She Was Rejected with a 516 MCAT... Two Years in a Row. Why? | Application Renovation (S3 E13)

you changed the question of the personal statement from why do you want to be a doctor to show me why you're ready to be a doctor [Music] application renovation season three another episode for you how are you doing today i'm great how are you dr gray i am good it's very timid response you're like i'm scared i i hope that these uh these sessions are helpful and not just me beating up on students so um i would love to hear from you uh kind of your journey so far so that students can unders understand it as well i think this is your second application cycle that we're going to review the second application um what happened first application cycle any interviews first application cycle no so no interviews first application cycle um nothing major changed i graduated i rewrote revamped everything added some letter of recommendations um and then this application's like oh i got two interviews and i'm on to waitlists for those two interviews you got two interviews this time which is great what do you think changed from first application cycle to second application cycle to get two interviews um i applied earlier um because the last application cycle i took the mcat in like late may so it kind of pushed everything back i think my personal statement i did a lot i took a lot more time working on it i had a lot more editors i think it was just a lot more put together this time so i think that helped and then i increased my number of schools which you know odds can always help a little more too so all right well let's go ahead and dive into your application we'll have plenty of time hopefully to look at it and get answer some questions for you so right off the bat again first thing i love to see is an early application that's great um i love some of the language here some polish spanish english it's always a tricky one if you get someone that's like oh i have fluent spanish i'm gonna have an interviewer speak to you in spanish the whole time so it's always no big issues demographic wise which is great so we get into school and we can see lots of passes early on i'm assuming those are ap which they are there um those obviously just for students watching those don't affect a gpa at all and we start off school with some bees you're like oh this is a little bit different than high school but then it looks like you've figured some stuff out and then a couple more stumbles and so grades look decent and we see that you have year after year an ever increasing gpa which is great there's no senior classes on here did you graduate in three years is that why um no there should be some there's not there senior there's a couple so i had um i was supposed to graduate a semester early so i had like a lighter schedule my senior year um so there's not as many okay that's cool so you have the senior here um yeah there's all other okay so just no science classes senior year it looks like um because that one's pass fail which is why that's not counted okay yeah um okay so your gpa is okay it's not great it's good that it's going up every semester or every year so we have a nice upward trend going the question at the end of the day is is it enough and and that's always going to be the question obviously this application cycle with two interviews at least for two schools it was enough you back it up with a solid mcat score so um if there's ever doubt of like well is the gpa good enough are you good enough student and you go and crush the the mcat which is great i don't like to talk about the mcat balancing on a bad gpa but it just helps kind of ease some fears potentially so great job with the mcat how did you do so well on the mcat i don't know i i i was studying while taking like some of the core classes like biochem and anatomy and for me i think that helped just because it was kind of like a double um like back check making sure that you under remembered everything understood everything a lot of the memorization for anatomy and biochemistry i didn't have to do multiple times because i just had it that semester um and i also had some friends that took it around the same time as me so i think studying with other people really helped me too study groups yep yeah awesome all right now we get into what i love to talk about which is the the actual core of the application where your application will make or break your application cycle and so first thing right off the bat anesthesia assistant i'm like oh awesome right great clinical experience how did you find this job how did you how did you get this clinical experience yeah so um it was a private practice and the surgeon that owned it really like teaching students so he had like an externship program that had pre-med and pre-dental students um so it's a very good opportunity yeah that's awesome all right so i see that it stops march of 2020 which is pandemic start and i look at the like i look at that activity and go it's it's a job right it's anesthesia it should have continued but potentially if this was an outpatient maybe the surgeon stopped doing elective procedures whatever and so i can kind of understand that so there's just maybe some questions around why it's stopped when it's a job and and a required job kind of can to continue yeah um so from a clinical experience standpoint lots of hours good time span lots of stuff going on and then we get into the description and you can see right here i just wrote basic job task of as an anesthesia assistant this is what i'm doing right i'm responsible for this i'm responsible for that i don't need to know all that stuff i want to know about who you are not about your job then you get into your most meaningful experience and you tell a story and my heart melts and i'm like ah story i love it um uh i would love to see a little bit more personalization right who's his i would love to see a patient name a pseudonym i would be careful about abbreviations right so anti-cube for for acf someone reading this might not understand what you're talking about so be careful with abbreviations and jargon i i would say anti-cubital fossa as acf isn't a standard abbreviation uh like emt would be or er would be that you could just use right iv obviously um you can use so just be careful with that um but you you tell a good story which is great and then you get to the end and you try to sell me of oh i had to jump on the learning curve fast and make a conscious effort to master the skills i needed now i can apply this attitude to the rest of my career it's like just tell me the story and and how it impacted your life and you're like look at me i had to master these skills i'm ready to master anything i'm ready to be a doctor and it's just it ruined the whole thing for me so you don't need the sales pitch at the end so good job with the story reflection stay away from that sort of reflection uh human anatomy peer mentor you told a story a really good story here love it didn't you didn't try to sell anything here of like oh being a tutor is going to help me be a doctor in this way right you didn't do that for this one for some reason um which is good you have this learning and leadership experience you mark it as leadership i don't think it's leadership you just went to a conference and got to learn and listen uh i i think the name learning in leadership threw you off and you're like oh this is leadership so to me i would look at this and go this isn't leadership i i wouldn't mark you off for it in any way i would just be like uh it's not leadership um so good experience there research lab um you get into the sales pitch again right of like ooh this requires attending to small details and mri scans and it grew my computer and data analysis skills like that's not what i'm looking for in a medical school applicant right if i want a computer nerd i'll go hire a computer nerd i'm looking for people who are going to change the world right uh that's that's what i want and so this whole experience description you can see what i highlighted is sales pitch you focused on these are the skills that i learned and that's just not important for this for the application um you have community service here medical clinical pediatric oncology volunteer and this is a tricky one this looks like it's very similar to child life what what a child life job would be and a lot of schools don't like that as clinical experience because they think it's exactly what you put here is playing yeah is that really clinical experience and so i think you could have focused more on the actual interaction with the patient and not necessarily hey we just played all day long um and so just just something there again good story your activities for the most part were good they focused on stories um some sales pitches here and there but you had the stories global medical training volunteer just the focus on gratitude i tend to have students stay away from um it's it's a very easy trap of like oh i want to be a doctor so i can be thanked and so that people appreciate me um so just stay away from that kind of stuff again the the the kind of sales pitch and here's how it's going to help me in the future takeaways i just don't think work for these activity descriptions i don't think they help me understand who you are so saying here that it introduced me to the intervention techniques for addiction and i was able to find them pertinent information for the design and implementation for future interventions it's like okay great right i don't know what that's supposed to tell me about you same thing for being this uh kaplan brand ambassador i was able to build my public speaking and networking skills right again i don't care about your skills that you think you have i just want to know who you are the impact that you've had on people okay um artistic endeavors and you have your carolina vibe dance team and i will tell you that dance was the downfall of your application as we will uh get to in your personal statement um but here for for dance you get to your most meaningful remarks and again you're you're trying to sell like look at how dance has helped me be a better student or look at how dance has set me up to be a good physician in the future i found the human body's capabilities fascinating right what is that i like science right the super cliche i like science uh it's taught me important skills dedication hard work this is very common for students to take athletic endeavors which dance is and translate that into dedication hard work etc etc etc and those are all skills necessary to be a doctor i think supposedly and so i'm going to tell you that i have those skills because i was a dancer um and so just just lots of sales pitch here that's just not needed we have uh phi mew here uh choreographing a piece with over 20 girls raised over a thousand dollars for the center of excellence for eating disorders this is a great example of showing impact through numbers this is perfect for these types of experiences where it's not clinical but you have some potential to show impact through numbers this just shows me if you're able to choreograph a piece with over 20 girls well guess what that is that's leadership that's organization that's communication skills you didn't say all of those things right how am i supposed to know you have good communication skills if you don't tell me you have good communication skills well yeah you just told me you choreographed a piece with over 20 girls that tells me everything i need to know and the fact that you raised a lot of money shows that you you have this follow-through and impact and and that alone is enough to show me who you are okay physician shadowing you have some great many years ago why don't you have any recent shadowing um i think during school i just it kind of got pushed to the back burner and then like once i started working clinical jobs i was like oh i work with physicians every day and then covet hit so it's been kind of just like a couple things um i should have done more um okay so consistency right a lot of people will go oh 60 hours that's enough but but when it when just just to finish the thought for students watching is it just it looks like a checklist when when i see that and you're like okay i got my shadowing done and let me move on to the next thing so that's always just a thing to avoid marshall's title boxing sales associate again you're trying to sell experiences here trying to sell traits here like i was an efficient uh i maintained an efficient storefront through organization and customer service and i don't need to know that stuff so just the sales pitch stuff there and then ncs student intern again just a basic list of tasks here of what you did day in and day out and then we get to your personal statement so you start off here good morning mrs k i said releasing my hand blah blah blah blah i'm like okay a story love it got it good i i'm excited the takeaway from the story though is that you're an adrenaline junkie you talk about adrenaline rushing through your body the rush of energy and exhilaration so to me i tend to have students shy away from i want to be a doctor so that i can i could have this rush of energy every day a lot of medicine is super boring right it's exciting for you because you're a pre-med student you're like oh this is amazing right i remember those days yeah and obviously in in medicine you have those days as well but but for a student to rely on those which i i assume you're relying on those because it's in your personal statement you spent however many weeks and months crafting a personal statement and that's what you focus on that tells me that's what you're relying on okay and i i don't like that i shy away from that because i'm afraid that once you get into this it's not going to be as adrenaline-inducing experience that you're hoping for and you're not happy okay so stay away from the adrenaline stuff and then you get into oh i love russian adrenaline this is what i'm made for because i danced and here's where i said dance is the downfall because you were trying to tie everything to dance and i'm not sure why you did that can you explain that to me i think um i i feel like we always hear like you need something unique you need a unique background a unique story and like you know all pre-meds volunteer all pre-meds do clinical experiences so i was trying to kind of pull something that maybe not everyone has um and make it more interesting but backfired and yeah it happens every time right and i see this when you try to stand out in your personal statement that's where students typically fall flat on their face you stood out because you have dance here in your activity list right this is great i see i see dance as a big part of who you are but then to tie the adrenaline that you had dealing with mrs k or miss k to the the russian energy that you had with your dance performances just okay so right it doesn't it doesn't yeah it's just not logical in my mind too why do you want to be a doctor right i want to be a doctor right if you think about it what you're saying is i want to be a doctor because i had a rush of energy and exhilaration while i danced yeah it doesn't make any sense right and so yeah and that's just typically what happens right and and then what you basically did was here's a list of skills and traits that i think are important to medicine that are important to being a good physician and let me show you how i had those skills and traits as a dancer right so you're like oh i had to maintain composure of my teammates our physicians embraced problem solving and creativity to make decisions for her care the same skills needed to choreograph an intricate piece so you basically are like here's a skill that i know is necessary to be a doctor and i already have this skill because i danced and i choreographed dances yeah and that's just that's not the message that i need i need why do you want to be a doctor okay so i get to this point i'm like okay i'm not sure why you want to be a doctor yet i can see that you're exhilarated and you have adrenaline rush with some interactions and then you get into this your dance career progressing and taking care of emotional and physical well-being of your dancers and you have the story of someone who has this migraine she's got a test she's studying for and and i'm not sure why you're telling me this to this point and then i get to oh this is why you're telling me it you're trying to say hey look i'm basically a doctor already like i'm attuned to people's care i know what they need i'm ready for this right you should accept me like don't even accept me just give me the diploma already right and so i'm like oh right very common mistake of like i know what it's like to be a doctor i'm ready for this let me show you how i was in a situation that basically i'm already a doctor okay i want to know why do you want to be a doctor and you're focused on here's why i'm ready to be a doctor two very different focuses okay and then you have here although dance served a significant factor in my decision to become a physician right and then i have this big why why i still have no idea why you went down this path to explore health care i have no idea and that's such a big part of an application is i need to understand your journey i don't care that you think you're ready to be a doctor i don't think that you think you're amazing at listening to people and attune to their needs right that doesn't mean you should be a doctor all right i want to know why you want to be a doctor and i'm not there yet and and then you get to the earliest memory i have a medicine affecting my life was my mother's breast cancer battle and i'm like oh okay so there's some exposure to healthcare i want to understand that impact on your life okay if you read my book did you read my personal sigmund book i did yeah if you read my personal sigmund book your mother's breast cancer battle is likely potentially your seed yeah okay and you don't focus on that at all like i want to understand what got you to start thinking about health care in some way it sounds like your mother's breast cancer battle did and then i want to understand the the exposures and experiences that you had that continue to support that decision and and really confirm that decision in your mind all i know at this point is hey i'm a dancer therefore i have all the skills necessary to be a doctor oh yeah okay okay um and then the this last sentence here last few sentences even though i have only assisted the physicians i find myself taking personal responsibility for a patient's well-being right it's that same message of i'm ready to be a doctor i'm basically doing it now this obligation for the health of others has motivated me to fill in the gaps of my knowledge i like science right super cliche i frequently ask our physicians about their experience in applying diagnostic surgical and communication skills and help one day to use utilize them myself as a physician you're basically selling hey i'm super motivated to learn this i ask doctors questions okay great all right and so again i want to know why you want to be a doctor i have zero understanding of that right now you have the the mcat score your gpa is potentially borderline although you have a nice upward trend it looks like you have the experiences you have some good stories in your experience descriptions some selling parts in there too and then your personal statement destroys the whole application for me i have such trouble with the personal statement i thought it was bad last time the second time so read the book again i'll send you a copy of my new book the the pre-med playbook guide to the medical school application process which has maybe a couple different angles on a personal statement that may connect for you and then potentially seek out some some one-on-one advising for personal statement as well to to really get going um i i think i think the personal statement is is really the thing that's holding you back um and then you look at your school list and i thought your school list was great in terms of private public et cetera so you had lots of private schools on here which as someone applying public out-of-state schools just typically doesn't work and so good good list in terms of public private okay questions i guess like the reason like i read your book i get the seed and everything the story i know those are the big things but i think i was having trouble like because i wanted to start with the story like you know the attention grabbing but then i i think it was like the transitions maybe that like kind of transitioning to the seed but then i kind of feel like dance was my seed because then that's or one of them because that's when i became interested kind of in the human body but then that's i love science so then i don't i think that's why i had so much issues how old were you when your mom had her breast cancer battle well i was in it was 2008 i was like 10 years old which is why i have trouble writing you know because i i don't remember a lot of it because i was little um 10 years old you'll remember everything as a 10 year old i know maybe yeah so i don't know that's why i didn't know if i should focus a lot on it because i was like well i was 10 years old like i didn't really know what was going on you know yeah um so yeah i don't know so in in my mind what's missing is really the core of what i think a personal statement should be which is the the journey of exposure the seed okay and the watering events what you did on top of that i think right if i were to to just tell you what i think i think you read my book and you said all these personal statements are the same i'm gonna be different okay and that's a mistake all right yeah personal statements are going to be very very similar but they're going to be unique to you because they're your specific journey not every student applying to medical school was a 10 year old whose mom had breast cancer yeah not every student applying was exposed to the types of patients you were exposed to and the specific patients you were exposed to and had the specific reflections and take away an impact that those experiences had on you that's what makes a personal statement unique yeah it's your story where you try to kind of go off the rails was like well i'm going to be different right and you said it earlier when i was like why did you focus on dance you're like well it's different right is you focus on dance and you change the question of the personal statement from why do you want to be a doctor to show me why you're ready to be a doctor um do you think i should apply again right away like this cycle again i would because i i think in terms of so so there's two questions yes i think you should your your mcat is great you have this upward trend in your gpa you have the clinical experiences i think potentially you should try to shadow some more and you already have exposure through the clinic where you work right now if you're working full-time or part-time and if can you can you stay a little bit extra time or can you basically some of your time just say this is shadowing because i'm basically just standing around watching just subtract some hours and extract them out i think you can apply this cycle i don't think there's any huge drastic holes in your application that you need to work on other than the story which is just essay writing yeah the the caveat to that is well your gpa is a little bit lower should you take some more classes yeah that's where i'm kind of torn because i i mean i don't want to spend the money if i don't have to especially if i'm applying again and spending that um but i know my gpa is not great my my gut tells me that your gpa is good enough right i always talk about is it good enough i think it's gonna pass filters your mcat score definitely is strong i don't i don't think from an academic standpoint they're going to be a lot of questions okay so the question at the end of the day is going to be why why do you want to be a doctor and you haven't answered that and so it's it's hard right i could say go and apply this cycle you have the perfect personal statement and the gpa still prevents you and that's just the game of of applying to medical school unfortunately is you don't know what medical schools are looking for in terms of gpa you do have that upward trend i like that upward trend is that enough that's the question at the end of the day i think it is if you apply to enough schools in the right schools uh i think it's good enough to to get you where you need to go all right that's encouraging thank you dr gray you are welcome any other questions i don't think so no all right so well good luck keep us updated all right thank you so much

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 42,777

Keywords: med school, premed, pre med, pre-med, medical school, application renovation, medicalschoolhq, mcat, gpa, medical school app, application, apply, doctor, medical, rejected, not accepted, medical school rejection, activities, rejected from med school, premed gpa, rejection, med school application, medical school application, med school apps, rejections, amcas, personal statement, stats, premed stats, waitlist, 516 mcat, 516, med school personal statement, medical school personal statement

Id: ltDs5FCUEHg

Length: 28min 43sec (1723 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021