How to Recover from a Low Science GPA and Low MCAT | Application Renovation (S1 E2)

I'm here this is the perfect opportunity this type of experience to tell summary of one of these patients that that you were able to to really make a huge impact on application renovation episode two I hope you've watched episode 1 you've seen how I've gone through an application to really break down how an admissions committee may be looking at your application what should you avoid what should you put in an application to make sure that they know something about you that's what we're gonna cover today in episode 2 breaking down another application of a student who didn't get in to medical school now if you want help with your applications check out next step test prep admissions consulting I've personally screened all of their advisors that they are hiring to help you do the best that you can do on your application whether it's writing your personal statement your secondaries or preparing for your interviews a next step test prep admissions consulting advisor will help you with your application and make sure you're putting your best foot forward use the promo code ms HQ at next step test prep comm to save some money and let them know that you heard about them here on application renovation and so we're going to break down another application today you have a great discussion with a student who we will call Jane Jane how are you today I'm doing well how are you I'm great thank you so before we take a look at your application let's talk about the application cycle for you and and get some reflection as to why you think maybe you didn't get accepted okay that's good so I applied during the last cycle 2018 so for this 2019 year and I did not get any interviews and I actually didn't submit any secondaries because mainly my MCAT score is just way too low I do think there might be a few other issues on my application but I think the thing that stands out the most is probably the low MCAT score okay why not submit secondaries just to see what if so to me it sounds like yeah basically you basically pulled out of the application cycle by not submitting any secondaries I did and so the majority of schools is I'm sure that you know most your listeners probably know this but the majority of schools will automatically send everybody secondaries not all of them but the majority so I decided you know it was also a little bit later in the application cycle and so I decided with it being a little bit later in just a very low MCAT score that my odds were not very good I did submit two different appeals one to my top choice and was unfortunately denied and they did give me a reason and they said my MCAT was too low and the second school actually did sent me a secondary but at that point it was the end of November and I decided not to submit it because I felt that they probably had decided on you know most of the applicants that they were going to extend interviews when you go field what does that email or that phone call like what were you trying to convey to them so the one school I appealed they actually have an area online so after you submit your application they have this area where if you have beneath a certain GPA or MCAT score you can just submit to your am cass ID number and send it and they'll you know look through your application unfortunately you don't really get to provide them with any further information i suppose i could have emailed them separately but they ended up emailing me back a few weeks later and extending that secondary okay the I'm sorry you know we go ahead you mentioned that the MCAT was one of the biggest reasons why you don't think you were successful one of the reasons why you didn't yes actually submit secondaries for the first schools yes and then you mentioned that there are some other weaknesses in your application what what do you think those weaknesses are so I have some grades that aren't very good so I'm pretty bad grades fortunately I actually had a 3.5 my cumulative GPA was a 3.5 on my college transcript and when I went through am cast and submit my grades it dropped to a three point two so that that dropped pretty significantly what happened I'm looking at your application you have one two three four five six withdrawals here freshman year yep so I have quite a few w's on my transcript one of my good friends ended up dying in 2010 my paternal grandfather also passed away that year as well so rough rough times students will look at this and go oh like this is going to be a problem and it usually isn't the the normal human being is gonna look at this and go something happened here yeah you were smart enough to just step away and exactly it was early enough that you were able to withdraw no harm no foul kind of reset yourself yes and so that's okay that that for the majority of people reading an application isn't going to be a red flag they'll probably ask what happened I'm not gonna be a big issue all right so looking through here freshmen some A's and B pluses College physics kind of it pretty hard with a d-plus it did I did not gigs repeated it again and got an F yes very good no so physics I actually think I took that class three times and unfortunately and you know that it sounds like just but I guess I've had a lot of death experience a lot of death during undergrad my maternal grandmother died in 2013 when I was taking classes and not an excuse but and then my maternal grandmother maternal aunt both died in 2014 so all of those deaths just kind of they did yeah they did okay it's expected that's okay all right so I'm I want to look through here so we saw the D plus an F yes for college physics one yes D plus for college physics one all at the same school yes all of the same school okay so there's going to be a really big issue potentially it doesn't look like you ever took physics too so I was enrolled in physics - and that was during one of my harder semesters personally and I ended up withdrawing so I took it for the majority of the semester but decided to withdraw because I knew I wasn't going to receive a good grade but I do have experience with the material so I am yeah for a lot of schools that's going to be a prereq right yes and so this is another issue with my application is I actually don't I didn't take chemistry and the reasoning yep so a few years ago I found out that a lot of the welcome not a lot but quite a few of the MD schools are kind of moving away from the traditional prereqs so they're not requiring specific courses um there's there's a few schools like that not a lot no so I'd be like hounded I went through the MSR probably last year and I think there were at least 20 20 MD MD schools um and I was already at a point in my schooling where I just made the decision that you know it'll be fine I you know I I'll be fine without the chemistry I'll just study for chemistry and take the MCAT but and apply don't know it didn't work out that way okay so looking at your overall GPA 2.1 2.0 1 science yes yes and only 32 credits of science then a 3 5 8 all other GPA so yeah science kicks your butt yeah your overall GPA somehow is is above a 3 it's just because you don't have a lot of credit hours and so for me just right off the bat I will tell you that you need to go back to take undergrad classes mm-hmm as a postback student in it a year of undergrad classes under your belt oh yeah you need and prove that you can handle science courses prereqs be damned right you still need to handle science courses exactly and you haven't proven that and then apparently we had we haven't looked at your MCAT score yet here your MCAT is a 488 yeah very and and for for that for 99.99999% of schools is just not going to cut it no so you've proven that you just haven't figured out how to study Sciences yet and I add yet at the end because that doesn't mean you can't at some point know and hopefully yeah when you jump back into classes people stop dying around you right yeah there's not many left yeah you know it it innit honestly I do feel okay with certain Sciences biology Anatomy neurophysiology but the physics and chemistry are yeah yeah did you ever reach out to a tutor seek out any help um a little bit when I was taking physics but yeah so I didn't see a bunch if I were you and giving you advice now so I would jump back into the the undergrad world mm-hmm if it has to be Community College it has to be Community College if it if you can go to a four-year university and and go as a non-degree seeking student take more classes science classes and right from the get-go right maybe just take one class just take chemistry and get a tutor right off yeah and just shoot for that a building that your confidence and and then maybe two classes the next semester whatever you need to do to be moving up the confidence build up the the skills to study the sciences and get good grades in the sciences and that will hopefully translate into a good MCAT score mm-hmm okay obviously with with good MCAT prep with the MKS knowing that the MCAT is not just a content based test right you need to know the contents you need to have a similar foundation which right now you don't have which the 488 explains yeah shows you have to have that content knowledge as the foundation and then with doing Q banks and and practice tests learning how to take the MCAT it's definitely a skill that you have to build up as well and so I see this as a a probably three or four year endeavor for you to build up the the grades and the confidence and the skills necessary to get everything that you need to get to a place where you can apply oh the only issue with this is that I mean I felt like I put this off for so long anyway applying a medical we'll be 28 very just a couple of weeks I already have my undergraduate degree and you know it's hard without receiving financial aid to afford thousands whatever it will be worth of tuition for these postback classes yeah so I'm wondering if the rest of my application and if I can improve my MCAT score would if I would have a better chance with your grades no okay no your grades are gonna hold you back just as much as your MCAT score is okay I mean we can let's let's take a look at the rest of your book okay so I'm looking right now through your experiences the first one on here 1500 hours crisis stabilization yes interesting you have paid employment not medical clinical it looks like yeah potentially you're interacting with people it's a crisis hotline kind of even a little bit more it's more in-depth than that so I work with people experiencing experiencing mental health crises but I work directly with them swipe their intakes check vitals all that stuff why did you mark it as not medical or clinical good question I I didn't really think it counted as clinically but that's awesome ethical experience yeah so it definitely is and that's something I'm gonna change so second one on here scribing yes mark that is clinical yes okay so lots of clinical experience right off the bat that you went out the window volunteer coordinator not medical clinical yeah conferences attended 2014 physician shadowing so let's that's one of the things I always like to look at as well or dates and so 2017 to 2019 so that's saying this is what you're doing before the application during the application after the application you're working on this job and you can go up to the the date of when you're planning on assuming to start medical school so you put 20 exactly she's good so right before that job you were the scribe there was a little bit of a gap there not a big deal and then there's a bigger gap to the next one with this peer coordinator only a couple months long 2015 so it's a little bit older the neurology conference 2014 a little bit older physicians shadowing so so this is another thing so you have a decent amount of hours of shadowing but it was four years ago yes right or three depending on yeah actually submitted application but the the conversation that you're having with the person reading your application is hey I did some shadowing a long time ago I checked it off my list and now I did something it was versus I I really want to be a doctor I love being around doctors look at me I've shadowed 70 hours yeah 2014 - currently you could have the same amount of hours stretched over the whole period of time and it just looks better because it's showing that you're continually invested in spending your time around healthcare around doctors or on patients etc of course and actually this is an issue the shadowing I have continuously tried to UM shadow physicians since 2014 sent emails phone calls even got really close to setting something up and then they just don't follow up yeah so it's become very hard it's hard which is why one of the the biggest projects I'm working on right now is a website called find shadowing comm and we're having met developed and well okay I'll probably hire a student full-time to to do a lot of that physician outreach to get them into our database so hopefully students can get some shadowing so that's that's to come all right so it's shadowing is definitely a huge pain for a lot of people yeah Oh our aid medical clinical great four hundred hours so lots of clinical experience yes American Red Cross is good so we're getting into some older experiences here that's all right honors and awards Miss Earth Alpha Gamma Delta and some more or not medical or not clinical all right so just looking at scrolling back to your transcripts so you and I look at your timeline here you started undergrad in 2009 yes and you finished in 2018 yes yeah with obviously with time off ladies and hiccups and yes okay yeah yeah so some potential explaining to do there all right and then personal statement what were you hoping to do with your personal statement so I did want to I did want to address the poor grades in my personal statement but just very briefly so I kind of wanted to provide a background that would hopefully convey just everything that was kind of going on in my life in my life during undergrad but also convey why I want to go into medicine because this is actually something I've always wanted to do since I was 16 I knew I wanted to become a physician it's just taken a very long time getting there but the personal statement I do speak about the deaths that affected me one that affected me the most was my good friend in 2010 and that's when I took off time from school initially and I competed in a pageant and that really helped restore you know some confidence and so in the personal statement I talked about that and then I talked about shadowing this neurosurgeon I shadowed over it was over the course of a couple of semesters so I got to know him fairly well was able to observe different neurosurgical procedures different just really cool loved it so I do talk about that in the personal statement as well and just try to convey why I want to go into medicine it was hard for me to write this because there was no specific moment in my life where I decided I wanted to be a doctor I just always felt like this is what I wanted to do yeah so let's talk about that a lot of students will say that and then I'll ask probing questions and bike oh yeah that was the time okay so you say there's no specific moments no when did you first think about being a doctor oh when I was a teenager so 15 16 um no specific reason I guess I've always I mean so they're not in the medical field okay they're not in the medical profession um and I actually don't have anybody any other doctors in my family no no okay no so I don't know I was always interested in medicine and I mean I'm really trying to think back and see if there's you know anything that would have affected me um when was the first time you were exposed to a physician I mean as a child I I guess in middle school I played volleyball had to go in for a physical and was diagnosed with a heart murmur didn't know anything about that so I freaked out I'm like oh my god I'm gonna die what's a heart murmur so obviously it was fine but maybe that was like the first moment where I'm like but that's I mean that barely counts yeah okay so barely counts it's it's exposure it's something that's happening to you that's new and different and scary and yeah definitely leave an impression on you okay when was the first death in the family around you um so the first relative was 2010 so my paternal grandfather I was already in college yes that was in college so I didn't experience any death in high school any any friends whose parents were physicians no when was the first time you volunteered in a hospital or shadowed a doctor um so in high school and actually this is probably one of the most meaningful experiences even though I was a senior in high school and it's a long time ago now but I was the first person to volunteer in the surgical department at my hospital because I really wanted to get into the surgical department yeah and they let me and I loved it what do you think drew you to surgery I don't know maybe it's wanting to do something with my hands being able to see you know tangible results I still am very interested in that so okay so yeah some probing questions didn't get to the heart of it today but I'm sure we could if we had unlimited amount of time we'd figured out all right so let's take a look at your personal statement will glance through this um so right off the bat some good showing statement here glistening pulsating brain was exposed I like that it sounds good no it's cool the room was cold so what I'm doing is you're showing yes signal reader to feel what you're feeling see what you're seeing which is great writing yeah so you're watching you're watching neurosurgery at this point three years of significant interest in medicine and patient care I was awestruck what I would just witness my greatest aspiration had been unquestionably reaffirms that day and so without going forward just glancing forward it doesn't look like you continue on with this story my question would to be okay why what was it about seeing that surgery reaffirmed your decision sure you you were awestruck right lots of cool things that I don't see that's like Oh like I'm awestruck but that doesn't mean we go and want to go do that thing I can be awestruck going to like a junkyard watching a car be demolished into this like tin can size thing like Wow doesn't mean I want to go work any yeah a junkyard for the rest of my life so I need more of the why behind what you're trying to tell me here okay and then looking here no pivotal moment that sparks my interest so you're you're getting that off right away like yes I just want to let you know no pivotal moment none of family members did not endure or anything and so I don't know if you need that right it doesn't it doesn't really tell me anything other than all the students are like you there's just for some reason I just want to do this that's okay okay it's for me as the reader I'd rather you have something but if you really don't that's okay just hopefully tell me the story take me through that journey of what you've experienced to show that this is what you want even though we don't really have that pivotal moment that's okay baby so you enrolled in Health Professions you're intrigued by clinical practice patient care interesting a teacher told you that you were gonna be a physician someday is good were you good in Sciences in high school yeah yeah okay so this basically this second paragraph that you have here doesn't really tell me much and I'd probably just get rid of it okay I don't I don't think it really adds to your story it just tells me hey I don't know why I want to be a doctor I had a teacher tell me I was gonna be a doctor and life got in the way mm-hmm and then you get into what happened with life yes 20:19 close friend you took time off so this is a very big and a red flag statement red flag paragraph so you you talk about what happened taking time off when you did return to school you felt rejuvenated determined great you changed your major mm-hmm death keeps no calendar so you have so so this whole paragraph is all one giant red flag right really okay it doesn't it doesn't tell me anything other than 2010 my friend died I left school I did a pageant I came back to school rejuvenated and then my grandfather died and so it's just one red flag after the other of hey like life kept getting in the way for me and okay right I can see that in your implication I don't need a whole paragraph to tell me that I think you could have done the same thing and probably two or three sentences to say all throughout my college journey I had friends and family members who kept passing how sometimes they were like I'm trying to study people yeah they keep passing so just trying trying to just be as concise as possible the the goal isn't to explain everything that happened the goal is to let the reader know something happened and we can talk about it more in depth later on once you invoke me for an interview yeah because the the goal of the personal statement is to talk about why you want to be a physician and what you've done so far is you've told a really good story about shadowing in an operating room I didn't it could take away from that but it was a good story to begin with your second paragraph is I don't know why I want to be a doctor but my teacher said I'm gonna be a doctor and then the third paragraph is lots of people kept dying all right so I'm still so there is that last paragraph where I kind of tie everything in together yet we'll get there oh and so going to that now as I stood in the clinic room a lot of students write about patients thanking doctors and I always tell students to shy away from writing that because my takeaway is oh so you want to be thanks a lot in your job right you enjoy people thanking you and and looking up to you and whatever right I didn't even think yes and probably the majority of people reading it will just glance over it but at the core that's what I read and ultimately what's the point of telling me that's true Yeah right okay if that is if that was what was so monumental for you to put in your personal statement then that tells me that there's there's some aspect of you wanting to be a physician that you have up on a pedestal I mean I always caution students to like step down from that pedestal as you're ready there's no statement as you're trying to explain why you want to be a doctor yeah no that makes sense I I didn't even think of that when I was writing it but yeah patient-physician relationship gunshot wound so you're talking about just loving kind of the science aspect of things the the neurological psychology so you're doing it another very common thing where students will will try to explain what it is that they think medicine is about and so you talk about in that moment I understood the responsibility of saving someone's life and why so much training is required yeah okay what is what does that mean all right what is that matter right yes a lot of trade that's required so again doesn't really tell me why you want to be a doctor you appreciated the medicine and surgical techniques of the case okay again okay you learned what it takes to be an excellent physician well I don't know if I'd say that you learned what it takes to be an excellent physician you saw you saw a physician getting really good care of a patient but you don't know what it's gonna take until you're actually r1 and in the heat of dissent and all that stuff so I always tell students to shy away from from writing but I understand what what what being a physician is like and blah blah blah and so you're the whole looks like the whole second part of this is kind of just explaining I know what it's like and medicine is changing so you're basically explaining what medicine is like to somebody who likely is a physician or intimately involved in healthcare in some way and so the explaining what medicine is like just isn't necessary you don't need to go there okay all right and then you're you're basically trying to convince the reader look it's been 11 years since I knew I wanted to be a doctor and I still want to be a doctor so you're you're trying to sell really hard like it's just this is what I'm supposed to do you want to possess the ability to save people's lives you like science anatomy physiology pathology personating you don't have to get to that I like science realm best and worst of humanity it's funny I think that the last application renovation we talked about that as well oh yeah somebody somebody talking about death and then birth and saying oh look oh medicine has good and bad and I'm ready for for it all yeah okay so at the end of this reading it I'm still left with why why do you want to do this hey you haven't answered that core question yes you like it boom but why and you you show that shadowing experience to begin with which was great showing writing and I just need more reflection as to why you want to do it and then less of all of those red flags make it much shorter so you can continue to show experiences putting yourself around physicians putting yourself around patients to prove to the reader that this is what you want okay it's very hard to do yeah yeah when there's no specific moment it was very hard to write yeah okay and then where are you a resident Montana okay so obviously Montana doesn't have a medical school so University of Washington for wammy yes assuming yeah Wake Forest is good school rush north sounds Rexel so your school list on here was these event as far as kind of private schools and not soon and not necessarily public schools other than he ever say Washington which may seem weird but as a Montana resident for that first first exactly I don't know they had the Whammy program which is cool all right so I think for you really the biggest things for me obviously MCAT and GPA yeah I don't think a good MCATs is gonna help you overcome your GPA and honestly I don't think you can get a good MCAT score without really going back to the fundamentals of those getting science courses even though you're looking at schools that don't have them as prereqs mm-hm you need that foundational knowledge to to really do the best that you can do on the MCAT mm-hmm that's true yeah so long road ahead I think but if this is what you're meant to do then it's age is just a number right that's true yeah that's what it is obviously financial implications are are there and that so Community College is typically cheaper than four-year universities so that if you look at Community College yeah yeah what questions you have for me so my first question was do I have enough clinical experience but I think but I do I think yeah your your experience doing the crisis stuff is definitely clinical experience yeah yeah yeah I think you do I would continue out try to continue to shadow as much as possible and it doesn't have to be a ton it could be five or ten hours every couple weeks exactly I'll just keep trying different doctors just it's hard to hard to find them mmm let's see my volunteer hours so I calculated and I have about 400 hours I mean is that gonna be okay um let's see some schools are more into volunteer hours than others and do what you can do okay let's see so I guess I had questions about my actual experience descriptions but I know we kind of just went through them quickly um sure all right so I guess the questions I have related to those is I'm regarding the experience descriptions if I actually reflected enough on my experiences or if it just sounds like I listed you know let's look at probably your most significant one okay this one here so crisis stabilization so your description so this is the most meaningful one so you have the 700 characters at the top and then so you get 700 here and 1325 for most meaningful to separate essays which is good your first one is all job description and I felt like I had to do that for this because I don't think it's that the reader would necessarily know what my what that job entails just because well as you're reading the description entails a lot of different things yeah okay that's okay if you think you have to that's fine okay it's not something like EMT it's like well I heard an EMT does right so yeah if you feel like you have to do that that's okay okay and then let's get into most meaningful so you initially started working you looked forward utilizing a knowledge I had acquired from my undergraduate studies in psychology so looking through here so you let's let's let's go line by line right okay so when you initially started working at and a lot of students like to continually name the place you don't need to name a place that's just wasting space right I looked forward to utilizing the knowledge I had acquired from my undergraduate studies in psychology okay pretty generic it doesn't really tell me anything I however I abruptly realized that fostering relationships with people in crisis eclipsed my ability to utilize the knowledge I had obtained again generic doesn't really tell me anything about you other than your saying hey look at me I can build relationships right that's that's what I take away from it is you're trying to to push that story on me many of the clients I work with I'm not only seeking a safe place from the rigors of their life but a sense of belonging and community a generic statement again doesn't tell me anything about you just tells me more about the place itself the most beneficial service I can provide simply listening acknowledging their experience and feelings in a safe non gentle that non-judgmental space so again pretty generic again trying to sell me that look I can build a relationship I'm non-judgmental I can communicate mm-hmm and that's where a lot of students will will take their experiences and say okay I know that being a doctor involves empathy and communication and being non-judgmental and craft their experience descriptions around those themes thinking that the reader is gonna go oh look she is non-judgmental done she is empathetic done right oh look she met all of our checkboxes let's invite her for an interview all right that's not the goal of these things the goal is to show your impact on the position show the positions impact on you I'm here this is the perfect opportunity this type of experience to tell summary of one of these patients that that you were able to to really make a huge impact on okay I mean yeah yes yeah give them a fake name you put it in quotes you make the reader see that patient feel that patient and see what you did and feel what you did that's what gives a meaningful impactful story with the reader just one example would be enough one patient yeah because you only have 1325 characters pretty attic yeah okay a lot of students that what you did here I have come to appreciate and understand the amazing resiliency people can exhibit in the face of trauma right what you've learned is a very common thing that students like to write about in their in their descriptions I don't I don't really care about what you learned right I learned that being a good physician means blah blah blah okay right good for you I I want to get more in depth into kind of your experiences and not necessarily what you learned because again it comes from a point of I'm trying to help you check off the boxes that I think you have and so I'm gonna tell you that I learned this and you're gonna check off that box and invite me for that in okay yeah that makes sense so story storytelling as much as possible scribing again I would tell the story of a patient okay those those experiences okay less less job description more storytelling okay all right okay so I think all of the other questions I had were answered yeah another successful application renovation for you yes all right well thank you for for coming on and sharing your experiences and your your application and good to you yeah thank you I hope it helps

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 40,560

Keywords: Premed, application renovation, low science gpa medical school, low science gpa, science gpa, low gpa low mcat medical school, low gpa, medical school, med school, medical school gpa, low gpa med school, low gpa medical school, premed advising, premed advisor, pre-med, pre med, Dr Ryan Gray, Ryan Gray MD, medicalschoolhq, medical school headquarters, med school application, medical school application, med school application tips, med school apps, medical school apps, premeds

Id: CquFTBzQ1VE

Length: 44min 31sec (2671 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019