How to ACTUALLY Show Impact in Your Med School App | Application Renovation (S2 E9)

and when I'm looking at a thousand applications where every student is saying I'm empathic I'm dedicated I'm motivated it means nothing application renovation season 2 episode 9 thank you so much for coming on the show with me thanks for having me I'm excited to chat about your application see where things went right see where things went wrong Before we jump in and actually take a look at your application I want to hear from you what you think your weaknesses were but first let's talk about interviews did you get any interviews with your application this year um so when I did do the application during that cycle I did get one interview and that was with the post bacc program that I was enrolled in at the time and that was with the same school okay so just one interview okay so you got an interview for the medical school at the post bacc program you were at so that a linkage there okay very cool um all right and as I'm looking at application it is 2018 application cycle to start in 2019 so we're talking a year behind kind of as we're recording this did you apply this current cycle as we're recording this or no no okay what feedback if any did you get on your application yeah so I spoke to the Dean of diversity there and he basically said everything on my application went Murray except my path okay I try to get more specifics about it but that's all he could give me at that time so oh the MCAT everyone's favorite part of the application cycle yeah okay very cool if if you were to look at your application with a critical eye besides the MCAT do you think you had any other weaknesses definitely my grades they're never really like you know uphill downhill they're just kind of rollercoaster that's a good way to explain it there's never really liked a good upward trend besides that post program okay all right so let's go ahead and jump into the application and I will tell you kind of what I think from from looking at application where things may be improved outside of just the MCAT all right hey ray drunk alright so we are looking at the am cast application here and the first thing that I highlighted not that it was bad I highlighted in red but really just for the students looking at this is you submitted July 1st 2018 and it took over a month to get to get processed so just one of those things that I always like to harp on for students is submit as early as possible so you don't have to get in line behind everyone else to get processed so that's just the first thing here and then as we're looking we have your disadvantaged essay and so we get to your disadvantage essay and I don't have a good example on me right now but actually in a couple episodes of application renovation I know we have another disadvantage essay coming up that is different than this one so in this one as I'm reading this I don't see any sort of overcoming write any sort of this is how I was able to push through this is how I was able to take what I was given and succeed this is how it shaped me all I see from reading this is this was a struggle this was a struggle this was a struggle this was a struggle right which isn't necessarily wrong it's just not very motivating right so as I read this I want to see what your struggles were but then I want to see how it shaped you as a person potentially does that make sense ok so so not necessarily wrong right you obviously had to overcome a ton in your journey and we would love the disadvantaged explanation to be 5,000 characters so you can actually tell your story and it's hard to do that in 1,300 characters but so that's kind of the first thing is is just show me show me the resilience in your disadvantage si obviously I can see some resilience in the rest of your application so it's not terrible it just couldn't be better as we move forward I'm looking at grades and so I just highlighted the C's and a D here and so lots of C pluses some C's an F stupid human anatomy who needs that anyway and we move on to your GPA right and so your post back or so so let me rewind a minute when you said you got feedback about the MCAT score was it from the post back or was it from the medical school it was from okay so they were happy with the improvement in your post back GPA it was just the MCAT that was holding you back yes did you apply to do schools I did not why not um at the moment it was a postback program that kind of had like a linkage yeah it was an early assurance program so I kind of I guess like relied heavily on the fact that I kind of had a seat reserved at the time and I was so burnt out and just so ready to just kind of get it over with that I don't know why in my brain I didn't think like to do it and once I did get my MCAT score back it was kind of like well I don't think I have a chance anyway so I didn't okay so so just a highlight for the students watching right so if we look at your submission date with seven one your test date was 721 which you didn't get back and tell mid August mid to late August and so that was definitely like you've already submitted and oops my MCAT score isn't where I wanted to be were you surprised by your MCAT score was that kind of in the range of your tests your practice tests oh I was actually above 500 when I was doing all my practice exams we had the MCAT scheduled in the postback curriculum to take it during that time okay so they had a you structure like practice MCAT every week and throughout that time it was it was very it was very well it very well prepared me and my scores were not where it was there because I feel like I had a lot of test anxiety that day so once that day came around I think I don't know as well as I would have wanted yeah yeah real test day jitters are definitely something that a lot of students don't account for did you work during your undergrad during my undergrad I did have a few jobs during the postdoc program actually worked just as a dog-sitter so that I could you know really focus on classes okay all right so obviously just looking at GPA was right having your cumulative GPA still be below three the post back at a three three still not great but definitely an improvement from where you were so that's awesome you obviously are great outside of the sciences right with a 3/8 cumulative undergraduate GPA so that's really my biggest thing is GPA as well as the MCAT the question is still are you academically capable of doing well in medical school science classes are hard for everyone they seem to be harder for you just based on the huge difference between your all other GPA your non science GPA and your science GPA so so that's a potential red flag in there as well but again your postback GPA definitely helps ease some of those concerns what do you think it was let me ask you what do you think it was between undergrad and postback that helped you improve your GPA so much I never went to office hours during winter grad I was very much just trying to you know get by and cram during undergrad and once I got into the post bacc program I had a lot of feedback from our advisors and the people kind of running it and basically gave us advice on like our learning styles and what what really gets you to be successful as a student and going to office hours and asking questions and studying a lot better way so I didn't cram anymore I was going on office hours and I feel like that helped immensely I was too shy to do that during undergrad and I didn't take it seriously like I should have okay no that's absolutely definitely a very common trend that we see students who aren't utilizing the resources and whether that's coming from a disadvantaged background because you have to work a lot and so you don't have time to utilize the resources or you just don't know about the resources to try to use the resources too confident to use the resources whatever it is it's a very common trend okay so that's GPA stuff and then let's get into the actual activities as we're looking at them so as I'm looking at your activity list the first thing that pops up is your physician shadowing family medicine physician shadowing in your most meaningful remarks one thing that you seem to do I think in this one and then potentially in some other ones is a lot of selling right a lot of selling your capabilities and skills which is a very common thing for students to do to say look at me I'm ready look what I can handle and potentially you were doing it a little bit more potentially consciously or subconsciously because of the academic struggles and so as I look at your application here the thing that I point out in in this most meaningful remark is this was done while balancing an intensive course load and work schedule right I don't I don't need to know that in your activity section I want to know about the activity in the activity section I don't need you to try to to sell me on look at everything I was able to do right does that make sense you then go on which is very common for students to do and you say additionally I learned in numerous a numerous amounts of information about common patient diseases that connected to my scholarly work right it's just a super generic statement that doesn't really tell me anything about you a lot of students love to talk about what they learned about medicine thinking that their job in an application is to show how ready you are to be a physician right look at all of these skills again look at how much I know already I'm just gonna come in runnin and and I'm gonna crush Medical School and the goal of the application isn't to prove that right you'll have plenty of time to learn medicine to learn how to be a doctor your goal in the application is to prove that you want to be a physician that's all I mean there's lots of other things too we have the core competencies just to show some of those competencies and and all of that stuff but the the heart of the application is why do you want to be a doctor not what what this statement tries to do is is look at how ready I am to be a doctor okay so we have the shadowing which is great you ended it on May twenty eighteen as far as the jate that you ended it you submitted this July 2018 so that's a potential question mark right it was only for for those five months only thirty three hours we'll look at the rest of the application to see what other shadowing and clinical experience you may have moving on you have some some homeless youth count free market volunteers so you have some good volunteer stuff it's only five hours so it's it's not uh it's not super impactful to me it's more of a kind of a fluff type of entry so that's a question mark the rest of it right I I highlighted some of these hours as a personal care attendant you have from September 2017 to to January 2018 so four or five months there three four four months if I can do math forty five hours so not a lot of hours over that span of time so not again not super impactful just a lack of hours there which is why I asked earlier if you worked to see what was taking up the bulk of your time you have here again right the more of the selling of the skills and what you you learned being CPR and First Aid certified under what comprehensive personal care attendant training issues such as HIPAA right we don't care about any of that stuff at this point you'll learn all this stuff in medical school I want to hear story that will highlight some of those core competencies that the double-a MC has put out so every student should go to the double-a MC just google double-a MC core competencies and and think through those and and try to find a story that highlights potentially one of those core competencies without really selling the core competency you tell the story that highlights the core competency and that'll be much more impactful much more memorable for the reviewer reviewing your application right same thing with this remote area medical clinical interpreter tell me a story you talked about just some very generic stuff you would follow them around interpreting go going from kind of station to station whatever they wanted I shadowed physicians from around the world learned about volunteering as a healthcare professional right again not just it's not super impactful it's just kind of here's what I did right that's what a lot of students do is here's what I did tell me a story that shows impact okay and you can do it trust me you can do it in 700 characters you have the the dog walker on here the dog walker story as as the thing the one thing I just highlight around here is students love to capitalize things that don't really need to be capitalized as a point of emphasis so you capitalize post-baccalaureate right that's not something that needs to be capitalized students love to do that I don't know why they love to do that but just just a kind of a generic throw thing that wouldn't be something that someone reads and goes oh my god they don't know how to spell whatever right it's just something that always stands out to me as just a very easy thing to avoid doing to not draw attention to these weird kind of ways to write words so that's that right and so for the students watching this and for you you can see I highlighted a bunch of the hours I highlighted the hours for the RAM clinic interpreter at only 14 the six hours for the pride volunteer the 25 hours for the healthcare hot spotting interpreter right just not a lot of hours in these things which makes me question right what are you what are you doing during this time okay like what what's taking up the time why aren't your activities as long as maybe they should be or could be and so again I just have impact on the pride volunteer when I talk about impact for this type of volunteer activity the question is how many people were were at these events how many how many lives were impacted can you can you give me numbers that shows kind of your influence your impact were you managing people organizing people overseeing people like how many people were you overseeing those types of numbers that show impact that show me who you are okay and again you don't have to you don't have to sell and say look at all these people that I managed it taught me leadership skills and teamwork skills and organizational skills and and communication skills I don't need that sort of selling just giving me numbers will help me understand those things the student outreach clinical interpreter liaison great number of hours obviously something you've been doing again that the time ends on July of 2018 which is when you submitted so my question for you is did you continue that activity or did you actually stop it during that time yeah so I actually stopped it because as soon as I finished my post bacc program actually came back home haha where I live now and so that's when a whole new set of experiences have been done since then okay and that's a very common thing that it looks really weird on an application for students who do that right I stopped my program on out and so on the am cast application it looks really weird cuz everything stops and so the the reviewers like what's going on now and there are opportunities in secondary applications typically to write about kind of what your plans are if you're not in school full time and what you're doing okay so that answers that question again the the the selling in in your most meaningful experience right I want to know why it was meaningful to you as a person not here are all the skills that I got so looking at the application again you have as an interpreter I was a fundamental component of patient communication with the students and doctors right well yes that's what interpreters are they are obviously a core part of the team doing that communication again professionalism is a vital characteristic I developed for my future career right you're selling I have professionalism right I need to know that if you've been doing it for 600 hours for two years you obviously have to be professional enough to not be fired so you don't need to sell that to me I exhibited a cultural sensitive sensitivity non-discrimination for every case Bob right so just selling selling selling look at the skills that I have I'm gonna be a great physician I'm gonna be a great medical student I don't need to know any of that tell me a story right just connect with me as a person don't try to force-feed me all of this stuff okay so again research lab students really love to talk about and I highlighted for this next batch of recordings for application renovation there's a few students who did the same thing where you talk about the importance of scientific discovery in the medical community right and students will say this in a bunch of different ways that guy under I learned the importance of research in and delivering high quality patient care I'd whatever right again that's not the objective in this storytelling the objective is connect with me as a human what was your impact on this role what was the roles impact on you outside of understanding that science is important right we all understand that science is important research is important again that the sales pitch right the allowed me to strengthen my leadership skills and instill confidence within myself right is that the sales pitch side of it tell me a story about the research tell me something interesting something you did wrong is is a lot of a lot of times a very good story a memorable story is is what went wrong tell me something tell me a mistake that you made and what you learned from it and how you moved on etc that's always good so just a lot of continuing the same kind of trend there's numbers and stories and impact through your three-year activities and then getting into your personal statement the start of your personal statement is basically a rehash of your disadvantaged essay all right so in my mind I think you wasted a lot of space that could have gone to why do you want to be a doctor which is the goal of the personal statement why do you want to be a doctor and not let me continue my my story of my disadvantage and and the obstacles I've had to overcome ok and so we get to the end of the second paragraph and it says my own experience is flourished while guiding needs to the path of becoming a physician and my question that I wrote down here is why the goal of the essay is tell me why you want to be a doctor and you just throw out this statement about hey I have this path of becoming a physician but I still have no idea why you have this path of becoming a physician alright I really need to understand that you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it and all this fun stuff ok you say here during my undergraduate career seizing the chance of becoming a medical interpreter at the student outreach clinics solidified my career decision again why that's I'll all ask x over and over and over and over again don't just give me statements tell me why show me why what was it about being an interpreter that solidified your decision okay again some more selling in here you have my comfort for interpreting at home led me to the opportunity of demonstrating my knowledge and a professional health care setting right again I don't I don't need to understand that you're comfortable in a health care setting I just need to know why you want to be a doctor I want to read some stories that show me some of these core competencies and and and then I want to bring you in and talk to you and and get to know you okay again a very very common thing right the next the next one I have highlighted I have gained exposure to the unsurmountable healthcare needs right again you're you were so focused on I'm ready for this I've been exposed to it I understand this and I I don't need to know that it's a very common mistake that that I think students make is is they're so focused on I'm ready for this I'm prepared for it I have the skills for it I'm determined I'm motivated to do it and I just go back to I just want to know why you want to do it alright there's a lot of super motivated super dedicated super hard-working people that have no business being physicians because they don't want to be physicians and some of them are going down this path because they think they want to be physicians because they like Grey's Anatomy and scrubs and whatever the the dr. show of the day is right I want to know why you want to do this right again super selling statement I am empathic towards the doctors and the patient's right just selling I'm ready I'm empathic I'm motivated I'm dedicated hence it inspires me to emulate the work of the physicians and medical students I shadow why why do you want to emulate them what impact do you think you can have on someone's life what impact have you seen what impact have you had already that you want to continue to have right that's the question you get into the post back story here which is just a resume you talk about demonstrated your ambition and abilities to conquer your academics alright that's in your transcript I don't I don't need you to rehash that for me I can see in your transcript that you improved in your post bacc I can see in your transcript that you went to a post back so I don't need that in your personal statement it's a little bit I'm assuming that's kind of your red flag statement of look I struggled early on but I improved and you can have some of that but just reword it in a different way than just the facts if I went to a post bacc I improved and then you talked about again the the importance of social awareness the ability to regulate thoughts and emotions I don't know what what that is in therefore it's almost like almost like just jokingly right I went to anger management I'm able to regulate my thoughts and emotions by quo is there something else you're trying to tell me here but it was just a question like why why is that in there how is this important to me was this a potential reason why you struggled in undergrad is this what she's trying to tell me so that's that's some questions there and then at the very end I just highlighted the question marks right what kind of doctor do I want to be who are the people I want to treat I'm not a fan of asking your own questions to yourself in a personal statement to me it's just it's not very impactful writing and I think it's a waste of space just just tell me your story tell me everything that you want to tell me show me everything that you want to show me don't ask rhetorical questions and then answer them following that so at the end of this I have no idea why you want to be a physician I just understand what you've done and that you're telling me that because of those things you want to be a physician but I understand why and so that's a very impactful thing that you're missing okay your story which is super common the story behind everything and and that's why I have a shirt and stickers and your story matters right your story really really matters in your application for a medical school to understand who you are to understand your impact that you're potentially going to have on their class and on your patients in the future and then your school names were crossed off mistakingly kind of redacted for the schools that you applied to not a big deal but it looks like obviously the early assurance so early decision for the one school that you had the linkage with through your post back and then it looks like you added some more schools after that so with all of that said what are your thoughts what are your questions yeah I can definitely understand why you see a trend with all these things because I actually got advice through my post back advisor to do the activities section a certain way yeah kind of like tell people what you did so the description should be what what it like the organization is what it where it came from whatever and then explain what you learned from it so that was exactly what I did throughout my activity section so I could definitely see how you pointed that out and that was a feedback I had gotten at the time but I'm more aware of it this time around and the personal statement was kind of they wanted like a little chunk of you know the post back and what it did for you and then at the end what kind of doctor you wanted to be that was something that was kind of advice for me to do and so I kind of added it into there so a lot of it was kind of advice that I was given through them and at the time you know what I did because that's what I guess said we're looking for so I tried to follow it as much as I could yeah unfortunately let me let me tell you why I disagree with that that advice right and lots of advisors give that advice but let me tell you why I disagree with it so let's talk about just any sort of generic clinical experience right to say oh right let's just you didn't have it on here but Hospital volunteer and actually as I'm looking back at your application let me just look at something real quick so you have the personal care attendant you have the 33 hours of shadowing as as something that you did it looked like that was the only shadowing that you had on there so that's a potential red flag is a lack of shadowing and it's very close to the time you apply it so the question is you've gone through this whole process saying you wanted to be a doctor why are you just now shadowing men and lots of students especially students coming from Benj backgrounds either again don't have time don't have the potential social capital to reach out to physicians or they just don't know right the importance of shadowing and clinical experience and all that which is why I do so much of this for free on YouTube and podcast is really just to push out that information so students understand what's important and so you have the the personal care attendant again only 45 hours you have the medical clinic interpreter only 14 hours you do have a ton of hours as an interpreter at the other clinic which is great but potentially maybe there's something missing there where it's a little bit more hands-on clinical experience where you're actually doing a little bit more interacting with the patients instead of just acting as a go-between so that's just a random side thought but if we go back to why I don't like the advice that your advisers gave you and I'm not saying they're wrong I'm just saying I don't like it for a very specific reason the if we think about Hospital volunteer right no let's let's use interpreter right it's a very common thing that especially disadvantaged students because they're multilingual it's a very easy thing for them to fall into as being an interpreter when you say okay I was an interpreter here's what I did everyone 99.999% of people know what an interpreter does right so right off the bat you're wasting characters explaining the job that everyone knows what's there anyway and then you go on to to talk about kind of the professionalism and and dedication or the the language that you kind of use those selling languages right those are just empty words when you are saying look out professional am look how educated I am look how empathic I am those are just empty words when written on paper that anyone can write even even Jeffrey Dahmer right even the most pathological serial killers out there can write on a piece of paper I am empathic I'm dedicated unmotivated it means nothing and when I'm looking at a thousand applications where every student is saying I'm empathic I'm dedicated I'm motivated it means nothing the story on the other hand I can then see you specifically in that story that is your story and your story alone that interaction that that you had with that patient with that physician with the medical student with the nurse whoever it was and that patient that's your story you are the only one that owns that the experience that you have with that the reflections that you have with that I can see so much about who you are through that story than you telling me that you're empathic okay and then the learning statements that students love putting in there because that's what advisors say to do again are very generic right I learned that blah blah blah blah blah I learned that to be a great physician you must care for your patients well duh right that doesn't tell me anything about you it's just a super generic statement and again as a reviewer I'm not looking for students that understand that to be a good doctor you have to be empathic right it's not like I'm going oh my lord we finally found someone that knows that you have to be empathic to be a good doctor I want to interview you all right that that's just not going to happen but if they can see that story and go wow right the students really empathic I can I can see that through the story without you writing I'm empathic that's much more impactful much more memorable and I'm more likely to go hey look at this story this is a pretty amazing story look at everything she's had to overcome and what she's doing and the impact she's having right that's that's the story that's where an application shines not the way that your advisers told you to do it the way that your advisers told you to do it is super formulaic so it's easier for them it's easier for students but it's much less impactful for the readers reviewing an application and it's definitely something that I wasn't sure you know in the future if I was to reapply what I could do to explain more talk more about my experiences and now I know what to change because being a reallocate you don't really know how to keep you know the your experiences same you don't know what how much you you know left with it at your personal statement disadvantage I was very unsure of you know what to do cos you know I can't just kick it out and pay it I didn't happen or you know do something they have to see there but explaining it it's what I know information you need it so thank you for that you're welcome well hopefully this is helpful for you if you have any other questions are sue me an email and good luck with your next application cycle thank you so much I appreciate it you're welcome

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 40,915

Keywords: medical school personal statement, med school personal statement, med school, medical school, application, med school app, app, med school application, medical school application, medschool, amcas, aacomas, personal statement, disadvantaged essay, amcas activities, activities, activity descriptions, storytelling, tell your story, premed, pre-med, pre med, prehealth, pre-health, ryan gray, application renovation, postbac, post-bacc, applying to med school, apply to med school, premed advice

Id: wTNQ2UW0Wsc

Length: 33min 46sec (2026 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 28 2020