What's Holding Back This Premed With Great Stats? | Application Renovation (S2 E5)

if you are unsure as to why you want to be a physician or maybe you know why you want to be a physician but you just can't articulate it properly without help pushing you in the right direction then medical schools are going to be very shy at accepting you because burnout is real and it is an issue in medical school and beyond application renovation season 2 episode 5 thank you for joining me today thank you I'm excited to talk with you about your application you have a unique application very similar one we had in season one that got a lot of traction so and and really helped a lot of people understand some of these nuances so I'm hoping that we can help a lot of students as well so before we dive into your application and really take a look at it I think you've had some success with the application cycle just in terms of getting some traction getting some interviews is that correct yes I've had a total of four interviews so far okay a couple of school great let's talk about where do you think your application falls down either from a lack of more interviews or post interview if you think your application is hurting you or if maybe there's some interview issues you know maybe there's a little bit of both I think looking back at myself just starting off the bat when I look through my list of schools that I applied to if it goes way over ambitious and I think as far as the secondary ops go I applied to a total of 30 schools and I'm sure a lot of pre-meds can relate to this but when the rush of secondary apps started coming and I started getting really overwhelmed I think I can only find three schools when I counted it was 33 yeah so I just couldn't find time for myself to get enough feedback from people on individual secondary applications I did have a couple written up you have to stir a common question but I didn't get somebody to look over it they're always so okay did you use second-year apps calm at all for the prewriting or no I did not I think I just might have just looked at a website and saw like okay here like the 12 most common questions and I kind of wrap off of those alrighty all right so lots of schools that you applied to and then what about just your general primary application do you think you have any weakness is there or do you think that's pretty solid um I think well here's the thing I my MCAT score I think I might have taken it twice to get the score I wanted other than that I don't think my GPA I'm cut our too much of a concern to be honest maybe my personal statement okay might be an issue just because I've only had really had like two people thoroughly read it over and give me feedback on it okay so make it back at the another factor who are those two people one person was someone I kept around from college was I when I was applying for undergrad and then Heather yeah she's actually in basement right now of my house no I'm kidding and then the other person was a friend of a co-worker of mine okay so all right all right well with that information let's go ahead and walk through your application and see if we can highlight anything and see if we can figure some stuff out okay all right so as I'm looking at your application here the first thing that I see you applied day one right application opened up May 31st 2019 you submitted May 31st 2019 so good job with that apply early is great I actually don't necessarily recommend applying day of because the MCATs in the past has had some issues where throws people off on that first day looking through you speak several languages which is always something that schools potentially may look at so that's great no big red flags institutional action-wise misdemeanor felony so that's great first class a - obviously that's a red flag just kidding so your your GPA z' be plusses no huge red flags their science GPA 375 overall three eight one great GPA and then as we bring in your MCAT score as you said it you took the MCAT three times 5/12 515 517 so I want to pause right there because a lot of students are gonna look at this and go wait you retook a 512 like why why did you do that wait wait Yury took a 515 why did you do that so that I want to hear good at the thought process behind why you were really shooting for the stars with that MCAT score well upon first glance I think that overall score does look great I will agree with you on that but then when I looked at the distribution of the scores I think that 124 on the car section the first time I took it what was personally really concerning for me and considering you know I really wanted to go for you know one of the top schools MD schools which looking back at that you know you can also be a bit ambitious well I just thought it maybe it would be the best to maybe take another year off and see if I could read take the MCAT and do a lot better on my car section they even have the distribution of my MCAT score okay and so I'm assuming looking at that second test so 124 obviously is there and a lot of students have that question right I have a really solid overall score but I got a 124 I got a 125 and all my other ones are 130 is that going to be concerned and I would say for for 99% of students for most schools it's not a concern at all you went up to a 125 and so probably it's the same thought process like I didn't improve it enough let me do more and then you crushed it the next time right up to a 128 so great job with that for most students I would say retaking it definitely not something that most students need to do should do and if you look kind of statistically you you're in the rare bucket of being able to improve a score that that we already started off so high so that's good and we'll talk at the end a little bit more about your ambitions and the kind of the thought process behind it I'm definitely not against having super high ambitions i but I think a lot of times they're they're misplaced ambitions so we can talk a little bit about that at the end and then we get into the experience list so we have research right off the bat something that you're doing kind of actively which is great you did a good job of putting stuff out into the future which a lot of students forget to do or don't think they can do so you did that which is great you have a little bit of a sales pitch here right off the bat it's like I diligently conducted mouse neurobehavioral experiments right this isn't to be super like I am a hard worker I'm diligent I'm compassionate and I'm hard-working bla bla bla bla bla it's just that type of language is just a turn-off for a lot of people just more like telling it as it is that tell it as it is right one of the favorite things that I like to do when it comes to research talking about story is tell me tell me about a time you screwed up like oh this is one time like I screwed up this reactant and it we like it push back our study like two weeks and here's what I learned about it it's just a fun little story everyone messes up research is really hard to tell a story because it's not a lot of interaction with other people to really have those stories to build upon but telling a story potentially in that way like oh it's one time the mouse bit me on the finger and I dropped it and ran away and it took us three hours to get it right that's a fun little story that that I think a lot of people could potentially resonate with right and students watching this they'll see that I have highlighted here hours so you have a lot of hours from 2018 to 2020 the 1300 hours as a research assistant a thousand hours from 8:28 twenty twenty six hundred hours project intern from eighteen to twenty nineteen hundred hours from eighteen to twenty as a medical scribe physician shadowing 1200 hours from eighteen to twenty and when I do the math I'm looking at fifty eight hours a week with all of those activities and that's a lot of hours per week and maybe that's realistic but I just want to make sure that students understand that the math is very easy to calculate and schools will work out that math to make sure that you're not fluffing up your numbers to make them look good so if this is all you're doing and I think looking at when you graduate at school was was right around that same time when all of your hours started bumping up and so it makes sense right if you're not in school anymore then you do have that bandwidth so I'm sure for you that those are real hours I just wanted to point it out because they are big numbers you know something about the the end state would it be appropriate here to set it as you know June 2024 that's what you're expecting cheese yeah that's everything off yep a thousand percent am cast specifically in their instruction manual says go if this is something you're expecting to do go and tell the expected start date right expected matriculation of medical school and a lot of times that's like August of 2020 and that a lot of students will put and it's not like oh my god like I I can't I can't I can't stop doing this because I put on my application that I'm expected to do this like things change jobs change whatever happens you're not like locking yourself into these things putting them out that far but I think students really need to just make sure they're being realistic with their hours they're being realistic with really what they are planning on doing and and don't get caught in in some lies which has happened before unfortunately all right back to the application so you have researched there 1300 hours of tons of research you have tutoring thousand hours I marked here like tell a story one of the favorite things that I love with tutors with TAS with telling a story is tell me the story of a student who really struggled write the most memorable student that you worked with that they just struggled and struggled and struggled and you had to really work hard tell that story that shows a lot more than you seen confidence grow in both your students and yourself right that's just a very generic thing to see and read tell me the story about little little Timmy and how you were able to help him overcome his his struggles and he aced his SATs right you were our medical scribe which is great good clinical experience again storytelling is one of the biggest parts of the application that I think students miss they go okay I'm gonna break that I was a scribe and then I'm gonna just write all my job duties and this is very similar to what you did right starting off I compiled with precision write going back to diligently with precision all right seems a little corny when I say it like that right but it is it's corny I know you say I work looking back at myself but it's like everyone knows when a scribe is right exactly right I recorded their history of present illness physical exam right of course right that's what a scribe does and so again the descriptions you're at the end of the day when you write like that yeah it's it's corny it's silly its generic but at the end of the day what's the opportunity that you're missing out on is the opportunity to show who you are okay and not not from a standpoint of look how hard-working I am look at how amazing I am but just the experience that you had and how it was impactful for you all right physician shadowing tons of hours so from a Clint from clinical experience standpoint you're you're doing great your scribing you're getting research your your your quote-unquote checking all the boxes hopefully proving to yourself that this is what you want you haven't done a good job of really showing me why this is what you want yet through the descriptions but hopefully your personal statement does that and we'll get to that in a minute okay cope health scholars a great experience I've been talking with them lately they're a good good organization student advisor so all of these experiences non-medical medical lots of great experiences that really show me that you really understand kind of who you are as a person you have you obviously getting lots of experiences hopefully a great communicator as a tutor all of these things right you are the director of communications that tells me hey obviously hopefully you can communicate diligently all right and then we get to the personal statement which is something that you had brought up is potentially a concern maybe a weakness in your application and I would agree right I don't think there's a lot of personal statements that come across that I'm like that was an amazing personal statement that's not the issue so we get to your personal statement and right off the bat we get into a story which is good right you say make it a little bit bigger here on July 4 2012 there were fireworks going off in a room 63 45 of the burn ICU at UC Irvine Medical Center yes on the 4th of July out of all places that could have spent the holiday there I was playing an array of colorful cords and an explosion of emotions you got way too fancy and I have no idea what I just read I read that like three or four times last night I was preparing for this call today and I'm like fireworks going off in the burn ICU I'm like what like what does that mean are are you talking about like is a patient crashing or their literal literal fireworks going off because it's July 4th and somebody crazy brought in like sparklers who's doing something in a burn unit and and so you're saying that you're playing an array of color for core which a lot of people might not understand what that means colorful colorful is hard to say colorful cords obviously playing music of some sort okay an explosion of emotions are those the fireworks the explosion of emotions so in my mind is just too creative to like too many questions that I'm left with and remember the goal of the personal statement is why do you want to be a doctor so I'm left with well why are you telling me this right right off the bat why am i reading this you get to junior high school you traveled floor-to-floor across different nice to use and play the piano in hallways great so obviously you're starting from a young age you're in the hospital my question is why why are you in the hospital to begin with you leave with the the kind of takeaway from that first paragraph is it made me feel more patriotic than I've ever felt on any 4th of July okay the goal of this is to tell me why you want to be a physician not that your god Bless America here right so right off the bat kind of first paragraph I'm confused as to why I'm reading this okay you continue on here to my pleasant surprise as I finished the piece so you're continuing the same story and a lot of times with personal statements if I have to kind of jump to the next paragraph to continue a story I'm gonna get lost pretty easily I remember that people reviewing this are reviewing things pretty quickly because they have a lot of applications to read and the more that you can kind of like just segment the parts of the app the the personal statements to say here's one story here's another story here's another not here's a long couple paragraphs of one story where I have to keep track of things in my head it might make it a little bit better and that might be just a personal choice for me because I'm a terrible reader but uh that's just how I look at the application so you say you looked up you saw the patient's eyes filled with the green light of the end of the doc I have no idea what that means can you explain what that means to me this actually suggested to me by one of my people that lent my personal statement so originally how I had it written was I looked up and saw the patient's eyes filled with tears yeah this person wanted me to change it to the green light at the end of the doc what the heck does green light at the end of the doc mean I think she was trying to make a reference to the way she explained it in the Great Gatsby where the main character looks over the end of the yeah water and see the green light at the end of the dock yeah terrible decision number one I've never read The Great Gatsby number two a lot of people reading this probably haven't read The Great Gatsby unless it was like required reading in elementary school or middle school or high school whenever that was it's it's too creative and this is a very common mistake where where students are taking too much feedback from other people you have to tell your story not like you should change this word because I think it's gonna be better right I have no idea what this means I'm completely lost and even with the if her eyes are filled with tears I understand that now I can understand okay she was obviously emotional I'm still left with the question of why is that important to me why is that important to you right why do you want to be a doctor that's the goal of the personal statement okay and so you have this conversation with the patient and who she is the you get to the end and you said I have always wished there was more I could have provided this patient so good reflection there right it shows me the the interest in the continuation of wanting to do more for the patient so that was good that you got to that point it just took a long time they get there and I was confused most of the way okay and then she died mmm we've had a lot of a lot of death themes in in the previous episodes and then you get into the next paragraph here of you're in the lab studying psychology and relationship health so again why do you want to be a physician is the goal of this essay talking about being in a psychology and relationship health lab seem like it's an appropriate thing to talk about in a personal statement you talked about several couples sitting and each partner set still in a room filled with warm cookies right I think of psychology and relationship health lab I'm like is this like where people go and they make love in front of like a psychologist to see if they're doing it right you're talking about warm cookies I'm like what kind of weird stuffs going on here anyway so you you tell this example that you would convene the partners and process heart rate data so a very common thing that students like to do is talk generally which is what you're doing here generally I would reconvene the partners in process versus you can't say generally i sat Sally and Tom down to talk with them right the more specific of a story that you can tell the more impactful it will be and the better I will connect with it just like you told the story of this one 75 year old patient right you got to the end of this and your reflection for this story and again I don't I don't think this story really belongs in your personal statement cuz it's not really healthcare related and and the reflection kind of strengthens that that kind of thought is the reflection is it is here where I realized that what draws me towards medicine is the ability to use this knowledge of emotion and engage with patients as first and foremost fellow human beings and so you're saying right if I were to paraphrase that you're saying I want to be a physician because I have this knowledge that I need emotions to connect with humans right it's almost like the AI that finally realized in the robot how to interact with a human like oh I get it now I can be one of them all right so so it doesn't tell me anything about why you want to be a physician it's a very generic statement and kind of a weird statement that's like I know how to end act with human beings therefore I should be a physician okay you got that okay you get into being a medical scribe and and just be careful here it's a little confusing this first line here says in my current position as a medical scribe eyeshadow doctor whatever right well are you scribing or are you shadowing it so just be careful with that communication there obviously as a scribe you are shadowing as your scribing kind of but it's just a little confusing to read quickly and then you did it what it is very common for students to do when they're lacking very significantly significant clinical experience themselves is you talk about the physician and you you put the physician up on the pedestal they call that physician is amazing so you say she listened to him validated his concerns assured him that everything would be okay they exchanged laughed and talked about luxury cars she counseled him right so you're talking about the physician and how you experience that physician the goal of this is why do you want to be a physician you why do you want to be a physician not that you think this physician your scribing for is amazing okay this needs to be on you and your experiences hopefully interacting with those patients and and having a takeaway and then again a very kind of generic reflection physicians are not simply technicians they bring the full spectrum of their human capabilities to the compassionate care of others all right true statement I'll give you that again doesn't help me understand why you want to be a physician got it and then the next census humans a human connection is unique to medicine is it really I think human connection is unique to be in human all right every relationship and friendship and so so you you have this theme as I'm kind of pulling back and and reading this again for this second time your theme in your personal statement is personal statement is is human connection right you talk about it maybe that's why you focused on the the the psychology lab is is that's where you first brought in this human connection through emotion and engaging with patients that's human connection and then in the next paragraph talking about this physician human connection right that this full spectrum of human capabilities for compassion and care again the human connection and then the next paragraph human connection is unique to medicine so that's your theme I don't know why potentially you focused on it I don't know if you really tried to focus on it but that is what you focused on and again you understanding that human connection is what you think is important to being a physician is not the goal of the personal statement this doesn't help me understand why you want to be a physician and again I would disagree that human connection is unique to medicine at all so so I would agree after reading this personal statement I think you got interview invites in spite of your personal statement or despite of your personal statement I think somebody read your personal statement and probably scratched their head going I'm really not sure why you want to be a physician let me go look at your secondary essays and hopefully they'll they'll give me a little bit more context into who you are obviously a stellar student right grades are great and that's that helps you get four interviews I would say that your personal statement potentially hurt you from getting more interviews right having a 3 7 + GPA 5 17 MCAT score should have opened up a lot of doors for you and so your personal statement potentially hurt and then where I'm more concerned about is your interview and the question about why do you want to be a physician and if you're kind of rambling around a lot of the same themes that you have in your personal statement that's probably where you fell flat as well because at the end of the day and I get pushback from students all the time on you to YouTube comments are so the worst by the way but anyway I love you is is like like great stats will overcome everything and it's just not true if you are unsure as to why you want to be a physician or maybe you know why you want to be a physician but you just can't articulate it properly without help pushing you in the right direction then medical schools are going to be very shy at accepting you because burnout is real and it is an issue in medical school and Beyond and they don't want a student coming in who has amazing stats but has no clue why they're there because that student will burn out faster than everyone else does that make sense so with that said again I get to the end of your personal statement and I'm still like what I don't understand why you want to be a doctor and then we get to the school lists super super aggressive school lists but you have very stellar stats to support all of the schools that you apply to way too many schools in my mind again you kind of alluded to that especially if you aren't pre writing your secondaries which is why I have the whole secondary essay database at secondary apps calm so that once you submit your primary you can go to the secondary apps see what essays are there for all the schools pre write them and hopefully turn them in as fast as possible with that said what questions do you have how many would you recommend personally just looking at if I were to spruce up charter do this again and you know work at my personal statement a little bit more somebody would you person work about you their schools to plan in my mind's any more than 20 or 25 is is probably pushing it a lot of a lot of people may say look with your stats you only need to apply to five or ten and and I don't think that's true either because every schools looking for something a little bit different right so on your school list if I look here just to ferm you do right you have UC Riverside on your school list using riverfront Riverside based on who you are probably isn't a good match for you because they are looking for a very specific student who who knows the Inland Empire who wants to work in the Inland Empire and it has that exposure and it doesn't look like potentially you have that and maybe you do but that's just an example of like if you apply to ten schools eight of them might be wrong mission fit for you and they may be may be able to see that through your application and won't invite you for an interview right I've had conversations with with people at UC Riverside which is why I picked them because a lot of times they won't interview the five seventeen medical student or pre-med student because they know that a five seventeen medical student unless they have very specific ties to the Inland Empire with their mission probably isn't gonna want to go there right so they it's a lot more and this is why I do what I do and harp on this all the time it's a lot more than stats and so if if you find 15 schools that you're like this is great mission fit for me based on Who I am and what I've done and then they can see that then great apply to fifteen schools if you're struggling to find great fit based on what you've done and who you are and what you want then maybe you need to apply to a few more to just spread out that that joy a little bit more thank you and then as far as the letter of recommendations go yeah since I have been out of school for a little bit now would you say it's it would be wise to go back to my science professors and ask them to yes so you believe in out of school now since 2018 looking at your application yeah so most schools are still gonna want those letters from professors because it's only been a couple years so I would maintain contact reach out to them when you're ready to apply it again apply again reach out now even if you're not going to apply this next cycle and just maintain contact to say hey thank you so much for helping me with my last application cycle unfortunately things aren't going very well or or things have gone great I've gotten four interviews but I haven't gotten any acceptances yet there may be a chance I need to reapply I would love to stay in contact with you throughout the year or whatever and update you on what's going on and hopefully get another letter an updated letter from you in the future and see what they say okay and then just sorry just one more last question thank you so much for your help by the way is for the secondary applications as far as getting feedback would you say that I should try to get feedback for every single secondary application that I I send out to schools or do you think rather I can try and write up a bunch of secondary responses and have those sent out for feedback I think in my heart of heart almost everything should be reviewed and that doesn't mean like go hire a professional company to give you feedback but have someone who potentially understands who you are and and the potentially the stories that you're trying to tell and and really just look at it from the standpoint because one of the biggest mistakes is students don't really answer the question and and so really have them look at it from the standpoint of number one are you answering the question and number two is it really getting across who you are as a person and potentially why you fit with that school because that's a very common question that comes into it now with that said after you get through five or ten secondary essays from schools write five or ten schools secondary prompts a lot of it is repetitive so just use your own judgment too as to whether or not you want feedback on this like this is the same essay I wrote for this school I don't need feedback on it and and just makes your triple check that you're not copying and pasting school names into other schools secondaries thank you so much you're welcome so hopefully again that one of the things I was hoping with this application when I saw it come across it was like wow great stats the story is what's missing and and I really want to get across to students who are completing their shirt yeah your story matters students who are going on to student doctor network or reddit or my pre-med hang out and seeing feedback from students saying I had a 519 a 520 M Canada 3 9 GPA I didn't get into medical school and students freak out students who have 3 4 GPAs and and 508 MCAT scores they freaked out going well that student couldn't get in how I going to get in well you get in if you understand your story and you can tell it appropriately in your application and so I think you obviously have a ton of experience you're doing amazing things it's just a matter of telling that story appropriately so that next time someone reads your essays and and you you obviously got interviews but on the interview trail as well I'm assuming you you probably didn't do as great of a job telling your story there as well and you use lots of fun words like diligently and and other stuff like that to really to really hone in on who you are as a person so hopefully this will set you up for success in the future I wish you the best of luck and please keep me updated on your journey thanks a lot for your home yeah

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 139,913

Keywords: med school application, medical school application, application renovation, premed, pre-med, pre med, premed student, premed advice, premed tips, amcas, amcas application, med school application review, medical school application review, 517 mcat, 3.8 gpa, 3.81 gpa, 512 mcat, 515 mcat, 3.75 science gpa, gpa, mcat, medical school hq, medical school headquarters, medicalschoolhq, ryan gray, med school, medical school, med school admissions, medical school admissions, advising, tips

Id: ARhlviKdexg

Length: 34min 55sec (2095 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 31 2020