2016 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

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thatwouldbeanarchy said:
@pageantry, what you're saying really resonates with me. Gentrification is such an ugly process and I think it definitely creates the kind of violence and crime that people are often afraid of. It's completely understandable when you consider that people are pretty much being driven from their homes, priced out of their communities, and often harassed/brutalized by the police in the process. It's difficult to think of actionable alternatives but it's so important. And definitely a consideration when thinking about moving to a new place!
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I mean, as a poor white person, my panties get in a bunch when people suggest there's something morally wrong with me moving to the cheapest neighborhood. The apartment was empty and I was willing to pay the rent. To me, that's not what people should be talking about when they talk about "gentrification," altho clearly many disagree. And I don't even think med students (many of whom have no other school options) should be blamed for living where they can/need to, either.

But the schools have not been very careful about the neighborhoods when they build these dorms and schools. And I think the best we can do as rising leaders in this world is to be more aware and thoughtful and try to create more symbiotic solutions.
 
pageantry said:
I mean, as a poor white person, my panties get in a bunch when people suggest there's something morally wrong with me moving to the cheapest neighborhood. The apartment was empty and I was willing to pay the rent. To me, that's not what people should be talking about when they talk about "gentrification," altho clearly many disagree. And I don't even think med students (many of whom have no other school options) should be blamed for living where they can/need to, either.

But the schools have not been very careful about the neighborhoods when they build these dorms and schools. And I think the best we can do as rising leaders in this world is to be more aware and thoughtful and try to create more symbiotic solutions.
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Oh, I wasn't trying to say that there's anything wrong with you living where you live. And I absolutely think that universities are 100% culpable for the decisions they make about where they build.

I don't think anyone is to blame per se for choosing to live in a place that they can afford. I made the same decision myself after watching rents skyrocket as certain neighborhoods became inundated with expensive natural food stores and vegan bakeries and suddenly became "hip." But I do think gentrification is complicated and in some situations, people who choose to move to certain areas are complicit in that process. To me, it's not about individual blame. It's more about a deeply messed up social and economic system that really most of us participate in in one way or another. Trying to figure out how not to is the hard part.
 
pageantry said:
I mean, as a poor white person, my panties get in a bunch when people suggest there's something morally wrong with me moving to the cheapest neighborhood. The apartment was empty and I was willing to pay the rent. To me, that's not what people should be talking about when they talk about "gentrification," altho clearly many disagree. And I don't even think med students (many of whom have no other school options) should be blamed for living where they can/need to, either.

But the schools have not been very careful about the neighborhoods when they build these dorms and schools. And I think the best we can do as rising leaders in this world is to be more aware and thoughtful and try to create more symbiotic solutions.
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Your last point succinctly captures what most of us have voiced in some way or another. Yes, we cannot help but live in these neighborhoods if we are students at these institutions, and I don't believe we should be offended by what I think is a very justified hostility toward gentrifiers. It isn't personal - it's the result of years and decades of class conflict brought about by racism just as much as indifference and ignorance from newcomers, to the communities they inhabit.

If I'm going to live somewhere 4-5 years I want it to be an opportunity to learn from that community and not erase it. To me its dangerous to see my time living there as a temporary space where I live and sleep while I get a degree and move on. This detachment and indifference may not be overtly racist or classist, but its just as insidious, and I want to do my best to not contribute to that.
 
pageantry said:
^^somebody plz give this one a phat scholarship.

Nailed it.
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Nah, we ALL nailed it 😉

thatwouldbeanarchy said:
At the very least, come to Brown and I'll buy you all beers! 😀
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I think I'm going to Second Look Day, it's only a commuter rail ride away! Don't know what to do about lodging, though.

Will you be there?
 
you guys are going to brown??? ^_^

it's my favorite place. alpert is one of the nicest buildings I've been in, and the city of providence is adorable
 
pageantry said:
This has a lot to do with my initial feelings on getting accepted, actually. I was always comfortably part of the below-the-poverty line. Now I'm going to get identified with the 1%. And maybe I can resist letting that change me and maybe not, but there is no doubt that to a lot of my current friends and neighbors, I am about to become part of The Enemy.
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I think your point about changing economic groups resonates with me strongly. I grew up in a lower-middle class small town where relatively few people had a college degree and all the communities in the county were heavily dependent on the comings and goings of the small factories in the area. Having gone to a very big name college and working in technology for the past several years has made me clearly not part of the economic demographic, but only recently have I realized that, "oh yeah, I'm definitely not considered in the same economic group that I grew up in." And then the realization that being a physician will push me even further up the scale has sat oddly with me... I suppose I still have an internal identity that I am from that small, lower-middle class town?

The realization has been a good thing, I think, as it has prompted conversations between my wife and I that we want to be vigilant that our spending habits in the future to ensure that our "needs" do not magically expand to meet all our income, allowing for a better use of some of the future money we will make in helping others.
 
Similar here. Gosh it's nice to hear all these stories.

I grew up low-middle class in an urban area that had one of the highest crime rates in the state at the time (I just looked up its current stats and apparently it hasn't changed), and during the early days of crack popularity, which really tore the area apart. My memories of childhood are of our neighborhood steadily decaying, of people selling drugs on the corner, of boarded up houses and being unable to go out by yourself at night. As an adult I've had conversations with my mother that have added such dimensions to my life, hearing things I never knew as a kid...how desperate many people were to leave but how trapped they were by the economic slump going on at the time. Very few people went to college. I'd never met a doctor in my life besides the pediatrician my mother had to drive forty minutes to see.

In one of my interviews I was asked about my childhood and I talked about it a bit. I told her about two of my best friends from childhood, who I'd recently looked up and found they and their families were still living in the same city, still working blue collar just as all of our families had. One is dead, apparently having died years ago from a drug overdose. My interviewer nodded after I talked about them and asked me seriously: "So why do you think you're here?"

I had to think about that long time. And the question still kind of follows me around, months later. I have a feeling it's going to follow me for a long time, constantly asking me not only for answers for myself, but for what that means to my sense of personal duty. Where I live now, in an isolated rural area slowly suffocating under intense economic depression, I've literally gotten calls out of the blue from co-workers and people I barely know asking if I can talk to their kids about how to go to college. How to get a decent job. How to go to medical school. How to get out.

While it's a struggle to come to terms with the fact that I've "made it" in people's eyes, I know I need to never become too comfortable with that. My identity will necessarily change now, but I need to remember what it was like watching the Cosby show as a child and thinking "pfft that's some other bizarro world, we'll never get there". I need to remember that I once thought this was impossible too, so I can turn around and bring others with me instead of walling off in my security. I don't ever want to lose that.
 
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feelings right now

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A few months ago every email made me really hopeful because there was a chance it might be an interview invite. Now every email fills me with dread because it might be a rejection. :'(
Anybody else in this situation?
 
idontknowwhatnametopick said:
A few months ago every email made me really hopeful because there was a chance it might be an interview invite. Now every email fills me with dread because it might be a rejection. :'(
Anybody else in this situation?
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Nope. I laugh at the rejections that come in now, esp. the one's where I completed the secondary in July and haven't heard s**t. It's like in middle school when you'd pass your crush a note that said "Do you like me? Circle one: Yes/No". But instead of circling one, they just held on to it. Finally they returned it at the end of the year with NO circled, but I didn't care cause I also asked out Suzy Derkins and she said YES!

Also, I just got a II today from my alma mater. They're a state school that last year only interviewed 9 OOS applicants. I'm not going cause I already got into my dream school and my wife accepted a job in Boston, but seeing that made me all like:
tumblr_nm1vj0n58e1uo70qeo1_500.gif
 
idontknowwhatnametopick said:
A few months ago every email made me really hopeful because there was a chance it might be an interview invite. Now every email fills me with dread because it might be a rejection. :'(
Anybody else in this situation?
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Similar situation. Just waiting on the last few to trickle in. I love getting the "Hey, check out our Master's program" emails, though. I always respond with this:

"Thank you for your interest in VegasPreMed. There are many qualified programs this interview season and, unfortunately, I cannot interview at them all. I am currently filled on obligations. I would like to inform you that I will be re-reviewing programs later this Spring and will consider you again then. Best of luck on your applicant search."
 
idontknowwhatnametopick said:
A few months ago every email made me really hopeful because there was a chance it might be an interview invite. Now every email fills me with dread because it might be a rejection. :'(
Anybody else in this situation?
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At the beginning of the cycle I joked that when I got rejected from Yale I'd frame the printout.

Turns out it's a very boring printout. But I might do it anyway, on principle.
 
FINALS DONE - happy dance! Got crushed by one and did really well on the other (ecology, my gimme class was just an absolute nightmare, all busy work, it was basically a stats class, everything about it was awful.....but I think I killed biochem, I had the 3rd highest grade going in, and got a better score than either of the midterms). Time to start working on next cycle!


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile
 
CyrilFiggis said:
Nope. I laugh at the rejections that come in now, esp. the one's where I completed the secondary in July and haven't heard s**t. It's like in middle school when you'd pass your crush a note that said "Do you like me? Circle one: Yes/No". But instead of circling one, they just held on to it. Finally they returned it at the end of the year with NO circled, but I didn't care cause I also asked out Suzy Derkins and she said YES!

Also, I just got a II today from my alma mater. They're a state school that last year only interviewed 9 OOS applicants. I'm not going cause I already got into my dream school and my wife accepted a job in Boston, but seeing that made me all like:
tumblr_nm1vj0n58e1uo70qeo1_500.gif
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Unfortunately for me the rejections would all be from schools I interviewed at, not schools I applied to that have been ignoring me since July. In the meantime I'm getting excited about Boston, while cautiously hoping I'll get to move to Texas and be warm instead.
 
CONGRATULATIONS, THAT'S HUGE
GO CELEBRATE WITH SOME SHAVE ICE

B-wildered said:
Holy s... I just got accepted on my state school (HI) . I was already conditioning myself to move off the island and now this. Decisions decisions decisions . I guess is a good position to be, although a little stressing.
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I know I have been absent lately in the forum. However is time for me to full fill my promise and come up with SNUG SEAL T-shirts. Therefore, I will start to take suggestions on the designs . we can all share ideas/designs , and maybe open a new thread for it or not. I am thinking about something low key, cool and only people that know about the seal will know . and SNUG SEAL AND NON-TRAD COALITION TOTAL DOMINANCE THIS CYCLE T-shirts on the make
 
pageantry said:
I am saving that for after I finish panicking over choosing a school. Got almost six more weeks of that to savor.
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Update: I think I made my choice. Panic over starting medical school set in like three hours later.

Btw: I only ever received one Certiphi email. If schools accept you after you complete it, do you get another email? Because I didn't. Panicking a little bit about that too.
 
pageantry said:
Update: I think I made my choice. Panic over starting medical school set in like three hours later.

Btw: I only ever received one Certiphi email. If schools accept you after you complete it, do you get another email? Because I didn't. Panicking a little bit about that too.
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So... which school will it be?

I don't see any reason why you would have to go through Certiphi twice. I'm sure the company keeps track of whether they have already checked you out, and just pass that along to new schools that request info on you.
 
gyrfalcon said:
So... which school will it be?

I don't see any reason why you would have to go through Certiphi twice. I'm sure the company keeps track of whether they have already checked you out, and just pass that along to new schools that request info on you.
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I can't say yet because financial aid isn't in on all my schools!
But thanks for the reassurance on Certiphi. Phew!
 
pageantry said:
I can't say yet because financial aid isn't in on all my schools!
But thanks for the reassurance on Certiphi. Phew!
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The constant DID YOU CHOOSE YET DID YOU CHOOSE YET at work is almost more stressful than SO DID YOU GET IN YET DID YOU GET IN YET was.
 
Miami_Postbac said:
Are you working in a related field Ecce?

I'm working unrelated and it's a 100p secret...not a soul knows. I would think it would be awkward af if they did.
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Yep, both my jobs are in related fields. I didn't say anything while I was doing pre-reqs, but I felt it'd be better (in my particular circumstance, everyone's is different) to be honest about it when the application cycle started. I'm in the lucky camp that ended up with a lot of support in my workplaces.
 
s...the stress of choosing a school it is starting to weigh on my shoulders......... I am starting to freak out ...... beer time.....
 
B-wildered said:
s...the stress of choosing a school it is starting to weigh on my shoulders......... I am starting to freak out ...... beer time.....
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The timestamp on that says 5:31 AM for me, and it took me a second to realize you're like seven hours behind.

(I wouldn't have judged you for a 5:30 AM beer either tho, just sayin')
 
I have a question for you guys/gals. Would you go to a DO school if it meant a better support system and staying closer to a long-term girlfriend? Hypothetically, if you get an acceptance to DO and an MD school?

I have no qualms about being a DO, but I'm not crazy about the local school, its mandatory attendance, extra licensing tests in the future, and the future of residency. I'm applying this cycle, so I have to decide soon.
 
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Miami_Postbac said:
My vantage: focus on career almost to the complete disregard of relationships.

Relationships come and go and are easy to come by. Screw up a relationship while career is in order and you find another in a few months. Screw up a career and you may struggle to find a relationship and your life will be in disorder until things settle down career wise, and it can often take years to get back on track.
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That's definitely true. Thanks for the advice!
 
Miami_Postbac said:
Relationships come and go and are easy to come by. Screw up a relationship while career is in order and you find another in a few months.
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Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. Obviously, it depends on OP's relationship but there are absolutely relationships in my life that I wouldn't sacrifice for my career. For me, my career isn't the thing that's going to make my life worth living--it's the people I surround myself with who I care about. OP, I don't necessarily recommend going to a school that doesn't make you happy. Although I do think it's worth pointing out that if your end goal is to be a physician, going to a DO school wouldn't be a step in the wrong direction. I just think it's worth thinking about what you value in life and what you're willing to sacrifice.
 
popopopop said:
I have a question for you guys/gals. Would you go to a DO school if it meant a better support system and staying closer to a long-term girlfriend? Hypothetically, if you get an acceptance to DO and an MD school?

I have no qualms about being a DO, but I'm not crazy about the local school, its mandatory attendance, extra licensing tests in the future, and the future of residency. I'm applying this cycle, so I have to decide soon.
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I would cross that bridge when you get there. I didn't apply to certain schools because I didn't see my SO having any jobs nearby, but after a failed cycle I'm regretting it. I went as far as to not apply to a favorable MD school and selected a regionally biased DO school (thought I had a good case -- guess not!).

Apply to both (if you only want to give it one go, and think you have a good application), and apply widely. You don't have to (and shouldn't) decide now, you should see where you are in 12 months when you have acceptances and decide then.
 
Thanks guys/gals. I didn't want to give more background info as not to make it lengthy and bore readers. I'm definitely NOT counting my chickens before they hatch and will be applying both. I have opportunities right now that may swing my app towards DO if I decide to take them, but time is a limited thing of course.
 
While I don't necessarily have as difficult a school selection decision as some other wonderful people on this thread, my wife and I made our final decision med school choice last week. I just told my manager when my last week (more or less) will be before we move for class this summer. It feels like a big moment.


I'm more anxious than I expected about moving. I'm 100% sure about going to medical school. I kind of wish I could start tomorrow. Oh well, it will come soon!
 
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