Why Didn’t I Get Any Med School Acceptances This Cycle?

Session 125

Today, I walked a student through her application to see why she hasn’t gotten any med school invites. We also talked about shadowing parents, essays, and more!

Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.

By the way, the episodes in this podcast are recordings of our Facebook Live that we do at 3pm Eastern on most weekdays. Check out our Facebook page and like the page to be notified. Also, listen to our other podcasts on MedEd Media. If you have any questions, call me at 617-410-6747.

[0:21] Question of the Day

“I’m in the current cycle right now applying to school and I haven’t heard anything back since December. Now it’s February and I’ve kind of accepted the fact that I’m probably not getting in. Now, I’m doing some self-reflection about med. What else can I do to reapply in this upcoming cycle in the summer if I can get all my stuff together.”

A: So this is an application renovation question on Ask Dr. Gray. If you’ve watched the Application Renovation videos, why do you think you haven’t had any luck with the application cycle?

Our student says she has watched videos. It’s the whole COVID and MCAT situation. She was supposed to take it in May. It got pushed back and so she took it about the end of July and got her score back early August. She had submitted because she was scoring pretty well and 5.08 was her last score. So she went in and got her score and it was a 5.0.

She had already submitted to all her schools. She didn’t send secondaries to some of her 515 and up schools though.

On the MSAR, the number that they show is the median, not the average. The median says that 50% of the class is below that number. When you say it’s a 5.15 school, you’re basically only recognizing half of the class at that school. It’s a school that has a median MCAT score of 5.15.

“There is no such thing as a 5.15 school.”Click To Tweet

[03:05] Using MCAT and GPA to Apply to Schools

My biggest problem with students using MCAT and GPA to apply to schools is, if you only apply to schools where your MCAT or GPA are in the same range, then all that’s doing is perpetuating the same stats every single year.

But we don’t know what the real stats are. We don’t know what the low end of Ohio State will take because they’re not super transparent.

No school is transparent about where their true cutoffs are. It’s like you’re saying no to them but you’re not letting them say no to you. So your MCAT came back low compared to where you want it.

[04:04] Clinical Experience and Shadowing

Our student says her GPA wasn’t great which was 3.47. Freshman year, she was a 3.64 and then sophomore year her average was 3.1. Her junior year was a 3.6 and her senior was a 3.7. She started off strong, had a dip, and finished strong.

And she’s one of those perfect stories of why stats and the stories behind those stats are important.

In terms of her clinical experience and shadowing, our student says she had about 60 hours from a hospice care center being a volunteer and working with families. Those hours were spread out from 2017 up until COVID.

She had about 100 hours of shadowing where she was able to get in contact with a bunch of doctors and shadowed them a lot last year. She also had some other extracurricular stuff. She thinks she’s just not that great of a writer.

Going back to her personal statement, she’s really trying to reflect on it and see if she can improve it in some way.

60 hours over the course of a few years is not a huge commitment. Her clinical hours are also a big issue. I would try to get some more clinical experience as well, specifically more traditional patient interaction on top of that.

“Hospice is an amazing clinical experience but it shouldn't be the bulk of your clinical experience because it's not a traditional patient interaction.” Click To Tweet

It sounds like our student has a roadmap moving forward – better MCAT score, some clinical experience, and then tweaking essays and making her personal statement stronger.

I talked about all those in my application renovation videos and in my personal statement book coming out closer to the 2021-2022 application cycle. That should help solidify how to write your secondaries, your activity descriptions, etc.

[7:40] Taking More Science Classes

Q: “You mentioned GPA is not something I should really worry about. My father actually works at the university that I went to. So I have free school until I’m 26. Do you think it’d be worth it to go back and take a few more science classes because it’s free?

A: You could. A higher GPA will never hurt. With everything else that you need to be doing- retaking the MCAT, getting some more experiences, etc. Will you have time to take some classes and get A’s in them? If you can do that, then great.

[8:25] Getting More Clinical Experience

Q: “My mom is actually a physician. With COVID and everything, we’ve been kicked out of hospice for almost a year now. She said that I can come in and scribe with her. Would that be good for clinical hours or would that be frowned upon because she’s my mom?”

A: I don’t think it would be frowned upon because she’s your mom but I wouldn’t get a letter of recommendation from her. So I would go and get experience. And the fact that your mom is a physician makes your clinical experience much more important. Even a bigger red flag for me is the lack of clinical experience.

Our student is planning to take the MCAT in April or May and then apply again.

The new Blueprint live online course is one that I would recommend. Their course materials are topnotch. They have the best full-length exams out there besides the AAMC. The live online course allows you to hone in on all of the content. It also has live instructors with you over the course of a bunch of classes that you can reschedule if you have conflicts. There are two instructors who can answer all of your questions on top of office hours where you can just drop in and ask questions.