
That's great.
I don't know if this is relevant to anyone in this thread since I am not waiting to hear from any more schools this cycle, but I thought I'd post anyway.
This process is so taxing on every aspect of your life. It makes you so anticipatory for the future and all the great things to come, yet it can beat you down with a few words of a letter or status page/email. You feel like a failure, and that you've wasted a year of your life if you have to reapply.
We need to try to keep each other positive. It's hard to do, especially when you interview in teh fall and then have to wait 8 or 9 months to hear anything. You can't make plans for the future because you don't know where you will be in the fall, if anywhere. But we're each other's best chance at sanity in this process. Kind of ironic when we're technically all vying for the same spots at the same schools.
It sucks to have to reapply, trust me, I know. I'm having to do it again for the entering class of 2007. I thought it was the end of the world last April when I got my last rejection letter. Even though it's a negative term, we're all at least part gunner, and failure isn't an option. Most of us have never experience failure in our lives, we've been the top of our classes in high school, on the Dean's List in college, and just about everything has always come easy to us. Rejection is unthinkable, and when it happens it's pretty traumatic.
I turned 24 in January of this year. If I get in I'll be 25 and a half when I start med school. I'll be 29 and a half when I graduate, and if I do a family practice residency for three years I'll be 32 before I'm out on my own. I can't imagine how those of you who are looking at longer residency specialites like surgery are feeling at the thought of rejection. And no offense to the older people in this thread, becuase I'm not saying 32 is old, but most pre-med who graduate at 21 or 22 and start med school right after college graduation get out of med school at 25 or 26. They're real doctors before the age of 30. Somehow thirty seems old when you just got done with college. Then again, I've been out of high school for six years (in June) so I guess I need to come to terms with the fact that I"m not 21 anymore.
😉
Anyway, please try to remember that it's not over yet for this year. From current med students that I've talked to at both ECU and UNC, a lot of acceptances go out in the last batch of decisions which come out in early may for ECU and in April sometime at UNC (unless it's changed from last year). After May 15 when people have to give up most of their multiple acceptances, I bet a lot of SDNers will get in.
Also, there are probably a lot more lurkers here who don't post and that can skew the perceived number of SDNers who are accepted. I was afraid to post for a long time because my MCATs were low and I had very little clinical experience. SDN can be depressing becuase it seems like everyone but you has an above 30 MCAT, has done overseas volunteer medical work, and has published several research papers. In reality there are a lot of above average applicants who have a lower than average GPA or a bad MCAT or some other situation that makes thier applications less-than-desirable when adcoms are initially reviewing them to determine if a secondary or interview is going to be offered. Many, many qualified applicants are rejected every year because there are only so many spots.
Personally, I think the NC residents should get together and figure out how to lobby for more state schools in NC. I have no idea how to go about this, but I think it would be agreat contribution for future applicants and also for the future health of our state. Tons of people retire here, and there are rural and underserved areas in the east and west parts of our state. There are also a lot of people who grew up in small towns and who would love to come back and practice in them after med school and residency. Until there are more schools and residency programs, most students will choose a bigger city with a better lifestyle to work in, or may even go out of state for residency. This is one of the reasons we have a physicain shortage on the horizon (as well as the aging population).
Maybe most of you don't want to work in a rural area, but I want to go into primary care and absolutely hate big cities. To me, Winston-Salem is a big city, althought a lot of you guys call it a small, conservatist town. Hey, at least it has a mall!
😛 I have to go two hours away before I find a mall.
ECU has done a lot of good things for rural eastern NC, but with a class size of only 72, they can only do so much. The western part of the state needs a med school, and if someone knows how to get the ball rolling please post and let me know.
A lot of you want to go to UNC because you can get a residency anywhere since the yhave such a good reputation. I'd be thrilled to go to UNC, of course, but in the end it doesn't really matter where I go to school because family medicine residencies aren't too competitive. And state schools are important for those of us going into primary care because of the lower cost than private or out-of-state schools.
Does anyone have any ideas?