Does a smaller school hurt my chances?

[mulletmandan]

Hey everyone,

I'm going to be a senior in the fall at a small private university in Indiana. This could just be my nerves, but I'm starting to feel like I should have gone for a bigger school.

I have a 3.95 GPA (both overall and sciences), and I've done 4 semesters of research at my institution (osteoporosis research). I also did a summer research fellowship at Purdue University working on a yeast proteomics project (40 hours/week all summer). I get my MCAT scores back on Thursday (I know I didn't do as well as I could have; I think my nerves got the best of me).

I'm sure I'll have excellent LOEs from my research advisers and professors, so am I crazy for being nervous about this?

Another thing: I feel like I put so much time into my studies that my extracurriculars have suffered. Granted, I worked for a week at a camp for kids with Muscular Dystrophy over the summer, but I haven't had much of a chance to volunteer during the school year. I also worked as a TA for 2 semesters, and a tutor, but I don't think these really count as extracurriculars .

I also feel like I don't know exactly what specialty I want to go into, but I know I want to go MD/PhD. I have always wanted to be a doctor, but I love the analytical aspects of research.

I'm sorry to vent like this, but I feel like I'm having a bit of a meltdown and I needed to get it out there. Any sort of comfort (or even brutal honesty, if I need it) would be appreciated.

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[seraph524]

Hey everyone,

I'm going to be a senior in the fall at a small private university in Indiana. This could just be my nerves, but I'm starting to feel like I should have gone for a bigger school.

I have a 3.95 GPA (both overall and sciences), and I've done 4 semesters of research at my institution (osteoporosis research). I also did a summer research fellowship at Purdue University working on a yeast proteomics project (40 hours/week all summer). I get my MCAT scores back on Thursday (I know I didn't do as well as I could have; I think my nerves got the best of me).

I'm sure I'll have excellent LOEs from my research advisers and professors, so am I crazy for being nervous about this?

Another thing: I feel like I put so much time into my studies that my extracurriculars have suffered. Granted, I worked for a week at a camp for kids with Muscular Dystrophy, but I haven't had much of a chance to volunteer during the school year.

I also feel like I don't know exactly what specialty I want to go into, but I know I want to go MD/PhD. I have always wanted to be a doctor, but I love the analytical aspects of research.

I'm sorry to vent like this, but I feel like I'm having a bit of a meltdown and I needed to get it out there. Any sort of comfort (or even brutal honesty, if I need it) would be appreciated.

Welcome to the forums!

To answer your questions, nope, where you go to school does not matter. All that matters are your grades, MCAT scores, research experience, and letter of recommendations.

Also, because of the nature of being an MD/PhD applicant, I dare say none of us have the colorful resume of MD applicants, since research sucks so much time out of the day. But that is quite alright! My only other extracurricular activity (other than research) was TAing.

And, I don't think any of us who are not currently in the midst of a program knows what they really want to do. My personal interests have changed so much in the past couple of months, its amazing.

Hrm...does anybody know how to multi-quote a message? Neuronix? How do you quote a message so that it breaks down into individual parts so you can comment on them individually?

 

[mulletmandan]

Welcome to the forums!

To answer your questions, nope, where you go to school does not matter. All that matters are your grades, MCAT scores, research experience, and letter of recommendations.

Also, because of the nature of being an MD/PhD applicant, I dare say none of us have the colorful resume of MD applicants, since research sucks so much time out of the day. But that is quite alright! My only other extracurricular activity (other than research) was TAing.

And, I don't think any of us who are not currently in the midst of a program knows what they really want to do. My personal interests have changed so much in the past couple of months, its amazing.

Hrm...does anybody know how to multi-quote a message? Neuronix? How do you quote a message so that it breaks down into individual parts so you can comment on them individually?

seraph,

Thanks for the quick reply. I think I freaked out a bit after reading some of the extracurricular lists of some MD applicants, and I suddenly felt incredibly inadequate . I guess I just need to focus on my own strengths rather than comparing myself with others.

 

[seraph524]

seraph,

Thanks for the quick reply. I think I freaked out a bit after reading some of the extracurricular lists of some MD applicants, and I suddenly felt incredibly inadequate . I guess I just need to focus on my own strengths rather than comparing myself with others.

Sure thing man, feel free to ask more questions! We are a very friendly forum

And yea, you shouldn't be scared by other people, just do your own thing and excel in your own way!

 

[Calf]

Welcome to the forums!

To answer your questions, nope, where you go to school does not matter. All that matters are your grades, MCAT scores, research experience, and letter of recommendations.

Also, because of the nature of being an MD/PhD applicant, I dare say none of us have the colorful resume of MD applicants, since research sucks so much time out of the day. But that is quite alright! My only other extracurricular activity (other than research) was TAing.

Testing.

And, I don't think any of us who are not currently in the midst of a program knows what they really want to do. My personal interests have changed so much in the past couple of months, its amazing.

Hrm...does anybody know how to multi-quote a message? Neuronix? How do you quote a message so that it breaks down into individual parts so you can comment on them individually?

This should work.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Just wrap the section you want to comment on in quote tags.

Like this.

Blah blah.

And this.

Blah blah.


Hmmm... can't get the code tags to work. Just quote this message and you can see what I did.

 

[magwi11]

I've wondered how to do this too, but quoting the message doesn't seem to work because it removes the text that you quoted, and only quotes what you said.

Testing.



This should work.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Just wrap the section you want to comment on in quote tags.



Blah blah.



Blah blah.


Hmmm... can't get the code tags to work. Just quote this message and you can see what I did.

 

[QofQuimica]

I'm sure I'll have excellent LOEs from my research advisers and professors, so am I crazy for being nervous about this?

In my opinion, anyone who is *not* nervous about getting into med school is either a robot or has the biggest ego this side of Texas. It's a lot of hard work to get into med school, and there's a lot of competition; who in their right mind *wouldn't* be nervous? But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Your GPA is great, and it sounds like you have plenty of research experience. I don't know how "below expectations" your MCAT was, but I think if it's above a 30 and you apply broadly enough, you should be fine.

FWIW, I went to a very small liberal arts college with no grades, GPAs, or credit hours. (When I say small, I'm talking about 550 students *total*. My HS graduating class was almost as big as my entire college!) It made for some interesting adventures when applying, and some schools were more ok with it than others. But in the end, it didn't wind up mattering very much at most of them.

Hrm...does anybody know how to multi-quote a message? Neuronix? How do you quote a message so that it breaks down into individual parts so you can comment on them individually?

What I do is type BRACKET /quote BRACKET at the end of each part that I want to quote. (Type "[" and "]" for "BRACKET".) Make sure to include the slash, or the quote won't end. To start a new quote, just type BRACKET quote= BRACKET. Again, make sure to include the equal sign or it won't start the quote. Like this:

BRACKET quote=qofquimica BRACKET blah blah blah BRACKET /quote BRACKET

becomes

blah blah blah

If I leave out my name, it will still quote the text, but there just won't be a name there:

blah blah blah