She Was Rejected With a 3.74 GPA and 515 MCAT. Why? | Application Renovation (S3 E10)

i don't think there's much that you can do moving forward to improve other than [Music] application renovation season three episode 10 how are you doing today i'm doing super good how are you i am doing great i'm excited to chat with you and learn about your story a little bit and dive into your application and find out where things can improve moving forward so just to recap your application cycle first application cycle one interview one unfortunately rejection talk about potentially your thoughts on why you got an interview but ultimately why you don't think you have been successful this cycle i think i am a really kind of strong and well-rounded applicant um and so i think that's how i secured that one interview for one of my state schools um i just think that i was rejected maybe because i either you know couldn't tell my story well enough because i only did get that one interview i applied to nearly 20 schools and so far have only heard back from that one so i do think it is like a deficiency in the application itself because i couldn't secure more um so hopefully moving forward i'm better able to kind of tell my story and secure more interviews okay these are the best ones that i like looking at students who have been successful it seems like you've done everything right but there's still something missing so let's dive into this and hopefully we'll get you going and help some other people along the way um so looking at your application the first thing that stands out is the application was submitted july first at three o'clock in the morning what was taking up at three o'clock in the morning and why july 1st so july 1st was a bit later than i had imagined just because of everything kind of covert related it did unfortunately get pushed back i wanted to submit early and so after i i had set my goal for submitting july um well the end of end of june and so that's why it was the 3 a.m submission because i really wanted to just get it in get it done with um and so i i just stayed up until it was done um and i know that that's late i felt like maybe a lot of people were a bit later this year because i think they pushed back the submission date anyway or the um they pushed back the transmission to school transmission date yeah historically just for reference for people watching who don't know amcas opens up let's say uh may 1st right usually it's that first week of bang and historically you can't submit your application until june 1st but medical schools don't start receiving applications from amcas mcas until typically the third week of june somewhere in there third to end of june but because of kobit the last cycle they pushed it back to july 10th so it seems like potentially a lot of students took that as a um as a okay to just delay the application so that's okay so just covaded and everything else things got in the way that's all right yeah all right so that's the first thing that stands out and then as we go through the application uh one thing here is it looks like your dad is a dentist and so i always am on heightened alert when i see parents who are in health care to make sure that you as the sib uh not sibling the son or daughter of a parent who's a physician in one way or another right dentists are physicians um that you are getting your own experiences and you aren't doing something just because of mommy or daddy all right so i'll i'll keep an eye on that we scroll through your grades it looks like your gpa is pretty solid and it is so 363 science gpa 396 all other 374 total gpa solid gpa no issues there mcat score crushed it 515 great job no no issues there so stats wise all the doors are open right in terms of medical schools there isn't going to be a medical school that's going to reject you based on your stats so that's always that's always the easy hurdle or the hard hurdle and you made it easy for yourself all right so let's get into experiences so this first experience that we have listed here you you have this experience that just lasted for a month i'm guessing maybe this was delayed because of kovid what happened there um so it actually was a it was a three-day clinic so it it only was three days in that month um and so that was just the free clinic in my in my area so i just participated for three days okay yeah why was something that was only three days only 35 hours of your time why is that a most meaningful experience for you um so we saw just a plethora of patients and i think it was one of the i guess it was just the diversity of patients within my own community that made it most meaningful and even though like the hours are minimal like i personally like spoke to probably like 300 people a day and so i just got to see a lot more of like who is accessing this free healthcare and kind of just changed my frame of mind around kind of healthcare in my community so it felt really meaningful to me despite despite the low amount of hours okay all right so looking at the looking at the descriptions and the most meaningful experience you you have some just basic information about the experience right annual events free healthcare services um you met the first patient in the vision clinic overcome with intense feeling gratitude and privilege and you have this like little story here right jim told me he had been waiting in line since uh seven the night prior blah blah blah right and then you say here serving at this clinic showed me that even in urban settings healthcare access can be limited it's a very generic statement that is true did you really need to serve at this free clinic to understand that maybe you did maybe you didn't but but to me it comes off as just like well duh right it's like of course so i i think what a lot of students try to do with their experiences with the descriptions is talk about everything that nate they know about health care like i know that even in urban settings access to health care is limited and therefore i know all about medicine you should accept me and when you say it in that like comical way it's like well that seems silly right obviously that's not what i'm trying to get at so the question is well what were you trying to get at well i guarantee you it was the first statement of i i know this about health care i i'm going to tell you everything i know about healthcare therefore i'm going to be a strong applicant and in my mind when students focus on those things you're distracting from who you are as a person and you're trying to show what you know about medicine so it's just a distraction okay uh and then you get into the most meaningful experience again you're telling another little story here which is great i love the stories just uh not not necessarily nitpicky but just a a definition kind of thing translated as the wrong word here uh it's interpreted so translating is written interpreting is spoken so it's interpreter services not translator services so it's just a a minor thing that that helps people sound smarter um we get into your job right and here's where you're talking about i have lots of experience i have lots of hours in a clinical setting you're here as an ophthalmic assistant you have tons of hours obviously you're telling a great story here i love this right you did great job here great great job you have presentations which is great you have your emt training here this experience i actually didn't mark this the first time i went through because it came up later it was interesting how you um you mentioned this why did you feel like you needed to mention i didn't pursue any paid experiences do you think it would be a better option to not mention that i like should i keep it in as like i did this thing and this is why i only took seven credits my spring quarter um i guess that was my my point was like i only took seven credits and i did this concurrently um and so i thought it was like a good thing to mention like there's not just a gap where i wasn't working and wasn't studying um but then it doesn't come up late and the answer might answer my question so the question is why did you feel the need to mention that you didn't pursue any paid experiences i guess maybe i thought they would wonder like oh why'd you why'd you do it if you're not gonna use it okay i guess it's my thought okay so again kind of getting back to what is the point of all of this the point of all of this is to understand who you are and you're distracted by trying to focus on what do they want right and and i'm going to write this thing and they're going to ask these questions so let me go ahead and answer their questions in my description it's going to take up a lot of space but that's okay because that's the question they're going to have right talk about the emt training talk about something that was memorable from emt training who cares that you didn't go and get an emt job there are a million reasons why somebody wouldn't go and get an emt job after doing this right after after getting your emt certificate whatever that may be there's lots of reasons not to go ahead and pursue a job maybe the fact that you get paid nothing to to be an emt and you found something that paid better whatever it was right um right and so it's just a distraction from the ultimate goal of this whole process let me know who you are okay um so yes i i still think you leave it in there but tell me a story about your training and and what happened in your training um so we have some research which is great working working at a cystic fibrosis lab you have some more non-clinical experience which is great um i i love um kind of most of your experiences you're focused on telling a story and and that's all good so you you learned i hopefully you learned from me um i did me telling stories in here right you have you have your story here as a event health and safety volunteer which is great so good job telling the story the uh this one it seemed like a little bit more of uh almost a seed right you're working as this safety coordinator and i was reading this and i was like well you are using your emt certification here and i'm like oh no this led to you wanting to get your emt certification so yeah it distracted me right because earlier you're like oh i didn't i didn't use my emt certification but anything and then i'm reading this going but you are using it then okay never mind i got it um so good good job with the stories you have your leadership which is good you have your research which is great you have shadowing which was many years ago and it's through atlantis and spain but i'm pretty sure you have some other shadowing down at the bottom yes you do yeah more recent shadowing which is great so lots of shadowing there um shadowing general dentistry which makes sense if your dad is a doctor or a dentist that you're kind of exploring that world as well um working as a lab assistant hobbies i love that you have food blogging in here i love i loved i i blocked them out just for some more anonymity but your your titles of blog posts and stuff were were very punny which is good um so a little bit of humor which worked well um and and i like that you didn't try to sell how you having a blog or you love cooking how that's going to help you as a physician other than it's just good kind of stress relief which is great yeah good job and then looking at um uh your sorority here which is great so it's interesting you put zero hours is there a reason i just didn't really know how to quantify when you're you know living and living with people you know constantly and then you're doing events constantly i just didn't really know how to quantify it um so i just went with like not doing that and just assuming they would kind of know what i don't know that makes sense i would have probably just estimated some amount of hours like on average uh obviously living at a sorority house or whatever that you're not going to count all those hours where you're just there but active sorority meetings and gatherings and functions and whatever else right is that 10 hours a week on average is that 15 whatever and just average that out um all right and then we get to the end here you have your physician shadowing so write everything that you mentioned earlier it's not my stats right stats are good it's not my experiences at least i don't think so right being an ophthalmic assistant i'm working in a clinical experience i'm getting those experiences i have i have shadowing i'm doing everything right i have research uh what's going on uh so the question at the end of the day is um what is going on hold on one second so the other the other interesting thing here i didn't catch this the first time was this these 16 hours are not realized right those are no at some point unfortunately not all right so your your real shadowing was was from yeah from uh 2019. so maybe a little bit of a question mark there in terms of shadowing but i think covid gives everyone a free pass in terms of consistency there so then we get to your personal statement in your personal statement you talk about your seed here being in elementary school days that you wish you had diabetes like your dad's co-worker and that first line i'm like well that's weird right and it but it made me want to read more and so it did a good job it hooked me in um and then you talk about your severe eczema and it made sense right embarrassed by your skin and he had something that was internal blah blah blah right it all made sense you go and see a dermatologist the dermatologist takes care of you and and treats you right your compulsion grew into a passion you sought out opportunities to get a better understanding of what it would mean to practice medicine so good seed i think there's a potential missed opportunity to just mention your dad being a dentist and him being in in health care and and being around that and how that potentially affected you a little bit but for the most part good seed and then we get into the next paragraph which if you kind of go off of my book you have what's your seed and then what did you do to water it and i highly highly highly recommend not using shadowing as watering events because they don't talk about you and this is exactly what happened in this paragraph which is all about shadowing so you reach out to local doctors in hope of finding shadowing opportunities in your shadowing you stood in the operating room and all the tiny shiny instruments and you felt the respiratory rate quicken the surgeon reassured the patient uh the patient the patient the patient she would get used to it the patient the patient the patient the doctor the doctor at the doctor the doctor the doctor the surgery the surgery surgery the doctor doctor doctor right none of this is about you right right this is the problem with shadowing in a personal statement where you are trying to use this experience to support why you want to be a physician and all you're doing is saying the operating room is really cool therefore i want to be a doctor there's just no connection there there's no impact there's no there's no emotion behind why you're telling me what you're telling me and then your your last sentence here i aspire to be that kind of physician which again is really the only takeaway that can come from shadowing is dr smith took care of that patient in an amazing way i want to be like dr smith right okay great and so one who doesn't just treat the illness but also treats the person i want to provide that comfort for my own patients some day okay so it's a little bit of a weak takeaway just because you're talking about the doctor because it's a shadowing experience and it's a little bit more of what you hope to do as a physician and not necessarily why you want to be a physician so a little bit of kind of a combination of weak reflections there and then you get into this next paragraph it wasn't until i sat across from my own patient that i really understood the immense satisfaction but also the complexity of being a healthcare provider i would avoid i just generally recommend avoiding the term healthcare provider in a personal statement you want to be a physician talk about being a physician i understand obviously in your situation you're not a physician but you're talking about being a provider in one way so just something to think about there and then you you talk about your duties as an ophthalmic assistant you appreciate each interaction so you're kind of getting into your extracurricular description here in your personal statement so getting kind of slipping away uh and then you get into a story which is great and the disappointment that this patient had having some issues he just had surgery sat down talked about what was going on his anxiety was palpable the bleak reality blah blah but i held my expression even right and then after his five minute monologue which to me comes across of like geez can you stop talking already right so probably not the best statement in the world on the personal statement he thanked me for truly listening and divulged that his wife and daughter were out of town so other reasons why he was stressing out right i typically don't like talking about being thanked in a personal statement and because to me i just i always take things to the extreme are you going down this path because you like being thanked by people like oh thank you so much oh thank you so much oh this is amazing i want i want more of this like tell tell me more how amazing i am and so just i try to avoid it in a personal statement and then we get to um right i i the kind of general statement that i see all the time now is i wish i could do more for him i wanted to be the one who could explain his symptoms and treat his condition i wanted to be his physician right decent reflection good takeaway and pretty common from here's what i was able to do but i wanted to do more so not not bad there and then we get into your conclusion and it's a recap conclusion so you you're wasting space not moving forward but looking backwards and so you're looking back at the the jealousy of the diabetes and your eczema and sitting across from the doctor this impact of an empathetic physician and right all this stuff that you already told me about you could have just avoided and let's talk about the future right what do you hope to accomplish as a physician and so a weak conclusion and then the very end i think you lost me at the very end with this weird metaphor that ties back to your eczema it just you lost me with it i i don't know if you ran it by some other people uh but humor in a personal statement in my mind humor and the application in general should be completely avoided and and this is why because you thought it was funny and cute and and punny right going back to your your food blog of you love puns this one just completely missed the mark and i'll tell you why right i am now left with picturing you with eczema all over your body okay right yeah not the best visual to leave me with i was i was reading this last last night and i i run everything by my wife i'm like what do you think of this yeah yeah she's like yeah no that that missed so um you have to remember right we are visual creatures we we visualize what we read and that's what i visualize so not the best thing it makes like like oh that's like like i don't want to think about that but that's okay all right i got my own eczema to worry about um and then we look at your school list and we get to what is i think a pretty solid school list other than about half of your schools are private and half of your schools are public in my mind the half of the schools that are public were probably wasted applications and that's because public out of state schools don't care about you for the most part unless you have significant ties so where are you a resident of what state washington so you're a resident washington of washington state yes so we get to washington state so you look at um the other one too wsu um you look at michigan michigan's okay because even though it's a public school they accept mostly out of state which is weird iowa probably not a good fit colorado not a good cincinnati california arizona right probably not good fits um i think that's it so not not half but there were lots western michigan i think is public um rochester's rochester public i forget doesn't matter but anyway lots of public schools on there why did you apply to those schools um when i was going through the um when i was going through those i think i set a cut off for like 30 percent or something um and so i was just looking at other 30 yes in state schools but they had like a significant right and i decided that was my my cut off because if i i don't i felt like if i didn't have those then i would have only been applying to you know 14 and that just didn't feel like a comfortable number for me i wanted to cast my net wide but i guess i didn't you know cast it well wide so yeah you can you can cast a huge net but if you cast it in part of the ocean where there are no fish you're not gonna catch anything um okay yeah so i get to the end of this and i go your application was pretty good i don't know where you missed other than the school list potentially um other than a a weak personal statement that doesn't really do a great job of telling your story as to why you want to be a physician i don't think there's much that you can do moving forward to improve other than telling the story a little bit better right i want to at the end of this personal statement understand why it is you want to be a physician i think potentially where you missed out a little bit on was maybe your dad being a dentist and focusing on that just a tiny bit just as another little seed right because they will see that he's a dentist and they're going to question well why aren't you looking at that and so maybe potentially mentioning that in a personal statement because that that probably is part of your journey and then and then just doing a better job getting rid of this shadowing experience because it doesn't focus on who you are doing a little bit of a better job getting rid of this kind of negativity about this five-minute monologue in the middle of this um that was a decent story um the the seed was good and then just the the conclusion being mostly a recap conclusion and then leaving with this not great visual um there's not too much more that you could have done and so some of this at the end of the day most of these application renovation videos are are ones where there's just really clear examples of students just swinging missing hard i think you swung and you've hit a foul ball right if i were to keep with the sports analogy um you did a great job you have the experiences you have the stats your your story for your personal statement is lacking a little bit do you so moving forward for you know replica reapplying how much do they expect to be changed i guess like for some of the experiences that i really enjoy like my writing and description do they expect everything to be different do they you know like or is it fine because that's how i feel about that activity i guess i would tweak them as much as you can okay four activities that you're not doing anymore it's kind of hard to to rewrite something that you haven't done since you wrote it the first time it's going to be hard to do so just just re-look at things and if you can massage something or rearrange some sentences do the best you can at the end of the day a lot of schools don't have the time to go back and look at old applications to see how much you changed the question will be at the end of the day potentially in an interview what have you done to improve and the answer isn't well i was able to rewrite my experience descriptions right it's going to be i got more shadowing i got more clinical experience blah blah blah i did some more deeper reflection on who i am and why i want to do this uh and and so those are are better answers than well i rewrote my experience descriptions because i think you you have some solid descriptions to begin with and it's always hard when you have a good foundation it's hard to to improve what is already pretty good all right question and then yeah another thing is i don't know if you saw on there but my mcat is from 2018. oh no so i will i will have to retake the mcat in order to reapply for most schools um i guess i'm sorry yeah i know it's terrible um do you know if they so if all of your application is done other than getting a new mcat score back can that be put through to the schools can the schools start reviewing that the mcat score so your the verification process you submitting to amcas amcas verifying it and sending it to schools has nothing to do with the ncat score right where the mcat score comes in is once the school receives your secondary essay or whatever that form of a secondary essay is for that school and they have your letters of recommendations usually and your mcat score that's usually when an application is quote unquote complete and they'll review it so that's what i was worried about that's where when students students always ask what's the latest i can take the mcat and i there's ideal right ideally you're taking it kind of march or april that way it's out of the way that you can focus on the application you get your score back so you know what it is before you submit for someone like you who already crushed it once you're probably going to crush it again so no no concerns there the the other concern other than just getting it out of the way so you can focus on the application is is timing and delaying when your application is complete and so if you look at a june date let's let's look at the end of june all right if you take the mcat at the end of june your score isn't going to come out until the end of july yeah medical schools aren't getting the application until the end of june to begin with and then they send out secondary essays and it takes a couple weeks for those to come in and so you're looking at mid-july typically until schools are going to start looking at applications and a lot of schools don't even start looking until august because they're just wrapping up the previous cycle and this is this and they're like i want to put my feet up for two seconds please and they're like let the applications come in we'll pull them down august 1st when we're ready to kind of get back into it and so a late june mcat score getting your score back late july probably does very little to hurt your application when are you planning on taking the mcat i mean that's the tough thing is like i work a full-time job now whereas my previous mcat score was the summer of you know being in school when i was working part-time so i think i'll just have to put in more months at lower hours per week and so like i would feel comfortable taking it end of july but i know that that won't work application wise so i'm kind of at this crossroads of do i wait another year to apply which i don't want to do but if it's gonna you know make my application so late anyway then it might not be worth it you know so i think there are other things that you're probably not thinking about like take a week off from work um and and have like one dedicated study week that that will probably exponentially get you back up and running but again because you already have done so well on the mcat that information is still in your head it's just locked away and so you're gonna need some time to chip away at that and get it back out and accessible so you can recall it for the mcat but i i agree that if you're working full time you're gonna have to spread out your studying but i think you're you're already trained up for a half marathon and you just got to do a little bit more work for the marathon and so i i wouldn't i i would shoot for an end of june and and let your first few weeks or couple months of mcat prep dictate if that's a a go for you or doable yeah yeah that's definitely a good plan it's just super your job annoying that you are applying to medical school yes they do okay um so the question potentially is how flexible are they could you work four days a week instead of five um and and have an extra full day of mcat prep so there there are lots of things to work on i don't think delaying another year is worth it that's a that's a a big delay for the mcat and so shoot for the end of june if you have to push it back a little bit you push it back a little bit again it's not the end of the world it's not perfectly ideal with someone with your stats you have a little bit more flexibility because even with great stats being a little bit late you're still gonna probably end up near the top of the pile for an interview of course that is good to know um i guess just final questions would be d do you have any suggestions for schools that i should be applying to i know you crossed ones out that like these are a bad idea no no okay i don't i don't i don't give advice for schools because yeah it's impossible to and and there i know there are websites out there where you plug in your stats and your activities and it gives you a school list i think they're all baloney um yeah you need to put in the research to figure out what schools are important to you location wise curriculum wise class size wise um access to programs and residencies and overseas opportunities if that's what you're interested in and you you need to really do some deep digging and research and self-reflection as to what's important to you stats i think aren't part of the equation especially for you you're competitive at every school so i wouldn't worry about the msar and what median gpa or median mcat score is just completely ignore that but the the out-of-state in-state residency thing i think is something that is important to keep in mind um and then again just the the story at the end of the day of why you're doing this to to for me to be able to connect with you more and be intrigued and want to invite you for an interview all right so let's let's look at your secondary kind of a an addition as as we were kind of wrapping up i was like oh i remember marking up your secondary because at the end of the day as i just mentioned to you your secondaries could have been horrible and that's why all of this went bad right your primary application isn't terrible your personal statement maybe not the best but not horrible and so let's look at your secondary so we do have your secondary here and this is for the school that you had an interview at correct yes so this first one here is this autobiographical statement addendum i hate this question i don't like that they ask this question um but they they ask right uh if your primary application hasn't discussed the origin development of your motors motivation to be a physician and i i just like face palm that i'm like that's the whole point of your personal statement but some students don't focus on that um and so it's like tell me why you want to be a doctor that's that one but if you've already written about these things don't repeat what you wrote instead use this to let us know more about who you are in addition to someone who wants to be a physician and i think you failed answering this question because you focused on why you want to be a physician right right you already talked about that in your personal statement you understood that was the goal of your personal statement but then you you continued that even though it told you not to do that here and so you you talk about this eye pressure i love when my patients ask blah blah blah i feel energized when i'm learning about something new i like to learn right i like to help people so kind of cliche things um you talk about being in high school instead of again in addition to who you are being a physician you focused on skills right you're this tennis captain you derive satisfaction from rising to challenges and achieving goals so instead of just telling a story about who you are and where you come from this autobiography you're like okay i'm really gonna drive home some more sales pitch here right and so you you missed really bad um on this first one and then i want to be a physician right you're directly saying i want to be a physician for this even though it tells it it tells you in addition to being a physician what else is out there okay um and then we have this this question here how do we deal with social net inequities um i i think you did mostly well answering this question about working in this private practice sub-specialty clinic this to me looks like one giant excuse right we have no way to translate voicemail reminders for patients really you don't know how to translate what is probably the same two lines to every patient to everyone right you can't practice saying uh you you have an appointment tomorrow at 9 00 a.m in spanish or whatever language so i i didn't really like that line because it seemed like not a good reason for why you're not doing that um that's probably more of a personal thing for me though um have you have your experiences prepared prepared you to be a physician i think this one was a good good essay here and then in your perspectives or experiences do you bring that would enrich the class so this was one of your concerns when you applied that really your quote-unquote diversity essay which is what this is was basically like i like old people right um and so probably not the best um i i think you you understood what it was meant to be you you just didn't really have much to talk about and so i think you struggled with this one because you were stuck in i need to talk about health care and and so you um there was just something about this that i don't know that it just it didn't resonate with me i i don't know what else to say about that which is unusual i usually have something to say about everything um but just just the i the the health care here right when i say you were stuck in health care like dealing with elderly people and like it feels natural to work with them and my familiarity with the progression of care allows me to assess patients desires for more or less assistance right you are focused on the health care side of thing you don't need to focus on health care for this and so i think you were artificially limiting what you could potentially talk about because you're like i need to translate it to medicine where at the end of the day you could have talked about being a team captain in tennis and and talked about being a leader and how you just want to be a leader in the class has nothing to do with medicine but those are your skills and your traits that you're bringing to the class okay okay so i think i think you you limited yourself there so just wanted to add in that secondary piece because i think that's a big part of it it big miss with this beginning one and then just a few uh small tweaks throughout the rest well this has been super beneficial just going line by line and just kind of figuring out what works and what what doesn't so thank you for that good notes here you're right there you're right there it's just uh another little push next cycle hopefully the mcat score is is just as good if not better next time you'll get there

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 48,034

Keywords: med school, premed, pre med, pre-med, medical school, application renovation, medicalschoolhq, mcat, gpa, bcpm gpa, medical school app, application, apply, doctor, medical, rejected, not accepted, medical school rejection, activities, rejected from med school, premed gpa, rejection, med school rejection, med school application, medical school application, med school apps, rejections, aacomas, amcas, 3.7 gpa, 515 mcat, 515, 515 mcat score, high mcat rejection, personal statement

Id: KnNuDXLJqE8

Length: 41min 17sec (2477 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021