WAMC NONTRAD 3.75/521 12 yrs since undergrad

[ByzantineCandor]

Hi SDN Community,

I am humbly asking for some honest advice and insight. I am 34 years old. Despite five attempts (yes, I know) to get into medical school starting in 2015, I have not been successful. I graduated from UC Berkeley back in 2012. My last MCAT score from August 2020 was 521 (98th percentile), and I have a GPA of 3.75. I also have a couple of second author publications and have interviewed at Duke, Rochester, UC Davis, Buffalo, and Rosalind Franklin. I was unable to secure a single interview in the last cycle, not even from lower-ranked schools. I applied the first week. I’ve had people review my essays. I also have a good amount of clinical shadowing and volunteering. I’ve been going at this since I was 18. I’m perseverant if anything and perhaps recklessly so.

I believe there are a few areas that may be holding me back. There are gaps in my resume, including a period I took to recover from severe depression, which I have openly disclosed. This experience has motivated my desire to become a psychiatrist and I believe makes for a more cogent and compelling narrative since my activities and experiences are all related to mental health. I’d definitely do much more interview prep.

On a positive note, since August 2021, I have been employed full-time by my county’s behavioral health department, which marks two years of service this coming August. This position has given me valuable experience and is a significant addition to my profile. For my job I do mental health trainings for the community as well as county employees. I also lead support groups, do 1-on-1 emotional support, and design mental health workshops.

I feel lost in life and it feels like some sort of clock is running out.

According to a previous AMCAS APP
BCPM GPA: 3.56
AO GPA: 3.82
Total: 3.72
I took some community college classes before high school and after college.

MCAT: 521 (129, 128, 132, 132)

I can probably get a similar score again.

I have good letters from professors, PIs, and managers.

So, my questions are:

What can I improve upon for the next cycle?
What do you all think is hurting me?
NB: Are there excellent consultants that anyone can recommend that can work with my profile?
Do I have a shot at a top 30 school?

If there is any additional info I can provide please do let me know. I did leave a lot out to keep it short.

Any general insights would greatly appreciated.

Most appreciatively yours,

ByzantineCandor

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[ribs16]

Take this with a grain of salt because I am not necessarily qualified to be giving advice (not a med student yet). However, I have heard and been told by various sources that openly disclosing mental health struggles can often hurt rather than benefit your application. I'm not saying that's the only reason why you didn't get in, but certainly a possibility to consider.

 

[gyngyn]

How many times have you taken the MCAT?
State of residence?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

You applied with an August 2020 MCAT? Casper or PREview scores (even if they are "old")?

Why haven't you applied to DO schools after the 3rd attempt? Why not clinical psychology?

Have you shopped in our Admissions Consultants forum?

 

[Faha]

Have you applied to any DO schools ?

 

[LeaveNoTrace]

Some questions here, because so far, on paper, your application looks good. At least: your grades and test scores are top-notch and pack fodder for top-20 schools. However, there are some things that are really holding you back on your app from what I can tell.

- Unfortunately: mentioning personal mental health concerns, especially to the extent that you took significant time off to recover from them, is a big red flag. @LizzyM has some advice on how to deal with sensitive health issues like that, but you would be best off either not mentioning it at all if it is far enough in the past or if you absolutely must discuss the gap in your work or education, say that you had "personal health issues, since resolved" or something like that. If you were doing anything else, even if it was delivering pizzas part-time, say you were unemployed and had to get work. Don't lie, but don't tell the whole truth here either.

- Do you have any nonclinical volunteering at all? 20+ hours of shadowing and 150+ hours each of clinical and nonclinical volunteering checks the box. Double those numbers and you're decent.

- What is your GPA trend like?

- What were all of your MCAT scores like? Your 2020 MCAT might be a bit old; consider a retake.

- Are you psychiatry or bust? How many interviews did you get in your last cycles, and did you talk about your own mental health struggles? Medical school isn't easy, and talking about your severe depression might easily have sunk you. If you were a first-time applicant with these stats and no mental health stuff on your application, you'd be quite strong.

One last thing: do you have any IAs, misdemeanors, felonies, or anything like that on your record?

 

[Goro]

A bad LOR might be a reason for lack of success

 

[notEinstein]

This is tad disappointing for someone like me. If your 3.7 GPA and 521 MCAT can’t get in after 5 years, I fear no good news for me. We are a similar age as well.

 

[LeaveNoTrace]

This is tad disappointing for someone like me. If your 3.7 GPA and 521 MCAT can’t get in after 5 years, I fear no good news for me. We are a similar age as well.

No, plenty of schools take nontrads and these stats are towards the weaker end of T20 pack fodder. Something is tanking this applicant and I suspect it was the open mention of mental health issues.

 

[chilly_md]

Where have you applied each time and where did you receive interviews (if any)?

 

[AJS59]

Would be helpful to know the timeline of your applications - when they happened, where they occurred, and what if anything you changed. I think once we get that we might be able to drill on more specific areas.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Something is a serious issue. You had four years to leverage a 3.75/521/publications and previous interviews ... except for the last cycle (interesting). I'm presuming you have been upfront with your diagnosis in your application materials every time and have not received any feedback in describing this. I also presume you have tried to get feedback from the schools or other consultants before coming across our website. Who knows if you have already spent money to improve your application after the second failure?

I don't know what shadowing you have done. You have a ton of experience in behavioral health that I would wonder why not a PsyD and shortcut all this extraneous training and debt. The information you provided is so minimal, any suggestions are conjecture. (I presume no IA's or criminal hx.)

Maybe that's the problem: you don't see you have an issue and have been unwilling to change course over the last four years. At some point, schools will infer that you have been trying to get into medical school for a while, and they will begin to cast your application aside. Maybe you need a time out and work in a position where you apparently excel (BHT), and be happy your talents are appreciated by the patients and peers you work with. One would think you would get attention from your in-state program with those stats and your connections with public health and mental health officers... but you didn't get an interview with them... that doesn't look good.

 

[notEinstein]

On a related subject, declaring a speciality as an applicant may also not have been a good idea.

I was told that declaring your intention to go into family or rural medicine is highly thought of by admission committees. Is this not the case? It’s hard to tell what is accurate information anymore.

 

[awood]

I was told that declaring your intention to go into family or rural medicine is highly thought of by admission committees. Is this not the case? It’s hard to tell what is accurate information anymore.

I'm just another future applicant, so take that into mind. But to my understanding I think part of it is show interest/indicate exploration, but don't explicitly say this specialty or nothing. Something akin to show don't tell when it comes to demonstrating what parts of medicine interest you. Additionally, psychiatry is becoming more and more popular so it's no longer in the same shortages as FM is, although distribution is still a major issue where rural access is limited.

 

[chilly_md]

I was told that declaring your intention to go into family or rural medicine is highly thought of by admission committees. Is this not the case? It’s hard to tell what is accurate information anymore.

It’s fine to say you have an interest in psych or those that you listed. Demonstrated interest by already being involved in the speciality would be best.

 

[ByzantineCandor]

How many times have you taken the MCAT?
State of residence?

I have taken the MCAT 4 times. I am from the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

 

[ByzantineCandor]

Welcome to the forums.

You applied with an August 2020 MCAT? Casper or PREview scores (even if they are "old")?

Why haven't you applied to DO schools after the 3rd attempt? Why not clinical psychology?

Have you shopped in our Admissions Consultants forum?

The last time I had applied was the last year my August 2020 MCAT was still accepted. I kept correcting deficiencies and applying perhaps too hastily. I have looked in the Admissions Consultants forum but was hoping to get a word of mouth of recommendation from someone that thinks my candidacy is something they feel they can successfully work with.