What do you like least/best about application process?

[Siverhideo1985]

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I was thinking about the long trail of applying to medical school. For some, it takes only the last parts of Junior year in college to the late period in Senior year when final decisions need to be made. For some (if not most), it has been alot longer.

What do you like best about the process?

What do you like least about it?

Best: I always enjoy getting to visit places for interviews. Seeing different cities in the US, traveling, meeting new people, getting to dress up in spiffy suits...that was alot of fun.

Worst: Boring secondary application questions that are so repetitive that I sometimes felt that med schools were copying each other. For which I, however, still felt obligated to write new responses each time.

 

[efitzpat]

Best: Interviews. I love interviews of any kind - always have. I like the challenge, I like to see what kind of answers I'll come up with and what crazy question I'll be asked.

Worst: The wait!!!!! I wish people would just reject me when they knew they didn't want me!!! I've been spoiled and 3/4 schools I interviewed with gave me a decision in 2-4 weeks, but the rest - forget it!

 

[aznb0y129]

Best: Interviews. I love interviews of any kind - always have. I like the challenge, I like to see what kind of answers I'll come up with and what crazy question I'll be asked.

Worst: The wait!!!!! I wish people would just reject me when they knew they didn't want me!!! I've been spoiled and 3/4 schools I interviewed with gave me a decision in 2-4 weeks, but the rest - forget it!

Agreed on both counts.

 

[linguini]

This is easy:

Best: Getting accepted.

Worst: Getting rejected.

 

[Siverhideo1985]

This is easy:

Best: Getting accepted.

Worst: Getting rejected.

Haha...of course 😀

 

[phospho]

Best: Interviews. I love interviews of any kind - always have. I like the challenge, I like to see what kind of answers I'll come up with and what crazy question I'll be asked.

Worst: The wait!!!!! I wish people would just reject me when they knew they didn't want me!!! I've been spoiled and 3/4 schools I interviewed with gave me a decision in 2-4 weeks, but the rest - forget it!

totally agree...

loved the interviews/travelling...

absolutely hated the wait -- either accept me, or please just reject me... i don't care if it's 4000 or 40,000 people who applied this year. When you're getting paid almost 100 bucks a pop, how can you not afford to hire some extra admissions people?👎

 

[ButImLETired]

Best: the social aspect. It's nice to see med students are occasionally not entirely humorless and boring. I enjoyed meeting them.

Worst: the nebulous aspect of it. I don't think adcoms should be allowed to be quite so shrouded in mystery, since we ARE paying for the secondaries. A few schools have a pretty open process, so it CAN be done. I don't see why the rest have to be so mysterious and unhelpful.

 

[drangocar]

Neat thread idea.

My favorite part of the application process were the interviews. Traveling to the different schools and their cities was a blast. I was fortunate enough to make a trip to interview at Einstein which was my last interview. It was a lot of fun to cap off the process with a trip to NYC. Meeting my future colleagues on the interview trail was fun as well. I always felt a lot better about medicine after meeting the people I would be working with in the future. Even the interviews themselves were fun in a way. Especially if the topic got away from just me and focused on bigger issues. Most of the people who interviewed me were really interesting to talk to.

My least favorite parts were both the costs and the waiting times. I spent thousands of dollars over the course of the past year: Kaplan MCAT, MCAT registration, AMCAS, secondaries, travel and a new suit just to name some of the bigger costs. It stinks that just applying to schools is so cost prohibitive especially when there is no guarantee of acceptance, but it is a wise investment I suppose. The waiting nearly killed me a couple times in this process. The week before MCAT scores came out was brutal. I promised myself I wouldn't let anything get to me like that again after I got my scores (fat chance). Also, knowing that a school has made a decision on your file, but can't tell you for a week later was frustrating.

 

[drcarter77]

i really like interviewing, the traveling and everything is a lot of fun, but my absolute favorite is getting to sit down with people and make a case for myself in person and not just on paper.

I really hate waiting, and least favorite would be waiting and hopeing for all the schools that I thought might just give me an interview, but never said a word to me and so now are going to reject me at some point in the next month or so after 7-8 months of no communication

 

[variablistic]

Like everyone else here, I loved the interviewing, traveling, and meeting new people. I also love to disc golf, so I went and played everywhere I went.

Worst part: Waiting is indeed terrible - as is the cost, but ultimately, it's all worth it. I had to wait through 3 application cycles, had my soul torn from my body a few times, but it's all good. I'm in and I'm happy.

 

[funkymunkytoes]

Best: I didn't like interviewing, but I did like the people I met along the interview trail!

Worst: doing BS that I usually wouldn't do, but have done because SDNers are doing it (thank you notes, LOI's, update letters, etc.)

 

[DrYoda]

Best: Traveling for interviews was fun, although after awhile I got tired of it.

Worst: The price tag.

 

[Siverhideo1985]

Best: Traveling for interviews was fun, although after awhile I got tired of it.

Worst: The price tag.

Haha...aww poor thing...too many interviews? 😀

I'm just being an as* 😀

 

[virusgirl]

Best thing: getting my MCAT score. I'm non-traditional and all those classes were several years in the past, so I was fully expecting to bomb this. My score was a pleasant surprise.

Worst thing: horrible food poisoning at my Wake Forest interview. Maybe that's why they wait-listed me. 🙁

And the wait, of course.

 

[Handy388]

Best: Getting into my top choice!

Worst: My friend threw me a party at Cleveland, Ohio after the day of my Case med interview. As a result I woke up too late. Did not realize that cleveland's train takes A LONG time to reach airport, got to the airport, missed my flight, resceduled a later flight.

While the plane is in the air (the type of plane that just crashed in buffalo, New York, it was a Dash 8), storm started (it was hurricane Ike season), our plane started being tossed around, and then people started puking, it was scaried.

We are about to land, I thought it was gonna be over, but then the plane pulled up. the captain announced that with the speed of sideway wind he was unable to land our little plane safely, had to fly back to Cleveland.

Got back to Cleveland, took him two tries to land. Amazingly, I did not puke (I never wanted to be a pilot again...)

Flight marked as indefinitely delayed. Called parents. My father tried to convince me that airline company will fly us there no matter what, even if it takes a private Boeing 747. I did not believe him.

Instead, I organized a road trip and a bunch of people drove down with me. There was two couples from vacation, one Ohio state dude returning after the Ohio state - USC game, an extremely interesting college professor, and I. It was a pleasant drive down 150 miles ish, though in the storm.

Got to Columbus at 10pm, my student host picked me up. At that point, half of the city was out of electricity. My student host's house included.

Stayed in a electricity less basement with another student

After all this, waitlisted by Ohio State. Bah.

 

[Anotherface]

Best: Traveling for interviews was fun, although after awhile I got tired of it.

Worst: The price tag.

I agree with Yoda, but would add that meeting people along the way was nice and that waiting to hear from schools sucks.

 

[majahops]

What a GREAT F*ing story!

Best: Getting into my top choice!

Worst: My friend threw me a party at Cleveland, Ohio after the day of my Case med interview. As a result I woke up too late. Did not realize that cleveland's train takes A LONG time to reach airport, got to the airport, missed my flight, resceduled a later flight.

While the plane is in the air (the type of plane that just crashed in buffalo, New York, it was a Dash 8), storm started (it was hurricane Ike season), our plane started being tossed around, and then people started puking, it was scaried.

We are about to land, I thought it was gonna be over, but then the plane pulled up. the captain announced that with the speed of sideway wind he was unable to land our little plane safely, had to fly back to Cleveland.

Got back to Cleveland, took him two tries to land. Amazingly, I did not puke (I never wanted to be a pilot again...)

Flight marked as indefinitely delayed. Called parents. My father tried to convince me that airline company will fly us there no matter what, even if it takes a private Boeing 747. I did not believe him.

Instead, I organized a road trip and a bunch of people drove down with me. There was two couples from vacation, one Ohio state dude returning after the Ohio state - USC game, an extremely interesting college professor, and I. It was a pleasant drive down 150 miles ish, though in the storm.

Got to Columbus at 10pm, my student host picked me up. At that point, half of the city was out of electricity. My student host's house included.

Stayed in a electricity less basement with another student

After all this, waitlisted by Ohio State. Bah.

 

[sleepy425]

Best: Traveling, seeing new places, getting tons of really nice free meals, meeting new people

Worst: Wearing suits, wearing suits, wearing suits, wearing suits. and not being at home very much. and the suits

 

[MonkeyChow]

Best: Interviews, meeting new people and seeing new places
Worst: Waiting, waiting, waiting...ugh!

 

[riceman04]

best: traveling
worst: cost/waiting

 

[olemissbabydoc]

Best: Med school tours and simulations (pre or post actual interview). And of course my final MCAT.
Worst: WAITING. And those first two crappy MCAT scores. And last year's total application cycle.

 

[jsanchez]

Best: When u get interview invitation.

Worst: Excruciating waiting periods

 

[PremedIowa]

Best: Interviewing. I love talking to new people, so interviews were a blast. Dressing up is fun too.

Worst: Secondaries. Nothing quite like writing a dozen permutations of the same answer.

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

Best: the social aspect. It's nice to see med students are occasionally not entirely humorless and boring. I enjoyed meeting them.

Worst: the nebulous aspect of it. I don't think adcoms should be allowed to be quite so shrouded in mystery, since we ARE paying for the secondaries. A few schools have a pretty open process, so it CAN be done. I don't see why the rest have to be so mysterious and unhelpful.

Same experience -

best was seeing the school in the interview process - kind of the light at the end of the tunnel -- here is the ACTUAL ANATOMY LAB, here is the ACTUAL LIBRARY.. it was great finally being able to envision myself as a student there.

worst was as posted above - realizing (when I spoke with the school later) that although one school accepted secondaries until January, practically speaking the deadline was much earlier .. they had already scheduled their full interview schedule by January. So anyone applying around that time could not receive an interview invite. Or the many schools that had academic cutoffs that were not posted.. sure you can apply to this public school, but our OOS cutoff is through the roof and you'll never be interviewed.. tough to accept that schools benefit from lots of applicants in that they seem more competitive, although many applicants really shouldn't be applying given the schools' hidden rules..

 

[mikecougarmd]

@Handy388 I'm thinking this is a pretty unique story so I'm pretty sure I was that other student you stayed with!

For the record I got waitlisted by OSU too =[.

Best: Getting accepted.

Worst: Interviews. You people seriously liked these??? Long flights, no sleep, whirlwind stays in unfamiliar cities with no time to see anything, working extra to make up for missed time. Secondaries were definitely the worst though. For two months all I did was feel guilty if I didn't spend every free minute writing essays!

Best: Getting into my top choice!

Worst: My friend threw me a party at Cleveland, Ohio after the day of my Case med interview. As a result I woke up too late. Did not realize that cleveland's train takes A LONG time to reach airport, got to the airport, missed my flight, resceduled a later flight.

While the plane is in the air (the type of plane that just crashed in buffalo, New York, it was a Dash 8), storm started (it was hurricane Ike season), our plane started being tossed around, and then people started puking, it was scaried.

We are about to land, I thought it was gonna be over, but then the plane pulled up. the captain announced that with the speed of sideway wind he was unable to land our little plane safely, had to fly back to Cleveland.

Got back to Cleveland, took him two tries to land. Amazingly, I did not puke (I never wanted to be a pilot again...)

Flight marked as indefinitely delayed. Called parents. My father tried to convince me that airline company will fly us there no matter what, even if it takes a private Boeing 747. I did not believe him.

Instead, I organized a road trip and a bunch of people drove down with me. There was two couples from vacation, one Ohio state dude returning after the Ohio state - USC game, an extremely interesting college professor, and I. It was a pleasant drive down 150 miles ish, though in the storm.

Got to Columbus at 10pm, my student host picked me up. At that point, half of the city was out of electricity. My student host's house included.

Stayed in a electricity less basement with another student

After all this, waitlisted by Ohio State. Bah.

 

[alanine1985]

Best: Finally getting a thumbs up or thumbs down from the adcoms

Worst: (You got all day?) the money for primary applications / secondary applications / Interviews oh my the cost has got to be the worst thing. However that would be closely followed by writing all those secondary essays, having to reschedule work all the time to travel, an unbelievable amount of time consumed on what are mostly very long shot schools...

 

[justdoit31]

Least- Writing a ton of essays for all the schools

Best- Getting the acceptance email, acceptance package, and scholarship I wanted from my top-choice school!