Fear

yes, it's natural to feel doubt.. i'm not that worried about not getting in, honestly. I'll just apply again next year, I already have a job I love. In fact, I'm thinking about deferring anyway if I do get in - but don't anyone tell the adcoms that!

 

Fear during this process is normal. Just remember that most people eventually do get into med school. Persistence for getting in, not only during the application process, but which you hopefully demonstrated in your class work and ECs will land you a spot somewhere.

 

Yeah. I'm feelin' it too. My plan is to get a tension relieving massage as soon as my financial aid check comes in. Then I'll pay off my credit card for all of these secondaries and the suit I bought for interviews. Fear is unavoidable, but you don't have to bow to it.

 

if you got fear, like me, then don't read the "who's got an interview" thread, cuz that really makes you sh** bricks if you haven't gotten an interview yet (or not that many)

 

i stopped reading that thread a loooong time ago!! i'm not scared-- yet. talk to me in december and i haven't had any interview invites-- then i'll be scared!!

 

I'm with ya there!

 

Since I going through the application last year I would like to tell all of you that it is normal to have some fear, some doubt, and some concern. I would also like to say that it is far too early to be worrying due to a lack of interview invites. I learned that the process for screening (and speed at which it is performed) varying greatly from school to school. It really is a series of waiting games. Last year, I watched numerous people receive interview invites when I was without one. For me, they started rolling in during November. My first interview was December 7th and my last was in March (I submitted the SCAMCAS app on 7/1). I wound up getting 6 interview invites out of 10 secondaries completed. It just took a long time for them to invite me. Have faith my people!! If I remember correctly..it usually took atleast 4 weeks from the date that my application was complete (primary, secondary, letters, etc). Someone else getting an interview invite has nothing to do with your application. Look at this wait for an invite as a practice wait. You'll be waiting for acceptances, waitlists, and rejections after you interview...and those are the waits that are tough.

 

hmmm, hate to disagree, but I think that whichever wait you are *currently* doing is the one that is tough..

 

boy wonder, you know...after reading your post i realized that you were absolutely correct. i think, for me, that the post interview waits were by far the most difficult waits...however, i did not mean to come off as saying preinterview waits were easy.

my bad.

 

oh ignore me souljah - I'm just being facetious really (as usual...) - it's just funny how in hindsight things look easy was all I meant.

eg 1st year Physics looks easy to me now. At the time it was hell.

As a wise person once said to me "Life doesn't get easier when you solve a problem. You just get different problems"....

I know it sounds pessimistic, but in a perverse way it actually helps - it points out that you better enjoy life *now* regardless of whatever problems you have, because there is no "promised land free of problems" and if you wait till you have no problems to be happy - you'll never BE happy....

ok...enough of my [email protected] philosophising...I'm just jealous cos you got into my favorite medical school and they haven't even sent me a 2dary....

 

thats a good one, never heard that one before

what happened to the Bob Marley avatar?

 

In the words of Henry Ford--
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.


I keep saying that to myself like a mantra. Perhaps I should make it my signature.

 

boy wonder - i don't think that sounds pessimistic at all. focusing on what is on your plate now is a great way to live. i don't really think there is such as thing as 'life without problems' and i don't think i'd really want a life like that if there was one. i wise woman once said, 'strength buds from struggle'. oh, and i didn't get a ucsf secondary until november! there is plenty of time. let me know when you get the interview invite.

dw - i am not the original orator of the term SCAMCAS. one of the many brilliant folks on sdn came up with that one. i heard it first during last year's application cycle. as far as the avatar goes, i haven't put one up since they reconfigured sdn. i should get on that.

souljah.

 

I can totally understand. I felt the same way last year, all the way from practically right after submitting my AMCAS. I got an early interview, then had a major drought for about a month and a half. The postinterview waits were tense as well, protracted, and until after Jan. 1st, ended in entirely bad news. All I can say is that from reading your previous posts, I would have to say that you will probably get in somewhere.

There are worse things than not getting into medical school. If you are unsuccessful applying this year, then do whatever it takes to improve your application, and have fun doing it. Do the things you want to do that, if you were in medical school, you wouldn't have time for as you strengthen your application (if it comes to that). Good luck.

 

X,
I feel your pain. Whats worse is that I just took the August mcat, so I have till october to get any interview invites. I think some schools wont be sending their secondaries till after they see my scores. What really worries me is that people already have had interviews when I'm just completing 2ndaries. oh well, we all have to just hang in there.

 

I'd recommend that you do everything you can to make the present as fulfilling as possible, and imagine something you would love to do in the hypothetical world outside of medicine for a year. Being engaged in something quite apart from your premedical plans, even if that engagement is just a remote fantasy you've always put on the backburner, makes the application process MUCH easier. When you can become happy with your present circumstances, surroundings, and prospects, the worst-case scenarios of your medical plans become more manageable. Sometimes, those worst-case worries will even become non-existent, because when you take a step back from the grueling application hazing rituals of medicine, you realize that you have all the time in the world to get passed them. The confidence instilled in someone who can face the bleakest prospects of one goal and still find contentment in his/her "plan B" translates very clearly into strong interviewing. Trust me on that; I'm no zen-master of interviewing, but I know that the mind functions better on display when calm and collected. The interviewing attitude can subsequently evolve from one of intense fear, where the weight of the world hangs on each response, to an adventurous outlook in which you feel you have very little to lose and everything to gain for the attempt.

good luck this year, and have fun whenever remotely possible.

~DB