The Application Process

Wow!  In the time since my last post, a lot has changed.  Here's a quick overview:

-- February:  Started dating my now husband, Matthew Dahlke

-- April: Took the MCAT

-- May: Started a summer cancer research fellowship; got my MCAT score -- 94th percentile!!

-- June: Submitted AMCAS application

-- July: Submitted some secondary applications

-- August: Finished secondaries; got married!!!

-- October:  Interview invite for UUSOM!  Rejection from Boston University SOM.

-- November:  Wrote honors thesis;  interview at UUSOM!


I'm sure any pre-meds reading this are particularly wondering how I studied for the MCAT, approached my applications, handled rejection, and prepared for my interview.  Hopefully this will answer some of your questions!


MCAT

So....honestly.....I should have studied A LOT more for the MCAT.  I do not recommend that anyone study as little as I did.  That being said.....the MCAT is designed to test your critical thinking skills.  While I used the Kaplan MCAT prep books and the Altius Practice Tests to help me review concepts and get used to the format of the test respectively, I would say that my cell biology class is actually what helped me the most.  In my cell biology class we were required to read a journal article every week, and then answer questions relating to experiment design and study results.  This class taught me how to quickly understand complicated figures, and how to relate an experiment to concepts I had learned.  Ultimately, while I do recommend a review of basic concepts to prepare for the MCAT, this is not enough to guarantee a high score.  Rather, I recommend reading at least one scientific article a week, and figuring out how it relates to concepts learned in class.  Again, the MCAT is not so much a test of scientific knowledge as it is of critical thinking.

PRIMARY APPLICATION

As most (hopefully all!) pre-meds know, the AMCAS application can be SUBMITTED on June 1st.  What some may not know, however, is that the application actually OPENS a month earlier, on May 1st.  I HIGHLY recommend starting to complete the application as soon as it opens.  I did that, and I still didn't have my application submitted until June 6th.  Why, you may ask?  The personal statement.  I don't think I actually had a complete draft of it until June 1st, and then I had 2-3 people look over it, then revised it before I actually submitted it.  Honestly, I think this was slightly better than submitting it on the first day.  By the time I did submit it, I knew that I had a solid personal statement, that there were no grammatical errors, and that I would still have my application in "early".

Now, why is it so important to get the AMCAS in early? The short answer?  AMCAS verification.  After you submit your primary application, it doesn't go directly to the med schools you decided to apply to.  Rather, it first has to be 'verified' by AMCAS.  Essentially, AMCAS employees take the official transcript you had your university send in, and compares it to the list of classes you listed on the application.  They want to make sure that any classes you listed under your BCPM (biology, chemistry, physics, and math) GPA actually belong there, and that you didn't *accidentally* omit some BCPM courses that you didn't do so well in. :P.

So -- how can you make the verification process go as smoothly as possible?  First -- request your transcripts as soon as possible, so you know AMCAS will have them by the time you submit your application.  Second -- submit your application as close to June 1st as possible!  Approximately 50,000 students apply to medical school each year, and most of them submit their application during the first two weeks of June.  As you may imagine, this means that AMCAS can take quite a while to process applications that they receive later, because they have A LOT of applications to get through first.  Applications are processed in the order that they're received - so even a second can change when your application gets processed.  (Okay, probably not a SECOND, but you get the picture).  SO - SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION ASAP!!!

SECONDARY APPLICATION

Another reason to get your primary application in early relates to secondary applications.  AMCAS doesn't send any primary applications on to medical schools until ~July 1st.  If you got your primary application in early, and have your application verified by then - -great! You'll be in the first wave of students who receive secondaries.  If, however, you waited until June 21st to submit your primary, you might not get secondaries until August or September, when most applicants have already submitted them and may already have interview invites.  This can put you at a disadvantage if you applied to schools that have rolling admissions.

So - how did I approach secondary applications?  I first looked up the application questions from last year.  I don't remember the exact website I found them on, but if you just search "secondary application questions for ______ (med school of interest)" you should find them pretty easily.  Now...most websites suggest "pre-writing" your application essays -- i.e. finding the questions from last year, and writing up what you would say.  This might seem unnecessary, but the prompts for most schools don't tend to change a whole lot year to year.  Thus, if you pre-write your essays, you can potentially get your secondary in the same day you receive it.  Again, this can provide an advantage when it comes to schools with rolling admissions.

I say most places recommend pre-writing.  I did not do this.  I was planning a wedding at the same time as I received my secondaries, and so I didn't really follow the ideal process.  Still, I managed to get all of my secondaries back within ~1 month of receiving them.  I recommend getting them in sooner, however.  Most websites I looked at recommend sending in the secondary application within 2 weeks of receiving it.

WAITING....

After your primary and secondary applications are in, all you can really do is wait.  I don't really know how med schools review secondary applications -- it might be based on when they were received, it might be based on MCAT score...I honestly have no clue.  What I do know though, is that the weeks/months after you submit the secondary applications will try your patience.  Again, another reason to get your application in early -- though I don't know the process, odds are the sooner you get your secondaries in, the sooner schools will review them.  And I truly believe that waiting an extra week or two can make a huge difference.  I had all of my secondaries in by the first week of august, and I've only heard from 2 out of the 7 I applied to.  And....this leads me to my next point.

REJECTION

I was fortunate in that my first (and only, so far) rejection came after my first (and only, so far) interview invitation.  I was rejected from Boston University in the beginning of October.  I don't have too many tips for dealing with rejection...I had an interview at one of my top schools, so I wasn't overly disappointed.  It helps to be familiar with the MSAR stats for the schools you apply.  I knew that Boston receives somewhere in the neighborhood of 11,000 applications per year, and my MCAT was slightly below their average.  So...I applied knowing my odds weren't great, but still wanting to apply.  Ultimately, I would say -- know the MSAR stats for each school, and apply to enough schools so that when that first rejection comes (and it will) you're not too disappointed.

INTERVIEW

Okay, on to happier topics!  I got an interview invitation from the University of Utah school of Medicine (UUSOM) in the first week of October.  Word of advice: pick your interview date as soon as you get the interview invite!  When I first received the invite, interviews were available during the first week of October; by the time I actually picked my interview date a few hours later they only had dates available for the middle of November.  I ended up choosing November 17th as my interview date.

So...as you may have noticed, my approach to the medical school application process hasn't necessarily been...conventional.  Again, follow recommendations, not what I've done.  I highly recommend a practice interview -- ESPECIALLY if you interview at a school with traditional (i.e. one-on-one) interview format.   There are a lot of resources that have sample interview questions, and pre-medical advisement centers tend to offer practice interviews.  I....did not do a practice interview.  I was planning to, but by the time I got to my advisement center, there were no time slots available before my interview date.  Fortunately, UUSOM uses the multiple-mini-interview format (MMI), NOT traditional interviews.  Honestly, I'm not sure how useful a practice interview would have been, given this fact.

If you don't know: an MMI consists of about 8-10 stations, where you typically have 1-2 minutes to prepare your response to an ethical question before spending 6-10 minutes with an interviewer.  Because most, if not all, of the questions will be ethical in nature, I HIGHLY recommend a bioethics class.  I am in bioethics at the moment, and was SOOO grateful for that class -- most of the issues presented in my MMI had been previously discussed in class.  If you can't get into a bioethics class...search for current issues in healthcare, and decide where you stand on the issue.  Decide how you would respond if someone challenged that position.  Practice defending your point of view.

SUMMARY


So...that's a lot of info.  Here's a quick summary.

1.  Study for the MCAT, but don't sweat the small stuff. Focus on building up critical thinking skills.

2.  Start your primary application as soon as it opens, and submit it as close to June 1st as possible.

3.  Get your secondary applications in early!

4.  Be realistic about your shots at a particular school (use the MSAR!).  This can help you avoid disappointment when the inevitable first rejection comes.

5.  Do a practice interview!  But don't stress about it if you have an MMI.  Instead, focus on deciding where you stand on ethical issues in healthcare.


Thanks for reading this long post!  If you're a pre-med applying this cycle...good luck!  Maybe we'll interview somewhere together!  If you're pre-med and applying next cycle....you've got this!! Prepare early, and don't stress!  If you're just reading this because you want to....thanks for reading!

Don't Do Pre-med

This weekend someone asked if I'd talk to her son, one of my friends, about what it's like to be a pre-med.  I won't have a chance to talk to him until tomorrow, but I figured I'd go ahead and share my thoughts with everyone.

As I've researched medical schools, requirements, internships, etc, I've discovered that many doctors say that they wouldn't automatically recommend pursuing a career in medicine. For a while, I couldn't understand it.  Now, however, I do.

Don't get me wrong: I love being a pre-med.  I've had so many opportunities open up that wouldn't have had I continued with a psychology major.  I got to go to Europe; I got to shadow doctors in Spain; I'm in an amazing lab with an AMAZING mentor.  I just submitted an application for a grant that would let me work in the lab this entire summer.  I wouldn't change a thing.

That being said....being a pre-med has been the hardest thing I've ever done.  It's been stressful.  Sometimes what I call the "pre-med monster" has come out. I haven't been able to be as social as I would've liked to be over the last few semesters.  My GPA isn't as high as it used to be.  Sometimes I've wondered if pre-med really is the best thing for me.

So, after all that, why do I still stick with it?  Why do I love it? The answer is simple.  Pre-med isn't something that I simply 'do'.  I am pre-med. I am a person who gets excited by cadavers, and surgeries, and bacteria, not because I think being a doctor is the best way to have a good salary, or because it makes financial sense, but because it excites me.  There is a thrill in learning about anatomy, in learning about the crazy connections between biochemistry cycles, and in learning the intricacies of the cerebellar systems.

While we're on the topic of finding thrills in pre-med stuff....Dr. Wisco, a member of the admissions committee at the University of Utah School of Medicine, told a group of my fellow premeds at BYU that fulfilling pre-med requirements just so you can 'check the box' is absolutely the worst thing you can do.  Yes, fulfill the requirements, but fulfill them in ways that you want to.  I wanted to travel the world so I shadowed doctors in Spain.  I fulfill the patient exposure requirement by volunteering in the ER because I like the random nights when there's a woman in labor, and another, psychiatric patient, who tries to run out the doors -- all within an hour.

So -- my advice to my friend and to all aspiring pre-meds is -- don't just do premed.  BE premed.  Because if you don't love being pre-med with all your heart, you'll fail, get discouraged, and maybe even be one of the many medical students who commit suicide every year.  BE pre-med, or look elsewhere and find what you're truly passionate about.