Waitlisted...again

Well, this sucks.

Second interview recap

I realized I never wrote up a recap of my second interview, so here it goes. It's a beast and took me a few days to write because there was just so much to say. So bear with me. It was an eventful day.

One week

I will know my fate at the dream school for sure in one week. I may hear back sooner, but definitely not later and I'm half relieved and half scared.

There are two ways to think about the fact that they're still sitting on my application:

1. They like me enough that they just can't bring themselves to reject me outright.
2. They can't find a good enough reason to accept me to their incoming class.

Neither of these reasons is all that reassuring but at least I haven't been rejected yet.

Mostly, I have a feeling I'm going to end up on the waitlist, with a slightly smaller possibility of a rejection and an even smaller chance of an acceptance. At least that's how I'm setting myself up for the next week so I won't be too crushed when the inevitable happens.

In a last-ditch effort to swing the admissions committee in the direction of accepting me, I've sent them a love letter/update mix. It's neither one nor the other, but rather a combination of a letter of interest and an update since I don't have enough new things going on in my life to send the update as a stand-alone but I wanted to say something before my fate is sealed.

I think it may be too little too late but it makes me feel like I've done everything in my power to get an acceptance. I'll let you know how it goes.

Limbo is not conducive to life planning

I still don't know if I'll be attending medical school in the fall or if I will be reapplying and thus will have another year of relative freedom/little structure. While I've become accustomed to the waiting aspect of the application cycle, I'm still adjusting to having to hold off on making any concrete plans past mid-July.

I've always been a planner so the huge question mark where my future should be is mildly irritating. There are a few things coming up in late August through mid-September that I would really like to do. So although I know I'll be in the area for sure because I'll either be attending the local medical school or staying put to reapply, I have no idea if I'll have the time to do them due to a little time-sucking thing known as anatomy. And I can't imagine I'll be able to go out of town for a whole weekend in the midst of that block.

Mostly, I like to pay early bird prices for things and although it's not the end of the world that I have to wait a few months to figure out what I'll be doing in September, the added cost of indecision hurts my soul.

But more seriously, I can't give my boss concrete dates for when I'll be available for the deployment to Alaska this summer, which messes with his trip-planning and budgeting as well. I'm also going to visit my family across the pond in June/July/August (I'm foreign) so making any sort of camping plans with them and finding time between the deployment and a wedding to go over there is nearly impossible right now. Since they have kids and jobs and other vacation plans that don't include me, it'd be nice to give them some advance warning regarding my arrival.

Yes, these are all frivolous and trivial concerns compared to the big unknown regarding my future, but I've been trying to stop thinking about that and instead focus on the things that make me happy, which usually require planning and thus the problem of limbo.

I also have nothing to report medicine-wise since not much is happening in that department, so you get these kinds of posts instead.

Exciting non-medical school news

The dream school is still stringing me along like a bad relationship so I have no news on that front. I've been avoiding the school-specific thread on SDN until I hear back from them, which should be any day now, because reading other people's results just stresses me out and gives me no information on my particular application. And I don't really need any more stress in my life.

Instead of thinking about medical school admissions, I've been getting on with my life. I have a ridiculous amount of things planned between now and July and I'm getting pretty excited about what the next few months have to offer. I've become more serious about refereeing (my first big match is tomorrow...I'm terrified) and I've started to take care of myself by learning new recipes and getting outside more often.

But most excitingly, the group with which I work is planning a deployment to northern Alaska this summer and my boss recently asked me if I'd like to go because they could really use my help on-site. Prior to getting this invitation, I had planned on quitting my job before this expedition and enjoying the summer on my own terms if I was matriculating in the fall, or providing remote support from our home office if I had to reapply and keep the job for another year.

Obviously the first option was more appealing on so many levels, but the opportunity to go on this trip throws a very interesting wrench in the plans. A deployment to Alaska is not something I can just pass up, so regardless of my medical school situation it looks like I'll be spending at least part of the summer in a hangar above the Arctic Circle.

The only pseudo-problem with this trip is that the dates could overlap with my hypothetical medical school orientation and I would only be able to make it for two weeks or so before having to get back to the real world. But everything is still up in the air so there's no reason to worry about things I can't control. For all I know, the dates could work out in my favor and I will have stressed for nothing. Or I could not go at all.

So, as with most things lately, I'm cautiously optimistic about this deployment. But if I don't get into medical school this cycle, there is a very fun silver lining to spending another year reapplying. So there's that.