2018 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

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willow84 said:
Is anyone going to hear from schools on 10/16? I interviewed at two places last week that will tell me yay or nay on that day.... three weeks from today! Eeeek
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I am! I lucked out and had a very conversational interview which definitely brought some sanity back into my life 🙂 cannot wait for Oct to roll around
 
I have had one II and *might* hear by Oct 15 (although they acted like we wouldn't hear until then b/c of the restrictions, but also mentioned 4-6 weeks, which puts us well after that mark). I have my only other II the Friday before, so my guess is I won't hear anything by then. This is a long process. I can't decide if having classes has been a nice distraction or if wondering about my applications is too distracting from classes.
 
I've been trying to focus on the fact that I've had two IIs so far, but the deafening silence from the other 18 schools I applied to is driving me insane. 🙁 I wish I had class for the distraction at this point.
 
ChopinLiszt said:
Congrats! It's amazing how much better a few IIs can make you feel.. go celebrate!
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Thanks for the kind words. That and some fun goings on in life have definitely helped.

Congrats to you on Mayo and Duke! Waiting to hear from both schools myself 🙂

If folks are interested in taking some classes but not enrolled check out Coursera and EdX there are some interesting Medical Science related courses for free or you can pay like $50 for an official certificate.
 
I haven't posted here before but I'm another non-trad applying to med school this year. Just had my first interview last week and the oldest person (after me) was probably 23, with half of the people still in college. I felt wayyyy old. It's nice to read through this and remind myself there are lots of us more "mature" applicants!
 
catlady87 said:
I haven't posted here before but I'm another non-trad applying to med school this year. Just had my first interview last week and the oldest person (after me) was probably 23, with half of the people still in college. I felt wayyyy old. It's nice to read through this and remind myself there are lots of us more "mature" applicants!
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When I was in the lobby of the MCAT testing center, I felt like the coach talking to all the young kids, trying to get them to relax with some chit chat and encouragement. This whole thing brings out my inner Dad big-time.
 
It's almost Meme Monday. How is it out there? Two weeks til 10/16, the day when the dice start to fall. Here's my meme for ya'll 🙂

IMG_2898.JPG
 
I must say, these memes started off the waiting period for this week on a high note. Thanks everyone!
 
I should mention that my husband recently started watching reruns of The Office. If you want to get your mind off the whole application process, I highly recommend this method!
 
DBC03 said:
I should mention that my husband recently started watching reruns of The Office. If you want to get your mind off the whole application process, I highly recommend this method!
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Yeah, my husband and I just started Parks and Rec for the first time last night... because Chris Pratt. 😀
 
Love it! Thanks folks! Giggling the stress away before bed.... another empty handed umich med Monday.... and a physics II exam tomorrow!
 
Hey, can anyone advise on how long an smp personal statement should be? I've seen so much saying a few paragraphs to a couple pages and I don't really know what to aim for.
 
NEKNIM said:
Hey, can anyone advise on how long an smp personal statement should be? I've seen so much saying a few paragraphs to a couple pages and I don't really know what to aim for.
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Hey, I'm in an SMP right now, and I submitted my personal statement for medical school as the SMP essay. They're looking for the same thing, why do you want to go to medical school? The one thing different is if you have an underwhelming academic record (like I did) you can tweak the essay to say what you plan to do different this time around to do well in the SMP (for me it was not work 30 hours a week like I did in undergrad).

DBC03 said:
I Just had to post this because, as far as I know, this is a bear that lives at the zoo where I used to live:

779.jpg
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You used to live in a zoo?
 
31 year old female here. Received two acceptances this past week from CUSOM and PCOM Georgia. Heading into an interview at Brody School of Medicine in a week and two more DO interviews in oct and nov. Never give up.
 
physgal said:
31 year old female here. Received two acceptances this past week from CUSOM and PCOM Georgia. Heading into an interview at Brody School of Medicine in a week and two more DO interviews in oct and nov. Never give up.
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Congrats!!!!
 
physgal said:
31 year old female here. Received two acceptances this past week from CUSOM and PCOM Georgia. Heading into an interview at Brody School of Medicine in a week and two more DO interviews in oct and nov. Never give up.
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Nice! Way to go!! Congrats! :highfive:
 
Tiger Tank said:
Work got crazy crazy busy which was good, kept me busy when I would have been going crazy otherwise.

1 additional MD interview, 2 additional DO interviews, for a total of 2/5. Lizzy is 67, nothing special. They start in 2 weeks and run about 1 per week through November.

I'm starting to think this might actually work out.

Also 2 rejections from low ranking DO schools?
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It's common to get early rejections from schools that are below your competitiveness level - it's yield protection - they know you'll go somewhere else.
 
physgal said:
31 year old female here. Received two acceptances this past week from CUSOM and PCOM Georgia. Heading into an interview at Brody School of Medicine in a week and two more DO interviews in oct and nov. Never give up.
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Awesome!! Congrats and good luck on your upcoming interviews!

I got another II today, from University of Utah (went to part of high school there, so I thought I'd give it a shot). Man, they do not mess around with their interview process - there's a timed video MMI online before interview day, then 8 MMI stations, a Situational Judgment Test, a traditional interview, and an ethics test on an iPad on campus. WTH?
 
Big day today - surprise interview to an MD-PhD program at a school I had an MD program interview for. Then I got rejected from two other schools, but that was not overly surprising and a lot less painful than I had imagined.

BUT - I found a video of baby bats. Cutest. Thing. Ever. So all is right with the world right now.

 
ChopinLiszt said:
Awesome!! Congrats and good luck on your upcoming interviews!

I got another II today, from University of Utah (went to part of high school there, so I thought I'd give it a shot). Man, they do not mess around with their interview process - there's a timed video MMI online before interview day, then 8 MMI stations, a Situational Judgment Test, a traditional interview, and an ethics test on an iPad on campus. WTH?
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I would bet a lot of money that all those extra evaluation modalities are completely worthless and have no decent evidence for their usefulness. Reminds me of the creepy-as-hell CASPer test I had to take for Rutgers-RWJ and NYMC where they force you to have a webcam on while you respond to their hackneyed hypothetical scenarios. I assume they do some kind of comparison between your expressions and your answers, which sounds like some Grade A junk science to me.
 
SullansAndMarians said:
I would bet a lot of money that all those extra evaluation modalities are completely worthless and have no decent evidence for their usefulness. Reminds me of the creepy-as-hell CASPer test I had to take for Rutgers-RWJ and NYMC where they force you to have a webcam on while you respond to their hackneyed hypothetical scenarios. I assume they do some kind of comparison between your expressions and your answers, which sounds like some Grade A junk science to me.
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I'm dying to know what advantage each type of interview has over the other. I may start a thread on it. I figure they should take everyone out to lunch and see how they treat the servers, then throw them in with a few of the cleaning crew and watch interactions. After that, I feel like most answers people say in MMI are only somewhat accurate
 
SullansAndMarians said:
I would bet a lot of money that all those extra evaluation modalities are completely worthless and have no decent evidence for their usefulness. Reminds me of the creepy-as-hell CASPer test I had to take for Rutgers-RWJ and NYMC where they force you to have a webcam on while you respond to their hackneyed hypothetical scenarios. I assume they do some kind of comparison between your expressions and your answers, which sounds like some Grade A junk science to me.
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I think you're proooobably overestimating the folks who run CASPer. There's no way that somebody sits and analyzes the expressions of all the tens of thousands of people taking the test. I would imagine it's to make sure that there isn't a group of people doing the test together or something along those lines.
 
I haven't heard from NYMC or Rosalind Franklin (both CASPer schools) so I'm terrified I wrote something horrible.
 
In one interview, there was an ad com describing meticulously how apps are reviewed, scored, rereviewed, rescored, discussed, rediscussed, voted on, etc. The more complicated they make it, I guess it's job security for them. I don't know. It's too much and out of hand, in my opinion. Like, just pick some people already and reject the ones you don't want and tell them why. My observation is that all of this competitiveness, comparing, scutinizing, and hoop-pushing has some pretty negative effects: 1. Wastes a lot of people's time resources, and energy. 2. Creates a culture of elitism among physicians from the very start. A seed that is difficult to retrain. 3. Creates distrust, dishonesty, disloyalty, disillusionment, and profound disappointment among premeds.

I've worked with doctors for six years. The top 3 best ones went to Carib schools or Do schools after multiple failed cycles. The worst 3, most scatterbrained, poor bedside mannered ones went to top schools. N=1

It's almost like the "better" school you go to, your empathy, humility and ability to relate to patients can be inversely affected (note: "can be" not definitely will be, don't be offended if you're in the top tier. I'm just jealous of your high MCAT scores and shiny resume and trying to assuage my ego. I will soon be forced to accept my quotidian destiny.)
 
@Hazel-rah said:
In one interview, there was an ad com describing meticulously how apps are reviewed, scored, rereviewed, rescored, discussed, rediscussed, voted on, etc. The more complicated they make it, I guess it's job security for them.
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Exactly. This is just like all the complicated expertise, research, and models that justify how much money wealth managers make, when numerous studies have shown that in the long run their picks are not better, statistically speaking, than just buying into an index fund that just tracks the S&P 500.

Perhaps the real answer here is that they need to open some new medical schools, because while it should be hard to become a doctor, it should not be so hard that adcoms are forced to concoct these convoluted, obscurantist methodologies to differentiate even high stat applicants with good ECs.
 
Ad2b said:
A friend of mine is 58, MS3; another friend just finished PGY-3 at 59 and she might actually be 60; another friend is 52, MS2; another friend is 43, DO2; another person I know was DO1 at 59; was told by my former state school that they'd had an MS1 at 54 (yay for me!), can't count how many 30s and 40s that I've heard about getting seats in both types of schools...
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Thank you for this.

As a "just-about-ultra" non-traditional applicant, I often feel like I'm the only one in my situation. It's really heartening to hear that it does happen for some of us older folks.
 
MercMutt said:
Thank you for this.

As a "just-about-ultra" non-traditional applicant, I often feel like I'm the only one in my situation. It's really heartening to hear that it does happen for some of us older folks.
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+1. I'm so glad I saw this. I can happily confirm that you are not the only one!
 
@Hazel-rah said:
In one interview, there was an ad com describing meticulously how apps are reviewed, scored, rereviewed, rescored, discussed, rediscussed, voted on, etc. The more complicated they make it, I guess it's job security for them. I don't know. It's too much and out of hand, in my opinion. Like, just pick some people already and reject the ones you don't want and tell them why. My observation is that all of this competitiveness, comparing, scutinizing, and hoop-pushing has some pretty negative effects: 1. Wastes a lot of people's time resources, and energy. 2. Creates a culture of elitism among physicians from the very start. A seed that is difficult to retrain. 3. Creates distrust, dishonesty, disloyalty, disillusionment, and profound disappointment among premeds.

I've worked with doctors for six years. The top 3 best ones went to Carib schools or Do schools after multiple failed cycles. The worst 3, most scatterbrained, poor bedside mannered ones went to top schools. N=1

It's almost like the "better" school you go to, your empathy, humility and ability to relate to patients can be inversely affected (note: "can be" not definitely will be, don't be offended if you're in the top tier. I'm just jealous of your high MCAT scores and shiny resume and trying to assuage my ego. I will soon be forced to accept my quotidian destiny.)
Click to expand...

I really liked this OP point here. I made a lot of sacrifices to go through this process as a non-traditional applicant as I am sure you all did. I do feel like it elicits a culture of affluent "box checkers." When I graduated from undergrad ten years ago, I was forced into the job market because I didn't have the funds to apply to medical school. When I was in undergrad, I had to work. I didn't have time to volunteer or find internship opportunities. I had to pay for my education. It is disappointing that ADCOMs define what it means to be good applicant by doing these "activities." For what its worth, I feel like the DO interviews I have gone to this cycle have been much more holistic in their views about the process. At my MD interview last year, my interviewer seemed heavily concerned with my volunteer hours and shadowing hours. However, this year, my DO interviews have been more interested in who I am and how I got to this place in my life. At the end of the day, no patient is going to give a damn about how many shadowing hours you did. Im glad there are still some ADCOMs that see this realistically.
 
Maybe the convoluted process at elite schools is to protect themselves from post-cycle criticism/accusations/lawsuits? If you're picking from all top stat/great EC students, you have to pick somehow and it could seem too subjective (which of course it is).. I just wish they'd be more open about it on their websites. They all say they do a "holistic" review, but it would be more accurate to say something like, "we evaluate your application holistically.. as long as you're also a 4.0 robot whose professor put your name on their Nature paper." I do think high admission standards are a good thing in a field where people have more power over life/death situations, but a little transparency from schools would really go a long way! It would even help premeds be better prepared, I think.
 
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