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As you can see from the title, I have finally been accepted into medical school in my 4th cycle. Due to the support I’ve received on this site, I felt obligated to share my experience and the things I’ve learned over this horrific, but successful journey. This will be a long post, so take a seat and grab some popcorn.
***DISCLAIMER: the opinions in this are mine and mine only. Do as you will with them.
I’m starting with this because I want to get it over with and move on from it. Please read this whole paragraph because if you stop before the end you might get the wrong idea. I am a straight white male coming from an upper-middle-class family. I have a 520 MCAT score and a 3.96 science GPA. I have a bunch of cool experiences and pretty much checked every box you could think of when it comes to applications. I’ve grown up in a town that is 88% white my whole life, with plenty of racists running around. I can’t tell you the number of times that I heard, “It’s because you’re white” as the reason I wasn’t accepted. No, that isn’t the reason. And for all of you straight white males like me, being white doesn’t help you, but it also doesn’t hurt you. It makes no difference. My applications just weren’t good enough, period. It was a problem with my writing capabilities, not my skin color.
Now that part is over with, let’s get to the down and dirty. Here is a breakdown of my 4 cycles:
Cycle 1: 508 MCAT, 3.96 science GPA, applied to 12 schools (bad list), 0 interviews. This cycle was just bad in general. I didn’t have any shadowing hours, and only like 80 clinical hours. My essays were dogpoo and I was a young, dumb idiot. Totally should not have gotten in.
Cycle 2: Improved to 520 MCAT, applied to 18 schools (even worse list), 1 interview (I declined it). I did not take this interview because I had just bought a house like a month or two before (kinda happened suddenly) and it would have been a horrible financial decision to move like 6 months later (assuming I got in). My essays were better this year around, but still not great. Honestly surprised I didn’t get more love this cycle, and so were many of the experts I’ve talked to about it. Some bad luck mixed with not so great strategy and writing.
Cycle 3: ED to my state school. BAD DECISION. Then I sent out a prayer to Hopkins after being rejected ED, and was rejected again. So 2 schools, 2 rejections, planned for the next cycle (this current one) to be my last one regardless of what happened.
Cycle 4: 28 secondaries sent, 4 MD II’s, 1 DO II, 1 MD acceptance so far. What changed? My writing.
Part of my problem was that I had NO idea what I was doing. I was literally a blind squirrel trying to find a nut in a desert. I went to a tiny undergrad and therefore premeds were rare. My college advisor was good for general advice, but he was an old-school guy and had no idea how the cycle works now. And also I didn’t know that SDN offered advising services until like a year ago. So I was going based on what my high school dropout mom was telling me (love her to death but she don’t know a thing when it comes to this stuff). “Squeaky wheel gets the grease.” “You got to show them they need you.” LMAO. My essays sounded like that too when I first started. Here is my first piece of advice: no one can do this alone, you need help. I thought I didn’t but I was ignorant. Get an advisor, get advice on this site, find people who have been through this process. Take their advice (always with a grain of salt of course).
Speaking of bad essays, my writing might be the worst thing ever. I’m a stereotypical guy who can’t seem to put words together on how I feel about things. Reflection just doesn’t work in my brain. I can solve complex problems and breeze through high-level science classes like it’s 2nd-grade math, but ask me to write an essay about why I want to be a doctor and it comes out like a 2nd grader wrote it lol. As bad as the decision was to apply ED in that 3rd cycle, it might have actually been the best thing for me. I knew I would have to reapply in October, and so I started writing my PS in early November. I probably wrote and rewrote my PS 150 times, and that might be an understatement. And tbh, my PS still isn’t great, but it was by far the best I wrote, and with my stats and experiences, I only needed it to be good enough and that’s what I got it to. Here is my second piece of advice: EDIT EDIT EDIT. And not by you. Just as you need help with general direction, you’ll need help writing. There are plenty of people who will edit your essays on SDN, and find people in your personal life too. The more eyes on it the better. Everybody will have a slightly different view/opinion, but if you notice a common trend amongst editors then you know you should fix it/change it. This goes for your PS, activities, AND secondaries.
As you can see from my cycles, two of them had bad school lists. Due to my lack of advice and/or reluctance to listen to people, I had no idea that was a thing. I had no idea what mission fit was. I just thought they wanted a smart guy who will come and solve problems (I’m an idiot for thinking that). Here is my third piece of advice: SCHOOL LISTS MATTER. It actually might be the most important part of the application process. A good school list vs a bad school list is the difference between 0 interviews and 5 interviews. Also, apply BROADLY. Every year it seems applicants are getting better and better. You’ll need to apply to a lot of schools if you want a good chance of getting accepted. Mission fit is also HUGE. You have to write your secondaries in a way that shows you fit that school’s mission.
My biggest takeaway from this whole process is that patience is a virtue. Trust me, as someone who is on their 4th cycle right now, if anyone knows how bad it sucks to wait, to get bad news, to feel like a failure, it’s me. This has been the most mentally difficult thing I have ever done. The truth is, I know I’m deserving of this, and I know I’m gonna be one hell of a doctor who saves tons of lives (I wanna be a trauma surgeon at the moment). I’m gonna be an animal, a dawg, a killer (well not really), an absolute beast. I believe in myself wholeheartedly and I’m confident I will find a way to make all the dreams happen. But the amount of times I questioned it and overthought about everything is insane. It sucked feeling like I had done everything I possibly could but still come up short. Stay patient. Run the course. Trust the process, as difficult as it is.
Maybe that last paragraph sounded a little cocky to some of you, so let me explain. I was a scholarship football player in college. My whole life I was good at football, but never great. I was good enough to earn a scholarship, to start as a sophomore, and keep my starting position through the end of my career. However, my senior year, I became great. I was dominant. I was a dawg, an animal, a killer, an absolute beast. What changed? My confidence. I told myself that I was the best player on the football field, and when I believed it, I started to perform like it. After that experience, I told myself I would believe in myself like that in everything I do. If you’re good at something, it’s okay to know that. I’ve always hated what the definition of humble has come to mean: You have to downplay yourself. Nah. Being humble is knowing exactly where you stand in combination with knowing you always have room to improve. I know what I’m good at (football) and I know what I suck at (writing), but no matter what, I always know I can get better. I know I’m gonna kill medical school, but I also know it’s gonna be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done and it will take all of me to do so. Here is my last piece of advice: be confident. Believe in yourself. You are capable of anything you put your mind to. If you believe it, it will happen.
Sorry that last paragraph was a rant, just felt the need to get that out there. I hope you all enjoyed this, maybe took something from it. Feel free to comment or ask questions, I’d be happy to answer anything you want!
As in the wise words of the late Kobe Bryant: JOBS NOT FINISHED (it’s actually just getting started).
***DISCLAIMER: the opinions in this are mine and mine only. Do as you will with them.
I’m starting with this because I want to get it over with and move on from it. Please read this whole paragraph because if you stop before the end you might get the wrong idea. I am a straight white male coming from an upper-middle-class family. I have a 520 MCAT score and a 3.96 science GPA. I have a bunch of cool experiences and pretty much checked every box you could think of when it comes to applications. I’ve grown up in a town that is 88% white my whole life, with plenty of racists running around. I can’t tell you the number of times that I heard, “It’s because you’re white” as the reason I wasn’t accepted. No, that isn’t the reason. And for all of you straight white males like me, being white doesn’t help you, but it also doesn’t hurt you. It makes no difference. My applications just weren’t good enough, period. It was a problem with my writing capabilities, not my skin color.
Now that part is over with, let’s get to the down and dirty. Here is a breakdown of my 4 cycles:
Cycle 1: 508 MCAT, 3.96 science GPA, applied to 12 schools (bad list), 0 interviews. This cycle was just bad in general. I didn’t have any shadowing hours, and only like 80 clinical hours. My essays were dogpoo and I was a young, dumb idiot. Totally should not have gotten in.
Cycle 2: Improved to 520 MCAT, applied to 18 schools (even worse list), 1 interview (I declined it). I did not take this interview because I had just bought a house like a month or two before (kinda happened suddenly) and it would have been a horrible financial decision to move like 6 months later (assuming I got in). My essays were better this year around, but still not great. Honestly surprised I didn’t get more love this cycle, and so were many of the experts I’ve talked to about it. Some bad luck mixed with not so great strategy and writing.
Cycle 3: ED to my state school. BAD DECISION. Then I sent out a prayer to Hopkins after being rejected ED, and was rejected again. So 2 schools, 2 rejections, planned for the next cycle (this current one) to be my last one regardless of what happened.
Cycle 4: 28 secondaries sent, 4 MD II’s, 1 DO II, 1 MD acceptance so far. What changed? My writing.
Part of my problem was that I had NO idea what I was doing. I was literally a blind squirrel trying to find a nut in a desert. I went to a tiny undergrad and therefore premeds were rare. My college advisor was good for general advice, but he was an old-school guy and had no idea how the cycle works now. And also I didn’t know that SDN offered advising services until like a year ago. So I was going based on what my high school dropout mom was telling me (love her to death but she don’t know a thing when it comes to this stuff). “Squeaky wheel gets the grease.” “You got to show them they need you.” LMAO. My essays sounded like that too when I first started. Here is my first piece of advice: no one can do this alone, you need help. I thought I didn’t but I was ignorant. Get an advisor, get advice on this site, find people who have been through this process. Take their advice (always with a grain of salt of course).
Speaking of bad essays, my writing might be the worst thing ever. I’m a stereotypical guy who can’t seem to put words together on how I feel about things. Reflection just doesn’t work in my brain. I can solve complex problems and breeze through high-level science classes like it’s 2nd-grade math, but ask me to write an essay about why I want to be a doctor and it comes out like a 2nd grader wrote it lol. As bad as the decision was to apply ED in that 3rd cycle, it might have actually been the best thing for me. I knew I would have to reapply in October, and so I started writing my PS in early November. I probably wrote and rewrote my PS 150 times, and that might be an understatement. And tbh, my PS still isn’t great, but it was by far the best I wrote, and with my stats and experiences, I only needed it to be good enough and that’s what I got it to. Here is my second piece of advice: EDIT EDIT EDIT. And not by you. Just as you need help with general direction, you’ll need help writing. There are plenty of people who will edit your essays on SDN, and find people in your personal life too. The more eyes on it the better. Everybody will have a slightly different view/opinion, but if you notice a common trend amongst editors then you know you should fix it/change it. This goes for your PS, activities, AND secondaries.
As you can see from my cycles, two of them had bad school lists. Due to my lack of advice and/or reluctance to listen to people, I had no idea that was a thing. I had no idea what mission fit was. I just thought they wanted a smart guy who will come and solve problems (I’m an idiot for thinking that). Here is my third piece of advice: SCHOOL LISTS MATTER. It actually might be the most important part of the application process. A good school list vs a bad school list is the difference between 0 interviews and 5 interviews. Also, apply BROADLY. Every year it seems applicants are getting better and better. You’ll need to apply to a lot of schools if you want a good chance of getting accepted. Mission fit is also HUGE. You have to write your secondaries in a way that shows you fit that school’s mission.
My biggest takeaway from this whole process is that patience is a virtue. Trust me, as someone who is on their 4th cycle right now, if anyone knows how bad it sucks to wait, to get bad news, to feel like a failure, it’s me. This has been the most mentally difficult thing I have ever done. The truth is, I know I’m deserving of this, and I know I’m gonna be one hell of a doctor who saves tons of lives (I wanna be a trauma surgeon at the moment). I’m gonna be an animal, a dawg, a killer (well not really), an absolute beast. I believe in myself wholeheartedly and I’m confident I will find a way to make all the dreams happen. But the amount of times I questioned it and overthought about everything is insane. It sucked feeling like I had done everything I possibly could but still come up short. Stay patient. Run the course. Trust the process, as difficult as it is.
Maybe that last paragraph sounded a little cocky to some of you, so let me explain. I was a scholarship football player in college. My whole life I was good at football, but never great. I was good enough to earn a scholarship, to start as a sophomore, and keep my starting position through the end of my career. However, my senior year, I became great. I was dominant. I was a dawg, an animal, a killer, an absolute beast. What changed? My confidence. I told myself that I was the best player on the football field, and when I believed it, I started to perform like it. After that experience, I told myself I would believe in myself like that in everything I do. If you’re good at something, it’s okay to know that. I’ve always hated what the definition of humble has come to mean: You have to downplay yourself. Nah. Being humble is knowing exactly where you stand in combination with knowing you always have room to improve. I know what I’m good at (football) and I know what I suck at (writing), but no matter what, I always know I can get better. I know I’m gonna kill medical school, but I also know it’s gonna be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done and it will take all of me to do so. Here is my last piece of advice: be confident. Believe in yourself. You are capable of anything you put your mind to. If you believe it, it will happen.
Sorry that last paragraph was a rant, just felt the need to get that out there. I hope you all enjoyed this, maybe took something from it. Feel free to comment or ask questions, I’d be happy to answer anything you want!
As in the wise words of the late Kobe Bryant: JOBS NOT FINISHED (it’s actually just getting started).
