I volunteer at the psychiatrist department today and the environment is depressing and it’s quite hard to keep the convo going for most patients and idk if they meant it but some of the things they said are kinda racist… for example, a guy said I look like bruce lee but idk if he was trying to be racist bc he then talk about how bruce is the most admirable person bluh bluh… he look up to him… the 3 hrs of volunteer today is super draining mentally…

It's been radio silence since I completed secondaries in August. Lo and behold my phone rang today while I was at lunch. I picked up and the interim surgeon general was on the line. She said that I was actually banned from all medical schools because my application was so mid...

I knew my application was ass, but I definitely didn't think it was mid... I'm gutted honestly. What makes it worse is a patient walked in on me crying in the bathroom and said, "boy, I hope you're not a doctor."

Anyway, good luck with the cycle y'all...

Nearly 10 years ago I started college at UH and had the most embarrassing performance of my academic career. 4 Fs because 18 year old wasn’t ready for college and couldn’t commit to anything. Today they reached out for an interview. I’m terrified now. Never had that kind of format for an interview and it’s virtual which I haven’t experienced yet. Theirs is an MMI and a collaboration exercise. Any words of encouragement and tips for this?

I got two interviews so far, one MD (MMI) and one DO (trad) and I bombed both. Already got the rejection from the MD, still waiting for DO in 4 weeks.

I hate myself

I'm applying this cycle and submitted applications to 8 MD schools. So far, I've received absolutely zero interview invites, but I also haven't received any rejections. It's basically been complete radio silence since submitting my secondaries, aside from a few generic monthly updates from a couple of schools.

I'm honestly starting to freak out, and I have no idea what to do at this point. It's taking everything in me not to reach out to these schools or send a letter of intent because I've heard that doing so before receiving an interview invite is frowned upon.

Does the fact that I haven't received any rejections or interview invites actually mean anything for me? Is it a good sign that I'm still technically under consideration, or am I just being delusional?

At this point, the radio silence is honestly worse than getting rejected. I know admissions committees have thousands of applications to review, but sometimes it genuinely feels like they're purposefully torturing me with the silence. I just want to hear anything.

If I'm going to get rejected, I'd almost rather know now so I can start preparing to retake the MCAT, work on improving my application, and get ready for the next cycle instead of constantly checking my email and hoping for an interview invite.

I saw online that by the end of October around half of the interview invitations get sent out and it is still technically early for the cycle but it's getting increasingly difficult to stay optimistic when there's been absolutely no movement.

Is anyone else in the same situation? I'd also really appreciate advice from current medical students or previous applicants who went through something similar.

I'm trying to stay hopeful, but this waiting game is genuinely exhausting.

Hi, I was hoping for advice. Right now I am studying for the MCAT and I absolutely hate it. It makes me miserable and so unreasonably stressed. I was wondering if this means I’m not cut out to be a doctor. I want to match into something like primary care or psych. Im not sure if med school is a horrible decision for me since the MCAT is only the start.

I’d love to hear specifically from those already in med school what their thoughts are

Edit: thanks so much for the encouragement everyone!!

As a reapplicant who just got their first R of the cycle, I realize that this statement is in the responses of pretty much every med school. I think I remember once reading a story on here about a person who reapplied after asking a school that rejected them why they didn't get in and then supposedly they were accepted by that school and told by the dean of admissions that the dean personally saw their application and that they had acted upon their feedback which is why they got in. Did this story inspire possibly hundreds applicants to all ask for feedback on their applications, or has this always been the norm? For current doctors/med students, did you ever ask for any feedback on your rejected application?

I understand why schools can't offer individual feedback, because then potentially thousands of people want to know what went wrong. But it would be interesting if they just offered it like 'there's some comments on your portal if you want to check out what factors played a role in your final admissions decision or something like that.' The downsides of this are potentially people feeling unnecessarily worse about their application when the perspective one school/adcom might not be representative of another school's view, it could add a bit more work to the adcoms' job, there could be some applicants who argue against it ("you misunderstood the point of my research though reconsider please" or something silly like that lol, this one is probably unlikely but it might be possible), and there's probably a few more reasons I haven't listed here. But it would be nice to know what happened, especially for someone who might have to reapply or for some closure. Perhaps it could be emailed at the end of the cycle so that it is detached from the cycle. I also understand that sometimes the reason could be simple like 'lower MCAT for our school and nothing super impressive' or 'okay applicant all around, just nothing that interested us really' because there's so many good applicants, but even that would be fine.

i think it's a very common tendency for premeds to take every opportunity they can get; whether it be an extra volunteering program, research, or job that they can add to their application and squeeze into their schedule. lest another ambitious person take the opportunity before them.

i don't know if this is just me, but whenever i see something fun like a concert or a travel opportunity, i don't even consider it. not because i don't want to do it, but i automatically assume that i can't. after a brief moment of moping, i immediately think that i'll probably be able to do it in the future, maybe when i'm a doctor.

the premed process is so incredibly grueling and difficult for the vast majority of people. the way many of us cope with this is repeating the mantra of delayed gratification. if we work hard now and allow ourselves to be ground by the premed process into a palatable fine red paste, the fun will greet us with open arms on the other side

on a broader scale, i think that many young people have been disillusioned by the sentiment of delayed gratification as well, not just premeds. people used to be able to afford houses on a minimum wage salary and now people can barely rent on two jobs and a side hustle. maybe it's because i'm very online, but the future seems really bleak (though there are amazing people who are trying to change it for the better, and i hope to be one of them).

all of this to say that i'm done delaying all the gratification that i come across. i'm working towards a moment in time where i'll be a doctor. i'll hold someone's hand through the uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis and be their rock through treatment. how amazing and fulfilling that moment will be, how hard i will have worked to be able to get there... but that doesn't mean i should continually deprive myself of fulfilling moments between now and then.

anyways, all of this is to justify going on a chocolate chip cookie crawl in nyc and saving money to book a flight to thailand. maybe while i'm at it, i'll go to an anime convention and a concert for a big artist. then i'll go to an ice cream making workshop and visit japan. it took me way too long to realize i have so much life to live between premed and physician

tl;dr we gotta live a little as premeds

it was stanford, so it doesn’t sting that bad. but it was still the first one so…gimme a minute 🤧

I'm not a talker and I haven't talked to anyone in years other than my doctor who is treating me for bipolar.

I did some interview practices with chatgpt and I don't think I'm an eloquent person.

I watch YouTube videos of students who got into medicine and I'm really amazed at how smooth they talk and come up with things to talk about.

Is there any hope for me?

I've kinda had the idea that I'll figure out what specialty to pursue in medical school. But before then, my idea of a doctor was kinda just family med/internal med. I also think emergency is pretty cool. But honestly, I'm not sure if I want to spend like several years past a 3 or 4 year residency trying to pursue a different specialty. I've heard that internal med and emergency med are not super competitive, and honestly the idea of just chilling through med school and then doing a short residency sounds pretty cool.

I do have a few research interests I might want to pursue, but otherwise I'm not sure if I wanna be doing a million things in med school to be able to match in neurosurgery or something. On the other hand, I like having my options open. I'm guess im curious about what mindset is the best to have when entering into med school.

Found this on SDN

I am also a second year and I only have 30 hours shadowing for one specialty, 0 clinical hours, 0 research, 35 hours volunteering 💀 how do people accumulate so much hours in one year? Second year of college just started and I remember my first year being stuck on campus with no way of getting out to do these sort of opportunities. All the hours I have were racked during summer and even then, I couldn’t get a clinical job so I had to work as a dishwasher

I think I was slightly off topic for many questions and for the other they are hard to answer😭 for instance when they ask me what would be factors when I’m choosing medical school I started with meeting patient early on etc. and then I was off topic to “why this school”

Hey everyone, I just started a post bacc (I graduated 2 years ago with a 3.77 so it’s not necessarily for GPA repair but just because I didn’t do some classes in undergrad because I wasn’t sure of medical school yet).

Unfortunately, less than a week after the drop deadline my alternative caregiving arrangement for my grandmother who I take care of fell through; attending classes is an all day ordeal since I have to take two buses and I can’t leave her alone all day for 3 days a week.
I’ve tried to arrange something else for the last couple weeks since I didn’t want to lose the money I spent on the courses but it hasn’t worked out. A family member said that they’re willing to move to help me but they can’t move until next semester due to their job.

Is it bad if I have two Ws on my transcript from this or should I risk basically getting B- at best since attendance is mandatory? I have 5 Is and a W from college (two different semesters where I had medical issues that have since completely resolved themselves) already so I was hoping my post bacc transcript would look cleaner.

I hope to attend a T20 since I got a 527 MCAT and have good ECs otherwise but is that a possibility with this transcript?

has anyone with like high gpa (3.8+) and low MCAT (508-509), absolutely bombed their interview, ate on their secondaries, and then someone gotten in? By bombed I mean rambling and not articulating thoughts clearly but still coming off as grateful kind and smart just nervous

How much per year would yall consider to be relatively cheap for med school tuition?

any tips on the narrative process? by narrative, i mean finding your story when writing your essays

Wayne State just sent out a ton of As and I didn’t receive an email, should I assume no more are going out today? 🥲

Title.

I thought my hours were okay, I’m planning on no gap years, applying as a traditional student

I feel like I could get my volunteering up pretty quickly from now to may when apps open, and ofc continue my research position, shadowing, but I keep seeing posts on here that say that these hours are pretty underwhelming and theres a chance these extracurriculars are not enough

Im planning on applying to both MD/DO mostly because I’m not interested in competitive specialties multiple reasons that i dont need to divulge in

Could I get some opinions?

My interview was extremely informal. I knew it was going to be conversational but basically the woman was playing solitaire before we started lol and then I walked in and she wanted to talk a lot about our shared interest of tennis (i played in college) and we talked about so much random stuff like ...what are my fav tennis shoes or which books i am reading now, and i think i am very bubbly and personable so we laughed a lot and conversation flowed easily but the whole time i am like... is she gonna ask me why i want to be a physician??

I wanted to leave the impression on my interviewer that i will make a good doctor because of so and so but I felt like it was more like i left the impression of being a nice person to talk to (she said at the end "this was very fun and enjoyable")

anyways, am i being neurotic ?! they better not fucking waitlist me bc the whole interview seemed more like a vibe check

I’m sure this question has been asked a billion times. I interviewed early with two schools and heard nothing back even though they sent out acceptances recently.

Does this mean I’m screwed? I’m high stat, decent clinical hours, decent research, decent story, and practice interview feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

Is it possible to get accepted if they already passed over my app once? I feel hopeless.