He Had to Take the MCAT 4 Times, But He Got Into Med School | Mission: Accepted S1 E1

right your story of taking the mcat four times applying multiple times building those connections at your postback program all of that led to mission accepted season one episode one i'm excited to have you on today thanks for joining me thank you dr gray very excited to be here let's start with a congratulations congratulations for having an acceptance for finally getting that uh a as reddit loves to call it finally getting that a uh what was it like when you received that acceptance well i'm just grateful i was alone because i did this combo ugly cry laughter but yeah it was right behind me actually i just kind of collapsed right over here not literally but um it felt amazing it's made everything worth it up to this point um it just was unlike anything i'd ever experienced in my whole life so far phone call or email it was an email you know so it's one of those change in your application and you're like it's like the worst subject line ever like just tell me in the subject sorry you suck or yay congratulations exactly max give the low down give the lowdown on your journey so far yeah so um back all the way up the first time i shadowed a position was in high schools when i was about 16 and that kind of really was a little boost because it seemed like it could actually happen with the way that physician talked about it which it really got me going so fast forward to high school try to get all the classes i could for ap bio all that good stuff um but yeah so i went to uh undergrad and like a lot of pre-meds i got in those uh weed out classes and it hit me pretty hard and uh that could have been the first time i gave up because i got a couple of bad grades in gen camp so i was like uh this is jake kim so i need to get my stuff together here um but yeah and for me it's not just some sort of linear path i think a lot of us wanted that i certainly did i was like like i said i was 16 when i really was like okay i can do this so from that point i was planning out the next 10 years of my life and i'm so grateful that it didn't turn out that way um you know my first mcat was atrocious and that was the second time i could well probably the third by then but um some of my friends were taking gap years so that's when i decided to take a gap year myself okay after undergrad and um i just kept postponing i i wasn't ready to apply and i think you talked about that apply when you're ready and at least i had the smarts to wait for my first application ever but i might have waited too long because it was like two years after i graduated from undergrad um i was already in grad school by then and already had a year of subscribing so as you can see i'm all over the place um i was just trying to do the right things and retaking the mcat so yeah the first time i applied was actually when i was in grad school okay and that's when i actually reached out to you not getting in that cycle about a year i was like what do i do yeah and uh that's when you suggested the post back or special mattress programs um and i found a really good post back in my hometown which lo and behold ended up being where i got accepted to med school so yeah really worked out pretty well did did the postback have any sort of linkage that helped you get in or just you you were able to connect with people there and maybe that helped a little bit too exactly the latter um really good counselors and this ability to boost my undergrad gpa and like you said have those connections two of my rec letters this cycle and last cycle were wright state faculty and uh so i think that was a huge huge help and being able to talk about why i wanted that school yeah that already taken classes yeah last cycle this cycle same wreck letters what what do you think was different this cycle compared to last cycle so um right before a couple like a month before applying this cycle i found your youtube videos and i loved what you said about the activity section and telling your story you say this so many times i was finally listening so i went back my old application i was like i just basically listed things and not what i got out of it yep so i totally revamped that entire section like never before my personal statement i had plenty i had a lot more clinical experience this time kind of my clinical research coordinator job so i could talk about that and uh just yeah getting away from listing and more uh describing what the heck did i get out of it yeah why is that important so important so important good i'm glad i'm glad uh youtube helped you now you're you're on you're on the youtube so that's awesome uh anything else that we need to know before we jump in and take a look at your application any other any other pearls of wisdom from you just uh don't give up on yourself i was so close and we talked about this during this episode this was my last cycle that's going to apply and it's sad for me to say that but there's a point where why is that move on with your life because it's sad for all the work i put in and looking back at my um past self you know i would want to encourage myself and not be like well sorry buddy move on to something else get your plan b ready yeah okay just uh yeah the potential gone if i hadn't kept going yeah was it is it more a feature of just not liking the failure every time or is it more of like um maybe some realization that this wasn't this isn't what you're supposed to be doing if nobody wants to accept you year after year like where where does that quit come from or the thought of the quit yeah so being the third application cycle i would say num may not be the right word but the failure part wasn't it because i got c's and gen chem i had a terrible first m cat i mean i could have given up then if that was the case yeah um but it was exactly what you're saying two complete cycles i did not get an interview just silence yeah and i was those that type person that's like oh this is my destiny and that's why um sometimes i maybe didn't work hard enough because i thought well it's just gonna happen i meant yeah i want to be a doctor you train doctors here i am yeah yeah exactly yeah and it's funny right i say that in jest but so many students that's what their application reads like like here's what a doctor is supposed to be look at me i match all these things therefore you should accept me and it doesn't quite work out like that so well awesome uh let's go and jump in to your application that's been redacted so we can uh kind of dive through and pick it apart and i do have i i took a look at it earlier so i do have some questions that made me scratch my head a little bit and so um hopefully we'll get some some good learning out of this so looking at your application you submitted um june 8th 2020 which is great and you can see that it wasn't processed until july 21st it's just crazy right we always talk about i always talk about applying early now my the first question i want to have is as i looked at your secondary application and one of the things in your secondary application was uh the covet impact and and how that played a part in kind of your application cycle and you said i applied later than i wanted to i look at june 8th i'm like what are you talking about you applied june 8th why did you put that um because i was trying to be a gunner and i wanted to be the first date yeah june 1st yeah i think was this year so it honestly was a whole week later and i was beating myself up about that so it was honest but you're right it sounds ridiculous and and that's really the the kind of epiphany that i wanted to have right it kind of sounds ridiculous and so many students focus on that micro thing that it's like this thing came up and and the person reading is like what are you like yeah you're you crazy like what are you talking about um right so again like that that kind of stuff's not gonna hurt you but at the end of the day it's just like why are you talking about that so that's that was the first the first thing that popped out to me um so we we kind of go through your application here um so you're over represented as a white male you have a little chinese understanding which is great that's very interesting um parents both living just kind of highlighting some stuff here um got some siblings nothing special going on here um scs disadvantage i just want to mark that because a lot of students ask like what does that mean and usually this is tied to education level of your parents so that usually says that one or both of your parents have gone to college or have graduated college so just pointing that out uh no red flags in the red flag section actually dr great yeah that is what the red flag is because in previous applications i said yes to a misdemeanor to be safe okay this cycle i said no because i thought i had over reported last time and perhaps it had hurt my chances um long story short i was investigated by amcaps because of that and it really freaked me out having people call me from dc saying hey why are you lying it's good to know that they're they're investigating so so it flagged in their system that this is someone who has said yes previously obviously that stuff doesn't go away unless unless it gets um kind of erased from your record sealed etc but usually um a lot of students will still say yes so they they investigated talk to you and you're like yeah i think i didn't think i had to put yes last time and and so they're like okay yeah that's fine pretty much and i had to prove that it was or was not a misdemeanor because i said i didn't know which was true because it was in texas and i'm ohio resident and i was driving through with a friend the long story short i had to call the bmv track down what court it was yeah all the court they were laughing because they're like why is this a big deal by the way it is a misdemeanor but it's not a big deal i'm like it's a big deal yeah for me so so it was a misdemeanor it was can you believe that okay so on on here you said no but on amcas's back end did they change it to yes i would i just created a new one it still says no okay interesting so they just passed that on to all the med schools i applied to okay like hey med schools this student is trying to lie to you nine or nine or he's alive yeah um okay but yeah simple simple traffic ticket obviously not not that big of a deal nothing crazy um and that's always a big fear again that students have is like oh i'm putting yes here um does that mean that uh it's gonna be automatically filtered out and and maybe at some schools they do that but not all they're gonna they're gonna see it they're gonna go what is this uh the the easiest one is for the institutional action so many students have um have alcohol offenses as a 18 19 year old having alcohol in the dorm it's just such a common thing that everyone freaks out about it but it's just so common as long as you own up to it and talk about it and what you learn from it that's not a problem in the grand scheme of things and yeah a traffic ticket not a big deal all right so looking back at your application here um we can see that starting off freshman year you didn't do so hot uh we got some c's a c b minus a c um and and that trend kind of continues sophomore year sophomore year sophomore year what was going on that caused the the grades do you know well i talked about this in my interview for sure the freshman year grades definitely transitional things i think a lot of people talk about this where they did well in high school you know i took ap courses barely had to study too much and got a's and i was like oh i'm smart i can do anything and then you get to college and everyone's smart and it's like okay um so i had to learn how to study better and sophomore year i was trying to do everything on a checklist you can imagine so i was volunteering i started working and i was doing a bunch of student works that was probably most my most involved time in college starting at that year so just spreading myself too thin and not focusing on my gpa yeah okay common stuff um all right we get to junior year and we kind of looks like a little bit of a change junior year finally picking up had the the 1b plus how dare you these are some senior classes there uh a c senior year again in orgo as your repeat so the first organic chemistry c second organic chemistry c fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on on me is that the is that the saying what happened there with orgo oh my god it's you know i distinctly remember that second attempt being really good at the beginning i was like oh wow i'm getting it again we had to the nomenclature stuff the basics because it was the first half and then i just started slipping again and i think i have some mental block against it i don't know i'm not going to make excuses i could have worked hard i i barely did problems in the book and i don't know what i was thinking so anyone out there do the problems in the book doing the reactions over and over to your hands please because i didn't do that yeah look what i got yeah so so practice that's what you're saying actually do the homework okay good uh so senior year we finish up relatively strong which is great um it looks like a couple um a couple extra classes that you took here at other schools and then looking at graduate school and how you did with graduate school graduate school looks great and then you decided to do a post back after graduate school so so talk about post back after graduate school what was that thought process yeah um i guess i didn't know too much about postbacks at the time prior to applying to grad school and honestly i think grad school was part of my plan b i know you talked about don't go to plan b but i really am interested in public health and infectious diseases so i thought um potentially that's a strong degree i could get a job outside and if i wanted to specialize in preventive medicine they require an mph anyway that was another thought process that i would already have that under my belt um so yeah it was very humbling going to a postback after grad school i was like uh kind of going backwards here yeah yeah exactly but it was more of the mentality of um getting back up being like okay what went wrong what can i do to improve not what was me look at me i got to go back to undergrad classes yeah no no i was like but you you applaud you you said you applied during your graduate year correct okay and so the postback was after failed application cycle going well what else can i do maybe it's my grades yes okay exactly okay all right let's continue on here then um so we get to your um your gpa grid here and we see obviously starting off poorly uh two one eight two seven six three seven oh senior year taking that little dip back with that c in in your orgo uh retake um post back obviously crushing your post back 33 credits at a 4-0 and um and then your graduate did very well with that too with your 3-9 so from an upward trend perspective obviously doing very well your final cumulative numbers and this is where i talk all the time for a student like yourself who has struggled early on and throughout undergrad really um those first few years um your final number isn't going to be very pretty but your trend is going to tell a completely different story and and yours does and so that's that's great did did your gpa come up at all during your interviews yeah it did actually um just kind of questioning uh well giving me a chance to explain myself yeah what kind of happened just like you asked me yeah um and kind of posing the question what's different this time yeah if i were to get in and i talked about um family support specifically with this school's in my hometown so i plan to live with my parents save some money nice and um just having that social support was a huge difference but i i was an hour away from family which isn't far for a lot of people but you know i told myself to be independent do your thing i didn't go home every weekend so yeah and and then on again go kind of looking at your secondary application that i took a peek at earlier you talked about not having any kind of other things that you wanted to talk about in terms of poor grades why did you why did you not want to talk about it there you put n a for for not applicable that's a good question i perhaps thought i could talk about it in the interview more um maybe at this point i'm just tired of talking about it like you said the upward trench speaks for itself yeah um and my most recent grades are i mean some of those classes are literally like almost 10 years ago so just trying to separate myself but you're right i think it was probably a mis opportunity yeah def definitely i would have definitely recommended so so anyone else who who has this kind of similar story of of some some struggles early on but some great grades later on always take that opportunity to talk about um lessons learned and and what is different right that the question that you got asked in your interview what's different now that's a very easy thing to to put in an essay prompt if it's in a secondary or even if this was a texas application texas has their kind of optional essay that you could talk about that there all right so diving back in we can see four mcat scores so there's your your 20 that you uh so lovingly love there talked about um and then you you did great went up to a 27 uh which was my mcat score um let's see so my mcat score was a 10 a 7 and a 10. so um yeah you're a much better reader than me um and then so a 27 is about a 501 502 on the new test and so you improved a little bit in the next test and then a little bit more in the last test talk about the the changes in the mcat score um what did that look like what how were you approaching it differently each time if you were absolutely uh so obviously that first one was this manifest destiny uh idea that i was meant to do that so i was arrogant and did a kaplan book um nothing against kaplan it was my own yummy um thought i was doing great didn't take no practice that's boom this is what i got yeah so that's uh that and then the second improvement was shout out to my friend lavina we uh studied so much so much together um on halloween everyone's partying we're there in the library excitedly because we're like we're gonna make changes to our futures but yeah so study partner was huge for me that seven point increase was a study partner not any kind of specific coursework um yep the second time i was in grad school about to apply for the first time so i felt inspired i was like i can do better than this it's a new test it was a couple years later and i was like let me try this which probably isn't the greatest mentality but you know i did improve and then uh the most recent was nearly four years later and well about three and a half and i took a princeton review course um while working full-time which was crazy don't recommend it do what you got to do yep and uh i thought i did pretty well after that much time difference yeah okay all righty so um obviously i i always talk about it right your mcat has to be good enough a 504 is not great it's not it's not horrible it's not great it's better than average uh it's way below the the kind of uh average for students who matriculate and my assumption is that it's it's probably less than 10 tile uh for the school that you were accepted to and so i i always lean on right your mcat score has to be good enough you got the interview you got the acceptance um with not a great mcat score yeah absolutely and i've heard you say that many times that's good enough yeah and that's what um yeah and it's your personal journey look at my other scores for me i was like this is winning here 510 550. yeah no i'll take it i'll take it yep cool all right let's get into the nitty-gritty here in terms of uh experiences here you talked earlier about kind of previously listing things um yeah obviously great great amount of clinical experience here starting last year uh in 2019 2000 hours basically full-time job for that year as a clinical research coordinator i took a look at your descriptions here not the best descriptions in terms of like the storytelling aspect but you went uh kind of above and beyond where a lot of students go and just talk about uh kind of job description what did you learn from it and there is a little bit of impact and and what you want to carry forward so i think that really tipped it over the edge from a very generic sales pitch job description type clinical experience that or any kind of experience that students talk about to to make it a little bit more personal to who you are so when we when we look at these um you you talk about the inequalities of the current health care system okay great a lot of students will i'm gonna turn on the highlighter instead so i don't uh keep uh blocking out what i'm writing over um so you you talk about that and a lot of students will talk about like oh i learned about inequalities great like okay so what why is that important to you why are you telling this to me um but here you again you you found a way to kind of expand on it and say i hope we can find a way to improve our healthcare system so that people don't have to choose between putting food on their table or being able to breathe properly i will remember these inequalities on my path to becoming a physician and be a force for positive change so it's you you were able to take it have some a little bit a little bit generic kind of what you learned from it but then be able to expand on it and and how is this going to impact you in the future i i think is a decent takeaway here again lots of clinical experience here as a again as a another clinical research coordinator uh another kind of year uh yearish full-time work and um uh being able to talk about what you what you did here this one is a little bit more of the job description right lead coordinator my main goal of the biobank was to do this i spent my time doing this i worked alongside this i worked with this i reviewed and created right so pretty basic job description stuff there um again not not horrible just doesn't it doesn't help me understand who you are uh when we're talking about that um we have some research experience which is great a few years ago so you got lots lots of research experience and what you learned there uh again a little bit job duty-ish uh description again nothing nothing too outstanding there but uh seeing some good experiences you have this extracurricular activity doing a study abroad a lot of people don't understand you can just there's a category for extracurricular activity for these types of experiences which is good [Music] about what you did there which is great um some shadowing experience obviously a lot of people don't understand so when i look at this i understand and then i look and go what shadowing was 2015 where's your recent shadowing but being a clinical research coordinator you're basically shadowing all day long because you're sitting in the room waiting for the physician to do their things waiting to take the patient to the kind of the next thing that they're doing um and so you could have potentially even um separated out and and had like your paid employment here and and maybe did uh like a thousand nine hundred hours uh of total hours and then put the other hours as shadowing as a way to potentially make it a little bit more obvious that there's a lot of shadowing involved in this job um i think most people who understand what a clinical research coordinator is would understand kind of like kind of like scribing high describing is a very um shadowing heavy job so um you got the shadowing you got some athletics here which is great um uh the impact here again not not super impactful but it it did the job um more research which is great from from back in the day um and then uh medical scribe here and i think i think i read elsewhere that you for your clinical research coordinator position you were ascribed during those times as well uh no or a liberate no you weren't okay i thought i thought i read that almost part of your position was described as well um all right uh english tutor in china so that's where the got some experience you you were a chinese major right correct yep very cool um see you can major in a language and go to medical school it is possible and then finishing out with some other activities here um so good job with that again probably not from from kind of how i talk about writing extracurricular descriptions not the best examples of of storytelling and showing impact but not the the bullet pointed list of here's all my job descriptions there's a little bit of you that comes out in your extracurricular so that's good and then we get to your um your personal statement after we get a little bit more shadowing in there and your personal statement is uh is good and there's a few things that i want to highlight here so i'll zoom in here you're showing right i talk about showing not telling it's not specific to me that's just general writing technique that is uh that is very good for humans because we love to see this kind of thing and your your first paragraph here is really great showing right i walked into the emergency department my gray scrubs and made my way through the crowded waiting room full of anxious patients right i can i can picture you doing that which is great i read the whole paragraph and i get to the end i'm like oh you just blew a great opportunity to really highlight like why this was impactful for you no you said look at how this doctor was proud of me right look how look how amazing i am how fast i am how efficient i am right you said that without saying it right and it's it's a very common struggle that students have again going back to what i talked about earlier is students will lay out this list of everything that physicians need to be and then show all of the things they've done to make sure that the the reviewer knows that that student has all of those things and so here you're like okay well i know physicians need to be efficient and they they need to operate in stress and oh man this is super stressful this doctor took all of those uh all of those uh files and and we're gonna see all these patients and and she she she kind of whispers and and she doesn't like to be have to say things twice and oh it's super stressful but look at me i shined and she loved it therefore you should accept me right yep so um so i love the writing the the takeaway though the the goal of what this paragraph was uh i would try to avoid because all you're doing is saying look at me look how awesome i am i got a gold star um but then then you go into again a little bit more of how you were writing in your first description with kind of what you learned and what you saw all right you noticed this pattern of chronic disease kind of like what you talked about earlier with uh do you want to put food on the table or do you want to be able to breathe right um uh and and how you get there and what you took away from this again it shows a little bit more of who you are not just that sales pitch right i want to determine the source what is wrong i want to basically treat treat what's wrong and not just their symptoms um and so you're you're kind of going to a level of um making sure that the reader wants to know that you need to be a physician because that's the only way to do what you want to do it's a it's an okay way of going about that not not too bad um clinical research coordinator talking about it right so a little bit timeliney a little bit of a resume of kind of what you did um going back and forth a little bit of job description stuff what you're doing one room you're doing this another room you're doing this so again kind of like i have all the skills necessary look at everything i've done but i like i like this little bit of takeaway of by coordinating clinical trials i help push medicine forward because clinical trials lead to novel treatments and medications so obviously you're showing some interest in pushing medicine forward through what you're doing here you get into a little bit of a story of a middle aged woman in this another clinical trial what that meant for you and what you um a little bit of a sales pitch here again of what you learned like listening is important a lot of students will again try to highlight these things like listening is important i can listen you should accept me so not a horrible personal statement not a again kind of what i preach in terms of storytelling but i think you did just enough right with going back to your mcat right it's good enough to really get a little bit of an understanding of who you are without being over the top sales pitchy without being over the top um uh kind of just job description stuff yeah and um i mentioned i i got your interview book but i did not get your personal sense ah obviously there's a mistake so come on people listening get it together personal statementbook.com there you go um uh and so the the conclusion i think is probably what got you the interviews because i think your conclusion helps your it helps kind of understand who you are here right i learned that i want to be the kind of physician i would change that to who that treats patients underlying health issues treating a problem at the source can prevent ongoing future suffering that's kind of one of those generic statements that you probably don't need and try to develop a little bit more of who you are developing clinical skills has been rewarding i feel as though i'm on the sidelines and i want palpable control over their health i want more direct impact on patient care so really laying out like this is what i want this is what i need i think that that really helps laid out a lot of students don't do a good job of really laying it out there that obviously like here's what i need here's what i want i would have tried to maybe go a little bit more into the future what you hope to accomplish but um it goes back to good enough right your your application was good enough it was better than it was and i think your story of and this is why i always talk about your story matters right your story of taking the mcat four times applying multiple times building those connections at your post back program all of that led to getting acceptance at a school in your hometown that's going to be great for you in terms of support and everything else and uh and getting all of that without being an amazing perfect student absolutely exactly and that's really why i'm happy to be here today because i know i was that student listening to the podcast and the youtube videos being like come on let me hear some positive stories avoiding places like student doctor network and all that mess because yeah you if you look at uh those types of forums or similar things you do think you know you do need a 525 and a 4.0 and it's just not true it's not yeah um any any kind of last minute takeaways for someone watching this right now well um definitely find a study partner if you can that helped me a ton um if you're getting virtual interviews definitely prepare do all the prep work you can i know i practiced a lot with my older brother so much so that he was like zach i don't even recognize you right now you sound so monotone and like who are you i'm like okay so learning to be more expressive i guess um i tended to stare at the camera like i'm doing right now yeah don't do that and it was made me uncomfortable so yeah this time i'm trying not to do that and i feel more comfortable yeah a lot of students make that mistake they're like okay i'm supposed to maintain eye contact so i'm going to look at the camera because that's eye contact but now guess what i can't see i can't see you i can't see how you're responding to me so now i'm i'm awkward i'm like i want to see what's going on like did he understand and so in this virtual world look at look at the screen look at the person we always look at ourselves anyway but um look at look at the screen that is completely reasonable and what is standard in in this virtual environment so don't worry about staring at the camera yeah and uh real quick about vita too um i felt so honored to be one of the first people to have to shoot this on my third cycle i was just so happy about it um but if anyone's done casper it's a little bit similar to that and you don't talk to anybody it's all pre-recorded stuff so yeah just be prepared for that just treat it like the interview and it'll be great all right well thanks for coming on and sharing your journey and your success i wish you nothing but the best as you move forward to medical school thank you dr gray um keep in touch and hope people listening can uh continue their journey

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 35,764

Keywords: med school, medical school, mcat, mcat score, 504 mcat, mcat 504, 504, mcat score needed, mcat retake, nontraditional premed, premed success, med school success, medical school success, low mcat success, low mcat, bad mcat, mcat scores, science GPA, amcas, amcas review, amcas app, med school app, medical school app, medical school admissions, med school application, medical school application, apply to med school, get into med school, get into medical school, doctor, gpa

Id: CrI0TyDsR3g

Length: 38min 18sec (2298 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 08 2020