Ask questions at office hours. Lots of them. The other kids will hate you, but at least the professor will remember your name come recommendation time.

Buddy up to your TAs. Pre-med or not, this can only help.

Choose your classes wisely. There’s “challenging” and then there’s ass-rape. Med schools won’t care if you were the highest or lowest B in the class, and they certainly won’t care “what you got out of it.”

Don’t procrastinate doing your applications.

Exercise; eat healthy; spare your liver once in a while. Be nice to your body, because mental acuity will only take you so far. And if you don’t believe me, try taking the MCAT on only four hours of sleep. By section 286 you’ll see what I mean.

Forget about that C+ you got in Gen. Chem. freshman year. No one did well freshman year. We were all too busy trying to figure out the difference between Uris Hall and Uris Library to get legitimate studying done. Weill Cornell will understand. (I hope)

Get involved in extracurricular stuff. If there are still underprivileged kids to be tutored, puppies to be adopted or legless orphans out there to be fed, your job as a pre-med is not complete! Nothing says “I’m a good person” quite like serving soup to the homeless. And, y’know, you might even actually become a good person from doing it. Crazy thought, I know. Either way, “Halo champion” will not suffice on your resume to Harvard Med.

Have a backup plan. Just in case.

Isolate yourself from psycho pre-meds. Especially the bloodsuckers. They are bad. Very, very bad.

Just chilllllll out once in a while. You know why people hate pre-meds? ’Cause we’re uptight. We think we’re the only ones with work to do. Yeah, I know it’s hard not to stab your hotelie roommate in the face when she comes back drunk for the fourth night in a row and you’re manically studying for that last orgo prelim ... but try and keep your cool. You can take solace in the fact that you’ll be writing her herpasil prescriptions about 10 years from now.

Kiss ass like none other.

Love medicine. Care about people. Understand your reasons for wanting to become a doctor, and make sure they’re your own.

Manage stress. Don’t jump!

Never lose your confidence. You will get into med school ... somewhere. Eventually.

Own your own textbooks. While saving the hundred and eighty some-odd dollars might seem like a good idea at the time, your sanity is worth much, much more. And if you think Samira from biochemistry is going to share her textbook with you, you have a wholeeeeeeee ’nother thing coming.

Play fair. Do NOT steal your classmate’s orgo textbook from the library, even though the little idiot left it unattended for four hours. Do NOT steal pages out of library course reserves. Do NOT tell your TA your lab partner called her fat to make him look bad. Competition is a good thing, but no one likes a weasel.

Question the advice of other pre-meds who’ve “been through it.” That includes this column.

Realize you don’t necessarily have to be a biology major to get into medical school. If that’s your thing, great. But if it’s not, keep in mind that humanities majors have just as good a chance at getting in as science majors do. And we actually get to enjoy our classes.

Study your ass off. Your GPA matters. A lot.

Take the MCAT early if you’re planning on applying the following year. Spots fill up fast.

Understand that you’re not really competing against pre-meds here. You’re competing against pre-meds EVERYWHERE. So when type-A Amanda from Physics 207 tells you that she has a 3.8 science GPA, a 37 MCAT and 12 interviews ... just remember Mark from Stanford, who has a 3.9 GPA, a 40 MCAT and 17 interviews. And a mom on Columbia’s Admissions Committee. And a published cure for cancer. You can’t beat em all.

Visit the medical schools you apply to. Yes, East Tennessee Med. sounds great on paper — but do you really want to live in East Tennesssee for 4+ years of your life??

Watch your back. Some of the other pre-meds are ca-razy!!! Whoever stole that poor girl’s orgo notebook the day before the prelim sophomore year, I hope you get syphilis.

Xerox copies of stuff you send to AMCAS/med schools. They, uh, tend to lose things a lot.

Yell if you catch someone trying to steal your stuff from the library. At this point, I encourage violence and/or public execution.

Zzzzz’s are vital. Make sure you’re getting enough. Invest in earplugs ... or a shotgun ... if you’re not.

P.S. Take this advice at your own risk. I don’t actually know what I’m doing, nor have I actually gotten into any medical schools yet. This could all just be a part of my master plan to sabotage you all. Muahahaha.

P.P.S. When I told my best friend Maria, who is also pre-med, that I was planning on writing a column offering advice to the other pre-meds out there, all she did was look at me with disgust and ask, “Why are you helping them??”

P.P.P.S. In my last column, while referring to the actions of a few questionable individuals, I inadvertently stereotyped the entire Hare-Krishna group as scammers and charlatans. This was highly uncool, and definitely my bad. Hare Krishnas, as a group, are neither of those things, but rather followers of a legitimate, respectable faith. I sincerely regret this error.

P.P.P.P.S. My position on Dirty Hippies still stands.