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- Apr 2, 2010
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HI SDN'ers
I am pretty new to this forum. I was hoping some of you can comment on the situation that I find myself in. I guess I'm not the typical "reapplicant" in that I didn't go through with the process and get rejected, so I was hoping someone can provide some advice on what I should. I've heard some advice that if one received few/no interviews, drastic changes must be made in the new application. I unfortunately did not know how my application would have fared, since I withdrew it a week after I submitted it. I believed I had an excellent personal statement that I would love to re-use. Unfortunately, my advisor said that I can no longer use it since they will have a copy of previous application and will cross-reference to see that I'm not using the same one.
I'll try to provide a little more context.
I have an abundance of clinical experience, which appears to come up a lot as a "weakness" in post-rejection feedbacks. Since I graduated in Jan of 2009 (GPA of 4.7 on our 5.0 scale which is equivalent to 3.7/4.0 Why do we do it differently? beats me), I have been working full time as a medical assistant at two different clinics. I worked for 10 months at my first clinic. At that job, I took vitals, did phlebotomy, injections, EKG's, and processed lab specimen. The clinic's patients base predominantly consisted of underserved population.
I am currently at a different clinic, which I have been working since Nov 09. I do pretty much the same thing except I no longer do phlebotomy, injections, or process specimen. Some major differences in my current clinic is phone triage - patients describe their symptoms to me and I determine whether they should be seen and how soon. I also take patient history: I would greet patients, bring them into a room, speak to them for about 5 minutes, listen to their complaints or any updates since their last visit and take notes. Basically, I've had a LOT of exposure working directly and closely with patients in a primary care setting, which is what I want to pursue.
I had a disappointing MCAT the first time around, which caused me to withdraw my application soon after I submitted it. Though the biggest setback was that it dis-allowed me from using my personal statement, which I worked really really hard on and my advisor and many others said was excellent. Since they will cross reference my new PS with my old PS, would this be considered a sort of advantage, since learn about me from TWO essays. Since I have everything ready to go this time around, I will submit my application on the earliest day possible. I retook the MCAT on 03/27 and am crossing my fingers for better results this time, but am ready to take a 3rd time if need be.
I did a year of research, in which I am getting a LoR from my supervisor and the Nobel laureate PI is kind enough to sign off on it. Even though I was very involved in the research and learned a lot of really high level techniques (e.g. perfusion, stereotaxic injection, immunohistochemical staining, etc.. ) there was No publication that resulted from my work. Aside from my dismal MCAT score (and actually it was only the verbal), I thought I was a pretty strong candidate. Though maybe I'm just deluding myself.
I did some volunteering during my undergraduate years at a homeless shelter. At one point, I was consistently volunteering there weekly for 6 months, but then it became intermittent after that until I finally stopped after I graduated.
Since graduation and up until now, I have been so busy with work, taking Chem Lab at a different university to fulfill requirement, and studying for my retake of MCAT, I have not been able to volunteer at all. I wonder how much this will hurt me.
What should I do, if anything, from now up until submission of application?
Thanks in advance
I am pretty new to this forum. I was hoping some of you can comment on the situation that I find myself in. I guess I'm not the typical "reapplicant" in that I didn't go through with the process and get rejected, so I was hoping someone can provide some advice on what I should. I've heard some advice that if one received few/no interviews, drastic changes must be made in the new application. I unfortunately did not know how my application would have fared, since I withdrew it a week after I submitted it. I believed I had an excellent personal statement that I would love to re-use. Unfortunately, my advisor said that I can no longer use it since they will have a copy of previous application and will cross-reference to see that I'm not using the same one.
I'll try to provide a little more context.
I have an abundance of clinical experience, which appears to come up a lot as a "weakness" in post-rejection feedbacks. Since I graduated in Jan of 2009 (GPA of 4.7 on our 5.0 scale which is equivalent to 3.7/4.0 Why do we do it differently? beats me), I have been working full time as a medical assistant at two different clinics. I worked for 10 months at my first clinic. At that job, I took vitals, did phlebotomy, injections, EKG's, and processed lab specimen. The clinic's patients base predominantly consisted of underserved population.
I am currently at a different clinic, which I have been working since Nov 09. I do pretty much the same thing except I no longer do phlebotomy, injections, or process specimen. Some major differences in my current clinic is phone triage - patients describe their symptoms to me and I determine whether they should be seen and how soon. I also take patient history: I would greet patients, bring them into a room, speak to them for about 5 minutes, listen to their complaints or any updates since their last visit and take notes. Basically, I've had a LOT of exposure working directly and closely with patients in a primary care setting, which is what I want to pursue.
I had a disappointing MCAT the first time around, which caused me to withdraw my application soon after I submitted it. Though the biggest setback was that it dis-allowed me from using my personal statement, which I worked really really hard on and my advisor and many others said was excellent. Since they will cross reference my new PS with my old PS, would this be considered a sort of advantage, since learn about me from TWO essays. Since I have everything ready to go this time around, I will submit my application on the earliest day possible. I retook the MCAT on 03/27 and am crossing my fingers for better results this time, but am ready to take a 3rd time if need be.
I did a year of research, in which I am getting a LoR from my supervisor and the Nobel laureate PI is kind enough to sign off on it. Even though I was very involved in the research and learned a lot of really high level techniques (e.g. perfusion, stereotaxic injection, immunohistochemical staining, etc.. ) there was No publication that resulted from my work. Aside from my dismal MCAT score (and actually it was only the verbal), I thought I was a pretty strong candidate. Though maybe I'm just deluding myself.
I did some volunteering during my undergraduate years at a homeless shelter. At one point, I was consistently volunteering there weekly for 6 months, but then it became intermittent after that until I finally stopped after I graduated.
Since graduation and up until now, I have been so busy with work, taking Chem Lab at a different university to fulfill requirement, and studying for my retake of MCAT, I have not been able to volunteer at all. I wonder how much this will hurt me.
What should I do, if anything, from now up until submission of application?
Thanks in advance
