He Had to Take the MCAT 4 Times, But He Got Into Med School | Mission: Accepted S1 E1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ธ.ค. 2024
- We break down the full AMCAS application of a successful med school applicant, who overcame multiple Cs in organic chemistry, 3 MCAT retakes, a misdemeanor, and multiple application cycles before he got his acceptance to med school.
Mission: Accepted features successful med school applicants. We dive into their full applications, looking at specifically what worked well, along with what they could've done even better.
To apply to be featured on Mission: Accepted, fill out the application at MissionAccepted....
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Our student this week applied as a nontraditional student. He knew he wanted to be a doctor early on, but he kept postponing, took a gap year, and knew he still wasn't ready to apply.
He first applied during grad school. Then after an unsuccessful application cycle, he did a premed postbac in his hometown. Eventually he ended up getting accepted to medical school there!
We discuss things like:
• What it felt like to finally get accepted to medical school.
• What improved in his application between his unsuccessful and successful attempts.
• How better storytelling improved his application.
• Why he was considering quitting after this application cycle (if he didn't get in).
• How he dealt with a misdemeanor from a speeding ticket on his application.
• What led him to get quite a few Cs throughout college, including in o-chem (twice!).
• Why he took a premed postbac AFTER his public health graduate program.
• How he got a 4.0 GPA in his postbac program.
• What it was like discussing his GPA in interviews (3.23 sGPA, 3.58 cGPA).
• How I'd recommend discussing past bad grades in your med school essays.
• Why your MCAT score doesn't need to be perfect but merely "good enough"
• His biggest tip for improving your MCAT score.
• How he could've documented his "clinical research coordinator" position better to illustrate the shadowing side of it.
• His unusual choice of major for a premed student.
• How he blew a big opportunity at the beginning of his personal statement.
• My full critique of his personal statement-what he did well, and what he could've done better.
• How he prepared for virtual medical school interviews.
Overall, this student illustrates that you don't need to be a perfect premed. If you do the key things well enough, and if you tell your story well, you can absolutely get into medical school with a below-average MCAT and some Cs on your transcript!
He seems so kind and down to earth. So proud of him for making it through after all the hard work! He'll make a great physician one day.
Very refreshing to see a non stellar O chem'er accepted. Speaking as an old timer attending I personally never knew how Ochem made one a better clinician
@Khari Keith Will adding flixzone on their application aid in admission?
It doesn’t, its just a weed out course for pre-meds.
Congratulations! And glad to see the new "Mission: Accepted" series has begun!😎
YESSSS!!! The series we have all been waiting for! Thank you for these videos, Dr. Gray!!
dude i literally am strugglling with the same thing ochem nomenclature and all feels familiar then you block out the NMR, SN/E rxns and literally everything after the first midterm :( my final for ochem-1 is tomorrow prayers needed (i really need this semeter to end)
@Itachi Uchiha A side note. In my opinion, Organic chemistry as a 2nd language is great as an introduction to organic chemistry. However, personally based on my university curriculum, it is a bit to simple for later on into the class. I would be very cautious with the book and not rely on it too much especially as you get deeper into organic chemistry.
This was starting to feel like an episode of application renovation at points 😂
And this is why I get annoyed when people say only minorities get into med school with low stats.
Yeah, and he got into MD schools. Stats matters, but they're not everything.
EXACTLY. I'm a minority myself and I'm honestly happy for him. His resilience will make him a great doc but I just hate how a minority who were to get in would be ridiculed in the comments. The racism in the pre med community is why I fear the current racism in medicine will be hard to resolve in the coming years.
Yeah especially when they group Asians in there.
@@daveyjones3016 People say that because minorities tend to gain acceptances and have lower stats overall. Obviously, not all of them have lower stars, but the bar is set much lower for them to get in. White people and Asians have a higher standard to shoot for in general in terms of competition of GPA and MCAT since there’s more of them applying overall. Med schools see this and want to have a “diverse” set of applicants in terms of race. I personally think getting in should be based on qualifications regardless of race, but that’s just me.
ZTK “the bar is set much lower” lol no? But let’s not even get into that, let’s tackle the reason why minorities have lower stats in the first place. URM are often the ones who have a disadvantaged background, are in a lower socioeconomic class, and because of that, there are a lot of barriers for them in general. The reason they even want to know about disadvantaged status and socioeconomic class is to be able to take things like access and opportunity into account - someone who was first generation, juggling two jobs in college, and dealing with a myriad of other things (e.g. racism? Classism? Looking on the news to constantly see ways in which their community is being denied basic human rights) and got a 3.5 and a 508 may be a tad more impressive than someone who isn’t necessarily rich, but didn’t have to deal with any of those issues, worked a part time job while in college and could use that income as spending money, and had no problem paying for MCAT resources and taking the summer off to study for it because they don’t need to contribute to their household. And then on top of that is the fact that it’s not only about stats (evidenced in this video) - with experiences like that you actually have a story to tell, and it’s easy for adcoms to see how you deal with adversity, and can adapt to tough situations. So maybe let go of that narrow view a little bit and understand that “qualifications” are not just stats, they are the whole picture, they are what you will do as a doctor and how that is evidenced through what you’ve already done, and how well you tell your story. Leave alone the fact that lots of schools have ~30 spots for URMs and 100+ for ORMs anyway - even if the same amount of ORMs with the same stats as URMs were admitted, their average won’t be the same because there are so many more of them. Sorry for how long this was, but it’s important to see admissions a little more broadly - unless you’re buying your way into medical school, you deserve to be there
Ochem is the reason I'm applying to a master's program first 😫😂 I love orgo, but I hate that I don't understand mechanisms. But no way I'm giving up even at 35 years old(super nontraditional) glad he didn't give up either! I'm wondering if there's a video on graduate personal statements
I'm 34, we got this???
Wow amazing persistence! Never any shame in waiting until ready.
Oh my god the exact same thing happened to me! I applied two cycles and never got an interview but I finally got an interview this cycle. : )
Hope you got the A
I got a B in Ochem II but most of my prerequisites are As. Unfortunately my degree is chemical engineering so the rest of my GPA is a little lower than average for matriculants.
I respect this student,s drive, work ethic, and dedication. He earned his place in medical school. He will do well.
I am very happy for this student.
15:40 what’s the deal with not having a plan B? Is that from your book? I have an idea of getting undergrad in IT and minor in biochem to knock out all of my science. Wondering why that might be a bad plan
Great job! Keep working hard, and you will be a great Doc!!!
I needed this today! Thank you! I was just about to give on myself.
This is awesome. Congrats to him.
I have a misdemeanor for driving without a license on my person (I did have one at the time but it was at home). I reported it both times I applied and no one asked about it in interviews.
I'm happy. Though forgetting your license isn't good, they were forgiving since you didn't hurt anyone and were not reckless. They care about violations that reflect a lack of basic moral values (e.g., lack of respect for human dignity, hurting others recklessly/intentionally, being dishonest), which yours wasn't. On top of that, you learned from it and didn't repeat the mistake.
I came here because I have an o chem final tomorrow. I don't want to go to medical school though
Was looking forward to this series. Great video!! Congrats!!
What if a poor starting GPA is due to mental health issues? How would you discuss that in your application? Would that be a red flag?
I've heard that mental health shouldn't be discussed too much
Yeah probably shouldn’t say much about mental health because they’d probably think that you would break during med school
@@kparm23 same.
same dude like i am so discouraged because when i was struggling i did not really care or think about shit but now that things are better my gpa is demotivating me and i feel like i won't make it :( thing is i worked really hard to get better mentally and physically and think that mentioning it would not be such a bad thing if you use it to talk about what it taught you and your resilience instead of an excuse (sorry i totally know it is not an excuse but that is how they might see it, unfortunately) for not trying
Can you do an update with this student to have reflection???
Excellent video.
Thanks for this vid. Quite inspiring for those who have a nonlinear path to medicine
Hi Dr. Gray! Saw that this podcast guest had all of their LoRs from MDs... Do you think the background of the letter writer matters or not so much? I know DO schools usually ask for at least 1 DO letter. It's not impossible to achieve at least 1 DO/MD LoR but I was curious if you thought them having all 3 from MDs might have had any impact on their interview offer?
congratulations!! Love this series!
I already love this series. Keep it up!
New series! 😄
I'm excited too! #SimTribe
You’re the man, Zach 🙌🏿
What was his MCAT score?
Dr. Gray do you review applications before they are submitted?
Congrats! I have a similar story so I appreciate your hard work! Best of luck!
Looking for comments about his low stats.... He got into medical school and is not URM....go figure
Can a student recover from failing Anatomy?
Congrats! This is awesome! Proves that keeping your eye on the prize matters. #SimTribe
Why do so many premeds go to graduate school before medical school?
Way more than they should
Yo wth this is basically me minus that postbac
Can scribing be done remotly?
Mhm
That would literally defeat the purpose of scribing to begin with and wouldn’t look good on your application.
funny how there are no URM comments here, despite that one nigerian with a 505 and better gpa. its hilarious
Why would anyone listen to this guy? Without this gig, he would be on skid row.
ez clap
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