Hey everyone, my story (pending passing the background check and finishing graduate school) had an extremely happy ending this year. It's so happy that I wonder if I'm still dreaming. I will be attending an MD program near home next fall. If I were to post my numerical stats as a non-URM on this board (PM for gory details), y'all would have a good laugh at them and tell me that I'd be lucky to get a DO acceptance. Also, I realize how much luck is involved given that I was accepted and many of the amazingly talented and qualified people I've seen on this thread are still waiting for an acceptance. With that said, here are some observations I made that were confirmed by my boss and friends who have sat on admissions committees that I truly hope people can use or at least consider if they need to reapply. I suspect many people here will be hearing good news in the next three months but this process is a long haul.
1)
If you're considering reapplication, prepare NOW. Yes, hope springs eternal but you do not, do not, do not want to find yourself in a position come May 15th where you need to reapply and you're sitting on a 27 MCAT or no clinical experience or no volunteering or a crap personal statement that you could have revamped but will now make your AMCAS submission late.
I so, so regret my haphazard MCAT prep/AMCAS submission. I should have made a better study plan to start or sucked it up and followed SN2ED but I didn't. I also submitted my primary in early July and made sure that I made my application cycle that. much. worse. If you know that you had a bad MCAT, start studying now or wait a year. If you think lack of volunteering/clinical experience hurt you, you could easily remedy that in the next two months and still have your primary in on time. Do not assume anything will work out. Think of yourself as the rule and not the exception and you will inevitably be happier. I think it's because you make smarter choices as a result.
2)
The interview will make or break your chances. Contrary to popular belief, there aren't people adcoms are just drooling over to accept as long as they can string together coherent sentences and people who they invited simply because they'd ordered 50 boxed lunches and needed four extra people to finish them and 46 applicants who they'd actually consider accepting. Every person I know who has sat on an adcom has said numbers are pretty irrelevant by the interview stage and that everyone is on a roughly equal playing field except for some obvious superstars. They are looking for you to sell yourself here and flesh out that AMCAS app.
They are looking for you to be sincere, to think on your feet and to answer questions correctly.
There are right and wrong answers at the interview. This means things like having a favorite fiction book when asked what was the last book you read or to say you'd reapply if asked what you'd do if you weren't accepted this year. Make sure you have a good answer to "Why medicine." This is a must. Have friends who've recently survived the gauntlet successfully interview you. This is key. Too many people squander this opportunity or don't use it at all, which is heartbreaking. You've made it this far. Now be your own spokesperson!
3)
Do not be modest. Emphasize how every experience on your application has made you more suited towards succeeding in medicine with concrete examples. If you've shadowed, remember the qualities of the physicians you most admired and emphasize how you've developed those qualities in your activity descriptions, personal statement and interviews. Every opportunity is an opportunity to sell yourself so don't hold back. Modesty will not win you points. Try to find some unifying themes in your journey to medicine (learning to lead, learning to listen, maturing through being pre-med) and emphasize those through your personal statement and activities. Tell your story so it has cohesion and sells why you'd make a great doctor. Everything should fit together so that each experience not only adds to your app but expounds upon these qualities that would make you a great physician. I emphasized an ability to see patterns, intellectual curiosity and empathy in my activities in statement and how all of my experiences helped me develop these qualities.
4)
If it didn't work this year, either have a significant change in your app or in how you present yourself. My app didn't change significantly and I applied later this year than I did last year. Hell, I delayed my app for an MCAT retake, only to get the same score last year but with more unbalanced subsections. I just had a much better personal statement and activities section. If you need to reapply, you need to re-start filling your AMCAS from scratch. Sorry. I also wrote some impassioned secondaries if I do say so myself
but my numbers were too low to really get that boost from good secondaries. I would trade my nicer activity summaries for an earlier app though. Remember, perfect is the enemy of good.
Finally, some SDN truisms hold so true:
1) You need a good MCAT and/or GPA. Box-checking is fine for EC's. Have a little bit of everything but do not be lacking in clinical experience/community service. EC's, no matter how impressive, never make up for bad numbers.
2) Apply early. It sucks if you're bad at deadlines but just do it this once. You will so thank yourself later. And by early, aim to have all secondaries completed by first week of August at the latest.
3) Letters of interest in November/December can really help. By January, they're too late.
4) Proofread everything. You don't know whether that misplaced "Penn" when you meant to write "Jefferson" could have cost you.
Minimize regrets wherever you can so that you can accept what is at times, a process that is obviously governed by humans who are as prone to mistakes and whimsy as we are. What helped more than anything this cycle is accepting that life isn't fair but it has a way of working out. It's so hard to remember but it's true. I'm a reapplicant. Honestly, I'm so much more prepared to be a great medical student and physician than I was last year. I'm so happy everything worked out this year when I was ready to take advantage of it. Another way of looking at it is that maybe life gives you what you want when you're ready for it. Either way, I acknowledge I got lucky.
Just keep the faith. If you want to be a physician, you will be.
