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I accidentally posted this in the wrong forum the first, sorry!
Hi everyone, I am planning on applying this coming cycle and there is something I am unsure of (well there are a lot of things but this is one of them). I am planning to apply to a range from top tier to mid tier skills (GPA: 3.8+ and MCAT: 40+) I have volunteer experience and clinical experience and research. Not great ECs but I think acceptable and I will work more on them in the coming months. One concern is the "hardship" aspect that I often see. Honestly, my life has been pretty great, my parents are awesome, never wanted for anything, traveled, had a car, always had the best healthcare etc.
I do however have Tourettes. I am really nervous about even mentioning it in my application. Most people would not know that I have it nowadays as it has gotten much better with time and I can usually suppress it when I am doing a task/talking with people/doing anything active. Although I do get a lot of questions like "is your neck sore? What's wrong with your shoulder?" I usually just say "Yah its sore, or I just like to crack my neck it feels good" to avoid explaining it all the time. Tourettes is also the butt of many jokes, so not something I usually want to associate myself with. It really comes out when I am sitting in lecture/sitting around at home/etc. I would not really call it a "hardship" now, more of a constant annoyance, however, for much of my younger life, extending into high school, it was so bad I had to often be removed from classrooms, took tests alone, couldn't do any written homework because I couldn't stop smashing the pencils into the paper. I don't want an ADCOM to see that I have Tourettes and write me off as being unsuitable as a doctor, or if I claim that it is just a minor (but constant) annoyance now, and them seeing it as me just trying to add on a hardship for bonus points.
Any advice on this? This disorder is one of the reasons I became interested in neuroscience and medicine, but it was just one of many reasons.
Hi everyone, I am planning on applying this coming cycle and there is something I am unsure of (well there are a lot of things but this is one of them). I am planning to apply to a range from top tier to mid tier skills (GPA: 3.8+ and MCAT: 40+) I have volunteer experience and clinical experience and research. Not great ECs but I think acceptable and I will work more on them in the coming months. One concern is the "hardship" aspect that I often see. Honestly, my life has been pretty great, my parents are awesome, never wanted for anything, traveled, had a car, always had the best healthcare etc.
I do however have Tourettes. I am really nervous about even mentioning it in my application. Most people would not know that I have it nowadays as it has gotten much better with time and I can usually suppress it when I am doing a task/talking with people/doing anything active. Although I do get a lot of questions like "is your neck sore? What's wrong with your shoulder?" I usually just say "Yah its sore, or I just like to crack my neck it feels good" to avoid explaining it all the time. Tourettes is also the butt of many jokes, so not something I usually want to associate myself with. It really comes out when I am sitting in lecture/sitting around at home/etc. I would not really call it a "hardship" now, more of a constant annoyance, however, for much of my younger life, extending into high school, it was so bad I had to often be removed from classrooms, took tests alone, couldn't do any written homework because I couldn't stop smashing the pencils into the paper. I don't want an ADCOM to see that I have Tourettes and write me off as being unsuitable as a doctor, or if I claim that it is just a minor (but constant) annoyance now, and them seeing it as me just trying to add on a hardship for bonus points.
Any advice on this? This disorder is one of the reasons I became interested in neuroscience and medicine, but it was just one of many reasons.
