Seconday Optional Essays

[Premed Mom]

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I'm wondering if I should write optional, unprompted essays for Yale and University of Wisconsin about my "indirect" path to medical school.

Background: I finished undergrad in Jan 2003 with a few science classes under my belt and an pretty good GPA (3.67). I took a few years to soul-search (and support my husband thru grad school). Then I did an informal post-bacc at UW-Madison and kicked butt in my classes and got a 38 on the MCAT.

Why not to write: I feel like my AMCAS essay covers it. It says how I started to consider medicine my junior year in college while studying abroad, how I took time to observe healthcare professionals and gain clinical experience before committing to a medical career and how working closely with nurse-midwives and docs, I realized that I want the scope-of-practice of a doc so I can work with complicated cases. I don't want to bore the AdCom with useless repetition.

Also, I have a newborn and I'm exhausted.

Why to write: I could discuss why I chose to graduate early, rather than staying longer at my undergrad to finish pre-med courses (because I didn't know what type of healthcare provider I wanted to be and I wanted to be sure before taking all the coursework). I could talk about how my time spent deliberating, trying things out, interviewing providers makes me certain this is a good fit and how my life experiences make me more mature, self-directed, professional.

What do you think I should do?

 

[2010houston]

Hi PremedMom,
I am applying for 2010 and just came across this question….then I saw all the great places you got in last year and am totally amazed! I have a similar path – 2 kids, did post-bacc, good MCATs – and am wondering how you approached the whole older mom/kids stigma in secondaries and interviews. I’ve been trying to decide how much to focus on all of that…I know there are probably some old-school docs who will be looking down on someone w/ a family etc, but at the same time I know I can cut it and this is an integral part of who I am as an applicant.

At any rate, any advice you have would be SO appreciated – I know you must be crazy busy with med school, but if you have time that would be great!
Thanks so much.

 

[student1799]

Hi PremedMom,
I am applying for 2010 and just came across this question….then I saw all the great places you got in last year and am totally amazed! I have a similar path – 2 kids, did post-bacc, good MCATs – and am wondering how you approached the whole older mom/kids stigma in secondaries and interviews. I’ve been trying to decide how much to focus on all of that…I know there are probably some old-school docs who will be looking down on someone w/ a family etc, but at the same time I know I can cut it and this is an integral part of who I am as an applicant.

At any rate, any advice you have would be SO appreciated – I know you must be crazy busy with med school, but if you have time that would be great!
Thanks so much.

I also have 2 kids, and successfully applied to med school this year. My approach was to omit all mention of the kids in my application. I did this for two reasons: 1. Didn't want to excite prejudices of old-school types. 2. Didn't want to open up uncomfortable lines of questioning at interviews. (Legally, questions about your family are off-limits in an interview, but if you discuss them in your PS or secondaries, this topic becomes fair game.) However, I did briefly mention in my PS that my husband had encouraged me to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. Not only was this 100% true, I thought it was good for adcoms to know that my spouse was very supportive of my plans.

In my interviews (I had 8), the subject of my kids did come up from time to time. It was always a very positive discussion, because my kids are older than most applicants' (9 and 12), and they are also very supportive of what I am doing. All my interviews were out of town, and I found that most interviewers assumed that the family would be relocating with me; this was not true, but I kept my mouth shut and let them think whatever they wanted to think. I was not obligated to tell them anything, and I didn't want to give them any reason to believe that I wasn't likely to attend their school if admitted. On the other hand, if I were interviewing in my home town, I would probably have mentioned how good it would be from a family standpoint to be attending med school where I lived.

So, generally speaking, I don't think you have to pretend you're not a mother, but I wouldn't make it the centerpiece of your application. You have to make a case for why you want to be a doctor that is independent of your family situation. Once you do that, and hopefully get interviews, you can play it by ear as to whether you want to discuss your family at them.

Good luck.

 

[Appless]

I also have 2 kids, and successfully applied to med school this year. My approach was to omit all mention of the kids in my application. I did this for two reasons: 1. Didn't want to excite prejudices of old-school types. 2. Didn't want to open up uncomfortable lines of questioning at interviews. (Legally, questions about your family are off-limits in an interview, but if you discuss them in your PS or secondaries, this topic becomes fair game.) However, I did briefly mention in my PS that my husband had encouraged me to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. Not only was this 100% true, I thought it was good for adcoms to know that my spouse was very supportive of my plans.

In my interviews (I had 8), the subject of my kids did come up from time to time. It was always a very positive discussion, because my kids are older than most applicants' (9 and 12), and they are also very supportive of what I am doing. All my interviews were out of town, and I found that most interviewers assumed that the family would be relocating with me; this was not true, but I kept my mouth shut and let them think whatever they wanted to think. I was not obligated to tell them anything, and I didn't want to give them any reason to believe that I wasn't likely to attend their school if admitted. On the other hand, if I were interviewing in my home town, I would probably have mentioned how good it would be from a family standpoint to be attending med school where I lived.

So, generally speaking, I don't think you have to pretend you're not a mother, but I wouldn't make it the centerpiece of your application. You have to make a case for why you want to be a doctor that is independent of your family situation. Once you do that, and hopefully get interviews, you can play it by ear as to whether you want to discuss your family at them.

Good luck.

do you think its wrong to mention your kids though or it will hurt you? I mean i mention this in my PS a decent amount as it was the changing point in my life. Though i suppose my situation is different from most of yours as my son was born when I was 19 and hes autistic and i restarted school 1 month after he was born...but still so many positive changes in my life came because of this as odd as it sounds, do you think its wrong to touch on these topics in secondaries or the PS? Though its too late for the PS as i already did lol...i guess if it screws me over w/e...i tried to just be 100% honest and truthful in this process and if adcoms dont like it well i guess o well?

 

[canjosh]

Elijah,
Are you male? Sad to say it, but I think it probably makes a difference to those old-school types student1799 was referring to. Personally, I mentioned my kids in my optional essay as background info when explaining my lighter courseloads. I didn't mention them in my primary PS, because it didn't fit with my statement. I think the prejudices are more likely to come out against a female applicant.

I am male, and have 2 kids (a 4 y/o and a 4 week old). If I were female, I'd be more worried about it coming up in interviews.

 

[student1799]

Elijah,
Are you male? Sad to say it, but I think it probably makes a difference to those old-school types student1799 was referring to.[...] I think the prejudices are more likely to come out against a female applicant.

Agree 100%. It's sadly true that men and women are often perceived very differently when they mention their children in med school apps.

I think a case like yours is in a category by itself. (BTW, I think your story is amazing, and I have tremendous admiration for you.) But even if we take a more mundane example, I think that men are often given "brownie points" for saying that their families are important to them; nowadays, it's actually seen as more "manly" to feel this way. On the other hand, a women expressing the same sentiments is often seen as weak, "not serious" about medicine (how can she be, when she's thinking about her kids all the time?), unable to make tough decisions, etc. etc. On top of that, women are often grilled with questions about their childcare arrangements and whether they feel guilty about "neglecting" their kids--questions that men are never asked.

So, as with so many other situations affecting both men and women (age, anyone?), there's a double standard here. Much as I hate it, I had to be aware of it and play defense so I could get myself into med school.

 

[Premed Mom]

I did not specifically mention my kids or my husband in either my personal statement or my secondary essays, as these things are not central to my motivation or qualification to study medicine. I did talk about what I learned professionally and personally on my long-ish path to medicine and how those things have prepared me to excel in medical school and as a physician. If my kid had been an important part of my "why I want to be a doctor" story, then I would have included him. It is important to note, however, that the AMCAS and some secondaries require that you list dependents. Admissions committees will see that you have kids, even if you don't mention it explicitly.

In almost every single interview I attended my family came up. Some interviewers asked me directly (Example: I have worked as a labor assistant ("doula"). One interviewer asked if I used a doula when my son was born.). Others asked questions to which I felt I could best answer by mentioning my family (Example: What do you do in your spare time? Umm, nurse my screaming 2 month old baby?).

Before my first interview I was very nervous about discussing the kid, thinking that I would encounter stigma or patronizing questions. In every instance, my family was seen as a positive. Several interviewers said that they thought my experiences made me a more mature (and therefore more attractive) candidate and that my family would help ground me and would provide a dose of reality and balance to the hectic life of a med student.

One interviewer (at Tufts) didn't even understand why I referred to myself as a "non-traditional" applicant. Husband and baby? A bunch of random after college jobs? No problem!

The only negative experiences I had on interviews were these:

1) One interviewer really grilled me about my motivation for medicine. She wanted to know exactly when I decided on medicine and why it took me so long to figure it out. I think these are totally appropriate questions, but I got the sense that only some really unusual circumstance would be acceptable (running for president, saving the children of Africa, battling breast cancer). I also felt that if I had applied to medical school right out of undergrad, my motivation for medicine would not be under fire. I didn't get accepted to this school (Harvard) and I truly feel that if they don't want me for exactly what I am (someone who took a few years to figure out what I want to do with my life), then that is not a place I want to go to school. Side note: they may have rejected me for some totally different reason, or host of reasons, unrelated to my longer path to medicine.

2) Another interviewer asked if I had any regrets about taking a longer path. I said that I didn't, even though it means I will have fewer years to practice in the end. He said he thought losing 6 years of potential practice time down the road is VERY SIGNIFICANT and I shouldn't just dismiss this. He later said, when asked about his approach to clinical education: "I love to pimp. I start at the bottom, with the med students, and work my way up." Yikes!! This was at Cornell, where I was accepted almost immediately following my interview.

All this to say, I was totally honest about my life and my family and it did not get in the way of my success as a medical school applicant.

Good luck to all of you!

 

[2010houston]

I'm taking a similar tack - not so much mentioning the kids in the essays, but not denying their existence either 🙂 I feel like the longer path requires some explanation, and some of that by definition leads into the whole family issue. But I'll try to keep it to a minimum! Thanks so much Premed Mom for the response. Did you happen to interview at Baylor, by the way?

 

[2010houston]

In my interviews (I had 8), the subject of my kids did come up from time to time. It was always a very positive discussion, because my kids are older than most applicants' (9 and 12), and they are also very supportive of what I am doing. .

That's great - good to hear that in general, adcoms were fairly supportive. What was the most difficult question you were asked, either in regards to kids or to taking a slightly longer route to med school?

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[Premed Mom]

I didn't apply to Baylor. Good luck!