@love2chis There may be secret ways for adcoms to find out--I'm not one so I can't say for certain--but only a few explicitly ask if you've been ACCEPTED (I think all will know that you're a reapplicant). The only two I can think of that directly asked me if I'd been accepted to medical school in the past are Stony Brook and Einstein.
Having said this, them knowing this is not necessarily a nail in the coffin. For instance, I was offered an interview to Stony Brook despite having to write a whole separate essay about how I'd been previously accepted to an MD program.
Moreover, I made my decision to pass on my MD acceptance in favor of MD/PhD reapplication a focal point of my "Why MD/PhD?" primary essay, and it worked for me to great effect. I was initially hesitant to write about it, but my advisor, who is on the MD/PhD adcom at a T20 school, strongly advised me to do so. Every interview I went to that brought up the fact that I declined an MD offer seemed to find my decision at the very least fascinating, and at most as a display of commitment to the MD/PhD path.
Now, to join the argument with
@gonnif,
@Goro, and
@Ludwig2000:
@gonnif, the point is not that you did not tell the truth. In fact, I assume you really believe what you said. The point is that you were a) being rude ("piss-poor judgment") b) shutting down valid exceptions to this "rule" that students reapplying MD/PhD after being accepted MD will be immediately rejected. I'm not going to dispute that you,
@Goro, and the other adcoms on this site have years of experience that I don't, but rather than using that experience to demean people in a pretty vulnerable position (I initially read this post the day after submitting my primary and found myself nearly in tears), it might be better to use your authority to give advice with a level of nuance that adequately reflects the complexities of this black box of an admissions process.
Of course, I'm not really writing all of this for your sake
@gonnif--you don't strike me as someone who would change so late in the game (prove me wrong?). I'm really writing all of this for future applicants in a similar position. To preface, I've just finished my interview season. Of the 24 programs I applied to, 22 were MD/PhD, 2 were MD. I was offered interviews at 15 MD/PhD programs (6 T20) and 1 MD program. Of those that I interviewed at (10 of the MD/PhD programs), about half have not gotten back to me with a decision, but 5 have offered me an acceptance (1 T20, 1 T10). My success this cycle runs contrary to your argument
@gonnif, since, as I said before, the fact that I declined an MD acceptance was a central facet of my application.
Now, to answer your questions from the beginning of this thread with my own experiences that are honestly not that extraordinary and seemed to do the trick for me this cycle:
1) Why would have found this passion so late in the process after 4 years of college?
While there are exceptions, it can take undergrads a little while to find a lab that really suits them and shows them the field of science that excites them, given that there is usually no formal process for undergrads to choose a lab, meaning there are no rotations. I didn't start working in a lab until I was a sophomore, and the lab I chose didn't suit me in its environment or its field of study. However, when I joined a new lab in the second half of my junior year (I was abroad for the first half), I found both an environment that I thrived in and a field of study that I loved. But observant readers will have noted that the second half of junior year is when the med school app cycle begins if you're looking to go straight in. So in my eyes, this answers your question. Why did I find this passion so late? Because it can be time consuming to join a lab, let alone find one that utterly captivates you enough to change the course of action you've been set on for ten years. Plus, I wouldn't even say that I found that passion that late, but the medical school app cycle starts so damn early that you essentially need to be 100% sure of your plans to get an MD vs. an MD/PhD at a point when I personally had just joined a lab that proved to be a watershed experience for me.
2) If you got an acceptance and turned it down for this sudden research passion, it shows at the very least confused motivation and lack of commitment. Why should a school take a chance on you when you may suddenly then decide you only want research and jump to a PhD only
I actually kind of agree with you here. I think that giving up my MD acceptance to pursue an MD/PhD did show confusion, and I was open about that. However, if you can follow it up in the ensuing gap year(s) with experiences that confirm your excitement for clinical medicine (both to yourself and to others), I think MD/PhD programs won't look twice. That is to say, if you can demonstrate that the time you will need to take off after giving up your acceptance has been a clarifying time for you, it should be fine. This goes back to the timing thing. I didn't get a solid chance to develop my research interests until it was already time to apply MD, so once those interests did develop, I was obviously confused, since I felt I was going down a path that I didn't feel perfectly fit my ultimate career interests (which still included practicing clinical medicine, but also placed research as a priority). However, confusion is, as I understand it, a part of life, and MD/PhD adcoms seemed perfectly aware of that. To pretend that they expect a perfectly straight shot to an MD/PhD from everyone is disingenuous. If you can explain your story well, they're perfectly accommodating.
3) If you had done any research into the profession, you would have known that MD do research as well
Of course. My PI is an MD! However, it is more difficult for them to do so. MDs don't get the concentrated research time that MD/PhDs do (some schools offer a research year, but 1 gap year of research for MDs ≠ 4 years of PhD research), and there is definitely something to be said about getting to take that time. Plus, as my PI put it, as an MD researcher, you're essentially going to be putting in a similar amount of time before becoming a full-fledged physician-scientist, since you'll need to be in a competitive post-doc for ~4 years in order to gain the same research training as an MD/PhD, plus still do a residency and fellowship if you want to specialize. MD/PhDs have the luxury of going from med school, to residency/fellowship, to faculty. Plus, I know we all love medicine and research for their own sake and they are ends in their own rights, but to discount that an MD trying to do research still has to go through all that time before becoming full faculty while also having medical school loans, while an MD/PhD in most cases not only doesn't have loans, but gets paid during their education, is to dismiss a real financial concern for most people.
4) If you have researched the process, you may have found that many schools can offer a path to PhD after you start medical school
While this is true, for a lot of schools this is dependent on people dropping the program (this was true of the place to which I was accepted), as there is only so much funding for an MD/PhD cohort. I asked about switching to MD/PhD where I was accepted and they said it was very iffy that I would be able to enter into the MD/PhD cohort in my second year. I decided that I'd rather take my chances with another admissions cycle than take my chances as an internal applicant.
To wrap up my diatribe, med school admissions is long, grueling, confusing, and oftentimes disheartening. Sometimes, the path to admissions isn't straight. MD/PhD adcoms know this and they are ok with it if you can explain it well.
