Nearly ready to reapply

I'm nearly done with my AMCAS application, with just the personal statement left to edit. So that's going to be submitted early next week. I'm not taking any chances this time around so I'm getting everything in as soon as possible (application submission opens on Tuesday).

I still have to decide on my list of schools because it's not going to be the same as last year. To send your application in to get verified*, you only need to specify one school at first and then you can add others later. So I'm going with the dream school for now, and if I still haven't been accepted off of the waitlist by late June, then I'll add the others.

Anywhos, after hating the second school at which I interviewed, I've reconsidered my criteria for choosing medical schools. Some have been cut, while others have been added. Since I wrote a lot of secondary essays last year, I can reuse most of the content from them this time around, with some editing and adding of sentences.

So new schools that I'm iffy about (not entirely excited about applying there, but there's something that makes me want to send in my application) have to have at least some overlap with the answers I've already written otherwise they get cut. I can't write too many brand new essays, as I found out last year, so I'm keeping the number to a minimum while still applying broadly.

Speaking of writing, once this AMCAS is submitted I'm going to start working on the secondaries** in anticipation of getting slammed with requests come early July. I need to get them in within a week of receiving the prompts otherwise I'll have the same results as this cycle, which were not so hot.

So in a week, the real writing begins.

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*For AMCAS you have to have all of your grades "verified" by the medical school admissions people. They make sure you've entered them correctly on the application and correct anything they feel is wrong. This takes anywhere from one day to 6+ weeks, depending on when you submit your application. Obviously, the earlier, the better, so I'm going to submit mine on the first day to get verified quickly and then I'll add other schools when I make up my mind about them.

Also, this application doesn't get passed on to medical schools until the last week of June, so I have time between now and then to add more schools to my list. Adding other schools doesn't slow down your application, nor does it require another verification. Even though I only have to fill out one primary application that goes to most schools, I have to pay for each school individually. So in order to save money on the off-chance that I get accepted off of the waitlist, I'm only going to pay for one school for now in order to get verified and add others when/if it becomes clear that I really do have to go through another application cycle.

**There's a sub-forum on SDN that has prompts for each school from previous cycles. Most schools don't change these prompts so I can pre-write my secondary answers before I even get invited to do so. Obviously, sometimes these change, but for the most part they remain the same year-to-year. So if I do have to completely rewrite my answers, there's only one or two additional essays required instead of the 25 I would normally have coming at me at once.

Cheering people's withdrawals

Throughout this application cycle, I've blocked all my friends who are applying to medical school from my Facebook feed. It would just frustrate me to hear about their progress while nothing was happening with me.

During a moment of Facebook weakness, I found out that one of the people with whom I did my post-baccalaureate had been accepted to my dream school and another awesome school elsewhere. Ever since my second waitlist decision came, I've been going to his profile to see which school he'd chosen. Today, he announced that he's matriculating at the other awesome school.

I threw my hands into the air and cheered. Literally.

While I'm happy that he's happy with his decision, I'm more stoked that he won't be attending my dream school. Now I need a few hundred more people to withdraw so they might actually take me off the waitlist.

AMCAS, Round 2

AMCAS (the medical school application) opened up on Wednesday and since I currently don't hold any acceptances to a medical school, I've begun filling it out to be ready to submit on June 4th as a reapplicant.

For the most part, it's so much easier than last time around. All the fields are pre-filled with last year's information, including my personal statement. I'm going to do some editing on that so it won't be identical, but it's kind of great that I don't have to add in any of my grades again. I'm old; I've attended a lot of schools and taken a fair amount of classes.

There are only two major differences between this year's application and last year's:

1. A more specific estimation of my parents' income growing up is required. Last year the upper cut-off was low enough so I didn't need to be specific because we were above it. But this year there are categories of income in increments of $25,000 that go up to half a million or something ridiculous like that. So the parents have had to go through their finances to figure out a good average since their salary varied widely from my birth to my adulthood.


2. The activities section now asks for total hours per activity instead of hours per week. For some things like clinical volunteering or shadowing, this method is preferable to give the admissions committee a good sum of hours. But for other activities like sports or jobs, it doesn't really work out because it's highly inaccurate to approximate 10 years of playing rugby.
   
   Also, the upper limit for total hours is 999 per activity so anything over 1000 cannot be entered accurately. I've started putting in the hours per week in the activity description if I haven't exhausted the character limit, which kind of makes up for that deficiency.

So that's that. The deadline for applicants from last cycle to decide on a single school and thus withdraw from all other schools they've been accepted to is quickly approaching (May 15th) so there should be "significant" waitlist movement in the coming weeks. And that means I can start getting anxious about checking my email really soon.

Since I wrote the really long "I love you" update letter to my dream school at the end of March, I'm going to go for a simple "Remember that I still love you" email this time around. If I still don't hear anything by early/mid-June, I'll send them another love letter but right now I can't think of anything of substance to add to that letter. So it'll have to wait.

Also, I've started planning my summer as if I was matriculating in the fall, at least with my big trip that involves international air travel. I've been saying that I'd visit my family abroad (I'm foreign) for the past four years and each summer something has come up so that I haven't been able to make it. This year I've promised myself that nothing is going to get in the way of my visit so even though July is not the best time for them, it is the only guaranteed month I'll be able to go regardless of what happens with school.

Everything else summer-wise, like music festivals and races, can be booked/bought in June/July when I have a better idea of what the next year will bring for me. Overall, I've come to terms with having to wing most of my summer activities, which is not ideal but such is life.

Preparing for what's next

I've talked to a bunch of friends, family, and coworkers about my waitlist status and I love how they are so unanimously optimistic about my chances of still getting in, because I sure am not. They're all empty hopes that have no foundation so I smile, nod, and thank them for their confidence in me. And I agree with them when they say, "At least you weren't rejected." Gotta love blind optimism!

The best advice I've been given thus far has been to prepare to reapply and plan my life accordingly. I need to stop putting off making summer plans in the hopes of getting accepted this year, and instead I should live my life the way I would have if I'd been rejected outright. On the off chance that I do end up accepted then I'll rearrange my plans accordingly, but for now I need to live life. And so I have.

It helps that I just got back from an incredibly relaxing 2-week vacation and the things causing stress in my life (not medical school related) have been resolved for the most part. I notice myself repeating "Such is life" and "It is what it is" a lot these days so I think I've simply ceased to care about the minutiae and have accepted everything for what it is.

I've become optimistic and happy regarding my current situation and my future in general, and I'm much more excited about the prospect of medical school, even if I have to wait another cycle for it. When I applied last year I was so burned out from life that the thought of dealing with applications and selling myself at interviews was too much to handle. I'm pretty sure that sentiment was conveyed through my essays and answers to interviewers, which didn't help my cause. But now I'm much more relaxed and ready for the beast that is the process of applying to medical school.

With the approach of May, I need to start requesting transcripts and sending out drafts of my personal statement to get edited so that I'm ready to submit my AMCAS application on June 4th (the first possible day for submission). There are a few activities I need to update but overall, there's really not much I need to do the second time around.

I have a very good idea of what has brought me to this point in my life and the motivations behind my decisions in the past. Going through this process once already has prepared me for the types of questions and answers I should expect, and the best way to convey my interest and passions in writing and in person.

Honestly, I'm not dreading going through this cycle a second time, which is the opposite sentiment of most reapplicants. Most people say they would never wish another medical school application cycle on anyone. As an older applicant, I have some perspective on what really matters in life and in the grand scheme of things, reapplying isn't very high on my "awful shit I have to go through" list. Yeah, it sucks and given the choice I would've preferred to get in the first time around (duh), but it's not the end of the world and I'll come out of it a better person.

At least that's what I'm saying now. We'll see how my tune changes a year from now if I still haven't gotten in by the second go around.

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.

Waitlisted...a good thing?

I got a letter today (snail mail style) saying I've been put on the waitlist at the second school at which I interviewed. You would think I'd be pretty bummed about this, but it's actually a good thing.

What I haven't put on this blog is that I really didn't like the school when I visited it. I hated it so much that I'd been seriously considering withdrawing from it prior to receiving a decision, but the thought that this school might be my only chance at an MD has kept me from sending that email to the admissions office.

I've been heavily weighing my options for the past few days thinking I had one more week to make the choice between withdrawing or not because a friend of mine who interviewed a week before me received their decision yesterday. But it looks like they lumped all of the December interviewees into one committee session so the decision has been made for me, which is a relief in a way.

Now I just wait on the dream school, although with the way this cycle is going for me, it's not looking good. At least I've been primed for disappointment.