Dearest Lulu, I'm leaning hard with
@GrapesofRath on this one, and I'm going to respond at some length because your question and some of the responses underscore some of my frustration with SDN over my limited time here. And I say the latter while fully acknowledging that the site is phenomenal overall and personally has been a tremendous help to me personally.
It's not an easy call, and only you know all of the variables to come up with an answer. These are my thoughts. A SMP would be a big waste of time and guarantee you nothing. You got 3 MD interviews. Nothing to sneeze at. Yes, we are very late, but allow me to reference our very own fan fave
@catie_jane. Just a few shortt weeks ago she posted an anticipatory re-application thread. Now she is basking in acceptances and posting UConn vs Jeff threads. She ended up turning down IIs. Fortunes and the picture any of us are looking at can change rapidly, even after enduring months of what seems like nothing or nothing but bad stuff. You may get in a MD school this cycle, and you may not. But your profile was good enough to generate IIs and so I would really think about investing in a SMP unless you have very specific knowledge that doing so is directly related to why you haven't gotten in so far. You could strengthen your app in a myriad of ways over another year.
This gets to another point that I think sometimes is lost here. We all look for and often presume THE reason. There may not be THE reason. And a reason may vary. What is a reason for some schools that didn't offer a II may be different from the reasons others didn't, and different still from the schools that did give you a II. Just as the schools that gave you a II may have liked and/or be concerned about different things. Maybe you have some insight about this (although I'm guessing you don't), but certainly the posters responding to you hear do not.
Here's the thing about mentioning a SMP form my viewpoint. That suggests that you are willing to sit out this cycle and possibly another one to reach your eventual goal. That suggests that you are willing to take another crack at the whole process. Assuming this was your first cycle, and based on your results so far this cycle, taking another shot, where you could again apply to a full range of MD schools and even more DO schools that you thought through more carefully, seems entirely reasonable.
I really think the "Do you really want to be a doctor?" and "Why did you apply if you wouldn't go there?" to be among the more unhelpful responses I see repeatedly churned out on this site. Maybe they simply reflect poster fatigue, or maybe they reflect the influence of SDN dogma that some try to apply in virtually all cases. I've made this point in other topic debates, but I think it is beyond ludicrous for anyone to suggest that a decision you might regret or do differently if you could do it over translates into making a horrible judgement in the OR 15 years from now. If an overall app reflects a pattern of poor judgment or cracking horribly under pressure, then fine. Blast away. But life doesn't work perfectly. And what looks smart 1o months ago may not look as smart now. Targets change. Everything is not static. Maybe you added a DO school for protection. Maybe professionals advised you to add a DO. I'd bet there are many who reflexively apply to a few MDs who would not have them on their list if they applied again. You also have to think through whether you would want to be in the position of turning down a med school acceptance as opposed to just turning down a II. The wisdom here suggests that turning down an acceptance could be lethal, although maybe that applies more to turning down a MD acceptance or turning down a DO acceptance (if the intention all along is DO).
You can't anticipate every eventuality. Now some clearly don't think through enough and one can tell that their cycle was destined to go poorly. But nobody applies perfectly, precisely because you can't perfectly anticipate some events that by their nature have a random or quasi-random component. You do your best and try to limit "mistakes" certainly, but they're still going to happen. SDN sometimes falls into hindsight criticisms and can be less helpful about what to do when something has already happened. And things "happen" at a far greater rate than things not happening. There needs to be more tolerance, and less of a quasi-moralistic, lecturing impulse, when things do happen.
