I have no X factor or "theme" in my application

[idkjustchooseone]

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[GoPenguinsGo]

Tutoring is a dime a dozen amon applicants to my understanding. That said, if you are passionate about it then there is no reason not to do it.

 

[LizzyM]

Given that you've worked a blue collar job, if you are interested in primary care or working in an underserved area, try to find some volunteering with working class adults (adult literacy, food insecurity, etc). Your hook could be your experience working and volunteering with that population, your knowledge of their day-to-day and your interest in serving them as a physician.

 

[idkjustchooseone]

Given that you've worked a blue collar job, if you are interested in primary care or working in an underserved area, try to find some volunteering with working class adults (adult literacy, food insecurity, etc). Your hook could be your experience working and volunteering with that population, your knowledge of their day-to-day and your interest in serving them as a physician.

That is a really good idea, I appreciate the help! Would this be something that I would have to centralize my whole application on? Like a central theme?

 

[LizzyM]

That is a really good idea, I appreciate the help! Would this be something that I would have to centralize my whole application on? Like a central theme?

if you have three activities, including the factory work, that involve working along side or helping blue collar folks, and you work those experiences into "why medicine" and your specific career goals, you're good. Don't make it the topic of every essay or you look like a one-trick pony.

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

As a student at a T15 med school and has helped and advised many students to get into med school, I would say the X factor is your GPA and MCAT OP. To every premed reading this, ask yourself, do you have the GPA and MCAT to get into medical school? If so, then go find some cool EC's and stuff to do. IF not, then go hit those books.

Everyone has a unique story. I've met some incredible people with great stories but not great stats not get in. I've never met someoen with decent stats and a decent story not get in.

It's a mistake so many students make in my opinion. We all get caught up on ec's and etc etc. But at the end of the day, the adcoms screen for grades. If you have decent grades, then you can at least get into med school. After that ec's and other factors lead to how far up you go in that process.

I've seen it so often where people do a bunch of great ec's because they want to look impressive to get into harvard. But then come short when it comes to grades.

I know someone in college who was was a leader of 3 major organizations, doing research, and founded a community service organization that did really impressive work imo. But she's on her third MCAT retake just because she never takes the time to study properly for the exam and just struggles to study for it in general. She's on her second reapplication.

On the other hand, I've seen so many average applicants (3.6/ 511) get into medical school. Sure, they're not going into harvard but still they're in medical school.

And to the people who comment but grades aren't everything. 4.0/528's always post about 0 interview/acceptances. Listen, I've met those people irl and it's true when people theorize there;s more to that story. I met someone who had a 4.0 527 and told an interviewer that he wanted to do medicine so he could go into cosmetic plastic surgery and live in LA and make millions in a private practice. He figured honesty is the best policy but literally everyone knows you shouldn't be going into medicine solely for money. I knew someone with similar stats who said he supported the capitol riots during an interview.

This is a topic that is passionate to me because I think so often students get caught up in the little details that they forget the bigger picture. Myself included and I realize this is the case durign every step of the process too. During my first year of medical school, I focused sooo much on research because STEP 1 is P/F. And yeah there's some argument to that. But as I enter my second year of medical school, I realize I don't know **** about medicine and my study habits aren't great and if I don't get my academics together, I'm going to be reamed during rotations and STEP 2.

So often I see students fall into the trap and I hope this post maybe helps some people realize what they need to recenter their focus on. First make sure you have what it takes to get into medical school and then worry about EC's and such.

 

[LizzyM]

in response to @CuriousMDStudent 's suggestions: Premeds: Don't pursue medicine if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Also recognize that most of you will be going pro in something other than medicine (the number who start out as pre-meds vs those who actually get admitted is a remarkably small proportion). Yes, work hard to earn good grades, learn the material and do some serious MCAT prep learning how to take what you learned in your classes and use it to correctly answer MCAT-style questions, but also do some patient-facing activities to be sure you can even stand being in such an environment for 40 years, spend at least a little time each month to help others, and devote time every week to at least one activity that you enjoy and that helps you to refresh yourself.

 

[LindaAccepted]

Hello!

I've read a lot that it is very helpful to have an "X factor" or something that makes you stand out from the other applicants, but I genuinely have no idea what type of additional factor I can add. I am very happy with my grades this far and feel like I have some time before I apply, so I have time to actually build up a strong application, but I genuinely have no idea what I can be doing that is extra.

As of now I have 450 hours as a scribe. I worked as a welder for a battery company for 1200 hours. I have shadowing and volunteering on my radar, just struggling to find somewhere to do them.

Something that I am very passionate about is helping those in need in Chicago (I am Chicago based). I was planning on tutoring kids in the Chicago Public Schools system with an organization I've found. Would this, along with volunteering in a free clinic, be that "X factor?" This is the only thing that I would be passionate about doing with my free time.

Thanks a lot

Certainly your blue collar work experience is distinctive and yes you need good grades and MCAT, plus you need to demonstrate to yourself and the adcom that you know what you're getting into.

But the real X factor is the depth of reflection that you bring to your application as you relate your experiences both in the primary and the secondary and ultimately in interviews. What you've accomplished and contributed is important. What you've learned about yourself and caring for people in clinical environments and community service and research and other experiences should be distinctive if not unique.

I have interviewed many med school admissions dean and directors for our podcast, and they talked about the importance of the application conveying the applicant's passion and sense of purpose for medicine. To effectively convey that thoughtfulness, purposefulness, and passion, reflection is required.

Duke Medical's Associate Dean of Admissions, Dr. Linton Yee, for example, expressed it as follows when I asked what are common mistakes that he sees in applications:

" A lot of times they talk more about themselves rather than what they learned from other people and what they’ve gained from their interaction with other people. For instance, we have the disappointment question, and a lot of times people will write that they got a B minus in class or didn’t do as well on the MCAT as they thought they would, but I would think that there’s maybe more that they could have talked about.

"We like to look for patient interactions. I may have talked about this three years ago, but some of the better essays have been, for instance, like in hospice, what the student actually learned from the patient that they were paired with about going through the latter stages of life and exiting gracefully and how they got a chance to really appreciate the power of the human spirit. That’s the type of experience we would prefer to read about and see that the applicant has a really good understanding of why they’re in medicine and how to deal with people and communication skills and developing relationships.

"We have the advocacy one as well, because as physicians they’re going to need to stand up for people who don’t have a voice. I think we realized this long ago, because we’ve had that essay in there for so long, that it’s really important for them to tell us what they did and how they did it. For example, one of the plastic surgery residents who is here now, I think he’s in his fifth or sixth year, and he wrote one of the best advocacy essays within the last 10 years in my opinion. He wrote about how he stood up for someone who was being bullied and picked on by this popular person and so he put himself at risk by intervening and stopping it. Everybody respected him enough that they stopped doing that. The way he wrote it was very eloquent and well put.

"And you look at what he’s done today, he’s just a fantastic resident and person and he’s going to do and already doing great things. It’s that sort of stuff that we want to see in essays because just following that one resident longitudinally, we can see what he’s turned out to be.

"That’s, again, why the essays are put there, so that people can actually reflect upon these things. "

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

in response to @CuriousMDStudent 's suggestions: Premeds: Don't pursue medicine if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Also recognize that most of you will be going pro in something other than medicine (the number who start out as pre-meds vs those who actually get admitted is a remarkably small proportion). Yes, work hard to earn good grades, learn the material and do some serious MCAT prep learning how to take what you learned in your classes and use it to correctly answer MCAT-style questions, but also do some patient-facing activities to be sure you can even stand being in such an environment for 40 years, spend at least a little time each month to help others, and devote time every week to at least one activity that you enjoy and that helps you to refresh yourself.

I disagree here with @LizzyM even though I respect her a lot and she helped me a lot during my premed process. You helped me out a lot on an alt account LizzyM and I have always remembered and appreciated the many answers you provided me. My critique hear does not discount the vast knowledge she has on the admissions process but I think there is a disconnect on what the current student has to go through vs what students in the past had to go through.

What I'm trying to say is, it's okay if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. If you can't, than means you need to first take time to make sure you can walk. And if all you can do is walk and once in a while chew gum, that's much better and much more likely to get you into med school than just chewing gum all day. In this analogy walking is studying and getting good grades and standardized exam scores and chewing gum is ECs.

And this is something I am trying to teach to any premed reading this. The faculty in your school are far removed from the education process and many never even went through the premed process and are PhDs and don't know what it takes to actively be a student and actually go through this process and succeed. And this isn't the fault of the faculty. The material and exams have changed vastly since they took these exams or studied for these exams. Google what a 1970 MCAT looked like and it looks like what a chemistry midterm plus a biology midterm combined. Straight forward questions testing simple concepts in those subjects.

Today's MCAT, STEP exams, and school exams, test much deeper understandings of the material vs what they had to learn back then because 1. we have better resources to learn (video resources, more practice questions, etc) and 2. because science has advanced so much in the past 30 years and there is so much more science and medicine we need to know vs back then. Ask any faculty how they studied back then and they said they would read a textbook, memorize what they can, highlight and etc and they passed their classes. That worked back then. Now we must incorporate a lot of practice questions and other study methods to succeed.

If you read what LizzyM just wrote, it sounds so simple and it's an idealistic standard that so many faculty preach to students. An idealistic approach that hurts a lot of the students trying to reach it because it discourages them when they can't reach it and overall it's an unrealistic approach. Study hard for classes, do some MCAT questions here and there, and then do some volunteering/ECs when you have time. This was unfathomable for me as a premed. Back in college, I was taking 4 or 5 classes. 2 of which were science i.e orgo and biochem. If I finished studying hard for an ochem exam, it was onto the next biochem exam or english essay I hadn't started yet. Doing a 5-6 MCAT questions here and there sounds so easy but it's an hour of your time if you take the time to properly review your mistakes and the corresponding topics and with so many other pressing matters that's tough. Then go

And this isn't an opinion backed by a random medical student who succeeded in the process and is at a T15 school. It's supported by many actual mentor doctors I have. My main mentor is an ortho surgeon who juggles being an ortho surgeon with mentoring students with research with family time. He's an academic ortho surgeon meaning he has to do all of these things. But it's not how many people would picture it. People would think he would do all of these things in a week. No. He prioritizes. He goes a week or 2 on doing clinical duty and then on a slower week, he'll take a day to mentor us on our research projects and do research on his own and then back to it. Notice how he prioritizes the main thing which is his clinical obligations then when he has time he works on other obligations like mentor/research. And of course he goes home to his family every day and also goes on vacations and only focuses on them during that time. No work emails.

This is how a premed should operate. Focus on school 80-90% of the time. Focus on getting those As and as close to a 4.0 as possible. Maybe on the weekend AFTER an exam, volunteer and such. Then use your summers or breaks (spring, thanksgiving, winter break) as times to really do your ECs. For the MCAT, preferably you take it after a long break like a summer or winter or spring break and you sit down and just give yourself dedicated time to study.

I write so much about this because I was misled. My own premed advisor told me what lizzym told me and I did atrocious during my first year of college. So I shifted to the plan I suggested to you all. I aced my last 3 years of college (straight 4.0s), I still had a very impressive CV, did very well on my MCAT, and I'm at a T15. I was told that exact line. If you can't study and do EC's regularly, you can't be a doctor when in reality doctors don't juggle a bunch of responsibilities daily. And the person telling me that never even went to a health professional school.

I also fell into this trap in medical school. We got a talk from someone who told us we should study 3 anatomy flashcards a night and volunteer in the hospital once a week. That was the biggest load of baloney I had ever heard now that I think about it. Do you know how many anatomy flashcards are in an actually comprehensive deck. 100s if not 1000s! You'd never finish with 3 cards a night and volunteering in a hospital as a medical student. Do you know how precious an afternoon or day of studying with the amount of material on medical school exams now. I followed that advice for a week before realizing it was ridiculous and having my mentor laugh at it. And realize at the end, I knew what I had to do which was go back to my way of prioritizing what's important.

So, in conclusion, to whoever reads this. It's all about prioritization. If you can't balance it all, then studying is #1. Then after than you can try to bring in the other stuff.

 

[LizzyM]

I disagree here with @LizzyM even though I respect her a lot and she helped me a lot during my premed process.

<snip>

Study hard for classes, do some MCAT questions here and there, and then do some volunteering/ECs when you have time. This was unfathomable for me as a premed. Back in college, I was taking 4 or 5 classes. 2 of which were science i.e orgo and biochem. If I finished studying hard for an ochem exam, it was onto the next biochem exam or english essay I hadn't started yet. Doing a 5-6 MCAT questions here and there sounds so easy

I never said that. Go back and read what I wrote.... "do some serious MCAT prep learning how to take what you learned in your classes and use it to correctly answer MCAT-style questions,"

We are on the same page.... one needs to devote a large number of hours to MCAT prep and the best time to do that varies for each applicant.

I also believe that everyone should have at least 1 hour out of 168 to do something recreational. Not to do so is to risk burn-out.

Time management is important and these grasshoppers need to learn how to do it. Telling them that they don't have to do it is foolishness.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

As a student at a T15 med school and has helped and advised many students to get into med school, I would say the X factor is your GPA and MCAT OP. To every premed reading this, ask yourself, do you have the GPA and MCAT to get into medical school? If so, then go find some cool EC's and stuff to do. IF not, then go hit those books.

Everyone has a unique story. I've met some incredible people with great stories but not great stats not get in. I've never met someoen with decent stats and a decent story not get in.

It's a mistake so many students make in my opinion. We all get caught up on ec's and etc etc. But at the end of the day, the adcoms screen for grades. If you have decent grades, then you can at least get into med school. After that ec's and other factors lead to how far up you go in that process.

I've seen it so often where people do a bunch of great ec's because they want to look impressive to get into harvard. But then come short when it comes to grades.

I know someone in college who was was a leader of 3 major organizations, doing research, and founded a community service organization that did really impressive work imo. But she's on her third MCAT retake just because she never takes the time to study properly for the exam and just struggles to study for it in general. She's on her second reapplication.

On the other hand, I've seen so many average applicants (3.6/ 511) get into medical school. Sure, they're not going into harvard but still they're in medical school.

And to the people who comment but grades aren't everything. 4.0/528's always post about 0 interview/acceptances. Listen, I've met those people irl and it's true when people theorize there;s more to that story. I met someone who had a 4.0 527 and told an interviewer that he wanted to do medicine so he could go into cosmetic plastic surgery and live in LA and make millions in a private practice. He figured honesty is the best policy but literally everyone knows you shouldn't be going into medicine solely for money. I knew someone with similar stats who said he supported the capitol riots during an interview.

This is a topic that is passionate to me because I think so often students get caught up in the little details that they forget the bigger picture. Myself included and I realize this is the case durign every step of the process too. During my first year of medical school, I focused sooo much on research because STEP 1 is P/F. And yeah there's some argument to that. But as I enter my second year of medical school, I realize I don't know **** about medicine and my study habits aren't great and if I don't get my academics together, I'm going to be reamed during rotations and STEP 2.

So often I see students fall into the trap and I hope this post maybe helps some people realize what they need to recenter their focus on. First make sure you have what it takes to get into medical school and then worry about EC's and such.

I think that the importance of grades vs. unique extracurriculars/story really depends upon where an applicant is applying from. Almost everybody at my school who gets a 3.7/517+ seems to get interviews/acceptances at top 30 (or just outside T30) schools. Most have good but not outstanding extracurriculars. For example, I would say that most do not have a publication unless they take a couple gap years. This clearly seems to support the argument that academics are more important than having outstanding ECs (multiple publications, founding a successful nonprofit, Fulbright etc.)

However, it’s not like interview days at top medical schools are composed of all Ivy League grads. In my experience, these applicants tend to have much more impressive stories and life experiences than interviewees coming from top schools. When interviews were in person, there was a lot more time for applicants to get to know each other and I was usually more impressed with the people coming from lesser known colleges.

Long story short, I think that unique experiences are very important for some applicants, but are not required if the academic background is strong enough to impress the adcom member deciding on whether to extend an interview.

 

[RangerBob]

The blue collar experience stands out, as others point out. It's not common to see that in pre-med applications. We all love people who come from more humble “Everyman” roots. I had a lot of volunteer/work experience but one thing quite a few interviewers focused on was my work as a janitor—and I only worked that job for six months, about 5hrs/week.

Blue collar work is something that a lot of Chicago/Midwestern faculty feel a connection to one way or the other. I did most of education/training in the Great Lakes region and so many physicians I worked with were from more humble working-class (including military) background.

I wove my prior interest in art/historic preservation into my personal statement. I was photographing/documenting a historic building next door to free clinic, which at the time I wasn't aware of. 4 years later I ended up happening to volunteer at that clinic, so I wrote about the interesting intersection between this beautiful building where I was attending a fairly snobby reception and then a few years later working in this clinic as a volunteer (and janitor there as well), rebuilding lives instead of buildings.

I can see it now...

As the acrid garlic-like smell of my acetylene torch cut through the cold steel the way a... well, acetylene torch cuts through steel... my wind wandered as the flame oxidized the metal around it--"and then isocitrate is oxidized into alpha-ketoglutarate, with formation of NADH," Dr. Harris said earlier that day while looking ever so dapper tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and a red bow tie. It's funny how your mind wanders when you're working with tools that could perform a transradial amputation as quickly as Darth Vader does to Luke, but I'll need that skill later when I become a neurosurgeon and need to plan my children's advanced 3rd grade calculus course while I'm doing my third glioblastoma resection of the day.

Obviously I made all that up. I have no idea if oxidation is involved in welding, and I googled the part about the Krebbs Cycle (literally all I remember about it is you get ATP out of it). But hopefully my joke makes a point--everyone has some profound clinical experience they want to share. Which is great! Adcoms want to hear about why you're going into medicine, not into welding batteries. But finding a creative way to tie in that welding with your clinical experience, whether welding is a metaphor for helping fix people, or it helped you relate to and old and uninsured former factory worker, etc, is something that might be refreshingly different to read about.

Just my two cents. But I'm not an adcom!

 

[CuriousMDStudent]

<snip>


I never said that. Go back and read what I wrote.... "do some serious MCAT prep learning how to take what you learned in your classes and use it to correctly answer MCAT-style questions,"

We are on the same page.... one needs to devote a large number of hours to MCAT prep and the best time to do that varies for each applicant.

I also believe that everyone should have at least 1 hour out of 168 to do something recreational. Not to do so is to risk burn-out.

Time management is important and these grasshoppers need to learn how to do it. Telling them that they don't have to do it is foolishness.

Oh I misread your post on the MCAT questions.

Regardless, I did want to mention an alternative to time management which is that you should try to find pockets of time when you are freer to fit in ECs and such. I don't like how so many advisors preach this idea of strictly following a weekly schedule where you force yourself to do something fun when you might not have the time if you have multiple exams or projects do.

You didn't have to add the snip in that post. I just wanted to say I appreciate you and that I made it and that you had some part to play. No need to be dismissive of a moment of appreciation.

 

[LizzyM]

Oh I misread your post on the MCAT questions.

Regardless, I did want to mention an alternative to time management which is that you should try to find pockets of time when you are freer to fit in ECs and such. I don't like how so many advisors preach this idea of strictly following a weekly schedule where you force yourself to do something fun when you might not have the time if you have multiple exams or projects do.

You didn't have to add the snip in that post. I just wanted to say I appreciate you and that I made it and that you had some part to play. No need to be dismissive of a moment of appreciation.

But a schedule keeps some people doing what they should be doing when if left to their own devices they'd be having so much fun (or procrastinating) that they would not study as much as they should. It is good to have priorities and put those times on the calendar. I had a chairman (later Dean), a physician, who still had a lab and who was religious in placing nothing else on his calendar on lab day.

Some people do well with schedules which is why so many advisors recommend them. One of the most popular items on this site is the MCAT study schedule because it works.

 

[idkjustchooseone]

The blue collar experience stands out, as others point out. It's not common to see that in pre-med applications. We all love people who come from more humble “Everyman” roots. I had a lot of volunteer/work experience but one thing quite a few interviewers focused on was my work as a janitor—and I only worked that job for six months, about 5hrs/week.

Blue collar work is something that a lot of Chicago/Midwestern faculty feel a connection to one way or the other. I did most of education/training in the Great Lakes region and so many physicians I worked with were from more humble working-class (including military) background.

I wove my prior interest in art/historic preservation into my personal statement. I was photographing/documenting a historic building next door to free clinic, which at the time I wasn't aware of. 4 years later I ended up happening to volunteer at that clinic, so I wrote about the interesting intersection between this beautiful building where I was attending a fairly snobby reception and then a few years later working in this clinic as a volunteer (and janitor there as well), rebuilding lives instead of buildings.

I can see it now...

As the acrid garlic-like smell of my acetylene torch cut through the cold steel the way a... well, acetylene torch cuts through steel... my wind wandered as the flame oxidized the metal around it--"and then isocitrate is oxidized into alpha-ketoglutarate, with formation of NADH," Dr. Harris said earlier that day while looking ever so dapper tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and a red bow tie. It's funny how your mind wanders when you're working with tools that could perform a transradial amputation as quickly as Darth Vader does to Luke, but I'll need that skill later when I become a neurosurgeon and need to plan my children's advanced 3rd grade calculus course while I'm doing my third glioblastoma resection of the day.

Obviously I made all that up. I have no idea if oxidation is involved in welding, and I googled the part about the Krebbs Cycle (literally all I remember about it is you get ATP out of it). But hopefully my joke makes a point--everyone has some profound clinical experience they want to share. Which is great! Adcoms want to hear about why you're going into medicine, not into welding batteries. But finding a creative way to tie in that welding with your clinical experience, whether welding is a metaphor for helping fix people, or it helped you relate to and old and uninsured former factory worker, etc, is something that might be refreshingly different to read about.

Just my two cents. But I'm not an adcom!

It's really interesting that the main aspects that stand out in an application sometimes have nothing to do with medicine. I appreciate you writing this up! I feel like I am having difficulties tying my experience as a manufacturer to medicine. I did have coworkers that weren't very healthy, and I do remember having conversations with them where they'd say they don't have the time to go to a doctor. Is this something to consider?

 

[i-doctor]

It would seem to me that as a welder you need to have a good degree of precision and dexterity. And also a great degree of self-confidence, since it is in fact a very dangerous job. So use that to your advantage. Don’t refer to yourself as a “manufacturer”. You were “a tradesman” who did fine detail work that involved significant risk. So perhaps weave this in…that you will be confident in your abilities to perform procedures and even surgery, should you decide to enter a surgical field. (Everyone knows that most pre-med students probably don’t even know how to screw in a lightbulb.) It’s much like musicians. I’ve heard Adcoms respect musicians—such as pianists—as if they by definition must have great hands.
Screw the “oxidation, Krebs cycle connection” angle. The committees want well rounded classes. The have their own boxes to check off. In their minds, you’re the confident guy with the good hands who’s gonna make a great surgeon. If they remember you as that “welder” guy, you’re golden.

 

[RangerBob]

It's really interesting that the main aspects that stand out in an application sometimes have nothing to do with medicine. I appreciate you writing this up! I feel like I am having difficulties tying my experience as a manufacturer to medicine. I did have coworkers that weren't very healthy, and I do remember having conversations with them where they'd say they don't have the time to go to a doctor. Is this something to consider?

i-doctor above wrote some good advice.

Certainly discussing lack of access to physicians is an issue, but just having a conversation about it doesn't give you much to write about. But it could be if you shadowed with a doc who said "if only this person came to me x-years ago, I could have done something, etc."

Discussing that you obsessed over having the perfect weld, and went over things in meticulous details, the gruelling conditions you worked in, etc., and how you plan to apply that to medicine, may be a better route to go. But you can't just talk about welding--you have to tie it in someone, like when you shadowed a surgeon in the OR and how he/she demonstrated the same skills required, but on a human body. Throw in some creative writing and you could have a nice personal statement there. (If you haven't shadowed a doc in the OR, think about what other medical situations you can parallel with your experience)