Hello All!
I am a teacher, and, as such, usually very patient.
I can tell people to sit down ad nauseum.
I can loan pencils to the same child every day for months on end.
As an artist, I cannot count the times I have actually watched paint dry.
Three weeks ago, that all changed when I dropped my Post Bacc Application in the mail!
Now, I am a nervous wreck, and scour the entire house, yard and mailbox upon my return home, anxiously searching for some kind of response.
The fear of rejection is palpable. The uncertainty of leaving a great job to become a lowly (and broke) student for the better part of the next decade is weaving in and out of every thought. The doubt regarding my attempt at a ‘why medicine and why now’ essay has become deafening.
I said all that to ask this: How long does it usually take to hear back from a Post Bacc Program?
Is all this FUD warranted, or am I just, as my kid’s would say, ‘trippin’?
All I can say, with all the compassion in the world (since you can’t hear it in my voice) is, “Get used to it!!”
The thing is… once you decide to take this plunge, you realize how very badly you want it. And that opens you up to a whole new, vulnerable place of “pick me, pick me, pick me” that most of us haven’t had to deal with in a long time–and especially not with this degree of significance.
What you’re feeling is normal. I’d suspect you’ll (and by you, I mean “we”) will feel some degree of this all the way through med school and residency. (Can we say MATCH Day??? It makes me feel nauseated just thinking about it! LOL)
Try to find a healthy outlet for all that energy. In the mean time, just don’t forget to breathe. 
Good luck!
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What she said… I’m going through it right now because I “bombed” my take home problem set (open notes, book, interwebs, anyone but another student and I “bombed” it)… FUD!
Thank you Carrieliz! Thank you for the kind perspective check. I guess it’s been a long while since I have had to deal with the possibility of rejection for something so very important to me. At least this confirms for me that my goal is not just some wild flight of spontaneous fancy.
Still, I wonder how long such a process should normally take…
ANd AD2B, I am reminded of a happy little blue and yellow fish with short term memory loss, who wisely quipped ‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, what do we do? We swim, swim!’
Keep swimming, indeed!
I can’t improve on Carrie Liz’s description of what the process is like, but I can commiserate.
I don’t know how long the process normally takes, but for me it comes in waves. Physics has been my biggest challenge yet (more so than ochem), as my math is rusty after 18 years and I am not gifted at “seeing” spatial relationships, etc. The results of my first physics exam of this quarter were NOT what I expected, and I was overwhelmed with FUD for the rest of that day. Then I woke up the next morning, took a good look at the exam and realized that I wasn’t missing anything conceptually - I’d lost 13 points just with STUPID math errors (forgot to square something, made a mistake transferring something from one side of an equation to the other). It still leaves me with a B on the test, but I have room to bring the grade to an A, and I know the material.
I guess my point is that you will have moments of severe FUD, but that those moments are not the times to make decisions or to evaluate your performance. Breathe, sleep, and pause long enough to regain perspective before making any drastic changes in your plans.
Best of luck!
Annette
Artman, I applied to PostBacc programs a few months ago. The answer is around 4 weeks to 2 months. Obviously it depends on the school. I applied to Loyola in the middle of December and heard back from them towards the end of January. Dominican was the fasted and too about 3 and a half weeks to get back to me. IIT was a bit ridiculous, they said that they didn’t have my materials that I needed to submit until 3 weeks after I sent them, and then got back to me 3 or 4 weeks after that.
I was in the same boat that you are in, but time will slide by.
And yes, you be trippin’ 
I applied for a post-bacc program really early. In fact I was probably the first applicant because I finished my application on the first day it was available. Even then, it took nearly an entire month to get a response. Also it took time to process all transcripts that were being sent but all of that was done within the first week of applying. I guess the saying is patience is a virtue, so practicing good patience always helps. We all don’t plan on waking up the next day becoming doctors but as long as we keep on working hard and doing the littles things necessary each day, then in just a matter of time we’ll one day wake up as a doctor.
I hope that helps.
-Cliff