The shame of reapplying

I read an article today about how to structure an application as a reapplicant and it pretty much negates everything I thought I should do.

I personally am ashamed of not getting accepted to medical school last cycle and having to reapply this year. I cringe every time I have to tell somebody that I didn't get in. So I thought it'd be best to pretend that chapter of my life didn't occur. By that I mean, there is no mention of me being a reapplicant anywhere in my application (well, except for the box I have to check saying I'm reapplying).

Apparently, though, sometimes reapplying is looked upon favorably by admissions committees. It shows you're resilient and persistent and really want to pursue medicine as a career. I don't know how that's not evident from the fact that I practically quit my job a couple of years ago, spent thousands of dollars and hours on pre-requisite courses, and kicked butt in my classes and on my MCAT. But I guess I have to put that in words instead of showing it through my activities.

I've already submitted my primary application so there is no changing my personal statement. It would've been the perfect concluding paragraph. However, I have a second chance at communicating my persistence and resilience in the form of secondary applications. I'm sure I can find a way to mention this in most prompts so I still have a chance to let schools know I'm better for going through that experience.

I'm just glad I stumbled upon that article before I submitted all my materials and not after. All is not lost quite yet.

My true feelings

I've been trying to remain cheery/not slip into depression about this cycle and my position on two waitlists, but this blind optimism is slowly slipping away. Also, enough people read this blog that I should say something about what's truly going on in my head instead of leaving you to wonder and read between the lines.

I'm pissed off.

That's the best emotion I can think of to describe my state of mind.

I'm so angry with myself for screwing up my dream school interview, which I'm convinced cost me an acceptance. I'm also mad that I took so long to send in my secondary applications last cycle, because if I had done them promptly then maybe I would've had a "practice" interview elsewhere prior to my dream school and I would've been better prepared. And then maybe, just maybe, I would be matriculating in August.

But mostly, I'm pissed off that I will be spending another full year wasting time and willing it to pass faster.* After all my applications are sent in, there is nothing for me to do but wait. And I hate waiting. I wait all day for my friends to finish work so I have human contact. I'm so tired of this kind of existence that I look forward to my weekly physical therapy (I hurt myself again), which in another life I would call physical torture.

So yeah, I'm angry.

Now I'm going to go ride my bike to dissipate some of my anger and/or channel it into physical suffering. At least that'll kill some time.

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*This is if I don't get another job in the near future, which is the worst case scenario. I'm looking but it's really hard to get a job these days, especially if you misspell your hypothetical future boss' name on the cover letter. Yup, I did that. It didn't help the feeling of anger, and was the inspiration for this blog post.

Another Hail Mary

After speaking with my pre-med advisor (Ms. E) about my dream school a couple of weeks ago, I was slightly discouraged about the impact of my love letters on my acceptance status at my dream school. This advisor is tight with the admissions committee so I trust her advice on this matter.

Ms. E pretty much said that although the dean of admissions had stated during my interview day to send the school updates, which was a departure from their policy from previous years, the admissions committee doesn't actually read them at all. That's straight from the only remaining admission's committee member's mouth (the rest of the committee has left for other jobs at this point). So I somewhat believe this.

Ms. E mentioned that it probably wouldn't hurt to write them something but if I didn't, then I wouldn't be shooting myself in the foot all that much. So I've held off on writing because I've been busy with finishing up my AMCAS application for the new cycle and pre-writing secondary essays. And honestly, I don't have that much more to say.

But then I realized that since the initial love letter in late March and a short email in early May, I haven't communicated with the school in a long time. Considering that they're taking people off the waitlist slowly as spots open up with most acceptances coming in June and the month being half-way over, I should let them know that I'm still very much interested.

So today I've been brainstorming like crazy and finishing up a Hail Mary letter of sorts to send out to my dream school by the end of the weekend. I honestly don't think it'll have any impact on my status but it will put my mind at ease. Well, kind of.

I shouldn't have sat on this for so long, much like I should have sent out my secondary applications and the initial love letter a lot sooner. Tardiness appears to be the theme for this application cycle. No bueno.

Submitted and excited

I just submitted my application to AMCAS for round 2 of trying to get into medical school and I'm kind of excited. I generally do much better with everything the second time around so I'm very hopeful that this will be the year*.

Also, I'm kind of annoyed and bored with my current city/state/region so the idea of possibly moving to another part of the country is incredibly thrilling. I'm kind of a nomad and get restless when I've spent a lot of time in one place, so five years here is plenty and I'm looking forward to going elsewhere.

It helps that I'm not entirely dreading writing more secondary essays or cover letters, so reapplying is not nearly as daunting as it was even a couple of months ago. Oh, what a difference a year of relaxation makes!

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*This only applies if I don't get in off the waitlist, of course, for which my chances are slowly dwindling. In general, I no longer quite believe I will start medical school in August so I've really started thinking about what I will be doing for the next year instead. And I'm getting super excited about the possibilities.

Looking for other work

Since it's a very real possibility that I will have to spend another year applying to medical school, I've decided to be productive with my time and not "relax" like I did this past year. This has very little to do with my future application and/or bettering my resume, because I sincerely hope I don't have to go through this process three times. That would suck. Instead, it has everything to do with my sanity.

My current job is pretty awesome...on paper. I have ridiculous flexibility with my hours and the work is challenging enough for me. However, it has nothing to do with medicine and I spend most of my time alone, either on my laptop at home or in my dungeon of an office.

I call it a "dungeon" because it's in the basement of the chemical engineering building and my desk is separated from the deserted lab space by a cage door/wall combination. I don't even get a real wall.

It's kind of like this, except jankier, sans female model (that would mean there are other people down there), and from the 70s with many holes that have been fixed by soldering:

In other words, I can't imagine spending another year doing what I'm doing. I crave human interaction, which is part of the reason I'm returning to medicine, and I want to do something that will advance my future career even if I have to start as a research underling. The skills I'm learning now have very little application to any sort of medicine or medical research I may ever envision doing. Oh, and our funding got cut due to the sequestration, so I may not even have a job come September.

So I've been applying for other jobs, which means even more writing, and you know how much I love doing that. Cover letters are even worse than secondary essays, for the record. I also can't help but think that all this effort I'm putting into plans for next year (job and school applications) is for naught because I may still get in off the waitlist. All this writing for nothing...hopefully.

Mostly, I'm looking for something in clinical research (definitely not bench work) and there have been postings popping up here and there. It's actually fortuitous timing because most people that hold these jobs have applied to medical school and are going to be starting in mid-summer/early fall. So more positions should open up.

The only real downside to these clinical research jobs is that I'm looking at a 1-hour commute to work and another hour back since the nearest major medical center is that far way. Well, that and having a legitimate 9 to 5 that I can't leave for Happy Hour on a whim is a slight bummer, since it's a situation I haven't had in a while (I've been fortunate with my job choices).

There would be some things to give up but I think if the position was a good fit, it would totally be worth it. I would have to make sure that I'd be participating in real research at least part of the time instead of just answering phones and coordinating emails, because that's the kind of job I currently have and I'm not willing to give that up quite yet. So that would be something I'd have to ask during my interview, if I were to get one. If it turns out to be more office work than research, then I'd stick with my current job, keep looking for others, and pick up a shift or two as a medical scribe to give myself something to do during the day.

Speaking of things to do, that's another problem with my life right now: I have no reason to get up in the morning. Like, there's nowhere I have to be and nothing I have to do. While this life is fun for a while, I can't deal with it for extended periods of time and I would love nothing more than having to be somewhere every weekday. I say that now, but a few months in, if I do get hired somewhere, I may be singing a completely different tune.

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.