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.

Dwindling chances

Another batch of people just got accepted to my dream school, with most of them having interviewed early in the cycle like I did (October/November) so I guess they're still sitting on a lot of applications. Prior to this group of acceptances, the school had only given out ~1/3 of the spots it would offer this cycle. I'm not sure how many were offered this past week but it seems like there's still a large chunk of people that will be accepted. At least that's the expectation. And hearing that people who interviewed early are still being reviewed and accepted gives me some hope, albeit very little of it.

I'm in this weird head space right now where I'm convinced that I will have to reapply next cycle but at the same time I can't believe that I won't get in. It's like one part of me is rooted in the reality of the situation but there's still the dreamer that's holding out hope.

Also, I've been feeling very down lately because I recently realized that nothing good has happened to me in well over a year. This is not to say that my life has been crappy, because it hasn't been like that for the most part. It's just that all the things I'd planned for myself as a reward/pleasure have backfired mightily and none of the things that have occurred spontaneously in my life have been good. So overall I'm situated at the negative end of the spectrum of happiness and it kind of sucks.

With this recent realization regarding my state of being, it's very hard to comprehend that good news will come to my door (or inbox) with regards to medical school admissions. If I do get accepted to the dream school, it'll be a very pleasant surprise because I'm setting myself up for epic failure.

If you set your expectations low, you'll never be disappointed. Or so they say.

Right now, life is good

I tend to write when I'm feeling extreme emotions and the bad has outweighed the good lately, which has been reflected in the tone of the blog. So with all these doom and gloom posts dominating for the past month or so, I figured one positive post was in order.

For a good 90% of the day, my life is pretty awesome*. I still work only part-time (at my request) so I have plenty of hours in the day to relax, read, and hang out. When I do work, I make a significant contribution to my team's current project and I can see the progress directly.

I've begun playing the guitar, learned to ride a unicycle, took a rugby refereeing course, and am currently participating in four sports leagues. I'm going home to visit my parents for ten days in February, after having spent over two weeks with them during the holidays. I can work remotely so I don't even use vacation days for this.

I also wasn't lying to my dream school interviewer when I said that volunteering at the hospital is the highlight of my week. With the extra time on my hands, I am able to pull longer shifts and come in more often, which makes me very happy. My charge nurse gives me a great deal of responsibility and the work I do is necessary, so I look forward to it every week and absolutely love my time there.

And although I don't do any real medicine at the moment, I can see myself in the physicians I "work" with and I am SO excited to be there one day. It's days like last Thursday that make me realize that I have made the absolutely correct decision to return to medicine and I am so incredibly thrilled to some day serve my patients in a more medical capacity.

All in all, I'm taking full advantage of the ridiculous amount of free time at my disposal because I know it won't be like this for much longer.

Like I said in the title, life is good right now.

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*The other 10% of my day is consumed by stress, whether it's dreaming about being rejected from my dream school, anxiously checking my email when I wake up in the morning, or wracking my brain about how I could've interviewed better as I'm trying to fall asleep at night. Once I'm fully awake and in control of my emotions, I'm good and carefree. But as soon as I let my mind wander, all hell breaks loose up there.

Rejection scare

I have very realistic dreams to the point where I often have to ask other people if we've had certain conversations that I'm convinced occurred but my friends don't remember. Sometimes this works to my advantage in that I can practice an important speech or event while I'm sleeping and all parties involved react like they normally would, which gives me instant feedback on how I should interact in a given situation.

But sometimes things don't go my way and I wake up with a terrible feeling of dread, which is no way to start a day. Unfortunately, this happened early last week.

I very vividly dreamt that my dream school sent me a rejection email. Since I knew that this school sends out only acceptances and no other decisions until about March, I figured that I was dreaming and my mind was playing evil tricks on me. So I "woke myself up" from this nightmare only to "discover" that the email was still in my inbox. After a bit of "sitting on my bed with my head in my hands", I woke myself up for real and a sense of dread washed over me, which was eventually followed by relief upon realizing that this had simply been a terrible dream.

The whole thing was so realistic that it was scary. The process of checking my email and the program I use were identical to how this really unfolds on any given morning, and I felt all the feelings that I imagine I would feel if I were to get rejected (it could still happen, and if it does, I'll let you know if I'm correct in my prediction).

What got to me the most was one line towards the end of this fictitious letter that said, "Although we cannot offer you a spot in our class, you are a fantastic candidate and I am confident you will be accepted to one of your other top choices." (I had met with the admissions officer one-on-one earlier in my dream as a sort of favor and last-ditch effort by my pre-advisor who knew the adcom well, hence the personal nature of the rejection.)

I've heard similar words before. My pre-med committee called me "the ideal career changer" in my letter of recommendation and told me in no uncertain terms that they'd be shocked if I didn't get in this cycle. So it's not just in my head that I am a qualified applicant for medical school.

If I were to get rejected by my dream school, then there is no other school willing to take me at this point, contrary to what my fake adcom predicted. That's devastating, both in my dream world and in real life. And devastation was the feeling that was so painful when I first woke up...until I realized it had all been a horrible mind trick.

All in all, I know that there is no guarantee of getting accepted anywhere and I honestly didn't think I'd do too well this application cycle because of my poor grades in undergrad. But I expected more than the two paltry interviews I've received thus far, and most disconcertingly, no decisions this late in the cycle with no prospects of any other interviews coming my way. So although some might think I'm good (or at least good enough), clearly the people that matter don't think the same way. And that's discouraging but also incredibly humbling.

What's most infuriating about all this is that as much as I try to forget the fact that I'm applying to medical schools right now because it completely stresses me out, my subconscious just won't let it go.

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ETA: Ever since this initial dream, I've been having adcom dreams nearly every night. These are the first dreams I've had about medical school this entire cycle and I think it's because the deadline to worry, per my pre-med advisor, is quickly approaching. I'm fine at managing my stress level during the day, but apparently at night my will-power all but disappears.

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.