I sympathize with your frustration and disappointment, but can you tell us a little more about yourself and your qualifications?
Too early to give it up now.
Have you applied MD and DO?
I applied to HBCUs and PWIs but I guess time will tell. It just sucks knowing I'm passionate about serving in a role as a physician and consistently being passed over for every opportunity. Maybe a school will see my drive and passion and give me a shot. I'm not giving up per se but I have less unbridled optimism than I did when I was very young. I understand schools want ROI when they invest in students but this whole process seems like reading tea leaves.
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There is your problem...
Out of sheer curiosity, what do you mean by mediocre?
You should have applied to some DO schools. They'd take you in a heartbeat. Do you want to be a physician?
SMP GPA may be high, but the prior undergraduate record also holds a great deal of weight. Depending on what your undergraduate GPA was you could be getting autoscreened, depending on how each school sets up their screens.
I didn't mean to disparage DOs, I just did not research applying to DO schools. I'm a very utilitarinan person and I'd be more than happy to apply DO.
In saying mediocre, I'm describing people who are very intelligent but have personalities and motives that are EXTREMELY lacking. I know many people who "check all the boxes" but are pursuing medicine for several ego stroking reasons. For example, I knew a guy when I was shadowing who was describing a mission trip to the Caribbean and he just reiterating how impoverished the area was when he visited (mind you, I'm of Cuban descent). After our conversation, I learned that this guy literally just took a vacation, did little outreach and basically learned nothing. I can guarantee he added a line to his resume to appear as though he so caring, altruistic and culturally competent.
DO applications tend to go later into the season. Could throw some out there now, but would risk being a reapplicant next year. Your stats will 99% get you a DO acceptance if you apply broadly enough next year, unless you've got some red flags hiding elsewhere in your application or your personal statement is a dumpster fire.
If I were him/her, I would apply to 15+ DO right now.
It's not the worst option, honestly. I put my DO application in around this time and got tons of invites, but that was many years ago.
I second this sentiment. I know people who sent in DO apps around this time of year and managed to get in that cycle. I think the DO cycle running a bit late still holds true. OP I would suggest you use the ChooseDO tool, pick about 20ish DO schools, and fire off an AACOMAS asap.
As a reinventor, you need to have do schools on your list. Beggars can't be choosy.
Have to disagree. We absolutely do not accept “the same cookie cutter people” at all schools. Once you get past the basic stats (we do need to be confident our accepted students can handle med school) we value service, life experience, and diversity.
The historic unemployment rate for physicians in the U.S. is <1%. The historic unemployment rate for science PhDs in the U.S. is <3%. I am not sure where you got the data to make the claim that there are no jobs for science PhDs, unless the only jobs you would consider are tenure-track positions at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.
I'm African American and Cuban. I'll look into DO.
I might be wrong but from one of my colleagues who has a PhD in STEM told me a lot of the PhD jobs are dead-end low-paying jobs.... He was teaching biology at a university and went back to med school.
You would be very surprised. (1) is usually the path most take, as it is the most accessible. (2) and (3) are out-of-reach for most physicians. A small minority of physicians have the training to conduct well-funded clinical research, and even fewer have the necessary training to be competitive for basic science funding. Medical school does not teach research as part of the core curriculum. The physicians I know that are trying to leave clinical for a non-clinical career are all scrambling for (4), mostly in Pharma in "Medical Director" roles. These roles are rapidly saturating such that the early movers will fill all of these spots very fast.
I was taught by plenty of science phDs in undergrad some of whom confided to me that there were more researchers fighting for less funding nowadays, plenty of their colleagues were getting used and abused via "instructor" positions (because there weren't enough high paying industry or tenure-track jobs to go around) , and that the golden age of getting a science phD was long gone.
A small fraction of STEM PhDs pursue a career in academics (tenure-track) these days. The majority go straight into industry. I do not include "Medical Sciences", "Biology", or social sciences when I reference this. If you do a true STEM PhD (Computer Science, Any Engineering field, Math, Statistics, etc.) you have a line of employers waiting on you at graduation. Yes, many non-STEM PhDs that decide to pursue academic careers are being used and abused as life-long "Instructors", getting pennies on the dollar for what they deserve for teaching and with no hope for tenure track.
Don't beat yourself up! This is my third cycle applying and I have taken the MCAT 3 times. I just got my first II after many years of writing, rewriting, improving my app. Like someone said above it is all about your dedication to the pursuit of becoming a physician and the II date does not matter whether it is the first interview day or the last.
Some of my classmates are literally vile people, so I understand your frustration. Some got in because mom and dad are docs so they went to med school to fulfill their parents’ dreams. Some never had a job before and don’t know how to talk to patients at all.
Thank you. I really needed to hear that this morning. I always try to practice being the change I'd like to see. Hopefully people like you and I can affect change in the system at some point. In the iterim, I guess we have to strive to be our best and not focus on worrying about others' behavior. My Dad used to tell me all the time, that when it comes to other people, all you can control is your response to what they do and you shouldn't expect too much of people.
No problem! It's definitely something that has deeply bothered me as well. But I just do my best! I'm in interview season for residency right now and seeing my hard work turn into interview invites has been extremely moving. I hope you are able to get in somewhere and make a difference for your patients. I would also add on DO schools if you can! I am a DO student and feel like I have been well prepared in my program to be a decent intern.
How many PhDs do you know who make the kind of many that the average MD makes? Some of the highest paid PhDs at NIH, who are tops in their fields (i.e NAS members) make about 250K
Those high ranking NIH PhDs are all in government jobs, which are known to have lower salaries than industry. My anecdotal evidence is biased to higher STEM salaries, as I have spent my entire career on the coasts and know many PhDs in big-tech, which has higher salaries. I know several non-PhD workers in tech with only a MS in Computer Science that are making millions of dollars a year in total compensation (base + stock). The low-end starting salary for STEM PhDs that I know personally is in the 120k range for a research scientist job at an institute/non-profit. The high-end starting salary is in the low 300s range at big-tech, but again those jobs have the ability to compensate in the millions after a decade or so. More than most doctors. Elsewhere, an academic non-government example would be well-known Neuroscience researcher Arthur Toga who was making 1 million dollars a year at UCLA before being poached to USC, where he is most certainly making more than 1 million dollars a year now.
The poster might be a top PhD, so it might be difficult for him to understand the reality of the average PhD...
That was exactly my point:
I don't think this is an apropos perspective. I'm not super invested in the results others are getting but rather how disingenuous the entire process tends to be. This is my second application cycle and I've improved drastically. I carefully wrote and edited everything related to my primary and secondaries. It's not up to me to determine who gets a spot; I'm simply saying that it seems like all this emphasis on "holistic review" and finding students who really care about their communities is essentially lip service. I'm not here to argue but when you look at admissions rates for Black and Brown people, they're abysmal (not just for me). In fact, when I last checked, admission rates for African American men has not improved in over half a century (they were actually better in the 1970s than they are now). In light of the previous fact, when you hear people discuss diversity incessantly, it begins to fall on deaf ears. I'm not upset because I'm not getting in as quickly as I'd like, I'm upset at the hypocrisy. I want more people of color in medicine in general, even if I'm not able to get in.
