2015 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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Glycereine said:
If you have 2 experiences to use still I'd go ahead and separate them so you can talk more about ut


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juliuspepperwood said:
I would have split my hobbies if I could, I was just really tight on activities. So if you have room go for it.
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Thanks! I think I will split it, then I can make that one hobby as one of my MM and not have the others bunched in.
I have plenty of space left, I am purposefully not filling all 15 because I read a few places not too. If I split out this one hobby i'll have 11, with 3 MM.
 
MedicalMomma81 said:
I'm so close to submitting my application, I wasn't rushing since MCAT score won't be in until August. And, in the extra week I really nailed down my PS.

What do you guys think about putting my main hobby (showing horses) and then doing a spereate one for my other more minor (but still important) hobbies under another heading?

Or, should I focus on the main hobby and then list the others at the bottom?
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If you have the room go for it.

I had a main hobby under one section then all the rest under their own section. Then I was told to remove my main hobby since it makes me seem far too weird so I replaced it with something more normal. The others are still there though.
 
Just thought I would say hi and good luck to all my fellow nontrads this cycle. Long time lurker and infrequent poster on the nontrad forum, I'm a late twenties, career changer, and hoping to have some love from my schools this year. I applied super late last year to only a couple schools, which was a total waste of money/time, and feeling more optimistic about my applications this time around. I've applied broadly MD and DO (~20 school, may add more schools later, seeing how things go), since my stats are average at best, but I'm well rounded and did killer in my post-bacc, so hopefully I'll get some interviews. My AACOMAS got verified today, and I'm just waiting on my AMCAS (waited on one of my many transcripts till 6/6). Looking for some motivation to start pre-writing all my secondaries. Wishing everyone the best this year!
 
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Verified! Finally some good news...AMCAS calculated my BCPM at 3.91! Overall was around what I thought (3.72). Unfortunately shows my graduate GPA for law school (3.00), but oh well, law schools is tough hah.

Anyway, for people who are tracking stats:
Submitted June 4; Verified June 12.
 
Inygma said:
Verified! Finally some good news...AMCAS calculated my BCPM at 3.91! Overall was around what I thought (3.72). Unfortunately shows my graduate GPA for law school (3.00), but oh well, law schools is tough hah.

Anyway, for people who are tracking stats:
Submitted June 4; Verified June 12.
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Also submitted June 4 and verified today.
BCPM 3.7 and post bac total 3.77

The way they divided it up gave me a higher post bac but lower undergrad. Hopefully that works in my favor not against me.

1 less thing to stress about!

Also had another letter received today. Only need 1 more


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Glycereine said:
Also submitted June 4 and verified today.
BCPM 3.7 and post bac total 3.77

The way they divided it up have me a higher post bac but lower undergrad. Hopefully that works in my favor not against me.

1 less thing to stress about!

Also had another letter received today. Only need 1 more


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I am not sure they care that it was post-bacc or not, other than for a "grade trend". I think they still just care what overall/science gpa is
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Application Submitted:
JUNE 11,2014 07:24:45 PM ET
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My guess is that a misproportionately high number of people submit on June 3rd (1st day) and significantly fewer each day after, so although the queue times are over a week now they probably won't climb too quickly, and I would think that people submitting now will probably be verified before the initial submission goes out from AMCAS on the 27th.

My guess is something like 7 working days worth of apps to process were submitted on the 3rd, and only 1-2 days worth on each day after. Which would mean someone submitting today should be verified in about 2 weeks, maybe even less as AMCAS catches up.
 
Glycereine said:
My guess is that a misproportionately high number of people submit on June 3rd (1st day) and significantly fewer each day after, so although the queue times are over a week now they probably won't climb too quickly, and I would think that people submitting now will probably be verified before the initial submission goes out from AMCAS on the 27th.

My guess is something like 7 working days worth of apps to process were submitted on the 3rd, and only 1-2 days worth on each day after. Which would mean someone submitting today should be verified in about 2 weeks, maybe even less as AMCAS catches up.
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Thanks. I think my transcript arrived 6/10 based on USPS speed and such. So they are about a week behind on transcripts. They probably won't check it in until the 17th. So I won't be ready for review until then.

Not much I can do about it though. Lesson learned.
 
doh 🙁. Yeah I had that issue I submitted immediately on the 3rd but the transcript I was waiting on wasn't marked until the 4th.

They seemed to catch up more on transcripts today so I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!
 
Glycereine said:
doh 🙁. Yeah I had that issue I submitted immediately on the 3rd but the transcript I was waiting on wasn't marked until the 4th.

They seemed to catch up more on transcripts today so I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!
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Thanks!
 
Well it was a good evening. I figured out what I'm going to write my diversity essay about. And I will probably also use it for greatest challenge. I pitched the idea to my husband and he said it was good! We'll see how it sounds in the morning.
 
AMCAS is currently marking as RECEIVED transcripts delivered on June 8, 2014.Last Updated June 13, 2014 at 9:21AM

June 8 was a Sunday. AMCAS is so strange!
 
Submitted 6/9, all transcripts received, including a spring grades update, letters in to veCollect, committee letter process finished back in April. Just waiting for MCAT score and starting to pre-write the most common secondary topics, since I don't know where I am applying yet.
Put down Commonwealth as my throwaway school to get into the application queue, figuring I have a decent chance there with a >30 MCAT since I have family in the area, only to find out that they can assign first-years to remote campuses from day 1. I don't have a license yet, never mind a car. I figured I would have until M2 summer to pull together the cash to buy a vehicle. Might not be returning that secondary...
 
SPionic said:
Submitted 6/9, all transcripts received, including a spring grades update, letters in to veCollect, committee letter process finished back in April. Just waiting for MCAT score and starting to pre-write the most common secondary topics, since I don't know where I am applying yet.
Put down Commonwealth as my throwaway school to get into the application queue, figuring I have a decent chance there with a >30 MCAT since I have family in the area, only to find out that they can assign first-years to remote campuses from day 1. I don't have a license yet, never mind a car. I figured I would have until M2 summer to pull together the cash to buy a vehicle. Might not be returning that secondary...
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Nice job! Now what's this about Commonwealth? Why? It's on my list but not if I have to commute by car it's not.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
AMCAS is currently marking as RECEIVED transcripts delivered on June 8, 2014.Last Updated June 13, 2014 at 9:21AM

June 8 was a Sunday. AMCAS is so strange!
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Don't worry - for a while, they were 'currently processing applications marked Ready for Review on June 2nd.'
 
Random question, but I used this MCAT Question a Day for studying, but they also have this admissions database (not really sure where they get the data from though). Has anyone else taken a look at it? It's not super helpful but I was curious what other people thought.

http://www.mcatquestion.com/schools/search_fe.php?
 
SPionic said:
Submitted 6/9, all transcripts received, including a spring grades update, letters in to veCollect, committee letter process finished back in April. Just waiting for MCAT score and starting to pre-write the most common secondary topics, since I don't know where I am applying yet.
Put down Commonwealth as my throwaway school to get into the application queue, figuring I have a decent chance there with a >30 MCAT since I have family in the area, only to find out that they can assign first-years to remote campuses from day 1. I don't have a license yet, never mind a car. I figured I would have until M2 summer to pull together the cash to buy a vehicle. Might not be returning that secondary...
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Do y'all recommend putting one school down on your primary while waiting for the MCAT to come back? A school that isn't on the top of your list in case you have to reapply?



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Fork909 said:
Do y'all recommend putting one school down on your primary while waiting for the MCAT to come back? A school that isn't on the top of your list in case you have to reapply?



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Yes. Just to get yourself in line for verification.
 
Ok paranoia apparently is setting in. Had a dream last night I was talking to someone doing the application and they asked how I did the other two essays after the PS! Hahah crazy talk.
 
canadianinusa said:
For everyone who has submitted to AMCAS, what is next? How can you prepare for secondaries?

Next up for me is OMSAS! It's less time sensitive than AMCAS, but I want to get ahead as I am worried that work is going to get pretty crazy soon.
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I'm just brainstorming things and ideas like about what's a challenging thing I've done or what I'm looking to do in my career as a physician.
 
canadianinusa said:
Thanks! Sadly, the thread for my target school is dead, and no prompt! I'll check out the neighbouring states and see what they ask. It's probably similar.
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What school? One of us might have the questions.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
AMCAS is currently marking as RECEIVED transcripts delivered on June 8, 2014.Last Updated June 13, 2014 at 9:21AM

June 8 was a Sunday. AMCAS is so strange!
Click to expand...

In some situations, the post office will do a Sunday run. Had that happen once, I was completely wigged out.
 
Thought I'd have my primary in by now... But a PI had some harsh but constructive criticism for my Personal Statement so I set up an appointment with the resource center at my undergrad and spoke to them today.
Turns out that I did a meh job of addressing the 'why' part of the equation. I have a week to reboot my PS. I'll submit by the end of June.

It also really made me think about the 'why medicine' bit, because my answer is very linked to international work I've done and I was hesitant to talk a lot about that in the PS for obvious reasons. Lets see how this goes.
 
ridethecliche said:
Thought I'd have my primary in by now... But a PI had some harsh but constructive criticism for my Personal Statement so I set up an appointment with the resource center at my undergrad and spoke to them today.
Turns out that I did a meh job of addressing the 'why' part of the equation. I have a week to reboot my PS. I'll submit by the end of June.

It also really made me think about the 'why medicine' bit, because my answer is very linked to international work I've done and I was hesitant to talk a lot about that in the PS for obvious reasons. Lets see how this goes.
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Why not talk about international work?

Glad your PS is going to be even better. Totally worth the wait IMO.
 
I was hoping to find some help with my PS. I'm a critical care RN and work at a pharmaceutical company as a clinical data coordinator with a background in teaching and admin work at a medical school and physician's office. My first draft was basically a regurgitation of my resume as I felt the need to explain the past 7 years of my life. I've reworked it to tell more of a story that demonstrates my character and desire to practice medicine. I saw there were some people offering exchanges and didn't know if that anybody was still open to that. Any feedback would be appreciated! PM me if you can help.
 
TriNurse said:
I was hoping to find some help with my PS. I'm a critical care RN and work at a pharmaceutical company as a clinical data coordinator with a background in teaching and admin work at a medical school and physician's office. My first draft was basically a regurgitation of my resume as I felt the need to explain the past 7 years of my life. I've reworked it to tell more of a story that demonstrates my character and desire to practice medicine. I saw there were some people offering exchanges and didn't know if that anybody was still open to that. Any feedback would be appreciated! PM me if you can help.
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I can help with this!

Also, are people feeling a little antsy about the number of schools? I am heavily considering adding more.. it's just money right? 🙁
 
ConsultantMD said:
I can help with this!

Also, are people feeling a little antsy about the number of schools? I am heavily considering adding more.. it's just money right? 🙁
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Originally, I was only going to apply to the public schools in my state. I just paid off my loans from my second degree and am in no rush to take on unnecessary loans. Talking with several people, however, they made me realize it truly is a numbers game and the more places you apply, the better chances you have of of getting in. I have no clue the average number of schools people apply to though.
 
ConsultantMD said:
I can help with this!

Also, are people feeling a little antsy about the number of schools? I am heavily considering adding more.. it's just money right? 🙁
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Haha yea I definitely keep expanding my list. I cut some schools from last year but now I am adding new ones...
 
TriNurse said:
I was hoping to find some help with my PS. I'm a critical care RN and work at a pharmaceutical company as a clinical data coordinator with a background in teaching and admin work at a medical school and physician's office. My first draft was basically a regurgitation of my resume as I felt the need to explain the past 7 years of my life. I've reworked it to tell more of a story that demonstrates my character and desire to practice medicine. I saw there were some people offering exchanges and didn't know if that anybody was still open to that. Any feedback would be appreciated! PM me if you can help.
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I already sent mine off but I would be happy to help you. @ConsultantMD read mine and was very helpful.
 
Hey all, I need clarification on something I asked before in terms of submitting an app to one school.

When submitting your primary for verification, is it best to make the one school a top choice or a school that is on the bottom of your list? I can think of arguments for both cases.

I'm not as hip as the younger pre-med crowd so I'm not sure about this one...my premed advisor had no comment. Thanks 🙂
 
You can do it that way so you can get in line for verification.

Which I only finally became ready for review today.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
I am not going to bring it up at all unless specifically asked. My thinking is I don't want to waste time and/or energy (ad coms') on something that's not adding strength to my application. Furthermore, I worked for a large company and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone else out there did get a LOR and applied to medical school. At which point I look like I'm either dishonest or not awesome enough for a LOR.
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👍
This is the perfect response to any "should I explain _ (insert a real or imaginary deficiency here) in my primary/secondary?" question. You don't want to attract attention to anything negative in your application, unless it's something glaring like very poor grades during a difficult period of your life or something like that, then you should write about how your overcame the difficulties, which makes you resilient, adaptable and all around awesome 😉 On the other hand, if it's something small, chances are, it will be overlooked by adcoms, so you shouldn't attract their attention to it. Most importantly, most "deficiencies" are simply not worth the valuable application space/adcom time to explain. Think about it this way: you only have one chance and a limited amount of time to make a first impression - are you going to start by apologizing for not having had time to shave this morning, or are you going to talk about what a busy and interesting life you lead?

@milski : don't sweat it 🙂 I'm sure you're not the only one in this position; in fact, getting LORs is difficult for many nontrads. As long as you have some strong LORs that meet the school's requirements, it doesn't matter which LORs you don't have.
 
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Fork909 said:
Hey all, I need clarification on something I asked before in terms of submitting an app to one school.

When submitting your primary for verification, is it best to make the one school a top choice or a school that is on the bottom of your list? I can think of arguments for both cases.

I'm not as hip as the younger pre-med crowd so I'm not sure about this one...my premed advisor had no comment. Thanks 🙂
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It depends. If you score low on the MCAT will you still apply to your top choice or your bottom choice? Usually people put a bottom choice in case they have to delay their app for a year. You will be considered a re-applicant at the school you put if you decide to delay app, therefore, it is better to put a school you don't care too much if you go to.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Why not talk about international work?

Glad your PS is going to be even better. Totally worth the wait IMO.
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I don't know. It always feels soppy. A lot of the 'why medicine' question for me has to do with this as well, but I feel awkward talking about it. I worked in Uganda for two summers doing HIV/AIDS work at 2 NGO's. Then I worked in the US at an HIV/ID Clinic for two years. There's definitely continuity there, but I don't work in ID now.

The idea of how medicine goes beyond the patient struck me then and is a theme I see now because of that work. I really didn't want to harp on that, but apparently it's the only reason I can give an answer to 'Why Medicine'. So I guess it's important, eh?
 
ridethecliche said:
I don't know. It always feels soppy. A lot of the 'why medicine' question for me has to do with this as well, but I feel awkward talking about it. I worked in Uganda for two summers doing HIV/AIDS work at 2 NGO's. Then I worked in the US at an HIV/ID Clinic for two years. There's definitely continuity there, but I don't work in ID now.

The idea of how medicine goes beyond the patient struck me then and is a theme I see now because of that work. I really didn't want to harp on that, but apparently it's the only reason I can give an answer to 'Why Medicine'. So I guess it's important, eh?
Click to expand...

You don't have to fit everything into your PS. I tried that with my first few drafts and they were too full of information and didn't really show my character or story. One of the people at the writing centers told me to pick a few meaningful stories and write them out. Is there a theme that evolves? That was helpful for me. Reading examples of how people used meaningful stories to demonstrate their passion and character while tying in threads of experiences seemed to make a more impactful PS.
 
TriNurse said:
You don't have to fit everything into your PS. I tried that with my first few drafts and they were too full of information and didn't really show my character or story. One of the people at the writing centers told me to pick a few meaningful stories and write them out. Is there a theme that evolves? That was helpful for me. Reading examples of how people used meaningful stories to demonstrate their passion and character while tying in threads of experiences seemed to make a more impactful PS.
Click to expand...

The person at my undergrad resource center that read mine said that mine read a bit much like a walking resume, but also I didn't answer the 'why medicine'. She said I did a good job of showing experiences and meaningful things, but fell short of talking about the impact on me, etc.
 
It's out of my hands at this point but I feel like I didn't spend enough time on my personal statement compared to alot of you...

Hope I'm wrong :-/
 
Amygdarya said:
👍
This is the perfect response to any "should I explain _ (insert a real or imaginary deficiency here) in my primary/secondary?" question. You don't want to attract attention to anything negative in your application, unless it's something glaring like very poor grades during a difficult period of your life or something like that, then you should write about how your overcame the difficulties, which makes you resilient, adaptable and all around awesome 😉 On the other hand, if it's something small, chances are, it will be overlooked by adcoms, so you shouldn't attract their attention to it. Most importantly, most "deficiencies" are simply not worth the valuable application space/adcom time to explain. Think about it this way: you only have one chance and a limited amount of time to make a first impression - are you going to start by apologizing for not having had time to shave this morning, or are you going to talk about what a busy and interesting life you lead?

@milski : don't sweat it 🙂 I'm sure you're not the only one in this position; in fact, getting LORs is difficult for many nontrads. As long as you have some strong LORs that meet the school's requirements, it doesn't matter which LORs you don't have.
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Thanks, Amy! While "I don't want to waste time/energy" is one of my main driving forces, it is nice to have a confirmation when it really applies to certain situations. 😉 Seriously though, LORs were probably one of my weakest areas last year and I'm trying to correct as much as I can. At this point there is not much more that I can change, so I'm doing with sweating about it (living in Seattle also help with that 😉 ).
 
milski said:
Thanks, Amy! While "I don't want to waste time/energy" is one of my main driving forces, it is nice to have a confirmation when it really applies to certain situations. 😉 Seriously though, LORs were probably one of my weakest areas last year and I'm trying to correct as much as I can. At this point there is not much more that I can change, so I'm doing with sweating about it (living in Seattle also help with that 😉 ).
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I worry sometimes about my LORs because I didn't see most of them. I know the professors all liked me and I did well in their classes but it's hard to tell what they wrote.
 
Glycereine said:
I worry sometimes about my LORs because I didn't see most of them. I know the professors all liked me and I did well in their classes but it's hard to tell what they wrote.
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I've never seen mine either. For at least one of my professors, based on the time between receiving my email with a link on how to submit to AMCAS and receiving the receipt from AMCAS, I just hope that he managed to put my name in their template. 😀
 
My committee packet has letters from 3 physicians I work with and a JC science professor. I'm getting another letter from my current boss, another physician, to cover this gap year. I always wonder if the lack of LORs from professors from my 4 year is an issue, but all my classes were hundreds of people and I never got the time to know them. I think LORs are always tricky, even if you're confident they are good who knows how they will play with who is reading them. Just like the rest of the app though I guess.
 
juliuspepperwood said:
My committee packet has letters from 3 physicians I work with and a JC science professor. I'm getting another letter from my current boss, another physician, to cover this gap year. I always wonder if the lack of LORs from professors from my 4 year is an issue, but all my classes were hundreds of people and I never got the time to know them. I think LORs are always tricky, even if you're confident they are good who knows how they will play with who is reading them. Just like the rest of the app though I guess.
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I've heard one teacher for a non-trad is looked upon as just fine, unlike if you were trad.
 
Inygma said:
I've heard one teacher for a non-trad is looked upon as just fine, unlike if you were trad.
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That's interesting. I went way out of my way to get my 3 letters and actually ended up with 4 from professors, one as long as 11 years ago...

Now I'm wondering if I should not use that one since it's sight unseen...
 
Glycereine said:
That's interesting. I went way out of my way to get my 3 letters and actually ended up with 4 from professors, one as long as 11 years ago...

Now I'm wondering if I should not use that one since it's sight unseen...
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I'm not sure what the deal is without a committee packet, though I think you are fine with 3 if you are unsure of one.
 
It's not that I'm unsure, it's that it's all unknown. All 4 professors really liked me and I got A's in all of their classes.

The question is whether to use one of them that is more recent but from an online class, or the one from 11 years ago from a professor I had from 3 physics courses at my undergrad institution... bleh.

I honestly will probably submit both unless something changes my mind.
 
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