3 Interviews, 1 school (possibly) done, 1 swift post-II R. Thinking about reapplication.

[Egret_Farmer]

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After receiving my post-II R from Stanford in their first wave of decisions today, following several months of interview invite silence and NYU releasing enough acceptances to fill their class with silence on my end, I'm coming to terms with the idea that I may come up empty-handed for this cycle and have to reapply to get in. I have linked my WAMC post to provide context for my application, but I will paste my profile here as well. Underneath numbers 6 to 10, I have added asterisks to the hour changes that will appear in my application if I decide to try again this year:

1. cGPA: 3.99, sGPA: 3.98
   
   
2. MCAT: 525 (131/130/132/132)
   
   * I took PREview and got a score of 8, but I didn't take CASPER.
   
   
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): CA
   
   
4. Ethnicity and/or race: Asian-American
   
   
5. Undergraduate institution or category: UC Berkeley
   
   
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): 800+ hours
   721+ hours as a scribe for an internist at a private allergy clinic (gap year), 48+ hours as an administrative volunteer at an independent primary care clinic (gap year)
   
   * +448 hours for scribing by May
   * +98.5 hours for administrative volunteering at the primary care clinic
   
   
7. Research experience and productivity: 1500 hours
   1500 hours in a molecular biology lab, one 4th author publication, one honors thesis poster presented at my school symposium
   60 hours as an undergraduate research assistant for a 19th century Californian Latine archival project
   
   
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 30+ hours (aiming for 50)
   30.25+ hours - urology, allergy/immunology, psychiatry
   
   * Reached 68 hours by May 2025. Will potentially shadow a pediatric nephrologist this year; I plan to get back to them about this once I solidify my current plans.
   
   
9. Non-clinical volunteering: 260+ hours
   40 hours with the Red Cross in Facilities, 140.25+ hours with a women's shelter, 80+ hours with a program pairing Ukrainians with English learners
   
   * +84 hours for volunteering at the women's shelter by May
   * Volunteering with the Ukrainian-English learning program is currently on hold, as I am looking for a new student. May state that I have added 17 hours if I am unable to find another student by May (though I think this is unlikely).
   
   
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc): 760+ hours
    Nonclinical employment: 400 hours as an in-home caregiver, 288.67+ hours as a front desk person/rule reinforcer for a homeless shelter (gap year)
    
    * +448 hours for the front desk job by May
    * I did end up designating my caregiving work as "clinical" on my primary. Also, despite having stopped in my senior year due to research commitments, I am considering returning to my caregiving job, as I have been somewhat lacking in personal care experience during my gap year, even though it's a big part of the reason why I decided to pursue medicine in the first place. (I also have not made many activity changes after applying... I thought my other activities already took up a lot of time, and caregiving would make it so I work 5 or 6 days of the week, with volunteering on another day. I don't want to quit my other jobs, though, especially since my front desk job helped me get more involved with my home community and my scribing is one of my MMEs... Should I do this?)
    
    Teaching/tutoring: 70 hours as an undergraduate biology lab intern
    
    
11. Relevant honors or awards:
    2nd-highest achievement in my department (awarded to 4 graduates)
    Award for top graduating senior in my emphasis
    
    
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important:
    Hmm... I technically took 2 gap years: One was my senior year, and the other was for clinical experience/MCAT/more hours in other activities. Also, nothing in the leadership category, in case you were wondering. My listed hobby is "creative writing/fictional character analysis", which is basically analyzing fictional characters using the psychoanalytic frameworks of Carl Jung and other... let's say, pop psychologists. I did clarify that I don't actually believe that these frameworks are valid or reliable, and hopefully my 132 P/S shows I have at least a cursory familiarity with evidence-based psychology... I can probably think of some other hobbies if necessary.
    
    * This was written before I finalized my W/A section; I didn't mention any pop psychology in my actual primary (though I mentioned the name of the site I post my analyses to, and if you look it up, it's immediately obvious what the focus of the site is, haha). What I'm about to mention may have been a flub, but I believe I did mention reading the works of Jung and using them to analyze symbolism in movies in an answer to an "interests outside of medicine"-type question in my secondaries. (For what it's worth, neither school I submitted those secondaries to has rejected me yet... Looking at their threads, though, I suspect it's only a matter of time 🙁. )
    
    * No IAs or felonies/misdemeanors either.

WAMC post: WAMC/School List - 525 MCAT, 3.99 GPA, CA ORM

My school list was:

UCSF
WUSTL
USC
Stanford
UCI
UCD
UCLA
UCSD
Johns Hopkins
UPenn
UMichigan
Cornell
Mayo Clinic
Kaiser Permanente
Emory
NYU
UVA
Mt. Sinai
Case Western Clinic Lerner
Case Western
University of Rochester
Cincinnati
OSU
Western Michigan
UVermont
Duke
Albany
Pittsburgh
Einstein
Yale
Vanderbilt
Northwestern

My application was complete within 14 days of receiving secondaries for the majority of these schools, with the exception of Cornell (which was complete 18 days after I received their secondary), UVermont (which required CASPER, something that I didn't notice until I had already submitted my primary) and UMichigan (whose secondary seemed to have gone into my spam inbox without me noticing). I did come close to the 14 day turnaround time on a lot of schools, however.

So far, I have received 7 Rs: Stanford, Case Western Reserve, Case Western Reserve's Lerner Clinic, UMichigan (unsurprising, with a completion date of 09/18), Vanderbilt, University of Rochester, and Mayo Clinic (Minnesota campus). I have also been perusing previous SDN threads concerning reapplication, and the information I found there worries me a little bit, especially as it pertains to high stat reapplicants... There appears to be some agreement that reapplicants with high stats are looked upon with suspicion, since the question as to why they were unsuccessful their first time arises. For me, I think I may have had poor writing... I had my primary reviewed by several people, including a radiology resident and an MS2, but the only secondary I had reviewed was Duke's, and I only got one round of suggestions before I submitted, since the secondaries were pouring in at that point. Rereading my application, I think that my writing comes off as a little gimmicky. In my PS, I focus a lot on my love of stories and how I realized through working with patients that I wanted to help other people realize their own stories (paraphrased...). I didn't mention any particular specialties or fields in my PS, mostly focusing on the story aspect, but I think I may explicitly mention primary care if I reapply, especially since I'm scribing for an internist and am interested in narrative medicine.

Since I received a post-II R rather than a waitlist from Stanford, I also think that my interviewing skills could potentially use some work. I did two mock interviews with someone (the same MS2 who looked over my PS), but we only went over a few questions (the basics, plus a couple of "think outside the box/problem-solving"-type questions), and I didn't refine my performance further. They basically told me that I should cut down my "Tell me about yourself" and "Why medicine?" responses to two minutes, which I did.

The reason why I'm posting this now instead of after February 17 (Mardi Gras) is that I'm wondering what I can do to improve my application, given that I have until late May to early June (around 5 months?) if I wish to submit my primary early this year. Are there any areas I could be working on? The people who commented on my WAMC seem not to have found any glaring weaknesses, but my results appear to indicate that my application was not up to par. I'm also concerned about being a reapplicant with high stats, so I have decided to change up my school list a bit... Please feel free to suggest other schools that I could apply to. I plan on applying DO as well if I don't get in this cycle (please let me know if this is the right way to go), and I will work on getting to know a DO physician then.

If it's too early for me to be asking for advice, though, please let me know! I can post again at a more appropriate time if I still don't have favorable news for this cycle.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Again, a WAMC is given based on what you tell us, not on your application. We all naturally think the problem comes from something in your application that we cannot see (i.e., your writing, your letters, your interview).

I will always recommend continuing to build your clinical and non-clinical experience. The threshold for high-metrics candidates is higher because your competition just has more. I say 250 non-clinical is my suggested minimum threshold, but a minimum is not always enough.

Someone else may correct me, but I'm under the impression Stanford does a lot of post-interview rejections (as in, they don't tend to waitlist "most" of those interviewed). That said, I am wondering if your interview skills are under scrutiny... not because they are truly horrible, but because when compared to other high-metrics applicants, they are subpar. I'm guessing you prepared for MMIs (it's not clear from the description)? Your secondary essays also act as written interview questions. How you sound must be consistent throughout your application, especially when we suspect AI assistance or over-coaching/preparing.

Were you asked questions about your thoughts on contemporary topics or current events? (Pitching Becoming a Student Doctor because that's the main domain for the course) Attending these schools comes with an expectation that you can navigate such topics with some professionalism and insight that reflect the state of academic medicine.

 

[Egret_Farmer]

Again, a WAMC is given based on what you tell us, not on your application. We all naturally think the problem comes from something in your application that we cannot see (i.e., your writing, your letters, your interview).

I will always recommend continuing to build your clinical and non-clinical experience. The threshold for high-metrics candidates is higher because your competition just has more. I say 250 non-clinical is my suggested minimum threshold, but a minimum is not always enough.

Someone else may correct me, but I'm under the impression Stanford does a lot of post-interview rejections (as in, they don't tend to waitlist "most" of those interviewed). That said, I am wondering if your interview skills are under scrutiny... not because they are truly horrible, but because when compared to other high-metrics applicants, they are subpar. I'm guessing you prepared for MMIs (it's not clear from the description)? Your secondary essays also act as written interview questions. How you sound must be consistent throughout your application, especially when we suspect AI assistance or over-coaching/preparing.

Were you asked questions about your thoughts on contemporary topics or current events? (Pitching Becoming a Student Doctor because that's the main domain for the course) Attending these schools comes with an expectation that you can navigate such topics with some professionalism and insight that reflect the state of academic medicine.

Thank you for the advice regarding Becoming a Student Doctor! I basically reported the activities and awards I wrote for my WAMC profile in my application. I have continued non-clinical volunteering (the women’s shelter), clinical volunteering (administrative work), clinical employment (scribing), and nonclinical employment (front desk at homeless shelter) after applying, so I will be adding hours to those categories. Nothing has changed about my activities themselves, so I’m considering taking on another commitment (going back to my caregiving job) so I can report something new on my application besides the continuation of my anticipated hours from this cycle’s primary.

I actually prepared for traditional questions only, since I was short on time, although the medical student who assisted me told me that I should generally work on cutting down my answers. I studied for MMI questions using UW’s bioethics page (Bioethics Topics | UW Department of Bioethics & Humanities) and timed myself so my answers were around 2 minutes and hit all the marks that I saw people suggest (e.g., summed up the scenario, answered with respect to pros, cons, different options, summed up my answer to the question). However, I actually was not asked a lot of ethics questions in my interviews—more questions about specific other scenarios and current issues in healthcare.

My primary was reviewed by multiple people—near submission time, mostly by two people who had been assisting me with my PS and W/A for months. My secondaries were only reviewed by myself, though I thought that my writing and LORs were okay, given that I did get some interviews. (Stanford especially surprised me, since I got an earlier interview. Made the quick post-II R sting all the more… I must’ve fumbled my interview pretty badly, I guess. I believe the schools who interviewed me also received all of my LORs in combination—Perelman received all 5—so I think they were fine, but I’m not sure.) Given my few interviews, I guess there could have been a problem with my writing after all… although my secondaries for Stanford, NYU, and Perelman weren’t that different from the ones I sent to other schools. Actually, I think I ended up reusing some material across secondaries whenever I found similar questions, though I included a “Why us?” component in the ones submitted to schools without a dedicated “Why us?” question. Stanford was probably the one out of the three I wrote the most unique secondaries for, though their questions were different from many others’. Since the radiology resident who was helping me with my PS gave me lots of helpful writing tips relating to staying on topic and moving my writing forward, I continued these habits with my secondaries and made sure they were quickly digestible as well as reflective. I do tend to be an em-dash user, which I know is common with AI writing, but I figured that it wasn’t such a big deal that I would write differently from how I normally do. (Plus, AI writing tends to follow certain conventions that aren’t natural for me, like “It’s not X, it’s why.”)

Right now, I’m wondering what I should be doing differently, since I know there’s only so much one can glean from online, but I’d like to do whatever I can to prevent a second reapplication. Should I apply to schools I didn’t apply to this cycle? Go DO as well? Work on interviewing skills with other people? Pick up new activities (I’m potentially considering learning some Spanish in addition to returning to caregiving, as it’s relevant to the people I’m working with)? Take a closer look at my writing (especially since I got 3 interviews out of 30 schools to begin with)? Even wait until the 2027 - 2028 cycle to reapply? (I’m leery about this one, since I’d probably have to retake the MCAT…) If there’s anything else I can do, especially since I have high stats and know some people see high-stats reapplicants in a negative light, I would greatly appreciate suggestions.

 

[chilly_md]

Work on interview skills and swap out some schools for new ones would be my advice. The 3 interviews you did get were from impressive places, but I'd have expected more than that, particularly some combination of WUSTL, UVA, Emory and the OH schools.

You have a strong application from what you shared. Though I would avoid trying to be sophisticated in your PS by making some message about stories. Primary care angle may be hard to do too if the the physician is a subspecialist (Allergy and Immunology).

 

[Egret_Farmer]

Work on interview skills and swap out some schools for new ones would be my advice. The 3 interviews you did get were from impressive places, but I'd have expected more than that, particularly some combination of WUSTL, UVA, Emory and the OH schools.

You have a strong application from what you shared. Though I would avoid trying to be sophisticated in your PS by making some message about stories. Primary care angle may be hard to do too if the the physician is a subspecialist (Allergy and Immunology).

Thank you so much for the advice! I didn’t want to go into my cycle with sky-high expectations, given that I’ve heard the 4.0 528 horror stories, but I was pretty on-edge around Thanksgiving after hearing nothing from the other 27 schools I applied to on time. Stanford's II really surprised me, since I know they’re not considered a “stat-loving” school, and the only thing I could think of with regard to why they might have been interested so early on in the cycle was my California residency (but then again, that has never been an asset in med admissions, as far as I know…). Really sad to have blown it 😢. I was also surprised when I got an II from NYU, which I chalked up to my high stats, but received nothing from the other schools you mentioned as well.

I will definitely work on interviewing—what schools do you think will be open to having me if I reapply? I know some of the schools I applied to this cycle aren’t fond of reapplicants (Einstein limits applicants to two attempts, I believe? I've heard USC and Rochester don't like reapplicants either), so I think I will refrain from them next time. I will also apply to DO schools, if people here think that’s a good idea too. Do you think any of the schools I received invites from would still consider me next cycle, or are post-II Rs from those pretty much done deals? (I've heard that NYU is leery about reapplicants, but that was from an SDN thread dated more than a decade ago, and the poster who claimed this didn't reply when asked to substantiate their statement.) For example, some schools I was thinking about adding for my next cycle were Columbia (because they seem to have originated narrative medicine itself), USF, Dartmouth, Hofstra, UMichigan (submitted on-time)...

The physician I’m scribing for is actually practicing as a primary care doctor, allergist, and rheumatologist—I think I was really lucky to be paired with him, because I’ve been able to watch him manage long-time primary care patients (my main interest), as well as allergy and rheumatology patients. Plus, there are a lot of interesting cases I’ve been able to follow while working with him, one of which I kind of want to use in a new PS if I don’t get in this cycle. (I wanted to use the story metaphor and apply it to this case, but now that you mention it… I probably won’t lean as heavily on the metaphor, since it looks like it was a hit-or-miss. However, do you think I should mention something along the lines of “narrative medicine” or "primary care" in my PS? I didn’t explicitly mention those terms in my primary because someone advised me to save specific things like that for my secondaries. Though, again, I didn’t receive much after submitting my secondaries, so I guess that might have been a bad idea, too…)

Also, do you think I should change anything else at all about my application? Add another activity, like returning to caregiving (for longitudinal patient care experience, something I felt was missing a little in my gap year), learning Spanish, getting more hours in non-clinical volunteering/some other area I'm potentially lacking in, even taking CASPER to apply to other schools, etc.? I know adcoms like to see improvement in a reapplicant, so I’m worried about seeming stagnant or averse to going out of my comfort zone by just continuing my projected hours from the last cycle. I'm almost certainly going to do a rewrite of my PS and the descriptions for my ongoing activities--secondaries are likely going to be written from scratch, unless I haven't applied to the school yet--but if there's something even a little deficient that you can spot in my activities, I'll work on it as much as possible. I guess I won't be able to improve the usual suspects much further (MCAT, GPA, not enough hours per category), but I hope I can show the next cycle's adcoms a substantially better application, especially since I've heard the shine on high stats wears off after a failed cycle 😥.

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you so much for the advice! I didn’t want to go into my cycle with sky-high expectations, given that I’ve heard the 4.0 528 horror stories, but I was pretty on-edge around Thanksgiving after hearing nothing from the other 27 schools I applied to on time. Stanford's II really surprised me, since I know they’re not considered a “stat-loving” school, and the only thing I could think of with regard to why they might have been interested so early on in the cycle was my California residency (but then again, that has never been an asset in med admissions, as far as I know…). Really sad to have blown it 😢. I was also surprised when I got an II from NYU, which I chalked up to my high stats, but received nothing from the other schools you mentioned as well.

Hopefully you still hear something good from Penn.

You can use a primary care angle for why medicine if you find that you have an easy time writing that then. If you want to do caregiving again vs your other positions, that is up to you. I don't one path over the other causing a big shift in your app.

Reapply to the schools you interviewed at. It is not worth assuming they wouldn't try to interview you again. The additional hours you got at the women's shelter will be helpful. Having over 50 hours in shadowing is adequate. Shadowing a PCP can be helpful but you can just take some nominal hours from your scribe role and tally that under shadowing to be formal since scribing incorporates a shadowing element.

For schools next time, I would reapply with a mix of old and new:

UCSF
USC
Stanford
UCI
UCD
UCLA
UCSD
UPenn
UMichigan
Cornell
Mayo Clinic
Kaiser Permanente
Emory
NYU
UVA
Case Western
Cincinnati
OSU
Pittsburgh
Einstein
Vanderbilt
UChicago
UMass
Dartmouth
Hofstra
Columbia
NYMC
Miami
USF Morsani
Wisconsin (Madison)
Colorado

It is a separate application service, but you could consider UTSW and Baylor as well. The 10% or so OOS slots go to high stat applicants and they do not care about whether you have ties or not for those.

 

[Dral]

Agree with everything here. I am guessing it's writing/letters/interviews. Based on your responses here, I wonder if you tend to ramble in interviews (I think this was my problem). Work on conciseness in answers and in writing. Be ok with saying the big picture without all the little details to support the big picture. Prove your words in your presentation, not by using more words to support what you are summarizing.

 

[Egret_Farmer]

Hopefully you still hear something good from Penn.

You can use a primary care angle for why medicine if you find that you have an easy time writing that then. If you want to do caregiving again vs your other positions, that is up to you. I don't one path over the other causing a big shift in your app.

Reapply to the schools you interviewed at. It is not worth assuming they wouldn't try to interview you again. The additional hours you got at the women's shelter will be helpful. Having over 50 hours in shadowing is adequate. Shadowing a PCP can be helpful but you can just take some nominal hours from your scribe role and tally that under shadowing to be formal since scribing incorporates a shadowing element.

Thanks for the advice! I'll try to find some more shadowing hours with primary care physicians or count some of my scribing hours as shadowing if that doesn't work out.

Just a few more questions: Do you think rewriting my application and continuing the hours I projected on this cycle's application (marked by + on my original post) will be enough of an improvement for schools that rejected me pre-II to reconsider me next cycle? Since people have mentioned that there should be "substantial" improvement in reapplicants, I'm wondering if this means I'll need to add an entirely new experience, even though I already have high hour numbers.

Another question I have is, do you think it would be worthwhile for me to apply DO? I've heard that as advice for reapplicants to prevent too many failed cycles... I'm a little apprehensive about the costs, extra exams, and difficulty in entering certain specialties (if I decide I'd like to pick a different route in medical school), but I also hope not to sacrifice more time getting into medical school than necessary. If you think I might not need to apply DO, I'll take that into account.

Agree with everything here. I am guessing it's writing/letters/interviews. Based on your responses here, I wonder if you tend to ramble in interviews (I think this was my problem). Work on conciseness in answers and in writing. Be ok with saying the big picture without all the little details to support the big picture. Prove your words in your presentation, not by using more words to support what you are summarizing.

👍 Yeah, I think I needed more interview prep. I'll try to tighten up my writing and get to the point more quickly... This is an ongoing issue, but I'll say that this cycle's results have motivated me to work on this more.

 

[chilly_md]

You do not need to apply DO. Yes, some schools you already applied to this cycle may extend an interview with some additional hours and revamped writing. Be straight to the point and answer why medicine. Secondaries and activity descriptions should not lose the reader in the weeds. Some prompts are long but schools usually have a specific question to answer.

 

[Egret_Farmer]

You do not need to apply DO. Yes, some schools you already applied to this cycle may extend an interview with some additional hours and revamped writing. Be straight to the point and answer why medicine. Secondaries and activity descriptions should not lose the reader in the weeds. Some prompts are long but schools usually have a specific question to answer.

Got it; thank you for your advice! I will continue to hope for good news from Perelman, but in the months I have before 2027's application opens up, I'll start reworking my essays and looking for interview prep.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I actually prepared for traditional questions only, since I was short on time, although the medical student who assisted me told me that I should generally work on cutting down my answers. I studied for MMI questions using UW’s bioethics page (Bioethics Topics | UW Department of Bioethics & Humanities) and timed myself so my answers were around 2 minutes and hit all the marks that I saw people suggest (e.g., summed up the scenario, answered with respect to pros, cons, different options, summed up my answer to the question). However, I actually was not asked a lot of ethics questions in my interviews—more questions about specific other scenarios and current issues in healthcare.

It's worth noting we have a subforum for Casper, PREview, and SJT's, but Casper is effectively an online MMI. We have about 50 questions in the archive from peers who wrote simulated questions (old format with 3 follow-ups).

That said, I tell people that MMI's are a vehicle to asking questions and conducting interviews. Someone else pointed out, what one program called an MMI was really a series of short traditional interviews. I also have had one program basically make an MMI where all you had was one question to answer (with possible followups) but had nothing to do to analyzing ethical challenges. On the other hand, many of the brand name schools that use MMI's will test you on your understanding of the Bioethics topics in MMI format.

Consequently, you have to know what each school tells you about their interview format. For MMI, it's just as important to control the clock as it would be to control your nerves. It is extremely difficult to simulate "team" stations where two candidates work together. There are also "unstructured" stations where you just have a traditional interview for 5 minutes or so. Oh yes, time varies too.

Part of me says that the UW Bioethics page is a great resource, but it's not great to prepare for MMI based on the fact the "MMI" is not an ethics assessment exam.