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!

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.

Coming to terms with the possibility of reapplying

I've been really worried about the prospect of reapplying because I really don't want to wait another year to get started on my dream. I've already put it off long enough and I'm kind of over waiting for my life to begin.

But much like one eventually goes through the five stages of grief after a tragic event*, on my Things-Out-Of-My-Control Scale I have made it through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression to eventually arrive at not-giving-a-sh!t, or as others would call it, acceptance. (My way of dealing with stress directly mirrors the typical stages of grief and ever since I've figured this out, it's made managing my stress so much more...manageable.)

I've only received two interviews. The first one didn't go very well in my opinion and the second school has a very low out-of-state acceptance rate, even post-interview. So it's not looking good for me this cycle.

Before the holidays I paid a visit to my pre-med advisor (the one who's the most positive of the three because I needed a pick-me-up) to discuss my options for the coming year and how I should improve my application if I do have to reapply.

She boosted my ego by saying I have the "ideal career changer application" and thus there aren't any gaping holes to fix, and that my late secondary submissions are most likely to blame for my lack of interview invitations. She also said that there's a surge of interview invites in December and January so I shouldn't start worrying until February about hearing crickets from medical schools.

In addition, if I do end up reapplying, I learned that I don't have to completely revamp my application because schools understand that a good applicant can be rejected simply due to submitting secondaries late in the game, and such rejections do not necessarily indicate a red flag in the application. So overall, my themes and ideas can remain the same, but I just need to edit my essays a little more and add some things to my existing activity descriptions that I've done in the past year.

As such, reapplying is not as daunting of a task as I thought it would be with regards to essay-writing so that definitely helps my psyche. This also doesn't make it seem nearly as bad as I believed it would be when the thought first crossed my mind.

The one thing I am concerned about, though, is my dream school because I wasn't late in submitting my primary or secondary application there by any means. Thus I believe that the only reason I wouldn't get in would be because I bombed the interview. So maybe I should change up my application to make it stronger for them. Or I should simply pick a different topic for my secondary answer if/when I get a second chance. Or kicking butt on the interview the second time around if I do get such an opportunity would be enough to tip the scales in my favor.

I don't know at this point. I'm speculating too much on matters I have no idea about or control over and I should just stop for my own sanity.

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*I don't know why I've mentioned death/sad stuff so much in the past couple of posts. It's probably because I've spent too much time with my parents. Every time they ask me if I knew someone, it's a safe bet that the next thing out of their mouths will be, "They have cancer." Or, "They died." Just last week I found out that my dad's coworker was killed in a motorcycle accident. Morbid conversations run in the family.

Reality check

My mock interview with the Pre-Health Office went very well on Tuesday. I don't know why, but when I talk with medical people my answers get twice as long. With Career Services, I was able to communicate my path to applying to medical school in 4 minutes, while in both Pre-Health interviews it was on the order of 10 minutes. No bueno. I need to stop rambling!

Other than that, the practice interview wasn't nearly as dreadful as I had anticipated. I know what to work on and how to improve my answers and disposition so rocking the real interview is entirely doable. And the adviser assured me that it's completely normal to be rejected from the schools that I've been rejected from.

So far, I've been rejected from mostly reach schools, ones I have very little chance of getting into based on my overall GPA or my out-of-state status. So it makes sense and I shouldn't stress out too much about it.

If all else fails, she gave me pointers on what I should do to improve my application for next year in case I have to reapply. I can't really improve my GPA or MCAT any more than I already have so the next step would be getting more recent clinical experience in the form of a clinical research position.

I'm hoping I get into the school I'm interviewing with next weekend (it's my state school and I have the best chance to get in there) so I don't have to worry about balancing my current job with a clinical research position an hour away from where I live. Also, I REALLY don't want to have to rewrite all my essays for another application cycle.

Practice interviews and more news

My first medical school interview is in a week and a half and to prepare I've been taking advantage of the practice interviews offered on the campus at which I did my post-baccalaureate studies.

Last week I did a mock interview at Career Services, which was helpful in answering general questions such as the loaded "Tell me about yourself" or "Describe a time when you have failed." It was nice to hear how to structure my answers and also to see how I come off to someone who doesn't know me. It's crazy how much the interviewer could deduce about me just from a general description I gave of myself.

Tomorrow I have another mock interview, this time with the pre-health office and I'm looking forward to it but I'm also a little terrified. I've never seen this adviser before so I don't know if she'll be like the one who crushes my dreams or the nice one who's always excited to see how I'm doing. I've heard she's pretty hard during interviews, which is honestly what I need to prepare for the real thing.

On the other hand, I'm looking forward to practicing medical school specific questions such as ones dealing with ethics and the healthcare overhaul. I don't like answering those sorts of scenarios because I'm pretty middle of the road and I don't feel like it gives the interviewer a good opportunity to get to know me. But there's a good chance these will come up so I'd like some feedback on my answers.

All in all, I'm not too stressed out about this interview thing. I feel like I know myself and my reasons for pursuing this path well enough to speak about them with confidence. And as long as I can communicate those things effectively, I think I will be just fine. At least that's what I keep telling myself every time I think how important this interview is for my future. Because when I focus on that, I start to freak out a little.

On the responses from medical schools front, I got two more rejections (one pre-secondary and one post-secondary) on the same day that I passed the initial screening at another school bringing me one step closer to getting an interview invitation there. I honestly don't know how many people are in this "small pool" and how rigorous the screening for it was, but a significant amount of people have been rejected before reaching this pool so it must be something.

I'm not reading too much into these things because there is no way of knowing how each school does their admissions. And I can't control getting an interview invitation at this point. It's completely out of my hands now.

In short, I need to focus on rocking this interview and enjoying the freedom of having too much time on my hands.

Choosing medical schools

It's that time when I need to decide to which schools I'm applying. With over 100 to choose from, this decision is kind of a big deal. And since my overall stats are not competitive at 75% of the medical schools in the U.S. due to having way too much fun in undergrad, I can't just pull out the MSAR (an awesome resource with admissions statistics for all the medical schools) and see where I stand. It's a bit more complicated than that. And I'm really bad at making decisions for myself.

So I went to see the pre-med advisor for some guidance. Out of the three available in the office, I met with the one (Ms. D) who is great at crushing my dreams. That may be a bit harsh, but I always feel a little more hopeless after meeting with her. This is compared to the "I'm awesome!" feeling I get from the other advisor (Ms. E), who just happened to be one of my committee letter interviewers. Boy, I lucked out with that one!

Anywhos, Ms. D gave me a list of schools at which I might be a good fit, and also gave me a lot to think about. I've been pretty dead-set on the local med school and if you had asked me yesterday how I would feel if I didn't get in there, I'd probably tell you I'd cry. And I'm not a crying type of person. At all.

Everything about the local medical school (LMS) is right up my alley. It's got great weather, the student body is very laid back, there is an atmosphere of making others look good instead of gruesome competition, and it loves non-traditional students. That, and I have a good life here that I'm just not ready to leave. The chances of someone in my position being accepted are ~20%. It was (and still is) my *DREAM* school and I was pretty certain that I'd get in there. And then I met with my advisor.

With Ms. D's not-so-enthusiastic opinion on my chances of getting in, I began to reconsider my options and also stopped thinking of LMS as my be all end all. The way she went about suggesting medical schools for me made me start looking at schools in a different light, one in which I could present a case of what I could offer them instead of what they could do for me.

I don't know why it took a pre-med meeting to see things that way, because I've been in the real world long enough to realize that that's how things work in life, and have tailored my applications and approaches at meetings to reflect such a position. In fact, it's probably the major reason I got the Navy gig I'm leaving for in 10 days. I know to emphasize the right things to get what I want, and so far I've been rather successful at that.

But after reading numerous threads on SDN (now I see where I went wrong), I've become more self-centered to the point of thinking that I am God's gift to medical school. Well, maybe not quite that good but good enough that my concern with fit is the only one that matters. Trying to find a school that matched my experience became a search for a city in which I could be happy living, instead of focusing on where my experience went along with the type of student the admissions committee was looking for.

I don't believe too much in "fit" in the traditional sense. For me, a good fit would be a school located somewhere with enough sunshine to prevent me from staying in bed most of the year and also with a cooperative and generally not-so-intense student body. My only pseudo-requirement for curriculum is that there is a block system, but even that is negotiable. It would be nice to have some patient contact early in the non-clinical years, but even if it's not an official part of the curriculum, I'll be able to find it on my own.

So really, I'm not that picky. Research, primary care focus, PBL v. lecture preferences really don't concern me. I can adapt to all that and get whatever I desire out of med school. Now you see where the SDN cockiness and ignorance has reared its ugly head.

But Ms. D made me realize that I have had it all wrong. A good fit for a med school is not limited to where I could see myself living for 4 years, but more importantly, a place where my past experiences and activities go along with the mission of the school and the type of doctors it is hoping to shape.

Yes, I can be research-focused at a primary care oriented school, or get enough clinical experience at a huge research institution. But, that's not how the admissions committees see things. And that's not how I should see things, either. I can adapt, but I shouldn't have to.

There is enough variety in the nation's medical schools to find one that is in line with my past experiences and interests and also is in a city that has sun, water, and laid back people. Those things are not mutually exclusive. I just need to do a little more digging to find them.

P.S. Two posts in one week? Clearly I don't want to do what I should be doing. But don't get used to it. :)