Success is the sweetest revenge

When I came to terms with having to reapply to med school last year, I went to my pre-med advisor to ask her about amending my school list from the previous year. This is not the nice advisor I like going to but the one who I'm convinced really dislikes me. Unfortunately, she's the one who knows which medical schools prefer which kind of applicant (or so she says), so I had no choice.

The words, "You should not apply this cycle," "You are at a high risk of dropping out of medical school," and, "If I were an admissions committee member, I would not offer you an interview," all came out of her mouth during the course of our 30-minute meeting. She strongly suggested I take the year off to strengthen my application and apply during the next cycle instead. To say I was surprised would be a huge understatement.

She somewhat had a point. I hadn't done much of anything to improve my application in the year since I submitted the original one. The only real change I made was that I applied early instead of super late, which could be a game-changer in and of itself. But as Ms. D (for Debby Downer) pointed out, my lack of interviews last cycle could definitely be due to a weak application and not because of the tardiness of my submission.

I walked out of that meeting unsure of myself. I hadn't had my world rocked that hard in a very long time, thinking I was doing well when in fact I was told I suck. Part of me thinks she was unnecessarily harsh and didn't need to crush my dreams so much. But there was also some truth to her comments, meaning there was a chance I wasn't going to get accepted the second time around either, which at the time was rather disconcerting.

Now that I have been accepted to medical school, though, I am so glad I didn't let her words discourage me from applying this year. Additionally, I'm glad I didn't listen to her suggestions for my school list, because School E and two other schools I interviewed at this cycle would not have received my application.

In short, Ms. D can suck it. I'm going to medical school!