Reapplicant, c3.55, s3.7, 38R, Poison Pill in My Application?!

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My first post and your help is greatly appreciated!

I’m currently waitlisted at three schools that are between 20th and 60th in competitiveness rankings (most of the 15 schools I applied to were in this range, in early August when I had the money, was this too late?) and this late in the game it looks like I should start reapplying, after all, I’ve sat on these waitlists for months.

Two things make me seriously wonder what shot I have: Health problems related to a hip replacement from a sports injury when I was 17, four surgeries ending in hip replacement and side effects from steroids/anti-inflammatory drugs. Related to that a lousy first two years of college where I had to withdraw my first semester after the accident, averaged a 3.2-3.3 over the first two years, including a D in a project-based course sophomore year that was surprising but entirely my fault. I included most of this in my personal statement, as it was a part of my motivation and experience with medicine.

I finally got healthier, found some motivation, and got 3.7-3.8 my last two years and started doing research and volunteering. After graduation, I took a research job for a year and applied. My question is what do you think went wrong and what are my chances in this cycle? Is my poor academic history (especially that D) going to override any chance at a fairly competitive school? Any help would be awesome.

By the numbers:

Age:24

State: MI

12P,13V,13BS, R

cGPA 3.55, sGPA3.7

Major:Biology Minor:Sociology

300Hr Volunteering at hospital, 100hr as science tutor

Publications in Cell and the Journal of Biological Chemistry

 

[witness23]

wow, how that happen

 

[Mobius1985]

Yes, it's time to reapply. It will help to have had the year of research. Having no research when you applied to heavily-research oriented schools was a waste of paper for those schools. If you still have only one year, that is below average for such schools.

Applying in August was a bit late, but your stats should have gotten you in anyway. Time for some strategy. Call a number of the schools that have rejected you , ask to make a phone appointment with someone in the admissions office and ask for feedback on your application and why you were rejected. Was the PS too personal-crisis oriented? Were the LORs too weak? Did you interview poorly? Ask what you can improve.

Rewrite the PS completely and be more vague about the details of your medical situation, making it a less important part of your motivation. Make it completely positive; don't cast blame. Take responsibility. Get multiple person's input on the new version. Be sure it mentions that you're completely fine now, as you don't want doubt that you can handle the rigors of medical training.

If an advisor or several of your phone interviews don't confirm that you have great Letters of Recommendation, then start over and get new ones.

If you think you didn't shine at interviews, then practice, practice, practice.

Apply to some new schools that don't have a copy of the old PS. Drop the idea of wanting to get into a "fairly competitive" school and apply broadly unless never being a doc is OK with you.

 

[flip26]

Did you apply to all of the allo schools in your home state, or just to UMich? If you did not get an acceptance at either Wayne or Mich State, you should be very concerned about something in your app, either a bad LOR or a poorly written PS, or maybe poor interview skills...

You should reapply with a totally rewritten PS, and frankly if you need to have new LORs, you are very late in the process to be asking for those...honestly, you should have been working diligently on all of this months ago when it was obvious your cycle was not going well, because you are headed to another late cycle app which surely did not help you this go around...

Your case may be more of the example of the need to apply early and broadly...I advise everyone to apply to at least some schools that are not ranked on the USNEWs...15 schools, even for your stats, is possibly on the low side, especially if you applied only to schools in the Top 60...and my guess is that most of those schools you applied to are actually in the Top 25 or so...your cum GPA also did not "help" you at any of these high ranked schools...

I agree with everything Mobius said above.

 

[student1799]

Mobius gave you excellent advice. I suggest you follow it, especially the part about getting feedback from your schools. Most of them probably won't tell you anything, but there could be one honest comment that could really open your eyes as to what went wrong.

I got into 2 med school this year with stats a bit lower than yours and a much lower MCAT. On top of that, both of these schools had been added to my app in October, after a disappointing MCAT retake made me realize I had to apply a lot more broadly. This suggests to me that school selection, rather than a late app, had a lot to do with your problem.

You also need to look at how you're approaching the app process. IMO, if you have ANY baggage in your app (and I had plenty), you cang just send in your app and leave it at that. You have to LOI the daylights out of your schools to convince them to interview you, and after that, let you in. One of my 2 admits was off a waitlist, and trust me, I really WORKED those WLs. You can't just sit there and wait for something to happen.

Good luck getting in this time around. I'm sure you can do it if you change your approach.

 

[Krisss17]

I was going to hit on this if someone else didn't (thanks, Mobius1985!).

After I wrote my first PS, I gave it to someone to read (she just finished year 2 of med school), and she had given me some very good advice. You don't want to apologetic in your PS. The most important thing is to relay the "why" you want to go in medicine. You've got a good GPA and a kickass MCAT score (congratulations 👍). Also, as Mobius suggests is get a lot of feedback...sometimes they may see something that you might have missed.

I would also make sure to apply as early as possible...like now, if you haven't already.

Best of luck

 

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Thank you all for your insightful comments. I definitely took too many things for granted. I think I focused too much on learning from the bad rather than doing the good in my personal statement. I had already started a new version that’s much more positive and definitive about my health.

I had done research for two years prior to taking that lab job. I now have a new set of recommendations from the two labs I work for now, so hopefully that will help since I got out two papers for them.

I felt I did well in my interviews. I wrote some very good thank you notes, and two of my interviewers wrote me back with positive letters. One said he was ‘rooting’ for me. Do those letters actually mean anything? Hopefully I wasn’t naïve about my interview skills too.

Mobius, really good advice. I’ll be working the phones and applying to more and different schools.

Flip26, I’m currently waitlisted at one of the two schools you mentioned and didn’t apply to the other one, at least I’ll be able to improve upon the three things you mentioned.

I’ve been sending LOI’s and updates to the waitlist schools every 3 to 5 weeks, was that too few? I only sent letters if I had some new info to report.

It seems that none of you thought my grades (which I obviously can’t do anything more about) were a deal breaker, so I’m somewhat happy about that, and feel encouraged to reapply.

Thanks once more, I’ll be looking a lot closer at the resources at this site.

 

[witness23]

LOIs are great and all but it's already a bit late so definitely get your primary cracking and apply early and broadly this time