Appearing naive and reapplications

[Homunculus150]

Hello,

I suspect I’ll need to reapply since this cycle is going badly for me and I was wondering if any adcoms could shed light on a question for me.

Looking back, I suspect my writing is what ultimately brought my application down since my stats and activities are all pretty good. Specifically, I think I appeared naive and overly idealistic.

In practice interviews, I actually instinctively drift away from what I wrote in my personal statement and I’ve been told that I interview well (I need to get IIs first though).

How readily do adcoms overlook previous concerns of naivety/immaturity if the applicant appears to have grown since then?

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[M&L]

a question, - why do you think you came off naive/immature?

 

[Homunculus150]

a question, - why do you think you came off naive/immature?

The topic I chose for my narrative was my previous challenges with expressing empathy.
Long story short, I used to have trouble with emotional affect and came off as robotic/cold which I was ashamed of and worked hard to fix/overcome.

In choosing this narrative to write about, I spent most of my PS and Significant Activities talking about events that elicited visceral emotional reactions (mourning as an example) and “improved” my sense of compassion.

Some issues I had with this narrative looking back:

1. It is very one dimensional. Despite having abundant research and volunteering experience, I focused my writing on a few anecdotal experiences because they elicited strong emotional reactions within me at the time. I wanted to appear “compassionate” but I excessively emphasized this point at the expense of other aspects of medicine.

2. The events I talked about are completely anecdotal. I talked heavily about individual patients that I interacted with and friends who struggled with mental illness but none of it can be verified.

3. It isn’t impressive. It is essentially a narrative of how I went from below average to average.

4. The basis of that narrative is flimsy since it is based so much off of visceral emotion and how things made me feel.

5. My motivations for going into medicine have changed in significance since then. I chose to focus so much on emotionally significant events at the time because those events had occurred recently and were still fresh in my mind. Having had time to reflect, some of those motivations seem less significant now. For example, I heavily implied in my PS that I wanted to go into psychiatry because I gave emotional support to friends with mental health issues. But I only had 10 hours of shadowing in that field and 0 other activities relating to it besides helping friends.

Tldr: I believe that I spent way too much of my writing talking about short-term emotions.

Maybe I’m being too self-critical but I clearly did make mistakes the first time around which I would like to avoid for my next cycle (if needed).

 

[mel0099]

I think you're being a little overly critical. As far as your concerns with your personal statement goes, I think that using anecdotal specifics is totally fine, and it is probably preferred as distinct experiences tend to draw the reader's attention and make you memorable. It is also definitely okay to describe how these experiences made you feel, but, like with any writing, you want to make sure that you "show, don't tell" with regards to emotion. I'm guessing from how you described your own essay that you spent a lot of time describing your emotions instead of making the reader feel them. This can take up more space but makes the actual writing sound way better.

Without reading your PS, I think you're probably on the right track. Just make sure that you are very deliberate with utilizing these emotional experiences to show why you want to be a doctor, which is the whole point of the essay. I wish you all the best with your current cycle, but if the time comes to review your application for next year, do not be afraid to try out other topics for your essay. If you "instinctively drift away" from what you wrote in the essay during practice interviews, does the essay really describe why you want to be a doctor? Of course that is totally up to you. I wrote out a few about completely different topics and realized that the one that sounded the best was not the one that I initially thought.

I can't say whether or not admissions will overlook concerns of nativity or immaturity (which I know is the point of your post, sorry I ranted), but I doubt that they go back and compare personal statements or supplementary essays from year to year. I could be wrong. Best of luck, you got this!

 

[Homunculus150]

I think you're being a little overly critical. As far as your concerns with your personal statement goes, I think that using anecdotal specifics is totally fine, and it is probably preferred as distinct experiences tend to draw the reader's attention and make you memorable. It is also definitely okay to describe how these experiences made you feel, but, like with any writing, you want to make sure that you "show, don't tell" with regards to emotion. I'm guessing from how you described your own essay that you spent a lot of time describing your emotions instead of making the reader feel them. This can take up more space but makes the actual writing sound way better.

Without reading your PS, I think you're probably on the right track. Just make sure that you are very deliberate with utilizing these emotional experiences to show why you want to be a doctor, which is the whole point of the essay. I wish you all the best with your current cycle, but if the time comes to review your application for next year, do not be afraid to try out other topics for your essay. If you "instinctively drift away" from what you wrote in the essay during practice interviews, does the essay really describe why you want to be a doctor? Of course that is totally up to you. I wrote out a few about completely different topics and realized that the one that sounded the best was not the one that I initially thought.

I can't say whether or not admissions will overlook concerns of nativity or immaturity (which I know is the point of your post, sorry I ranted), but I doubt that they go back and compare personal statements or supplementary essays from year to year. I could be wrong. Best of luck, you got this!

The bolded was also a big part of why I want to change my essay; I realized that my PS described why I wanted to help people but not why I wanted to be a doctor in particular (similar but not quite the same). If I was asked the questions "Why not nursing? Why not social work?", my personal statement would have offered very few clues. Of course, I did try to tie it back to medicine when I wrote it but it seems forced in hindsight.

 

[Goro]

Hello,

I suspect I’ll need to reapply since this cycle is going badly for me and I was wondering if any adcoms could shed light on a question for me.

Looking back, I suspect my writing is what ultimately brought my application down since my stats and activities are all pretty good. Specifically, I think I appeared naive and overly idealistic.

In practice interviews, I actually instinctively drift away from what I wrote in my personal statement and I’ve been told that I interview well (I need to get IIs first though).

How readily do adcoms overlook previous concerns of naivety/immaturity if the applicant appears to have grown since then?

Get some real life experience, especially in service positions.

 

[Homunculus150]

Get some real life experience, especially in service positions.

Yup, been doing AmeriCorps position at a food bank this year (which will definitely be a top 3 experience if I need to reapply).

Was kinda unexpected since I only got the position after ScribeAmerica kept delaying my start dates and I didn’t know what AmeriCorps was.

 

[efle]

You have a 3.8+ GPA and top 5% MCAT. Applied to 37 schools and got 1 interview? Definitely sounds like a red flag to me, and if you feel good about your LORs, then your self assessment about your writing is probably correct.

If you reapply, write a very standard PS (don't try to get fancy) about a safe topic like your favorite experiences drawing you to medicine. Much safer than writing about struggles with empathy. I haven't read your statement, but from what you describe, I think you may have sounded like you're on the spectrum rather than naïve/idealistic.

 

[Homunculus150]

You have a 3.8+ GPA and top 5% MCAT. Applied to 37 schools and got 1 interview? Definitely sounds like a red flag to me, and if you feel good about your LORs, then your self assessment about your writing is probably correct.

If you reapply, write a very standard PS (don't try to get fancy) about a safe topic like your favorite experiences drawing you to medicine. Much safer than writing about struggles with empathy. I haven't read your statement, but from what you describe, I think you may have sounded like you're on the spectrum rather than naïve/idealistic.

That’s my plan. Just gonna write my own spin on liking science and helping people (I go with a variation of this for my interview practice anyways).

I knew the topic was kinda risky when I picked it but I was really proud of it at the time since I had made most of those strides in the past year and my friends who read it (bad move; should have gotten someone less close to me to read it) thought it was good.

In hindsight, I realize that random adcoms who don’t know me will not care about how I overcame these challenges since there are plenty of candidates who never had to deal with them in the first place and are more innately talented with social skills.

Hoping that adcoms won’t hold whatever I wrote against me for next time. I’ll have spent a year in an AmeriCorps position that is very people-skills-heavy and will be getting an excellent rec letter from it so hopefully all of those concerns will be gone. Assuming they don’t, I’m pretty confident I’ll be good for next cycle.

 

[KnightDoc]

Hoping that adcoms won’t hold whatever I wrote against me for next time. I’ll have spent a year in an AmeriCorps position that is very people-skills-heavy and will be getting an excellent rec letter from it so hopefully all of those concerns will be gone. Assuming they don’t, I’m pretty confident I’ll be good for next cycle.

The simple fact is that some will and some won't. At some schools, there absolutely IS a bias against reapplicants. The easiest way to overcome this is with time, and, assuming the issue was stats or ECs, with improvement and addressing obvious gaps and weaknesses.

If your PS was the problem, changing it won't necessarily help you because all schools are not going to simply forget that you ever submitted it. If they hated it, and it caused them to call your judgment into question for submitting it, you won't necessarily get a clean slate simply for having the awareness to change it for a reapp.

Absolutely do what you are doing, and hope for the best. My advice, which won't be easy to implement given you applied to 37 schools, would be to find a bunch of schools you'd be happy at where you are not a reapplicant, and won't have to deal with the baggage associated with that. Also apply to a subset of the 37 schools that you really loved, but don't limit yourself to them.

 

[Homunculus150]

The simple fact is that some will and some won't. At some schools, there absolutely IS a bias against reapplicants. The easiest way to overcome this is with time, and, assuming the issue was stats or ECs, with improvement and addressing obvious gaps and weaknesses.

If your PS was the problem, changing it won't necessarily help you because all schools are not going to simply forget that you ever submitted it. If they hated it, and it caused them to call your judgment into question for submitting it, you won't necessarily get a clean slate simply for having the awareness to change it for a reapp.

Absolutely do what you are doing, and hope for the best. My advice, which won't be easy to implement given you applied to 37 schools, would be to find a bunch of schools you'd be happy at where you are not a reapplicant, and won't have to deal with the baggage associated with that. Also apply to a subset of the 37 schools that you really loved, but don't limit yourself to them.

Planning to make 40-50% of my next school list brand new schools.

It is a little upsetting to realize that the story of how I overcome challenges in my life was possibly seen as a liability and a slight on my character instead of as a proof of resiliency and capability of growth as I had hoped. I was so proud of overcoming my past challenges that I felt the need to share it with everyone and now, ironically, those challenges may be coming back to haunt me one last time.

Thank you to everyone who responded. I’m hoping for the best since I do technically have a shot at getting off my state school’s waitlist this cycle and they’ll give me feedback if that isn’t the case. Assuming a worst case scenario where everyone absolutely hated my PS and instantly throw away my reapplication, I wouldn’t mind going to a new school; I care about being able to practice medicine far more than geography.

 

[JimKimSlim]

BTW, there are lots of applicants with 3.8+ and 518+ who barely received ii or A yet have terrific AMCAS likely due to large increase in applicants this year.

It's always good to plan ahead about reapplying, since you start rejected until you see that A, but perhaps you just need to be patient a little more, since the admissions cycle is far from over (especially when you have 30+ schools that are silent, and i doubt all of them will be silent rejection).

 

[longhaul3]

I doubt that people thought your struggle with emotions was a liability. As others are pointing out, this whole train of thought just seems to come out of left field. It's not really relevant to a med school application. You seem to be a good writer based on these posts so I'm sure you said it with a flourish, but the gist I got was that you said you want to be a doctor because you used to struggle with showing emotions and you overcame that, and that's why you want to be a doctor. It's a non sequitur—I don't see how an application reviewer would be able to engage with that.

 

[Homunculus150]

I doubt that people thought your struggle with emotions was a liability. As others are pointing out, this whole train of thought just seems to come out of left field. It's not really relevant to a med school application. You seem to be a good writer based on these posts so I'm sure you said it with a flourish, but the gist I got was that you said you want to be a doctor because you used to struggle with showing emotions and you overcame that, and that's why you want to be a doctor. It's a non sequitur—I don't see how an application reviewer would be able to engage with that.

Yeah, it was definitely a mistake choosing that topic in the first place; I essentially gave out my entire life story and tried relating it back to medicine but clearly did not convey it well.

 

[Homunculus150]

When would it be appropriate to contact schools for feedback on one’s application?

Some rejection emails I’ve gotten specifically ask not to request feedback but others don’t mention anything so I’ll try contacting those schools.

The one school that I am on a waitlist for told me to contact them in the spring for feedback regardless of whether I am rejected or not.

 

[KnightDoc]

When would it be appropriate to contact schools for feedback on one’s application?

Some rejection emails I’ve gotten specifically ask not to request feedback but others don’t mention anything so I’ll try contacting those schools.

The one school that I am on a waitlist for told me to contact them in the spring for feedback regardless of whether I am rejected or not.

This^^^^^^. As you know, many schools won't give feedback at all. Those that do generally don't do it until after the cycle is over.

You might still be accepted somewhere, in which case it would be a waste of time right now both for you and for the schools. I'd wait until late spring and then reach out to every school that hasn't told you not to. Given what you've told us, though, I think you already know what they will say, so not receiving feedback from them is not going to prevent you from submitting a better application the next time around.

 

[Homunculus150]

This^^^^^^. As you know, many schools won't give feedback at all. Those that do generally don't do it until after the cycle is over.

You might still be accepted somewhere, in which case it would be a waste of time right now both for you and for the schools. I'd wait until late spring and then reach out to every school that hasn't told you not to. Given what you've told us, though, I think you already know what they will say, so not receiving feedback from them is not going to prevent you from submitting a better application the next time around.

Yeah, I’m fairly certain what my weaknesses are.

Still, I do hope to get feedback from some of my schools; no one who has read my essays (around 6 people) except for myself believes they were terrible.

The worst case scenario would be a negative letter of rec but I don’t think any of my letter writers would have chosen to write something bad about me. Not much I could do in that case though if that did happen besides swapping out that letter writer and hoping for the best.

 

[Homunculus150]

Since I got off the waitlist for my state school and got the A, is there any benefit to meeting with their admission’s office for a review of my application? They gave that offer to everyone who was on the waitlist at any point.

 

[LizzyM]

Since I got off the waitlist for my state school and got the A, is there any benefit to meeting with their admission’s office for a review of my application? They gave that offer to everyone who was on the waitlist at any point.

What would be the point? You are taking the offer, aren't you? While taking constructive criticism is something we should all be willing to do, what would be constructive about this? What could you improve or change given that you do not need to reapply?

 

[Homunculus150]

What would be the point? You are taking the offer, aren't you? While taking constructive criticism is something we should all be willing to do, what would be constructive about this? What could you improve or change given that you do not need to reapply?

That’s what I figured; just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some hidden benefit that I was overlooking before scrapping the idea for good.

Thanks!