I’m concerned by a slight undercurrent of thought that doing the minimum is probably good enough to get into medical school. Doing the minimum course work. Getting the minimal grades that will pass muster. Doing the minimum clinical experiences. Getting “okay” LORs from people who don’t know you as well as they should. Being ill-prepared for the interview. Trying to figure out a way to buck a system that the med schools are perfectly happy with and have no reason to change - it works for them.
Let me assure you that there is a Very Large Contingent of applicants who are doing the MAXIMUM in every area possible. These are not just traditional applicants; these are non-trads - applicants who want the same spot in the entering class that you want. These applicants are your competition for those few first-year slots. (“Few” relative to the number of applicants, and these applicant numbers are increasing each year.)
Go for broke! Get passionate about ALL aspects of your application! This is your life’s career that you are working for.
Cheers,
Judy
Well said Judy! I also get that “feeling” that it’s okay to shoot for a 3.6 and it’s okay to shoot for upper 20’s in the MCAT, and how many “hours” do I need to volunteer/shadow, etc. Like Judy said you need to do this at 200% and say I need A’s from now on, I need at least as a minimum double digits in each section of the MCAT, I need to shadow/volunteer as much as I possibly can, I need outstanding LOR’s period. Because like Judy stated there ARE ALL kinds of applicants doing this at a very high level and yes this includes non-trads. I have seen non-trads working, taking classes and pulling a 4.0, volunteering/shadowing/community involvement, and getting outstanding LOR’s. Give it ALL you have folks!
Thanks Judy for putting voice to something that has made me uneasy from time to time. If I may add to your list of things at which you must strive to excel: applying early, being obsessive about getting everything done ahead of time, being compulsively detail-oriented. NO ONE ELSE cares as much as you do about your application. If you miss enclosing one teeny little thing and it takes two months to find out that your application is on hold as a result, who is going to care? YOU are. If your best LOR prospect gives you a verbal OK but by the time you get the detailed information to them you find out that he’s gone on a six-month academic mission to Tibet, YOU are the one who’s screwed. Think ahead, think twice about everything, like Santa Claus make a list and check it twice.
Those who say the application process isn’t that bad aren’t being obsessive enough!
Mary
And one more thing. I can hear people protesting now: “Time’s a-wastin’! I don’t have an extra year! I need to try and get this accomplished.” Please look at my .sig, note my age, and heed what I say. One year more or less does NOT make a difference - you may FEEL like it is an eternity when you’re deciding to change the direction of your life, but in the grand scheme of things, a year spent moving toward your goal at a deliberate pace that will maximize success is a year very well spent.
Mary
I would say that, at the same time, there are some things the perfect applicants will do that you will find are just not feasible for you. If you CANNOT quit your job to take day classes and HAVE to take evening classes, don’t obsess about it. Just blow those classes out of the water and polish every other part of your application like a shining jewel. Do the best you can on EVERYTHING, but when something is truly beyond your control (like say, the grades you got ten years ago), compensate as best you can and don’t waste energy worrying about it.
Set priorities. Be realistic about what you can do. Be bold about what you can do. And DO NOT RUSH.
Are there certain posts from OPMers that have you worried or are you just throwing this out there in general. For the most part, I think the regular posters here are working as hard as they can.
Just curious where you see that undercurrent of thought? On this forum? Or are you saying you see it during your work as an admissions consultant?
If it’s on this forum, I’m wondering where you see that, because I sure don’t. On the contrary, most people here are obsessively concerned with every little detail, as far as I can tell. This includes myself. I’ve got some good things going for me, but I have a lot of things to overcome too, and I am really concerned that even if I do the best at everything that I possibly can, I am still not going to be competitive enough. Nonetheless, there comes a point where I just have to say “F*ck it, I’ve done my best. If that’s not good enough then I’m not going to lose any more sleep over it.”
Sam
We had the same thought at the same time, Sam!
I have seen a “few” here on this forum (not sure who though…) but for the most part ALL of YOU are doing the best you can and hence getting IN!
I just don’t see it, but… ok.
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And one more thing. I can hear people protesting now: “Time’s a-wastin’! I don’t have an extra year! I need to try and get this accomplished.” Please look at my .sig, note my age, and heed what I say. One year more or less does NOT make a difference - you may FEEL like it is an eternity when you’re deciding to change the direction of your life, but in the grand scheme of things, a year spent moving toward your goal at a deliberate pace that will maximize success is a year very well spent.
Mary
Hi Mary,
I understand your point and it is probably a wise one. However, I will be one year older than you were, when and if I make it in after applying this summer. Time definitely is a’ wastin’ and nobody who is posting on this board feels like they are getting any younger. I’ve really busted my ass (and my family’s ass) to make it to this point, and it’s definitely one of those things where it’s still like arriving at the train station about 5 minutes before the train is leaving. I busted my ass for a purpose though, and that purpose is to be entering med school fall '07. Will I live if I don’t make it in because I could have probably spent another year taking upper division bio courses to look even better? Of course, but I’ll be pretty upset about it for a while. It is in making those goals and pushing myself hard that I have been able to finally feel like I’m back up and moving again in life. So in short, that extra year in the big scheme of things for me personally WILL mean something. A lot in fact; but if I don’t make it, I’ll just keep pushing on until I do.
Sam
I agree with the previous posters that it is essential to give your pre-med preparation your all. If you want med school badly enough that it’s worth giving up other things in your life, then go for it all-out. What does it mean to go all-out? I would like to share my story about how I prepared for the MCAT to explain what I mean when I say “going all-out.”
I scored 43 on the MCAT in Aug. 2004 at age 29. People sometimes tell me that I must be some kind of genius. But they didn’t see the kind of hours I put in studying the summer before I took the MCAT. I got up at 6AM every weekday, studied for 30 minutes, got dressed and went to work in the lab from 7:30 to 3:30, went to the gym, went to Kaplan, either studied from 6PM to 9PM or taught a class, went home, read for 30 minutes, went to bed, and repeated this schedule again the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, for three straight months. On weekends I studied ten or twelve hours each day, Sat. and Sun. both, if I didn’t need to be in the lab or teaching a class. I didn’t go anywhere or do anything that I didn’t absolutely have to do except study, research, and work out. I’d meet my friends for lunch or dinner somewhere close to where I worked. It was an absolutely miserable three months, but I more than accomplished my goal. (I was aiming for a 40. 
)
I still teach for Kaplan. My students (mostly trads, but I do get some non-trads too) complain sometimes about how much work the Kaplan class is, and I tell them (nicely) to suck it up. Figure out how to budget your time, and make it happen if going to med school is truly important to you. True, your MCAT score is not everything in this process, but it is a factor, and having an excellent one will open doors for you that might not open for you otherwise. I’m sure other people can give the same kinds of examples of going all-out for just about everything: MCAT, but also grades, LORs, ECs, essays, etc. To my mind, this is the kind of sacrifice that a person, trad or non-trad, who really wants to go to med school will be willing to make.
That’s a really cool story… very inspirational. I was reading this book about getting into med school, and the author (can’t remember the book offhand) talked about someone he knew who was a non-trad with an 8 month old child. The only time he could get any peace and quiet was between about 3am and 6am, so he did that every morning for 3 months for MCAT prep and of course did great on the MCAT. That’s an amazing score, btw. It’s good to hear that it can happen by working at it and is highly motivating to know.
Sam
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I’m concerned by a slight undercurrent of thought that doing the minimum is probably good enough to get into medical school. Doing the minimum course work. Getting the minimal grades that will pass muster. Doing the minimum clinical experiences. Getting “okay” LORs from people who don’t know you as well as they should. Being ill-prepared for the interview. Trying to figure out a way to buck a system that the med schools are perfectly happy with and have no reason to change - it works for them.
Let me assure you that there is a Very Large Contingent of applicants who are doing the MAXIMUM in every area possible. These are not just traditional applicants; these are non-trads - applicants who want the same spot in the entering class that you want. These applicants are your competition for those few first-year slots. (“Few” relative to the number of applicants, and these applicant numbers are increasing each year.)
Go for broke! Get passionate about ALL aspects of your application! This is your life’s career that you are working for.
Cheers,
Judy
Hi Judy and all,
You could not have said it better. I have been reading applications from students who have done the maximum. Some are non-traditional and some are traditional but their passion for the practice of medicine has come through every time.
One of the greatest advantages of being a non-traditional applicant is that you know yourself fairly well. You have a comfort of “being in your skin” that can serve you well. This however does not make up for not going all out to do the maximum to get into medical school.
My favorite saying these days is: “Would you hand the keys of your car to a total stranger and let them ride off?” Most of us would not but we hand our health and the health of our children to total strangers knowing that we can always get another car but you can’t get another body or another child. With that kind of trust placed in your hands,day in and day out, you have to be prepared to give more than 100%.
It’s not about how much time you can spend with your family or getting into medical school and now you have it made, it is about being and giving your best all of the time. There is no room for anything less. Medicine is not about hours and work, it’s about your future patients. If you do not have the passion now, you are not going to develop it in medical school. There is no magic there, only the means to get the material that you need to form the basis of your practice.
My job is very, very difficult and it gets more difficult every day. On some days, my stress level is so high, I start to have chest pains and break out in hives. Sure I have set a very high standard but my patients deserve it and I am very passionate about what I do.
Natalie
Hi all,
I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I interviewed last cycle, & was waitlisted. When I interviewed, I didn’t expect to really like the 20-somethings “gunners” I anticipated meeting in my interview group (I’ll be the first to admit I can be impatient).
Not only did I like them, I was thoroughly impressed by several. One was a classical cellist…another had spent the past 2 summers teaching math & science in Qatar. These were people that I was sorry to leave at the end of the day.
This impressed my non-trad self immensely. Sure, we have a lot of advantages as older applicants, and we have even more advantages as non-trad med students & physicians…but man, this is an impressive pool of folks we’re in.
That said, I still wanna kick their asses this application cycle. And I really appreciate the take-no-prisoners approach to MCAT studying in this thread. I am SO GLAD you shared that.
Regards,
Barb
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…
My favorite saying these days is: “Would you hand the keys of your car to a total stranger and let them ride off?” Most of us would not but we hand our health and the health of our children to total strangers knowing that we can always get another car but you can’t get another body or another child. With that kind of trust placed in your hands,day in and day out, you have to be prepared to give more than 100%…
…
My job is very, very difficult and it gets more difficult every day. On some days, my stress level is so high, I start to have chest pains and break out in hives. Sure I have set a very high standard but my patients deserve it and I am very passionate about what I do…
I’m sorry, but that seems a little over-the-top to me. Of course a person has to have a passion for medicine, and hopefully the rigors of getting into a med school is designed for filtering out those who don’t. If it doesn’t then the entrance system is broken, not the applicants. Some people (I suspect) have great intentions, but really don’t have a passion for medicine, and hopefully find that out as they go through the huge, life-changing (esp. for non-trads) steps to get in the door.
However, how can you possibly care for other people’s kids if you can’t even take care of your own? And how can you take care of other people’s bodies if you aren’t taking care of your own?
I know a lot of people do it, but they are wrong, imo. I think a physician should be able to lead by example. For instance, would I listen to a family doctor who smokes a carton a day about how bad smoking is for me? Probably not as diligently as a doc who was, say, a triathlete as a hobby. Would I listen to a pediatrician’s advice on taking care of my kids if I knew that pediatrician’s own kids were a mess because s/he wasn’t able to balance their life correctly and give what time possible to them?
Maybe this doesn’t apply if you’re in residency…as it’s still part of the enormous initiation ceremony to become a licensed physician, but if you were in practice and were having those kinds of health problems because of your stress levels, I honestly would say that you need to look at how you are living your life pretty carefully. It’s just not right to force yourself to live like that. You can still tend to the awesome responsibility of other people’s lives…at least in practice (and many, many docs do), very well, without killing yourself in the process.
Just my 2 cents, and respectfully so.
Sam
I hope that you all understand that these posts voicing concerns in NO way is implying that most non-trads here on OPM are half-stepping or cutting corners…for sure most folks posting here are very serious about this endeavor and are giving it 200%. This can be seen by the large number of regular OPM posters getting in 
An additional 2 cents. Sam is right on. Medicine is not the most important thing in life, because the ratio of life to death is 1:1 and we each get our turn. My pre-med advisor and close friend is a very good, very highly specialized electrophysiologist. He is my advisor and I am his minister. I have had to help him see that he was out of control and that his family, personal and spiritual life were suffering because of it. He found a partner! So now he only works 2 weekends a month! But he is on track and understands that if you are dead, only the folks celebrating Dios de los Muertos will give a hoot about what you did.
This forum is so inspirational because we have doctors like Dr. Belle and others who are willing to be real and honest. I also think we all understand that anyone who is seriously endeavouring to become a doctor is giving their all. People waste time becoming other things, but it would be an odd thing to hear of someone putting in the necessary hours to have a high GPA in the sciences and do well on the MCAT just because he or she is a goof off.
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I understand your point and it is probably a wise one. However, I will be one year older than you were, when and if I make it in after applying this summer. Time definitely is a’ wastin’ and nobody who is posting on this board feels like they are getting any younger. I’ve really busted my ass (and my family’s ass) to make it to this point, and it’s definitely one of those things where it’s still like arriving at the train station about 5 minutes before the train is leaving. I busted my ass for a purpose though, and that purpose is to be entering med school fall '07. Will I live if I don’t make it in because I could have probably spent another year taking upper division bio courses to look even better? Of course, but I’ll be pretty upset about it for a while. It is in making those goals and pushing myself hard that I have been able to finally feel like I’m back up and moving again in life. So in short, that extra year in the big scheme of things for me personally WILL mean something. A lot in fact; but if I don’t make it, I’ll just keep pushing on until I do.
Sam
Of course we all feel time moving on. And I am not advocating that someone put extra time into their application period in order to embellish an already strong presentation. In some cases, a solid applicant will not have courses beyond the prerequisites - but they’ll have other attributes that show their academic qualifications. Or, a person may have extensive clinical experience - such an applicant doesn’t need further “shadowing” that would delay their application.
But there are a couple things I learned about this passage of time: first is the trite one, often quoted, “how old will you be if you DON’T get into medical school?” Each of us is getting a day older every day. My point - and I think it’s Judy’s too - is, don’t try to cut corners just to save time. Assess your application and figure out if you’re one of the folks whose app would be significantly enhanced by more coursework or more clinical involvement, or more - well, whatever. Judy is NOT saying that everyone needs to do this.
A second thing that helped me a LOT was the realization that you must figure out how to enjoy the journey. The education you receive during your preparation should not ONLY be your means to an end. I realize that not everyone is going to think “Cool! I understand organic chemistry!” but don’t look at your prereqs as a trip to the dentist without anesthesia, either. Try to enjoy the learning for its own sake AS WELL AS for its symbolism as a step toward your goal.
In terms of “why this thread now?” - I don’t know what comments Judy has in mind. The ones that have concerned me at times are (in no particular order, and this isn’t necessarily recent threads): distance learning for prereqs, community college, “oh don’t worry about a C - I got one too” sorts of posts, and “I had a full-time job and 3 kids so couldn’t study enough to get higher than a B” sorts of posts. There are probably more but those are the ones that pop into mind… and I am fully aware that this is pretty much like lobbing a hand grenade into the room but you guys asked… (ducking, looking for the asbestos suit)
Finally, I wouldn’t write all this if I didn’t care, and didn’t want y’all to make it!
Mary
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In terms of “why this thread now?” - I don’t know what comments Judy has in mind. The ones that have concerned me at times are (in no particular order, and this isn’t necessarily recent threads): distance learning for prereqs, community college, “oh don’t worry about a C - I got one too” sorts of posts, and “I had a full-time job and 3 kids so couldn’t study enough to get higher than a B” sorts of posts. There are probably more but those are the ones that pop into mind… and I am fully aware that this is pretty much like lobbing a hand grenade into the room but you guys asked… (ducking, looking for the asbestos suit)
When I have time in the late evening I like to sit down for a bit and browse some of the forum topics on OPM. Sometimes I post something, or respond to a thread. Many times there are enough wise words already that I just nod and don’t type anything. But in reading these over the long haul, I feel that some folks don’t grasp the level of dedication it takes to get into medical school. (I’ll let Mary, Nat, Dave, etc. speak to what it takes to get back out of medical school - and beyond - …that’s not my area of expertise.) Mary hit the nail on the head as to what I was talking about. And I agree that this is a minority of people posting on OPM. But we’re all reading these forums because we want to help each other in whatever way we can. I have knowledge to share from the pre-med advising side (both at Stanford and in my own consulting business) and the voting-member-of-an-admissions-committee side. I know from both sides what out-of-this-world applicants look like and I know what applicants who are trying to slide through and cut corners look like. I want you all to be, as much as you possible can within the constraints of your own lives, the the WOW! applicant.
It certainly would seem that I stirred up a a hornet’s nest here, and I hope Mary will share her asbestos suit.
Cheers,
Judy