A strong essay focuses on the applicant’s personal actions, observations, questions, and growth. It might describe caring for an isolated relative, translating public-health information, managing a disrupted research project, working in a pharmacy, or confronting unequal access to telemedicine.
The goal is not to turn every inconvenience into a heroic saga. It is to explain what an experience revealed about medicine, patients, responsibility, or the applicant’s values. Admissions experts consistently advise applicants to avoid rewriting their résumé in paragraph form. The application already lists activities; the essay should reveal how the applicant thinks.
Mission Fit Matters More Than Generic Prestige
Post-COVID medical education has placed greater attention on public health, health disparities, telemedicine, community partnerships, rural access, and the social conditions that shape patient outcomes. Schools increasingly communicate distinct missions around research, primary care, underserved communities, regional workforce needs, or health equity.
Applicants should build a school list around genuine alignment. A candidate whose record centers on rural health should explain why a school’s regional clinical network fits that commitment. An applicant interested in biomedical discovery should investigate research mentorship and protected scholarly time. Someone committed to community medicine should look beyond a school’s marketing language and examine where students actually train and serve.
Mission fit also improves secondary essays. “Your school is excellent and has innovative faculty” could be mailed to nearly every institution in America. Specific connections between an applicant’s history and a program’s curriculum are far more persuasive.
The Legal Landscape for Diversity Has Changed
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the race-conscious admissions systems used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The decision changed how colleges and professional schools may consider race during admissions and prompted medical schools to review their recruitment, selection, and diversity strategies.
Applicants may still discuss experiences that shaped their character, goals, perspective, and readiness for medicine. Personal essays can address obstacles, community responsibilities, discrimination, service, language, geography, socioeconomic hardship, or other lived experiences when those details are relevant to the applicant’s individual story.
The important distinction is that essays should not reduce identity to a checkbox or assume that identity alone establishes desirable qualities. Applicants should explain what they experienced, what they did, what they learned, and how those lessons influence the physician they hope to become.
Artificial Intelligence Has Entered the Admissions Conversation
Generative AI has created opportunities and risks for both applicants and medical schools. Some institutions have experimented with AI-assisted screening to improve efficiency and reduce variability during early application review. These systems remain controversial because admissions decisions involve nuance, bias concerns, data quality, and institutional accountability.
Applicants are also using AI tools for brainstorming, editing, organization, and interview practice. The safest principle is simple: technology may help improve clarity, but it should not manufacture experiences, opinions, or a personality. An essay polished until it sounds like a corporate brochure about “leveraging empathy-driven synergies” will not help anyone.
Applicants should follow each school’s instructions regarding AI use. They should also be prepared to discuss every statement in their application naturally. If an applicant cannot explain an elegant sentence from the personal statement without looking surprised by it, the interview may become memorable for the wrong reason.
Practical Strategies for Today’s Medical School Applicant
Start with a requirements spreadsheet
Track prerequisite courses, MCAT policies, PREview or Casper requirements, recommendation preferences, residency restrictions, secondary fees, interview formats, and deadlines. Review the spreadsheet regularly because policies can change between cycles.
Develop experiences with depth
Admissions committees do not need an applicant to collect activities like souvenir magnets. Long-term service, sustained clinical involvement, increasing responsibility, and thoughtful reflection usually reveal more than a crowded list of brief commitments.
Prepare for both virtual and in-person interviews
Practice traditional questions, behavioral prompts, ethical scenarios, and multiple mini-interview stations. Test technology before virtual interviews, but also prepare for in-person conversation, campus activities, and group interactions.
Explain disruptions without overdramatizing them
Use available application sections to explain canceled opportunities, family responsibilities, financial difficulties, illness, grading changes, or employment demands. Provide enough context for a fair evaluation, then show how you adapted.
Apply with a realistic, mission-aligned school list
Consider academic fit, state residency preferences, program mission, costs, curriculum, geography, and support systems. Prestige alone is a poor strategy, particularly when accompanied by 30 secondary applications and the dawning realization that each one contains eight essays.
Applicant Experiences in the Post-COVID Era: Composite Lessons
The following examples are composites based on recurring applicant situations and are included to illustrate practical lessons rather than describe identifiable individuals.
Experience 1: Rebuilding clinical exposure after cancellations
One applicant had planned to spend two undergraduate years volunteering in a hospital. After several months, the program suspended student volunteers because of COVID-19 restrictions. At first, the applicant viewed the interruption as a major flaw in the future application. Instead of waiting indefinitely, the student began delivering groceries to older adults, volunteered for a health-information hotline, and later worked as a medical scribe when clinics reopened.
The application did not pretend that grocery delivery was equivalent to direct patient care. Instead, it explained how the service revealed the connection between transportation, isolation, food access, and health. The later scribing position then provided direct exposure to clinical decision-making. Together, the experiences created a coherent story: the applicant had moved from observing community needs to understanding how those needs appeared inside a clinic.
The lesson was not that every canceled opportunity must be replaced with something spectacular. It was that responsiveness, honesty, and sustained engagement mattered more than following an idealized premed checklist.
Experience 2: Discovering that virtual interviews require different preparation
Another applicant assumed a video interview would be easier than an in-person meeting. There would be no travel, no unfamiliar building, and no danger of accidentally sitting in the dean’s chair. During the first mock interview, however, the student gave long answers, stared at notes beside the monitor, and appeared disengaged whenever looking at the interviewer’s image rather than the camera.
The applicant changed the preparation strategy. Notes were reduced to three reminders taped behind the laptop: “slow down,” “use examples,” and “answer the question.” The student practiced 90-second responses, recorded mock interviews, adjusted lighting, used a wired internet connection, and prepared questions based on the school’s curriculum and community programs.
On interview day, the conversation felt less like a performance and more like a professional discussion. The experience showed that virtual interviews remove travel barriers but create a new communication challenge. Applicants must project attentiveness and warmth through a device that normally hosts streaming shows and family group calls.
Experience 3: Turning pandemic disruption into context rather than an excuse
A third applicant received pass/fail grades in several science courses during 2020 and later earned a lower-than-expected grade while helping care for a family member. The student initially considered avoiding the subject. That approach left reviewers to guess what had happened, which is rarely a winning strategy.
In the application, the applicant briefly explained the grading policy and caregiving responsibility without asking for sympathy. More space was devoted to what came next: stronger performance in advanced science courses, improved study methods, and a later role coordinating support for other student caregivers.
This approach worked because it combined context with evidence. The applicant did not argue that academic readiness should be ignored. Instead, the application showed a difficult period, a reasonable explanation, and a measurable recovery.
Experience 4: Choosing fit over rankings
One applicant entered the cycle focused almost entirely on rankings. Virtual interviews made it possible to speak with many programs, but student panels revealed major cultural and curricular differences. A highly ranked school offered impressive research resources but limited exposure to the rural communities the applicant hoped to serve. Another program had a regional campus system, longitudinal primary-care placements, and mentorship connected to rural health.
The applicant ultimately selected the second school. The decision was not a rejection of ambition; it was a clearer definition of ambition. The best medical school was the one that offered the training, patient population, and support needed for the applicant’s goalsnot necessarily the one most likely to impress a distant relative at Thanksgiving.
Conclusion: A More Digital, Contextual, and Competency-Focused Process
Applying to medical school in the post-COVID-19 era requires more than strong grades and a polished personal statement. Applicants must be ready for virtual or hybrid interviews, school-specific testing requirements, evolving prerequisite policies, competency-based evaluation, AI-related rules, and a changed legal environment.
The encouraging news is that admissions committees have more tools for understanding how applicants respond to real life. Employment, caregiving, community service, telehealth, research disruptions, financial pressures, and unconventional clinical experiences can all provide meaningful evidence of readiness when they are explained honestly and reflectively.
The fundamentals have not disappeared. Medical schools still seek people who can handle demanding science, communicate effectively, act responsibly, work with others, understand patients, and remain committed when circumstances become inconvenient. COVID-19 changed the format of the journey, but it did not change the destination: becoming a thoughtful, capable physician who can serve patients in an unpredictable world.
Note: Medical school requirements, interview formats, supplemental assessments, and acceptance policies vary by institution and application year. Applicants should verify current information directly through each program and the latest AAMC or AACOM admissions resources before applying.
