Applying to medical school is an intense and difficult process. Many students have trouble even getting accepted into one. But Chelsea Batista, a senior at CUNY Brooklyn, beat those odds.

Batista has gotten offers from 11 medical schools so far, including Columbia, Einstein, NYU, Weill Cornell and Stony Brook. Most of these schools have an acceptance rate below 3%.



Here are Batista's tips for anyone pursuing competitive careers.



1) Start early



Batista has known she wanted a career in the medical sciences since junior high, so she attended a high school with a gateway-to-medicine program. She also participated in summer programs at medical schools well before she even started college.



2) See pre-reqs as an opportunity

Make the requirements align with your interests and try to do more than the minimum.



"There are a lot of requirements to follow while applying to medical school, but I made these requirements work for me," Batista tells CNBC. "Volunteering was a requirement, so I volunteered at the Woodhull Hospital in Bushwick, Brooklyn, as a way to give back to my community, because I was born there."

