How to Get Into Harvard Medical School: Requirements and Strategies
/Learn Harvard Medical School’s requirements, acceptance rate, and admissions strategies, plus an HMS personal statement example and secondary essay examples
Getting into Harvard Medical School is a dream for many premed students
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Harvard Medical School MD programs
Part 3: How hard is it to get into Harvard Medical School?
Part 4: Harvard Medical School personal statement (example included)
Part 5: Harvard Medical School secondary application essays (examples included)
Part 6: Adcom insights: How HMS applications are evaluated
Part 7: Harvard Medical School interview
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Part 1: Introduction
There are plenty of reasons why getting into Harvard Medical School (HMS) is a dream shared by innumerable premed students: the school’s prestige (it sits on top of the U.S. News medical school rankings most years), its incredible array of clinical and research opportunities, and access to a strong personal and professional network.
If you’re like most medical school applicants, you probably view Harvard as a long shot at best. Matriculants’ stats are among the highest, the acceptance rate is intimidatingly low, and the school carries a certain mystique that may lead you to wonder who exactly comprises this special student body.
Fortunately, our team has nearly 20 years of experience helping students gain admission to HMS. In fact, we routinely receive messages like this:
Our goal in this guide is to demystify the admissions process so you can learn how to get into Harvard Medical School rather than feel dejected about your chances. Read on for an overview of Harvard Medical School’s program offerings, admissions statistics, and requirements, plus guidance on how to write an outstanding personal statement and secondary essays, including successful examples. As an added bonus, we’ve included information on what Harvard Medical School looks for as told to us by one of our HMS adcom contacts.
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Part 2: Harvard Medical School MD programs
Before we dig into admissions statistics and strategies, it’s important to cover Harvard’s two distinct medical school curriculum options:
Pathways: The Harvard Pathways program offers a more traditional medical school education involving case-based learning, earlier clinical experiences (in the first few weeks of the first year), advanced science courses, and a research project. The majority of Harvard med students (approximately 80 percent) go through the Pathways program.
Health Sciences & Technology (HST): HST is a joint program between Harvard and MIT that focuses on biomedical research, basic sciences, and biotechnology. HST students (around 20 percent of each class) begin their clinical experiences later than Pathways students (mid-way through their second year) and pursue research activities more consistently throughout their medical education. HST students must also complete a research thesis to graduate.
Harvard offers a clear outline of the similarities and differences between Pathways and HST on their website, which we recommend viewing.
HMS also offers the following dual degree programs:
MD/PhD (in conjunction with MIT)
MD/MPH (in conjunction with the Harvard Chan School of Public Health)
MD/MBA (in conjunction with Harvard Business School)
MD/MPP (in conjunction with Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government)
Except for the MD/PhD program, students apply for dual-degree opportunities after being admitted to the MD program. HMS also offers a Master of Science in Bioethics (MBE) program and a Master of Medical Sciences in Biomedical Informatics (MMSc-BMI) program, both of which could supplement an MD.
Harvard Medical School tuition and scholarships
For the 2024–2025 academic year, first-year tuition at Harvard Medical School costs $71,032. When factoring in fees, insurance, and living expenses, the total first-year cost of attendance is $108,138.
While those numbers may be high, HMS also boasts generous financial aid, among the best in the country. Approximately 71 percent of Harvard med students receive financial aid each year, and students in the class of 2023 graduated with an average medical school debt of $103,519—well below the national average at both public and private med schools.
The average scholarship amount received at Harvard Medical School for the fiscal year 2024 was $59,915.
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Part 3: How hard is it to get into Harvard Medical School?
Given its acceptance rate of just 3.5 percent, getting into HMS is a challenge for even the best applicants. Knowing what Harvard Medical School looks for can help, but ultimately, you’ll need to produce a strong, solid application. Below are the Harvard Medical School admissions statistics for the class of 2027:
Applications: 6,986
Interviews: 789
Matriculants: 164
Pathways: 135, HST: 29, MD-PhD: 15
While helpful, these statistics don’t fully answer everyone’s favorite question: “How hard is it to get into Harvard Medical School?” To get a better sense of that, let’s review the academic data among accepted students:
Average GPA: 3.9
Average MCAT score: 520.59
Before you throw your hands up in defeat, consider that while Harvard’s average stats are quite high, not everyone getting in has a 3.9 GPA and 520 MCAT score. Given that these are average scores, approximately as many students with lower stats get in as those with higher stats. With a strong extracurricular background and systematic application approach, you’ll increase your odds of getting in.
Also, note that to apply to Harvard Medical School, you must submit MCAT scores taken within the past three years.
(Suggested reading: Average GPA and MCAT Score for Every Medical School)
Harvard Medical School admissions requirements
Coursework: Harvard requires you to complete the following prerequisites prior to enrolling:
Behavioral Sciences: Coursework in Behavioral Sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology, etc) is “encouraged.”
Biology: One year with lab. Should include cellular and molecular aspects. One semester of lab should be with corresponding corresponding coursework while a second semester may be fulfilled by independent laboratory research.
Chemistry: Two years with lab. Should include inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry.
Physics: One year. Lab is preferred but not required. (Note: HST applicants should complete additional calculus-based physics courses.)
Math: One year, including calculus and statistics is “encouraged” for Pathways applicants. In addition, coursework that includes upper-level mathematics (typically to include differential equations and/or linear algebra) is “strongly encouraged” for HST applicants.
Writing: One year. Writing intensive courses are preferred.
HMS also recommends that candidates participate in courses, extracurricular experiences, and activities that prepare them to:
understand human behavior
appreciate societal structure and function
achieve cultural awareness
In this regard, they encourage applicants to also take courses in literature, languages, arts, humanities, and social sciences.
(Suggested reading: Medical School Requirements: The Definitive Guide)
Extracurricular activities: In many ways, the extracurricular activities required or desired by Harvard Medical School are no different than those required by other medical schools. However, given the competitive applicant pool and Harvard’s commitment to recruiting the best med students, it’s important to demonstrate a multi-year commitment to the activities that most interest you, as well as high levels of achievement.
In other words, checking certain boxes—shadowing, patient exposure, community service, research—isn’t sufficient. You’ll want to go deep in a few related areas to develop a clear theme and help your application stand out.
Research: While the Harvard Med School website “encourages” research, it’s essentially a requirement, as 99 percent of matriculants completed research prior to enrolling, according to MSAR.
Shadowing and patient exposure: Experience shadowing physicians and gaining patient exposure during your premed years can also be considered a requirement.
Community service and volunteering: Most Harvard med students also pursue meaningful and longstanding community service and volunteer experiences before they’re accepted.
Letters of recommendation: HMS allows you to submit up to six letters of recommendation, with the following constraints:
At least two letters from science professors (i.e., with whom you took classes for a letter grade)
At least one letter from a non-science professor (i.e., with whom you took a graded class)
A committee letter/packet from your school (if applicable) counts as one letter toward your six-letter allowance
(Suggested reading: Medical School Letters of Recommendation: The Definitive Guide)
Harvard Medical School application timeline
Here are the dates and deadlines to be aware of as you apply to Harvard Medical School:
May 2, 2024: AMCAS application opens
May 30, 2024: AMCAS application can be submitted
Late June/early July 2024: HMS secondary application opens
September 2024–January 2025: Interviews conducted
October 15, 2024: AMCAS application deadline
October 22, 2024: HMS secondary application deadline
Early March 2024: Admissions decisions sent out
(Suggested reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)
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Part 4: Harvard Medical School personal statement (example included)
HMS requires that you apply using the AMCAS application. In order to do so, you must write a personal statement, which serves as an overview of your personal, academic, and extracurricular background and your path to medicine.
To give you a sense of how to write a personal statement at the level expected by top-tier medical schools, here is an essay written by a student who matriculated at Harvard Medical School. All identifying details and names have been changed.
It was strange to find myself at a hospital without a visitor’s desk or a cash register. I was volunteering at Raul Morales Hospital, a non-governmental organization that provides free medical care to people who are underserved in Mexico City. There I met Mr. Lopez, a middle-aged man who was homeless and suffering from hypertension, liver cirrhosis, and insomnia.
In the small hospital, I shadowed attending physician Dr. Reyes during her rounds, aided nurses, and helped maintain ward sanitation. While performing my duties, I had many opportunities to interact with a diverse group of patients. I met a homeless woman who wandered all over the country before she ended up in the hospital for breast cancer. I spoke with an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who had to leave his family to earn a living. I also taught a Nicaraguan boy how to use a computer for the first time. Although he left his home to receive surgery on his deformed spine, he never lost his youthful cheerfulness. All the people in the hospital loved to have him around. The patients in the wards got along well with each other, often playing cards or reading the Bible together. Though most of them had no house to return to, they made their home at the hospital. They welcomed me as a guest in their home, with bright smiles when language was a barrier.
However, there was one patient who did not fit in. He frequently quarreled with the other residents, and the nurses called him hopeless. Maybe they resented his lies when he tried to avoid taking his prescribed drugs or sneak out of the hospital to smoke a cigarette. When I first approached him, he told me to leave him alone. This was Mr. Lopez.
Despite his antics with the nurses, Mr. Lopez always showed respect to one person: Dr. Reyes. During one of Dr. Reyes’s daily rounds, I saw Mr. Lopez smile for the first time. In stark contrast to the way he treated the nurses, he answered the doctor’s questions completely and honestly. Occasionally, he would even crack a joke. Mr. Lopez seemed to find solace in Dr. Reyes even though he could not find it elsewhere. Pleasantly surprised, I asked Dr. Reyes how she had managed to get Mr. Lopez to open up. She told me that a doctor is responsible for gaining a patient’s trust to provide optimal care and that there is no magic recipe for this. It took Dr. Reyes an excruciatingly slow process of trial and error to develop a relationship with Dr. Lopez that transcended dependence.
So it began. I knew it would be difficult initially to connect with Mr. Lopez because he seemed to dislike most people’s company. Moreover, I still had to report Mr. Lopez whenever he lied to the nurses or tried to sneak out of the hospital. Obviously, that did not endear me to him. Mr. Lopez was only cooperative during meal time—he would always be the first to get in line and especially looked forward to having chicken mole. So, I tried to show Mr. Lopez extra care by saving him some leftovers whenever I oversaw food distribution. When Mr. Lopez looked bored, I sat by him to read books. Soon enough, I knew Mr. Lopez’s tough exterior was cracking because he began waving when he saw me.
With a sense of accomplishment, I realized that doctors are more than purveyors of medical knowledge and that they must lift patients’ spirits in addition to healing their bodies. I was mesmerized by this great responsibility and desired to serve as a true companion who understands and shares patients’ burdens when the weight of the world is buckling their knees.
Considering a doctor’s dual role, it is important to enhance the quality of physical and mental care. Connecting with Mr. Lopez interpersonally sped up the trial-and-error trust-building process that Dr. Reyes alluded to. On the other hand, expanding the scientific boundaries can improve the quality of medical treatments. During my time at Raul Morales Hospital, I found that so many prevalent conditions are still poorly understood. For instance, depression is a major risk factor for developing numerous medical conditions, but its causes generally remain mysterious, as was the case for Mr. Lopez. While working in a lab that studies how to improve emotional well-being to boost cancer survivorship rates, I came to believe in the potential of research to aid patients all over the globe. Therefore, I wish to become a physician-scientist who can contribute to improving medical therapy.
I greatly appreciated the lessons I learned from working with Mr. Lopez and wanted to stay longer to hear more of his stories. Nevertheless, my time in Mexico quickly ran out. On my final day at the hospital, I visited Mr. Lopez last. I slowly sat next to him and attempted to converse as usual. When it came time for me to leave, I reluctantly told him that I had to return to school in America. Mr. Lopez avoided looking into my eyes as I spoke. It was only when I stood up after saying a hesitant farewell that Mr. Lopez finally opened his mouth and uttered the six precious words that continually motivate me to strive to heal the body and the soul: “You will make a good doctor.”
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Part 5: Harvard Medical School secondary application essays (examples included)
After you complete your AMCAS application, Harvard will also require you to write several secondary essays. Since your medical school personal statement and AMCAS Work and Activities section (short descriptions of up to 15 extracurricular activities and awards) will be sent to all schools, secondaries offer your best opportunity to demonstrate how your background fits specifically with HMS.
Here are the current secondary essay prompts for Harvard Medical School along with guidance and examples that illustrate how you should go about answering them.
Question 1: If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation. (4000 characters)
This is a common question that you’ll see across a number of medical school applications. The main difference you’ll see between schools is the amount of space you’re permitted in your response.
4,000 characters is about 500 words, a significant chunk of space. Harvard has allowed students this kind of space in part because they’re aware different types of students have spent varying amounts of time outside of school, pursuing careers in and out of healthcare. But even if don’t use all 500 words to debrief on the five jobs you’ve held since finishing undergrad, you should recognize from the word count that Harvard expects you to treat this as an essay, not just as a quick informational prompt.
In other words: you need a thesis to shape how you’ve spent your time since graduation. Prove that you went in with a plan, goal, or, better yet, a question you wanted to answer. Explain how you got that answer and how it will make you a better physician.
Here’s a response by a student we’ll call Cecilia:
As an undergraduate, I always thought I had to choose between the humanities and medicine. I spent most of my college career splitting time. On weekday afternoons and evenings, I was in the lab. On weekend nights, I was at friends’ art shows, performing in theater productions myself, and hosting literary events. I declared my major, History of Science and Medicine, later than most. I went on to write my thesis on Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, and was hooked on the work of reconciling the humanities and medicine. It took me a long time to see how the two disciplines are intertwined, and I knew I wanted a chance to linger in this rare intellectual space that I feared I’d found too late.
That’s why it was important to me to take enough time between college and medical school to practice integrating the two halves of my intellectual personality. I spent the first year out of school on a Fulbright scholarship in India studying how the practice of traditional medicines like Ayurveda intersect with allopathic medicine, and trying to understand whether the government’s attempt to scientifically validate Ayurvedic practices is a worthwhile approach. The year gave me a chance to learn some Malayalam and to spend time with people who thought about healthcare from a completely different angle than most Western physicians. I think the year also gave me respect for where future patients might be coming from if and when they doubt my authority as a doctor in favor of traditional health practices. I have the vocabulary to address those practices with respect now.
After the Fulbright, I spent two years as a health and science reporter at the Boston Globe. While at the Globe, where I had interned for one summer in college, I had a chance to explore the challenges of medicine around the state and region. I reported on a small town losing its hospital in Maine, and I got to interview Dr. Atul Gawande several times. I audited a class at Harvard Divinity School about pastoral care, where I met ministers, rabbis, priests, and secular spiritual leaders trying to think about better ways to help people age. It was a true gift to get a chance to think about healthcare from non-clinical perspectives—to meet people who didn’t understand why they were losing their emergency room for an urgent care center, for instance—and understand their pain. It seems so easy to enter the vaunted halls of medicine and take on the jargon of the profession, relying on heuristic vocabulary that in the end abbreviates what it actually is to live in a sick, injured, debilitated or dying body—like the metaphor Sontag so critiques, and which I wrestled with in my thesis.
During these three years, I’ve also continued my involvement in the arts that have sustained me for my whole life, and this summer, I will be teaching art, dance, and storytelling to young people at a camp for neuro-atypical children, which my own younger brother attends every year.
I have always known I wanted to be a doctor, and I was premed from the first day of college. But I have also always known that I want to be a full person before embarking on my life as a physician, ready to serve my patients with experience and compassion. I have used these gap years as a way to better converge Cecilia the person with Cecilia the future doctor.
What makes this an effective response?
This essay opens with background information that shows how Cecilia found herself engaging in specific gap year activities. She doesn’t just jump into what she did; she explains why she is interested in those things and shares her relief when she discovered a way to intermingle two passions (the humanities and medicine). This is a strong starting point and lays the foundation for her to further elaborate on what she’s been doing since graduation.
It’s clear from Cecilia’s description that her time spent in India and working at the Globe was intentional and had a clear purpose. Since graduation, she had distinct goals—tied to medicine—and she devoted her time to serving people in India and her local community, relating these experiences to her future work as a physician.
The essay closes with a powerful statement about Cecilia’s ability to relate to and understand people and how this will prove beneficial in her work as a physician. That is exactly what HMS wants with this essay: how the way you spent your time since graduation will impact your future as a medical school student and, later, as a physician.
Question 2: If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity not addressed elsewhere in the application that may illuminate how you could contribute to the medical school and that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Examples might include significant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, or other aspects of your personal or family background to place your prior academic achievements in context or provide further information about your motivation for a career in medicine or the perspectives you might bring to the medical school community. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. (4000 characters)
Question 3: The Committee on Admissions understands that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted applicants in various ways. If you wish to inform the Committee as to how these events have affected you and have not already done so elsewhere in your application, please use this space to do so. (This is an optional essay; the Committee on Admissions will make no judgment based on your decision to provide a statement or not.) (4000 characters)
Question 4: The interview season for the 2023-2024 cycle will be held virtually and is anticipated to run from mid-September through January 2024. Please indicate any significant (three or more weeks) restriction on your availability for interviews during this period. If none, please leave this section blank.
Gain instant access to med school secondary essay examples for every single prompt required by every medical school in the United States and Canada. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will be increasing in the future for new subscribers.
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Part 6: Adcom insights: How HMS applications are evaluated
Unsurprisingly, most applicants are curious to know what happens behind the scenes after they’ve submitted their Harvard Medical School application. After countless hours assembling and perfecting your application, it’s only natural to wonder how it will be received.
We asked one of our HMS contacts to break down the application review process for the main HMS program, Pathways. In this section, we take you behind the scenes of the HMS admissions curtain to show you what Harvard Medical School looks for.
Once your AMCAS application, HMS secondary application, and all required letters of recommendation are submitted, faculty members manually review applications to decide whether to offer you an interview invitation. There are no hard numeric cutoffs; applicants with an MCAT score or GPA below the 10th percentile are often invited to interview if the other areas of their application are strong.
Each applicant who is selected to interview will be assigned two interviewers. Interviewers are usually physician faculty members from an HMS-affiliated medical institution, but you might sometimes interview with a 3rd-, 4th-, or 5th-year medical student who serves on the Committee on Admissions. Equal weight is given to the interview regardless of whether the interviewer is faculty or a student, and there are no particular factors that determine who conducts your interview, aside from personal availability.
After an interview, each interviewer will prepare a narrative summary of the applicant (typically no more than three paragraphs) elaborating on the interview and the rest of the application. The interviewer will often summarize the applicant’s unique strengths, interview insights, and provide a holistic application summary.
In other words, the interview is not the only item considered at this stage. All application components are considered holistically—including your MCAT, GPA, essays, letters of recommendation, and extracurriculars. Based on all of these factors, each interviewer will assign a single numeric overall score to the application.
Next, each applicant is assigned to one of four subcommittees based on their undergraduate institution. The same subcommittee reviews all students from the same undergraduate school to provide longitudinal context. The exception is students from Harvard College, who are assigned to subcommittees based on their House.
At each subcommittee, two members will review and present the application, interviewer narratives, interview score, and their own personal opinions to the rest of the subcommittee. The subcommittee members then collectively vote on whether or not to advance the applicant for discussion at the central committee. The interviewers’ scores are considered, but if they are deemed aberrant, the subcommittee can collectively overrule an interviewer’s assessment.
If your application moves to the main committee, the process repeats as two committee members present your application, interviewer narratives, interview score, and their own personal opinions. The chairs of each of the subcommittees also sit on the main committee to provide longitudinal context and clarification. The main committee will then give a final overall score to your application.
At the end of the application cycle, students are ranked by their scores, and offers of admission are extended to the top-scoring applicants. Offers of admission from the waitlist are also extended based on this ranking.
This system ensures that there is no scarcity of spots for admission based on when you interview and are reviewed during the cycle. A highly successful applicant who is reviewed at the end of the cycle can still receive a high score and, subsequently, an offer of admission.
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Part 7: Harvard Medical School interview
Although HMS sends out secondaries in early July, interviews begin in September each year, lasting until January. For the 2023–2024 application cycle, all interviews were held virtually. We will update this guide when HMS announces how they will be conducting interviews for the 2024-2025 cycle. (Note: You can take a virtual campus tour here.)
HMS uses a traditional interview format and, as noted earlier, invited students meet with two different interviewers. Interviewees typically report a relatively low-stress experience and feel that they performed well during the process.
Interviewers will have usually reviewed your application in-depth ahead of time and ask questions meant to genuinely understand your personal and professional motivations to pursue medicine, rather than try to grill you.
We’ve put together a list of common questions from our research that interviewees are often asked at HMS.
Why medicine?
What is the overarching theme to your activities?
Why Harvard?
What did you do at [insert undergrad institution]?
How did you end up doing X activity?
What do you enjoy doing when you're not working?
Is there anything else you would like to tell the committee?
Why is there so much inequality in healthcare delivery, even in Boston?
What is something about yourself that you are proud of?
Many of these questions are aimed at teasing out your motivations for attending Harvard and for studying medicine. While you may anticipate many of these questions, you might not have immediate answers to questions such as “What is the overarching theme to your activities?” or “What is something about yourself that you are proud of?”
When it comes to your interview you need to paint a holistic picture of yourself and your reasons for pursuing medicine that coalesces into a thoughtful and considered story. Preparing answers to common questions is a fantastic way to calm your nerves and ensure you leave a great impression.
(Suggested reading: How to Ace Your Medical School Interviews)
Final thoughts
Routinely ranked the top medical school in the United States, with each application cycle Harvard Medical School continues to attract the best and brightest students. For the greatest chances of earning a spot among them, you’ll need not only an excellent GPA and MCAT score, but also first-rate essays that will help you stand out from the crowd. By following the advice in this guide, you’ll maximize your odds of matriculating at Harvard Medical School next fall.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.
