Reapplicant losing her mind

[gym_panda]

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Hello! The title kind of says it all.

I'm going to be completely transparent, I am reapplying this cycle but the chronic overthinker I am, I have been stressing over being a reapplicant.

Just to go over what my stats were:

Last year
MCAT: 519
GPA: 3.97
Experience
- Medical Assistant for 1400 hours
- Volunteered in a hospital for 200ish hours
- Volunteered at a shelter for immigrants for about 200ish hours
- Shadowed for 100ish hours
- TA for Chemistry
- Recruitment chair for my organization
- Was in a pre-health organization (just as a member)
- Involved in a mental health org

This resulted in me getting 3 interviews, 2 of them being my top choices! Ended up waitlisted at my top 2 choices, but I practically have no chance of getting off at this point lol.

This year
- Same as above (except GPS is 3.92 which i hope doesn't make a difference...) plus
- Became a scholastic chair for my org
- Was the lead for a magazine project
- Also became a biochem TA
- Planned activities include 2 new research labs, MCAT tutoring, and volunteering at an aphasia center
- I revamped all my activities description, I revamped my primaries to be more active (my primaries last year were much more passive), and I plan to revamp my secondaries

I'm hoping I have more to offer this year with my application, and I have a lot more experiences to talk about. However, I think the purpose of me writing this is for 1. to see who else is also scared about reapplying, and 2. see if there is any advice people can give me (don't sugarcoat it LOL, give me your honest thoughts guys). I appreciate any and all words of wisdom you guys have!

 

[Faha]

Where is your state of residence? Which schools did you apply to in this past cycle and where were your interviews?

 

[gym_panda]

Where is your state of residence? Which schools did you apply to in this past cycle and where were your interviews?

I am a Texas Resident and only applied to schools in Texas (except for UTRGV, UT Tyler, and UH). I got interviews as Baylor, McGovern, and Texas Tech Lubbock. No match and waitlisted at Baylor and McGovern.

 

[Faha]

OOS MD schools tend to avoid interviewing Texas applicants since they know from years of experience that Texas applicants will attend a Texas. However, you do have high stats which will draw attention at some schools. I suggest these AMCAS schools:
TCU
Tulane
Washington University (in St. Louis)
Johns Hopkins (free tuition)
NYU (free tuition)
Einstein (free tuition)
Vanderbilt
Also try the newer MD schools: Roseman, Alice Walton, Belmont and Methodist (when it opens)

 

[wysdoc]

I am a Texas Resident and only applied to schools in Texas (except for UTRGV, UT Tyler, and UH). I got interviews as Baylor, McGovern, and Texas Tech Lubbock. No match and waitlisted at Baylor and McGovern.

It happens from time to time that good applicants will fall through the cracks, ending up with several interviews and no Match in Texas.
If this happens the key is not to apply with exactly the same application you had last time.
Your activities listed are mainly academic and on-campus, how are you going to show more community service?
Most of the new activities you listed in your post were still in the scholastic/teaching/tutoring realm. The gap in your app will not be corrected by tutoring MCAT or adding 2 new research labs.
Last of all, I know you were being dramatic in your thread title, but someone who lists involvement in a mental health organization as one of their activities should not use phrases like "losing her mind" in any essays or interviews.

 

[gym_panda]

It happens from time to time that good applicants will fall through the cracks, ending up with several interviews and no Match in Texas.
If this happens the key is not to apply with exactly the same application you had last time.
Your activities listed are mainly academic and on-campus, how are you going to show more community service?
Most of the new activities you listed in your post were still in the scholastic/teaching/tutoring realm. The gap in your app will not be corrected by tutoring MCAT or adding 2 new research labs.
Last of all, I know you were being dramatic in your thread title, but someone who lists involvement in a mental health organization as one of their activities should not use phrases like "losing her mind" in any essays or interviews.

I will be honest, I haven't been able to pinpoint what went wrong with my application completely and never got an answer with what was wrong.

One thing that did go wrong last time was that some of my activities did not save in my TMDSAS app and some of the descriptions were incomplete because I did not save them properly. I triple checked everything this time to make sure everything was written down this time.

In terms of my extracurriculars, the only reason so many of my new activities stayed on campus was due to the fact that while I was applying last year and in all honesty, I did not expect to not get in at all. I mostly just continued in the organizations I was already involved in. Also, given my class schedule as is, it was hard to find any clinical experience that worked with my schedule at the time, but I did not think clinical hours were a particular issue for me.

In terms of community service, I did do a lot of volunteering over the last year at a shelter for immigrant mothers and children who were victims of domestic violence (200+ hours), sorry I forgot to include that in my experiences over the last year.

Eventually match day came with no luck, and I really had no idea what I can do in terms of extracurriculars to improve specifically. I really did think, at least in terms of "checking off boxes" (I couldn't think of a better word), I had done that, but maybe it was the way I framed my experiences in my app last year? I decided that it was potentially my essays and my interviews that led to not getting in last semester (I definitely thought 2 of my interviews could have been a lot better they were not that great in my opinion).

I ended up changing my primary essays completely, and I rewrote my activities section, and I am also overhauling my secondaries and writing them to show significance in my new activities especially. I feel like some secondaries I did not write very well last time because of the lack of certain experiences I had at the time, but I have now. Im finding that there's a lot of prompts I've been able to write better answers to. I also have new letters of rec this year.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

This resulted in me getting 3 interviews, 2 of them being my top choices! Ended up waitlisted at my top 2 choices, but I practically have no chance of getting off at this point lol.

The question is how well you express a mission fit with those schools so that you are among THEIR top choices. This is a match process, so anything you could say/do/research about the top choice schools to show you belong to their programs.

Tighten up the unforced errors in your last application (left descriptions incomplete). Update your hours. You'll likely have better luck.

 

[PickaGodnPray]

Also, from the perspective of someone who applied 4x, sometimes you just get unlucky. I was told multiple cycles from people directly involved in admissions reviewing my app “I don’t know why you didn’t get in.” It truly is a numbers game, so don’t lose your mental over it.
Still take the advice above and get more engagement with your community to round out your application, use it as an opportunity to grow. Showing growth and perseverance is important in this field.

 

[Goro]

I will be honest, I haven't been able to pinpoint what went wrong with my application completely and never got an answer with what was wrong.

One thing that did go wrong last time was that some of my activities did not save in my TMDSAS app and some of the descriptions were incomplete because I did not save them properly. I triple checked everything this time to make sure everything was written down this time.

In terms of my extracurriculars, the only reason so many of my new activities stayed on campus was due to the fact that while I was applying last year and in all honesty, I did not expect to not get in at all. I mostly just continued in the organizations I was already involved in. Also, given my class schedule as is, it was hard to find any clinical experience that worked with my schedule at the time, but I did not think clinical hours were a particular issue for me.

In terms of community service, I did do a lot of volunteering over the last year at a shelter for immigrant mothers and children who were victims of domestic violence (200+ hours), sorry I forgot to include that in my experiences over the last year.

Eventually match day came with no luck, and I really had no idea what I can do in terms of extracurriculars to improve specifically. I really did think, at least in terms of "checking off boxes" (I couldn't think of a better word), I had done that, but maybe it was the way I framed my experiences in my app last year? I decided that it was potentially my essays and my interviews that led to not getting in last semester (I definitely thought 2 of my interviews could have been a lot better they were not that great in my opinion).

I ended up changing my primary essays completely, and I rewrote my activities section, and I am also overhauling my secondaries and writing them to show significance in my new activities especially. I feel like some secondaries I did not write very well last time because of the lack of certain experiences I had at the time, but I have now. Im finding that there's a lot of prompts I've been able to write better answers to. I also have new letters of rec this year.

Service to others less fortunate thn yourself is always good. Off campus, and out of your comfort zone as well. And NO tutoring!