OH MY GOD Ahhhhhhhhh

thehopeful · May 26, 2005

I decided to post this in reapplicant section. After reading please advice on re-applying if you guys have been accepted before.

Okay guys please help, I need some SERIOUS advice. I love SDN and the people on it and I think this is the best place to get advice. This is probably going to be long but please help me.

Here's my story: I applied this cycle got 5 interviews and was accepted to a DO school, I don't want to go. There are many reasons why, first I do believe there is stigma there and will be after 4years when I apply for residency. I also have come to realize it is difficult to get into certain allopathic residency as a DO. I don't want this to turn into a MD/DO thing.
My stats are 3.63/30P. I have been to two summer programs, one of which was MMEP. I have been hospital volunteer for 5 years, I have done research and I have had leadership positions in some clubs.
I thought I would get into an MD program this year with my stats but I think it's not going to happen now.
So here are my options, go to DO school (I'm not going to do it), go to the Caribbean (I am thinking about it), re-apply. And if I reapply I am gonna have to answer the question "Have you ever been accepted to medical school, if so why didn't you go?" and I understand some adcoms will probably not like that fact that I said NO to a med school. Even thought, most of them in my position would probably do the same. If I reapply and not get in, I'll go to Caribbean and I'm cool with that, but I don't want to lose a year.

So I have come up with another option, what if I go to Caribbean (I have gotten into a school) and apply in US this upcoming cycle, if I get in then I'll go if not I can stay at carribbean. I understand the money for traveling and stuff but I don't and have never cared for money.

Please advice me, go to DO, Caribbean, re-apply. To me the most important thing is not to waste a year. You can PM me if you want.

Also, there are people on this board that have re-applied even thought they got into an MD school, b/c it wasn't their top choice, I remember seeing that thread. Can you give me advice on how you navigated the question that's on the application?

And please advice me on what to say on why I chose not to go to the DO school. I have some stuff as I wrote, but I need more.

Also, I didn't want to apply there AT ALL, but I got really bad advice from my advisor. After I told her I didn't wanna go there at all, she realized that she made a mistake on advicing me that but the damage is already done.

Thanx SDNers.

riceman04 · May 26, 2005

thehopeful said:
I decided to post this in reapplicant section. After reading please advice on re-applying if you guys have been accepted before.

Okay guys please help, I need some SERIOUS advice. I love SDN and the people on it and I think this is the best place to get advice. This is probably going to be long but please help me.

Heres my story: I applied this cycle got 5 interviews and was accepted to a DO school, I dont want to go. There are many reasons why, first I do believe there is stigma there and will be after 4years when I apply for residency. I also have come to realize it is difficult to get into certain allopathic residency as a DO. I dont want this to turn into a MD/DO thing.
My stats are 3.63/30P. I have been to two summer programs, one of which was MMEP. I have been hospital volunteer for 5 years, I have done research and I have had leadership positions in some clubs.
I thought I would get into an MD program this year with my stats but I think its not going to happen now.
So here are my options, go to DO school (Im not going to do it), go to the Caribbean (I am thinking about it), re-apply. And if I reapply I am gonna have to answer the question Have you ever been accepted to medical school, if so why didnt you go? and I understand some adcoms will probably not like that fact that I said NO to a med school. Even thought, most of them in my position would probably do the same. If I reapply and not get in, Ill go to Caribbean and Im cool with that, but I dont want to lose a year.

So I have come up with another option, what if I go to Caribbean (I have gotten into a school) and apply in US this upcoming cycle, if I get in then Ill go if not I can stay at carribbean. I understand the money for traveling and stuff but I dont and have never cared for money.

Please advice me, go to DO, Caribbean, re-apply. To me the most important thing is not to waste a year. You can PM me if you want.

Also, there are people on this board that have re-applied even thought they got into an MD school, b/c it wasnt their top choice, I remember seeing that thread. Can you give me advice on how you navigated the question thats on the application?

And please advice me on what to say on why I chose not to go to the DO school. I have some stuff as I wrote, but I need more.

Also, I didn't want to apply there AT ALL, but I got really bad advice from my advisor. After I told her I didn't wanna go there at all, she realized that she made a mistake on advicing me that but the damage is already done.

Thanx SDNers.

wow, good way to get more replies (possibly). I saw your thread in the pre-allopathic

thehopeful · May 26, 2005

riceman04 said:
wow, good way to get more replies (possibly). I saw your thread in the pre-allopathic

Well in pre-allo, it's mostly first time applicants, so they may not have had the full experience. and since i may be a re-applicant, I might as well post in this part of SDN.
so our schools are only couple of miles apart, riceman.

tacrum43 · May 26, 2005

thehopeful said:
I decided to post this in reapplicant section. After reading please advice on re-applying if you guys have been accepted before.

Okay guys please help, I need some SERIOUS advice. I love SDN and the people on it and I think this is the best place to get advice. This is probably going to be long but please help me.

Heres my story: I applied this cycle got 5 interviews and was accepted to a DO school, I dont want to go. There are many reasons why, first I do believe there is stigma there and will be after 4years when I apply for residency. I also have come to realize it is difficult to get into certain allopathic residency as a DO. I dont want this to turn into a MD/DO thing.
My stats are 3.63/30P. I have been to two summer programs, one of which was MMEP. I have been hospital volunteer for 5 years, I have done research and I have had leadership positions in some clubs.
I thought I would get into an MD program this year with my stats but I think its not going to happen now.
So here are my options, go to DO school (Im not going to do it), go to the Caribbean (I am thinking about it), re-apply. And if I reapply I am gonna have to answer the question Have you ever been accepted to medical school, if so why didnt you go? and I understand some adcoms will probably not like that fact that I said NO to a med school. Even thought, most of them in my position would probably do the same. If I reapply and not get in, Ill go to Caribbean and Im cool with that, but I dont want to lose a year.

So I have come up with another option, what if I go to Caribbean (I have gotten into a school) and apply in US this upcoming cycle, if I get in then Ill go if not I can stay at carribbean. I understand the money for traveling and stuff but I dont and have never cared for money.

Please advice me, go to DO, Caribbean, re-apply. To me the most important thing is not to waste a year. You can PM me if you want.

Also, there are people on this board that have re-applied even thought they got into an MD school, b/c it wasnt their top choice, I remember seeing that thread. Can you give me advice on how you navigated the question thats on the application?

And please advice me on what to say on why I chose not to go to the DO school. I have some stuff as I wrote, but I need more.

Also, I didn't want to apply there AT ALL, but I got really bad advice from my advisor. After I told her I didn't wanna go there at all, she realized that she made a mistake on advicing me that but the damage is already done.

Thanx SDNers.

Do NOT go to the carribean. I have heard bad things about it from 90%+ of the people who have gone there for medical school. Heck, I went there for vacation on a cruise ship and I still didn't like it much.

Reapply and explain that the reason why you initially applied to a D.O. school was that your advisor encouraged you, but after you were interviewed/accepted, you realized it was not for you. You could say that the degree conferred is not very compatible with your career goals, because you want to specialize in [insert competitive subspecialty here]. In addition, you could say that in your heart you knew you would not be happy there and that it is worth the extra time for you to apply to other schools again this year. I would not go to a Carribean school in the intervening year though.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't have gotten into med school this year with a 30 and 3.6, volunteering, research and being a minority, unless you only applied to top schools. I think you should apply to a broader variety of M.D. schools in the U.S.this coming year, and do something that interests you in the mean time. Maybe a job working at a lab?

I didn't get into the D.O./M.D. thing because you seem pretty set on an M.D., but for myself as a reapplicant, a D.O. will do fine if no M.D. school accepts me this year.

Law2Doc · May 26, 2005

thehopeful said:
I decided to post this in reapplicant section. After reading please advice on re-applying if you guys have been accepted before.

Okay guys please help, I need some SERIOUS advice. I love SDN and the people on it and I think this is the best place to get advice. This is probably going to be long but please help me.

Heres my story: I applied this cycle got 5 interviews and was accepted to a DO school, I dont want to go. There are many reasons why, first I do believe there is stigma there and will be after 4years when I apply for residency. I also have come to realize it is difficult to get into certain allopathic residency as a DO. I dont want this to turn into a MD/DO thing.
My stats are 3.63/30P. I have been to two summer programs, one of which was MMEP. I have been hospital volunteer for 5 years, I have done research and I have had leadership positions in some clubs.
I thought I would get into an MD program this year with my stats but I think its not going to happen now.
So here are my options, go to DO school (Im not going to do it), go to the Caribbean (I am thinking about it), re-apply. And if I reapply I am gonna have to answer the question Have you ever been accepted to medical school, if so why didnt you go? and I understand some adcoms will probably not like that fact that I said NO to a med school. Even thought, most of them in my position would probably do the same. If I reapply and not get in, Ill go to Caribbean and Im cool with that, but I dont want to lose a year.

So I have come up with another option, what if I go to Caribbean (I have gotten into a school) and apply in US this upcoming cycle, if I get in then Ill go if not I can stay at carribbean. I understand the money for traveling and stuff but I dont and have never cared for money.

Please advice me, go to DO, Caribbean, re-apply. To me the most important thing is not to waste a year. You can PM me if you want.

Also, there are people on this board that have re-applied even thought they got into an MD school, b/c it wasnt their top choice, I remember seeing that thread. Can you give me advice on how you navigated the question thats on the application?

And please advice me on what to say on why I chose not to go to the DO school. I have some stuff as I wrote, but I need more.

Also, I didn't want to apply there AT ALL, but I got really bad advice from my advisor. After I told her I didn't wanna go there at all, she realized that she made a mistake on advicing me that but the damage is already done.

Thanx SDNers.

It's not clear to me whether any of your interviews were allopathic, but if they were, you need to get in touch with those schools at which you were rejected and ask them nicely how you might improve your application for next year. (Basically, you want to find out why you were rejected so you can fix it). As for stigma and competitive residency difficulty, if you are troubled by the DO track, you are really not going to like the carribean route at all -- it's significantly harder.

Kazema · May 26, 2005

tacrum43 said:
Do NOT go to the carribean. I have heard bad things about it from 90%+ of the people who have gone there for medical school. Heck, I went there for vacation on a cruise ship and I still didn't like it much.

Reapply and explain that the reason why you initially applied to a D.O. school was that your advisor encouraged you, but after you were interviewed/accepted, you realized it was not for you. You could say that the degree conferred is not very compatible with your career goals, because you want to specialize in [insert competitive subspecialty here]. In addition, you could say that in your heart you knew you would not be happy there and that it is worth the extra time for you to apply to other schools again this year. I would not go to a Carribean school in the intervening year though.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't have gotten into med school this year with a 30 and 3.6, volunteering, research and being a minority, unless you only applied to top schools. I think you should apply to a broader variety of M.D. schools in the U.S.this coming year, and do something that interests you in the mean time. Maybe a job working at a lab?

I didn't get into the D.O./M.D. thing because you seem pretty set on an M.D., but for myself as a reapplicant, a D.O. will do fine if no M.D. school accepts me this year.

This is the best advice anyone's posted in either this or the other thread. Go with what tacrum said.

Hoya11 · May 26, 2005

Are you a URM? I didnt get that from your post.

Either way, you appear to have the numbers for med school.

If you want solid advice, list your mcat breakdown and undergrad college and sci/overall gpas. ANd URM status since I missed it.

As far as applying again when being accepted. You really werent accepted. Being accepted to a DO school and not going or to a carribean school and not going is FAAR different than turning down a US allopathic school.

As far as the carribean, I hear it is very hard also. 400 kids in your class, mostly with MCATs in the teens/low 20s. I mean do you really want to be there?

That being said i ran into someone while on vacation in the cariibean who was a med student at St. Martin med school, whatever it is called, and he seemed very happy and very into his school, and convinced he never would have gotten into md school in america. He was a 30+ year old with a 27 mcat, I asked him. And I feel like he was prob in the tops of his class, with plans to return to the US immediately after graduation.

So, the carribean is a plan B for sure, but you need to keep pursuing plan A.

And in my opinion you need to chill about "wasting a year". If you do something interesting that year, like teach in an inner city school, volunteer in some hospital near you, nothing painful like a trek to africa to cure aids, you will vastly improve your app, add color to your essay, and be a MUCH better candidate for next year. You can also use the extra time to apply early.

I mean, this takes some people 5/6 years to get into med school, no joke. Do not worry about the one extra year when you will be working for 50+ years. Would you rather be 60 and a grad of NYMC/Drexel/US school or carribean grad?

Dont do carribean, chill out for a year, do something you like/looks good, reapply early and go with it. Turn down the DO/carribean.

DrMom · May 26, 2005

duplicate thread, so closing.

OH MY GOD Ahhhhhhhhh

thehopeful

Senior Member

riceman04

Full Member

thehopeful

Senior Member

tacrum43

Behold the mighty echidna

Law2Doc

5K+ Member

Kazema

In a kingdom by the sea

Hoya11

Senior Member

DrMom

Official Mom of SDN

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