Rejected From 38 Medical Schools With a 520 MCAT. What Went Wrong? | Application Renovation (S3 E16)

someone reading an application will never look at an application and go oh look at all these job duties this person's had we should invite them for an interview application renovation season three how are you doing today i'm good how are you i am great i'm excited to walk through your application and see where hopefully we can improve it so that we can get you in to medical school before we jump into that though talk to me about how this application cycle has gone for you um it was all right um or just the process of application i applied pretty early i think i sent my application in on the primaries on may 31st but it's been a while um yeah and then you know kind of um scrambled with the secondaries because i had a lot to write um and then got them in within like two three weeks-ish um of getting sent them and then um yeah i didn't hear back from any place until um like december when i got my first interview invite okay and then you know it's been then how was that then i had my interview in january yeah so only one interview yeah okay and how did the interview go okay it was all right i don't think i was entirely ready for it uh which was on me i um yeah i i didn't entirely know what to expect and a lot of people told me it would be a conversation so i was like you know what i can i can talk um so i feel like i could have done better into turning that interview into an acceptance um and currently i'm waitlisted so we'll see how that goes um yeah talk about that for a second because the interview should be a conversation and so where do you think there was a disconnect um i'm not entirely sure i think so the format of the interview is pretty simple is the person just walked through my like activities on amcas and that was it so it's like oh do you have any yeah so i was like okay this is really hard to um you know generate like a flow of conversation but it was it was all right so it was you know okay talk to me about your leadership experiences and i feel like i could have you know made it a conversation but a more pointed conversation where i was you know talking about my maybe not telling my skills but just showing my skills better um what do you mean by that showing your skills better like you know having because also it had been a while since i submitted my primaries um so you know just refreshing better and like having anecdotes ready for every single experience um i don't know if that would have gone better i try to incorporate those but i think i could have had a more like um a more curated flow of conversation yeah interesting yeah and to me that type of interview one where the interviewer is just going down your application and going okay tell me about this activity tell me about this tell me about this activity is an interviewer who's probably new and and it isn't comfortable interviewing yet because that's not a good interview uh unfortunately so that's just kind of luck of the the draw there oh well um okay from your application you're an international student where do you think besides being an international student which kind of puts you at a disadvantage is there anything else in your application that you think lacked yeah i think so just a in terms of the number of schools i could apply to um so i think for those schools that i was kind of you know the only schools i could send my application all of those schools were like very you know the top 30-ish and for them i think i needed something beyond i think my application was like fairly well-rounded like i researched i had clinical experience um but something else to kind of you know have the odd cons associate my name with like um and i heard this from maybe like one ad like admissions that gave me feedback was like okay well you know some our candidates were well-rounded but also like had some kind of really interesting thing with their background or experiences that stood out and i think that's what i was missing i just don't yeah when you say top 30 what do you mean by that kindness the top 30 40 uh us medical schools where is that that's um i'm sorry i don't know um not i'm sorry just like i don't know us news news right u.s news that's right so i did a podcast episode on this i don't know if you've listened to it but the u.s news is not a ranking of medical schools it's a popularity contest it is a horrible methodology on how they build their list a list that's created to sell magazines and students who use this list as this mecca of ooh top 30 or top 40 or top 20. it it doesn't mean anything there is no reflection of that list into the education that you're going to get at that school absolutely yeah yeah so completely agree and if i had an option to yeah i want to continue to harp on that because i just did an episode on it on the pre-med years recently it was like 4 35 4 36 something like that um so everyone should go listen to that but anyway um all right so you think that it's oh i didn't have this one extra thing that didn't help me stand out and and i would say that that's almost never the case right it's almost never like oh you didn't go and end world hunger where you're not going to get into medical school so let's go ahead and dive into your application take a look and see where we can potentially improve for the future how's that sound that sounds great all right so as we're looking here again you did mention applying uh right off the bat and uh 531 which is great um and uh you can see here it was it was approved on 6 15. so very quick turnaround again we had a ginger an international student so that's one of kind of the big things that stands out right away you have some good languages here that you speak and both mom and dad are physicians and i highlighted both of those because when a student has a parent or both parents as physicians there's going to be a lot of extra scrutiny on your application to make sure are you doing this because you want to do it or are you doing it because mommy and daddy are doctors yeah so there's there's always a big question there so we scroll down some more and nothing in the demographic area you did not mark yourself as disadvantaged and we get straight into your grades and your grades are stellar so great job oh thank you with your application um your senior year you only have three classes listed here is that just how many classes you need to graduate and you're done no it was because so i was you know this is senior fall and you don't have your seniors like i wasn't enrolled in my senior spring classes so they just didn't pop up on my transcript perfect um all right so there are more classes there um and i just put a question mark so three nine as of your junior year all the credits that you have 55 credits three nine science three eight all other 388 total so gpa is not an issue right you are a great student mcat score you slacked a little bit only a 520 not a 525 um but but great job so so stat wise right again this is how i look at stats are they good enough obviously in your case the answer is yes they they're plenty good enough your stats are not going to hold you back from any school period okay even as an international student and there's a big myth out there that is as an international student you have to be a stellar student i think that's a myth you have to be a good student again as an international student good enough and then there are all these other issues with finances and other things that come with being an international student um so stat wise great job excellent so let's get into activities and get into essay so right off the bat we're hit here with a tutoring experience from january to may of 2020 and i wrote here basic right it's a basic job description of what tutors do and this is very very common when i see tutoring examples and uh in my new book i'll give it a plug the pre-med playbook guide to the medical school application process i actually have activity description examples and um this is a fake book by the way this is my personal statement book i taped on a fake cover uh onto it i don't have the real book in my hands yet um but i have a whole section on there in about activities and how to write activities appropriately and one of the examples i give is tutoring because it's such a common example of a basic tutoring example which is what you wrote of like here's what i did right you wrote i designed weekly review lectures and worksheets well yeah that's kind of what tutors and tas and all those people do uh i struggle to connect with large groups of students yeah again and you're new at this sure that's what everyone deals with um and so you you tried it looks like to incorporate potentially some of the things i talk about at the very ends you were like oh usually shy eric or mia thanked me right it's like oh yeah if i mention a name therefore it's a story but it's still very basic description there okay okay um conference attended nothing special to put there right it's just something you did which is great community service volunteer this mcb peer advisor it's basically the same thing that you did for your tutoring teaching role above this this undergraduate tutor it looks like it's basically the same thing right of like oh i helped students in this kind of journey whether it's a journey through a specific class or a journey through a specific kind of period in their life the description that you gave is still very basic right i organized and led student workshops and panel discussions continue to act as a liaison between students and the department i very basic kind of job description things that doesn't help me understand who you are and so when you get feedback that says oh like there are other students who just have something else in their application well this could have been your something else if you helped the reader connect with it in a different way and that's why i i i always shrug off that that something else excuse of well they did this one leadership thing or they created this one program or they ended world hunger or they cured cancer and you don't have that so we didn't want to invite you for an interview or accept you i just i don't buy that because not everyone who gets accepted to medical school has the privilege and ability to go do those things right and yet thousands of students are getting into medical school every year who lack those things who are getting into the same schools that gave you that feedback that said that you just don't have that one thing and i think that's where again for for anyone i'm sorry who watches a lot of these application renovation videos i'm sorry you're stuck watching me for a long time but i think that's where i harp on the story because if you can connect your story and and help the reader see what you did see the impact that you had then this mcb peer advisor could be that one thing that stood out and made the difference because they connected with it at a different level than just oh i organized and led student discussions and workshops and blah blah blah right that's where i harp on story does that make sense yeah so would you suggest kind of i guess to make that connection use like one example like how um okay yes okay one specific example give me one specific interaction with someone that just left your heart aching or left your heart happy or whatever it is and then as the reader i can see your compassion i can see your empathy i can see your impact through that story okay right does the fact that you led student workshops and panel discussions is that important absolutely not that's just a part of your job i don't care right if you work at at a grocery store do you need to put that you stock the shelves no right that's not important but so many students feel like they have to put every single nook and cranny job description every job duty that they did in these descriptions and i don't know why they seem to think that's the important part it's not it's not the important part okay yeah all right and we get down to club member for an extracurricular activity here uh it would have been nice as the experience name instead of just club member put the club name in that experience name as well um you have this semester-long research project with peers you brainstormed how you could utilize bioprinting blah blah blah uh and then the sales pitch right the strength of working in and learning from diverse interpret interdisciplinary team while being exposed to cutting edge research right scientific field so a little bit of a sales pitch of look at me i can work in a group and i work with a diverse set of people you're basically hinting at like as a doctor i'm going to be ready because that's teamwork and working with diverse people okay so sales pitch stuff you have your research lab undergraduate researcher here again sales pitch things for me just like i don't need a list of every single job duty i don't need a list of skills that you think are important that you learned again from a reviewer from an admissions committee standpoint if every student tells me that they have learned how to run assays and how that to use scientific programming software whatever right that stuff isn't important who are you what is your impact on this world what is your impact on this one little activity that's the important thing and so when you end here with through extensive review of literature on methylmethanol genes however you say that teaching myself how to perfect complex lab techniques right i perfected complex lab techniques right it's like did you really perfect them are you just getting better at them uh and actively contributing to scientific discussions in the lab i have matured from a curious scholar into a scientist okay right no it's not important and so there are other things to show impact through here um all right now we get to our first kind of medical clinical experience with this clinic volunteer and it was over a prolonged period of time from 2019 you have it through may of 2021 which is good good amount of hours you're an sti screener which is great the experience description so this is the most meaningful one and so again you have 700 characters for the description 1325 characters separately for the most meaningful description in your experience description you have here just again kind of basic job description of of uh who this community or what this community is this bfc uh clinic is the one-on-one sessions you provide education awareness and counseling you worked with patients you saw an opportunity to improve the training support uh provided to the new screeners you took on a leadership role in the training committee right so just some job duties a little bit of a sales pitch of like oh look at me i i have this kind of initiative that i take things on and find issues it's okay but it's just at the end of the day it's just a list of job duties for the next volunteer that comes in could say the exact same thing right it's nothing about you specifically in there and then for the most meaningful you say here my experience at bfc strongly reinforced my desire to become a physician while i deserved clinical setting before this was my first foray into providing direct patient care my interactions with patients at bfc have directly influenced the kind of position i want to be one that always puts patients first there's nothing in there about this specific experience and why it was most meaningful meaningful to you other than it was your first foray into providing direct patient care and so it's just this weird kind of few sentences that don't really add anything it's just like right hey i just want to let you know this is my first time doing patient care patient care yeah okay so nothing really important there your next paragraph here many of my patients carried with them shame from sexual encounters fear from being uninsured right this is where right what you just asked a specific encounter if you told the story of one specific patient who still resonates who you still think about that would be much more powerful and more memorable for the reader than just kind of in general here's everything that happens yeah there's a little bit of overlap with my personal statement there so i didn't you know i was i didn't want to keep using the same stories um so that's that's always a common fear and the answer is use different stories right you didn't have only one patient at this uh at this free clinic right so you can tell different stories you can talk about it from different angles so it's always a fear and and students who use that as as kind of an excuse of like well i i did poorly on the activities section i i didn't i didn't do my best job here because i i put it in my personal statement and so i'm gonna have to sit here in my activity section like no don't do that right just just tell a different story come at it from a different angle so we have staff writer again a tiny little bit of a sales pitch here of i stepped out of my comfort zone to interview people right that's very kind of benign innocuous statement and i read it as i'm gonna show you like look at look at me i can get out of my comfort zone and so just something i wanted to call out there interesting yeah it was it's actually very interesting because i had stories in my first like draft of the activities section and my um pre-health advisor actually told me like don't do that which i thought was yeah and i had all these different things like on the internet that said tell stories and my advisor was like no stick to like a job description and in your most meaningful experiences then you can go on which i yeah i 1000 disagree with that advice and and that's part of the kind of benefit of having having multiple kind of opinions coming into play but for you at the end of the day if you're listening to your pre-health advisor who potentially knows you the best and who who you trust you go with that but then it potentially backfires and and is your advisor wrong no that's just their opinion i think that opinion is wrong but there are there are more than there there's more than one way to put together an application the the way that i talk about an application is through stories because that's how humans connect i as as someone reading an application will never look at an application and go oh look at all these job duties this person's had we should invite them for an interview i will look at an application and go wow look at the the impact that this person's had across this diverse set of experiences and the people that they are interacting with and the lives that they have changed this person sounds really interesting i want to invite them for an interview it's it's it's the same thing in the business world you can have two very different ways of interviewing people when you're hiring right me as the ceo of two different companies when i hire people i can either hire people based on skill or i can hire people based on passion knowing that i can teach the skills medical school will teach you everything you need to know about being a physician residency will teach you everything you need to know about being a physician right that's why we have a training path four years of medical school three plus years of residency that teaches you the knowledge and training to be a physician and the advice out there from from some people like your advisor is potentially focused on hey prove that you already have the skills necessary to be a physician i'm just like well no like me is the medical school that's what i'm teaching you right i don't care that you think you have those skills i'm going to teach you that right maybe it's great that you've been a nurse or a pa and you do have some of those skills great we'll build on those in medical school but i don't need you to sell me those things so it's a different it's just a different way to approach it i happen to disagree with it are there some admissions committees out there that or specific members of admissions committees out there who would rather see skills sure that's just a different way of looking at applications whether it's for medical school or in a professional setting for jobs i disagree with it all right so at the end of the day to kind of go back to that is it it can be frustrating for you and for for all pre-med students that dr gray says this my pre-health advisor says that student doctor network says this reddit says that other advisor on the internet says this their youtube channel says that at the end of the day what you need to do is figure out how you are most comfortable putting yourself forward that that ultimately at the end of the day is what you need to do and so is my advice right for everyone no because some people just aren't comfortable putting themselves forwards it put forward in stories like i recommend and so they should focus on something else will they get into medical school sure they could just because you don't follow my advice doesn't mean you can't get into medical school so back to your application here and we have more teaching tutoring and your third kind of basic job description for teaching tutoring so at this point i get it i understand you know what teaching tutoring is you have your your basic job description and then you get to your physician shadowing and you have this wonderful story here and i'm just like oh i know i felt i was so bored of writing stuff i know i know it was yeah what is high this was my favorite kind of i was like i don't want to say a shout out to the doctor i shouted a doctor and yeah so i really enjoyed it i was also told to cut down on this and don't do this so it was a whole discussion so in my mind shadowing is is super passive not impactful and do you need a story for shadowing no you definitely don't need a story for shadowing but this is a nice little story here and i connected with it and it was good and i like it so the the one potential red flag with the shadowing is it's only 30 hours it's from several years ago and it's out of the country and so yeah many medical schools may not like that okay so you have shadowing it's great you don't have any recent shadowing that's a potential red flag all right so you have clinical experience you have a tiny bit of shadowing you have lots of good extracurriculars so from an from an activity standpoint you have most of the puzzle pieces the lack of connection to who you are yeah how you impacted these potentially hurt you all right research you have here looks great just going through the the research nothing nothing terrible there um club member here continuing on in your extracurricular so you have club member again it would be nice for a name of what club it was but then you have here in your experience description as president so experience name could be like president of so you could you could have potentially um connected with that better and here you you say i let a 40 person team of people which to me is great right showing number or showing impact through numbers is perfect not every activity needs some big fancy story of interaction with patients or other people you can show impact through numbers and so leading a 40 person team that shows me a ton about you right it shows me leadership it shows me organization it shows me communication skills it shows me a lot of things without you needing to sell those things right and so for the most meaningful you could have continued some more numbers to show impact um you did you did have here our membership tripled in the last um where'd it go our membership tripled in less than a year so that's good right but you could have potentially focused a little bit more on so what do you think is the bounce because i i know i used at some point some more numbers elsewhere um so what do you think is a balance or a good balance between like numbers impact versus telling stories because you know do you do you tell stories in every activity you don't have to no that's what i just said right not every activity needs a story i i don't want you to force a story into a place that doesn't fit and so here i don't think a story necessarily fits here just based on the activity itself and show showing your impact in this activity through those numbers of of how many people you led how much money was raised how much membership grew how many uh how many people outside of the organization benefited from your organization right how many how many uh people got food or clothing or whatever else because of the donations that you accepted or raised etc and then we get to your personal statement and here's where again like most of the application renovation videos i think your personal statement is what hurt you the most okay so we get to the first paragraph here in your personal statement your rap by your rapid hiv test came back positive right you steady you're trembling fingers so right off the bat number one i just personally don't recommend dialogue and and i think that's just again it's my own personal thing and it pro it stems i think because i didn't read a lot growing up and so when i read dialogue it slows me down a ton when i read who's saying what who are they saying it to i don't know what's going on and so i have to slow down a ton okay um and then you have i steady my troubling fingers i recommend wholeheartedly that all your writing should be in past tense okay and so you have present tense here um all right so two two minor things just to stand out obviously that's not the biggest issue here it's okay no these these discussions are hot there's a lot of brain surfing now um yeah what is my biggest issue with this whole first paragraph what do you think it potentially is and for someone watching this just on youtube she can't see my notes right now i would say it's maybe a little i mean it does take up a lot of space space isn't an issue there's really no reflection which isn't my biggest issue right yeah my biggest issue is that you as someone unqualified is giving test results to patients life-changing test results that should not be happening period end of story and interesting and maybe that's just my own training and my own bias right i was trained nobody should be calling and giving test results to patients or in person who doesn't have the knowledge and training and qualifications and credentials to then go and here's what we're going to do right so you as this kind of pre-med untrained person is like hey sally here's your test results positive sorry we'll get somebody in to talk to you in a little bit right to me that's just a huge lag and turns me off okay and is that your fault no that's that's obviously the location's fault for putting you in that situation um but it's very similar to kind of this big pushback that we're seeing from the double amc and medical schools rightfully so of students going to third world countries and doing things to patients that they wouldn't be allowed to do here this i think is along those same lines even though you're not doing something to the patient you are providing them with information that obviously changes their life forever yeah and and they can't talk to you about it other than hold your hand or hug you or whatever right so that's just something that just really stands out to me let's move on second paragraph this is a paragraph not about you but about your parents right this is a personal statement and you talked about your parents this whole time and outside of that you didn't really tell me why it was important to you as to why it interested you in becoming a physician you just said right through through their eyes i saw the reality of a physician's life i witnessed both the pain and their sacrifices and the joy as the harbingers of hope for their patients okay great does it mean you want to be a doctor yeah i agree i i think the whole point of that was to and again i could cut down on it more but just to show that i knew what it meant at least from afar uh to kind of become a doctor but that wasn't enough um and i say that later at some point that i mean that obviously wasn't enough and i had my own set of experiences yeah so in my mind one sentence mentioning patient parents or doctors gives me enough context to know everything that you said in a full period right next paragraph you leave the monarchy head to the liberal mecca of berkeley uh which we were joking about before you have this love of science kind of theme this kind of cliche that takes up the first few sentences right of like and you literally spell out my love of science i marveled at the complexity of um of life in methane springs at the bottom of the pacific ocean right i like science in the lab i powered through several unsuccessful gibson assemblies i like science tweaking the procedure i like science this allowed me to develop an analytical approach to problem solving i like science and look at me i have the skills necessary to be a doctor um right and a perseverance right i have the skills necessary to get through medical school i can persevere so a lot of the just i like science theme i have the skills theme that just don't help me understand who you are uh again satisfied uh satisfied my intellectual curiosity i like science i'm smart i like to ask questions i felt compelled to find ways to make a more direct impact on society okay so here's this potential switch from i like science to i want to be a doctor is probably in your mind what you're saying here but having a more direct impact on society doesn't mean you should be a physician just means you want to impact society and the question is why why did you feel compelled to have a more direct impact on society you don't really spell that out at all you just say i felt compelled to do this thing okay so very common mistake that students make when writing these kind of big declarative statements i felt compelled to do this or i wanted to do that is the why why yeah why you talk about suitcase clinic and you say here i was confronted with health care disparities yet again and i was confused by yet again and i tried to go back through your essay to see where you mentioned healthcare disparities before and i don't really know where that was i don't know if that's what you were talking about with your parents but too yeah that wasn't healthcare disparities that was bad laws around providing treatment around what you the kind of story that you were telling there and so just kind of was confusing to me and then you you have here my conversations with homeless single mothers formerly incarcerated individuals or this goes back to just an activity description doesn't really tell me anything about you and your last statement reaffirms my desire to serve these communities as a physician again why why did it reaffirm your desire okay so this is where i go back to tell me a specific story a specific encounter that will help me understand a lot more than just in general here's everything that happened okay next paragraph getting a little bit better trying to focus in again one story would have been better than one young patient another young patient right you kind of had a couple different stories there going on uh be very careful with abbreviations so you have through my experience at bfc if i read your personal statement before i look at your activity descriptions i don't know what bfc means okay and so i have it somewhere in the beginning but yeah in the beginning of my personal statement uh oh yeah you do that okay you do you do i missed it um the next part of it i have come to realize that a physician must constantly integrate the science with the humanism of medicine so these kind of very basic generic statements in my mind don't necessarily have a place in the personal statement because again they don't tell me who you are they're just these statements like oh i understand i know i've learned that all right if everyone even if they don't want to be a physician knows that hey a physician must constantly integrate the science with the humanism of medicine right i think a lot of people know that who don't want to be doctors is that an important thing to understand for you to want to be a doctor no is it a statement that is being made to say hey like i'm ready to be a doctor because i know this i don't i don't know so generic statements like this just don't necessarily add to anything your reflection here is probably the best so far as a physician i hope to be a scientist and an advocate striving for a balance in the care of the affliction and the afflicted all right nice nice statement there it's good and then your conclusion uh could be stronger in the direction of kind of hopes and aspirations what do you hope to accomplish as a physician with this degree that we're going to give you this piece of paper and all the training that we're going to give you how are you going to be a good advocate for our university to really be a good spokesperson for our university right an ambassador for our university what do you hope to accomplish another question i like to ask students is when you retire what do you hope your patients say about you right this is very big aspirational thinking in a conclusion that really helps me understand where you're going and that's better than just kind of reiterating everything you already told me right this isn't an english 101 paper where you have to have an intro your three supporting paragraphs and the conclusion that recaps everything okay um and then the the one sentence i highlighted here as my father says a physician's life beget uh belongs to the community so again kind of bringing in what was said above i just don't like bringing stuff back and then this is your personal statement right again you already spent way too much time on your parents in that second paragraph don't spend any more time on them this is your personal statement so when i look at your personal sim and i finish reading your personal statement i finish looking at your activity descriptions i ask myself who are you and why are you here why do you want to be a doctor and all i really know is that your parents are physicians and that obviously has impacted you in some way that you are now following this path i don't really see a separation between your parents being a physician and you wanting to be a physician because you spent so much time talking about being a physician yeah here is my path and here is my journey and yes they were physicians and i obviously was exposed to healthcare early on but here's the first time where i thought ooh like i think i might want to be a doctor too yeah that's kind of what i tried to get across but failed to do so um i was like hey this was you know the lifestyle i grew up with doesn't mean i wanted to do that i just wanted to explore like opportunities and i came here and had all my set of experiences and i was like hey this is what i want to do but i guess that distinction doesn't come across that clearly and then just looking at your your school list right long school list lots of public schools on there like utah colorado connecticut illinois north carolina virginia did you look into those schools and see if how international friendly they were they're not very but i mean i thought it was just a numbers game that if something takes international students worth like applying there um you know regardless of if they take like three or four kids yeah um yeah and if if you did the math and and did the research and they take international students they do yeah good then that's that's all i i need you to do just to make an informed addition to the school list there um questions i understand completely about the personal statement i was just also struggling on i guess what parts of my story or personality to highlight because i also felt like who i am you right there that is the worst question that you can ask that any student can ask right you are not supposed to highlight different parts of what you think are important okay the personal statement alone is why do you want to be a doctor you're answering a specific question you're not trying to highlight different parts of who you are okay the experience descriptions you're not trying to highlight different parts of who you are you're talking about a specific encounter that has been so memorable for you that you want to talk about it in the activity description where most students fail is trying to craft their application to highlight different parts of who they are students will take a list and go okay doctors have to be service oriented they have to be lifelong learners they have to love science they have to be compassionate and empathetic and they have to be culturally aware they have to do this and and students craft their application to all of those attributes they think are important and what happens is the application just falls flat because you trying to craft your application doesn't let you and your story come through and so how i mean those factors without spelling them out i mean it definitely influences people to be a physician so how does one i guess you know talk about those like you know all of you what do you mean factors that influence you to be a physician like i mean i do like science and this is a horrible you know it's it's one of those things that so go do research right go go create the next then the next mrna vaccine for hiv that they're working on yeah no i understand science is the fair basic right bear foundation that you have to build upon to show you want to be a physician so what is it so like i guess what i don't know how do you figure out your story eliminating all of those like um you know bare bones factors from it i think you have to do a lot of self-reflection and go what experiences have i had in my life and this is where i like talking about right having clinical having enough clinical experience to say like interacting with johnny interacting with sally those those patients just left such an impact on me that here's why i continue to drive myself to be a physician not i like science therefore i want to be a doctor it's like no of course so so focusing in on and in my personal statement book if you haven't read that or my new application process book to start there is seed what led you to want to be a doctor that's completely missing from your story other than your parents or doctors and watering events what watered that seed and you have bits and pieces of it but if you focused in on one specific interaction at the free clinic or one specific interaction at the suitcase clinic or whatever it was called right one specific interaction that shows me the the impact that that interaction had on you and then you reflect on it right the reflection is such a key part and go this is why this experience has continued to motivate me to be a doctor not i like science i'm a lifelong learner yeah i'm passionate i'm determined therefore i should be a doctor yeah that makes sense i i also tried to yeah i did try to go for like the clinical experiences that did have an impact on me um but i think that was also part of like the red flag so maybe i could have chosen better ones yeah i think i think that sti clinic one would have been super impactful if the story was just tweaked a little bit and didn't expose kind of hey look at me kind of going outside of what i'm able to do oh thank you that is very helpful that was super stellar obviously great job there activity wise you have all of the pieces to prove to yourself that this is what you want now you just need to reflect on them a little bit more and tell that story in a much better way moving forward and then when you are able to reflect on those then in an interview why do you want to be a doctor comes across much more clearly than well i like science and i'm motivated and i'm compassionate and oh by the way my mommy and daddy are doctors therefore here's why i want to be a doctor right that that connection it all carries through all of the work that you put in at the beginning doing all this deep reflection and introspection and all this stuff will carry through in your essays your activity descriptions your secondaries and your interviews thank you good luck to you i wish you thanks but the best yeah let's let's let's hope uh second time's the term

Channel: Medical School HQ

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Id: 7RgFJckYNZ0

Length: 49min 2sec (2942 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021