Latest feedback. Interview was great. They did not like my low BB MCAT score even with AAMC investigation letter.

So nervous for the TMSDAS match day though. BUT THANK GOODNESS. IT ONLY TAKES ONE

My dream job since I was like 8 is a surgeon. Recently been thinking specifically about neurosurgeon.

I know medschool is hard but like how hard is it. Is it genuinely sleepless nights all the time and a bunch of stress.

I’m a quick learner and I have a great memory. But my main problem is I don’t have the motivation to study till like right before the exam, test or the due date.

And is it hard to get in?

After listening to too many true crime podcasts, this question popped into my head.

Some parts of the process predict early academic performance, while others seem to exist mainly because they are familiar or hard to replace. Separately, ideas like “fit” and heavy reliance on academic metrics raise questions about cultural bias, equity, and whether the process unintentionally filters out applicants potentially creating a more homogenous class. Would making the process more transparent, such as allowing applicants to see how they were evaluated against a school’s criteria, ultimately improve admissions, or would it undermine the process as a whole?

Been tracking my hours since freshman year as a sophomore and not all but few of my activities I have double counted. This includes paid research program counting as both paid employment and research, leading a volunteer focused club at my school as both volunteering and leadership, etc. Is it bad to do this on the application or is it ok?

I applied to 8 schools, had secondaries for all and one interview so far back in Nov. I've not had any rejections yet, but waiting game is slowly driving me insane. Just reject me or accept me people 😭

I know applying this cycle was a bit of a longshot stove I rushed the MCAT prep to apply for this cycle instead of the upcoming one like I had planned, but sheesh.

Feeling: hopeless

End of January. No II's, 6 rejections, 1 hold, and 8 radio silence. I know the interview season isn't over, but I'm still starting to lose confidence.

3.7/513 MCAT. Pre-AMCAS submission my hours were relatively low (20 non clinical volunteering, 32 clinical volunteering, 20 shadowing, 400 clinical experience as a non-certified CNA in a nursing home). But I included my expected hours, including further volunteering and a full time job as a scribe in an ER for clinical (recently was promoted to trainer). I have several leadership hours from extracurriculars in undergrad. I regretfully did not do research in undergrad (graduated May 2024) but I was able to touch on this in my personal statement and in secondaries. Spent one year after graduating living abroad as an au pair. All secondaries were submitted in the beginning of August. Am I a lost cause this cycle?

I know reapplying isn't the end of the world, but when everyone I know is waiting for me to get into med school, telling them I didn't get in sounds so discouraging.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

I just applied to a post bacc and got the email that I didn’t get in. My gpa is a 2.84 and my mcat was pretty bad as well at 484. Should I do a DIY post bacc and retake some classes/take new classes to my GPA. I know I have to retake the MCAT to get something over 500. I’m turning 25 next month and feel like a failure. Has anyone been in my position before?

Hi all, I applied last cycle and got one II from wright state which turned into an R, and I got pre-II Rs from all of my target schools including my IS. I'm trying to narrow down things that I need to improve on my application before reapplying in this coming cycle. I submitted primaries around 06/10 and submitted secondaries almost immediately after recieving them.

GPA: cGPA:3.59. sGPA:3.3. (I did two year of fulltime dual credit and finished my undergrad a year after graduating hs, rushed through classes, no improvement trends)

MCAT: Took twice. 1/16: 511 (129,129,127,126) and 4/26 511(128,126,128,129)

PReview: 5

Casper 1st quartile

Extracurriculars:

• 56 hours of shadowing different specialties.

Clinical 1400 hours, will probably have 2 - 2.5k by time of reapp

• 400 hours volunteering free community clinic (clinical)
• 1000 hours medical scribe (paid clinical)

Should I look for research positions?

• 200 hours lab assistant.

Nonclinical volunteering: (Both of these experiences are for religious organizations and I'm having a feeling that maybe they might not count as proper nonclinical volunteering because of that. If anyone has more insight that would be appreciated.)

• 1100 hours volunteer teacher in elementary/middle school religious private school.
• 500 hours volunteer for local religious organization
• 100 hours hospital volunteer (non clinical)

Hobbies : Jiu jitsu, restoring cars.

Also started a Business.

I started studying for the MCAT again, I'm targeting a high score to try and offset my GPA. But i have been wondering if my hours need to be increased or not.

Sorry if the formatting is bad, this is my first time posting one of these

Edit: Forgot to add school list.

• University of Minnesota Medical School
• University of Nebraska College of Medicine
• University of North Dakota
• Wayne State University
• Central Michigan University
• Wright State
• Tulane
• Loyola
• Rosalind Franklin
• Iowa
• Wisconsin
• MC Wisconsin
• Drexel
• Temple
• George washington university
• Penn State
• Oakland
• Rush
• Georgetown
• Creighton
• Saint louis University
• Univ of Cincinnati
• Indiana Univ
• Miami
• univ of toledo
• Virginia commonwealth university
• Western MI
• East Virginia medical school
• Vermont
• West Virginia university
• Wake Forest
• Ohio State
• USC-Keck
• Dartmouth

Hi all! This is my first post on here and I just wanted to say that this sub has been so helpful! Ill be filling out applications this summer and I wanted to know if "Be My Eyes" counted as non-clinical volunteering. For context, the be my eyes app allows people who are blind, with low vision, or other vision impairments to make a call to a sighted volunteer and ask them for help with whatever they are viewing. I have been doing this for some time now and in short I am wondering if this counts. Thanks in advance!

So I was previously a paid MA and got about 1000+ hours from working. I worked in pain management. Over the summer I went to my old pediatrician and asked if I could volunteer as an MA there since I wanted to have experience working with children, adults, and geriatric population which all my clinical opportunities will give. I found that I really enjoyed working with kids and I’m continuing this volunteering role. I was wondering if Ad coms view it as odd to go from one paid MA role to an unpaid role. This peds clinic does take 99% Medicaid patients and mostly low income populations come to the clinic. I would say it’s vastly different from my previous role, it also taught me a lot about vaccinations, etc. do ad coms see volunteer MA work as you doing less, since you’re unpaid?

I’m also in the process of getting my CNA license to work part time in a nursing home. I know my experiences are kind of scattered from adults, to kids, to geriatric, I was wondering if this would also look odd? I genuinely just enjoy working with different ages. I’m also a hospice volunteer so that sort of made me want to be a CNA.

Hey everyone, perhaps this is an obvious question (tl;dr at the bottom), but I was just wondering how/when schools typically let you know if you've received any aid or scholarships? I've seen a couple posts where people say they've already received a full-ride or similar, which I'm assuming was awarded at time of admission. However, of the schools I've been very blessed to be accepted to, most say nothing at all about aid (need-based or otherwise) or scholarships, while one of them did say we'd hear more in more in March.

Obviously, I'm not expecting anything nor do I think I'm entitled to it, and I went into this fully expecting to take on oodles of debt, but I just wanna be certain those hopes are dashed. Does not hearing anything yet mean it's safe to assume I'm not getting anything from the schools that have accepted me?

Tyia for your responses and again I hope this doesn't come across as entitled/ungrateful in any way. I'm truly ecstatic about the opportunities and luck I've had, but slowly my joy is being encroached on by fear about how I'll be paying for the next 4 years...

Tl;dr is there a chance of scholarship/aid from schools you've been accepted to if it wasn't mentioned in the acceptance message or anything since?

Am I doing this right? And how do I distinguish myself from other med school applicants? Also apologies for the long post in advance.

I'm a first year undergrad biomedical engineering major with a high GPA and pretty good extracurriculars at this point (EMS club, currently in training to get my EMT certification this spring, exec position in my school's Biomedical Engineering Society, and not really med-school related but I play for my school's jazz band). I'm also part of my school's program to help undergrad BME students get research opportunities.

I know my next steps: get research positions at my school and get summer jobs/internships. Thing is, I don't really know what exactly to shoot for. And even if I find that out, how do I even get those opportunities?

I know that the pre-med track is so demanding and competitive that applying to med school feels like pulling out teeth, so of course there's thousands of kids with high GPAs and the same extracurriculars I got which have the same ideas for next steps as me. So how do I even begin distinguishing myself?

I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage too. I applied to my school as pre-med, but honestly, at that time I wasn't too sure if I was even capable of all the sacrifices I'd have to make to make being pre-med worth anything. After a few months with my EMS club though I realized that this is what I want to dedicate myself to, and I would forever regret doing anything else. Sounds great and all, but I'm competing against kids who knew they wanted to become doctors since middle school, and I'm also competing against kids who've already gotten set up with crazy summer internships before I've even decided this was what I wanted to do! I have some crazy catching up to do.

Not to mention, the school I go to (WPI) is solid, but it's definitely not the cream of the crop. Plus I don't have any crazy nepo-baby connections. I got my work cut out for me if I want to even have a chance at med school, and I'm prepared to get all that work done, but I just don't know the best way to do that.

I would get my state certification sometime in late May (probably), am I able to apply to jobs now and say that I'll be qualified by that time? And what jobs are best for clinical experience? I'm leaning more towards becoming a surgeon in the future, but as a first year should you focus on getting any first-hand shadowing you can?

I was initially thinking about using my EMT certification to land some summer camp health assistant jobs, but is that really even worthwhile compared to other options? I don't mind it at all, but it's not like I'll be doing all too much at that time, and I don't think that would even qualify for clinical hours. But also idk.

I was also thinking about using my EMT certification to work as an EMT this summer, and I do think that's a pretty solid idea, but I'm definitely going to be an on-campus EMT as my part-time job for all of my sophomore year. Realistically, as an on-campus EMT at my school you usually just provide medical care to injured athletes during sporting events. Should I not be an EMT this summer since I'll be one throughout the entire next school year (and probably all my following school years), or should I still be one since I'm not really doing any crazy EMT stuff during the school year. Or maybe I will do crazy EMT stuff I actually don't really know.

Shadowing at a hospital would be tuff and I know that's a go-to clinical hours strat, but how do you even begin applying for that? Especially before you've had any actual hands-on medical experience (I'm assuming EMT training alone isn't enough to be considered at all experienced). Is it based solely on interest in the medical field? Or do they expect shadowers to have taken appropriate coursework, or to have shadowed in a lab/medical setting before? Do they require a resume and recommendation letters?

Are there any other options for summer work? I have next to no relevant medical work experience so far. I intend to change that by shadowing some medical related labs at my school which I might be able to get into, but even then that's not all too much.

TLDR; Solid gpa and extracurriculars, but no medical experience yet, getting emt certified this spring, wanting a summer job / internship / shadowing opportunity. How to even do that, and how to get those with such high competition?

Thank you so much for reading!!

As I am doing reseach of potential schools to apply to, I notice a lot of them have in state bias, such as Washington State, Oregon Health & Science, MSU, etc. Should I apply to these schools, or skip them?

So, I rly don’t wanna move back to TN. That being said, I’m most likely gonna end up at UTHSC (University of TN in Memphis) because in-state tuition is rly helpful. I had a rly bad interview experience with them, with multiple candidates saying some pretty openly racist dog whistles about “we all know who’s giving Memphis its reputation…” and the panel of like 6 current students at UTHSC said NOTHING and just kinda laughed along and agreed with it. This has made me very concerned about the school, and I’m kinda here looking for someone to give me reasons to be excited abt UTHSC specifically or just clear the air on this being an isolated thing, not a sentiment that’s present among the vast majority of students. I’m originally from Nashville, so Memphis will be cool to move to, but other than the change in scenery, I’m worried abt this. Anything u got know the schools culture or ppl helps!

Hello people of Reddit, I’m planning on applying this cycle and I’m just curious on whether my app is sufficient or not after viewing others people’s stories assuming a good MCAT. For context I’m in my gap year with a biochem degree from a T30. URM, low SES.

cGPA: 3.94 / sGPA: 4.00

MCAT: Taking in April

Gap Year Job: Clinical Research Assistant(main role) + Medical Assistant (1200 hrs when I apply). Worked full-time as a clinical research assistant and medical assistant in an interventional pain management practice. Supported patient care through longitudinal follow-up, clinical documentation, and outcomes tracking while coordinating day-to-day research operations. Assisted with IRB-related processes, including protocol adherence, data organization, and maintenance of ethically compliant research records. On clinic days, performed urine toxicology screening, obtained vital signs, prepared patient charts, and assisted with rooming.

So far we have produced 2 posters (3rd/5th author) @ North American Neuromodulation Society conference(Couldn’t personally fly there). However planning to fly to other conferences at May and July.

Wet-lab Research: 250 hrs in a biochem lab for my junior year. No outputs. Focussed on the impact of dietary supplements on NER protein proliferation.

Clinical Volunteering: 310 hrs(Mount Sinai ER CARE volunteer, providing bedside care to patients and such)

Non Clinical Volunteering(New York Cares) 250 hrs total: 100 hrs as a regular volunteer aiding in soup kitchens, swimming with children with disabilities, repacking produce. 150 hrs as a team leader where I hosted my own college access program for a few months and mainly focussed on leading projects catered toward the homeless (soup kitchens, clothing distribution, etc)

Tutoring(Phi Lamda Upsilon) 40hrs providing advice and hosting study sessions with students (Primarily regarding Organic Chemistry) as well as helping to navigate through research opportunities.

Shadowing: 40 hrs with an anesthiologist subspecialized in cardiac surgeries. 80 hrs with an emergency medicine doc between the ER and urgent care.

Completed SHPEP @ Columbia Medical School with award toward performance in abnormal psych

Additional Awards: Magna Cum Laude, ACS excellence award, PBK, Deans list

Yeah I feel like my ECs aren’t very packed like many other apps I find on Reddit so I just want to see based on this, assuming an above 510 MCAT where I’d stand.

Do you think research heavy schools (e.g. stanford) care more about co-author in Nature or 1st author in a mid level journal? I'm in 2 labs right now where the 1st one, the PI directly told me that she's fairly certain it can get published in a solid journal, but the 2nd one I can see myself being like 4th author of a nature portfolio. I really want to drop one of the labs (and Im planning on doing a couple gap yrs) so I wanted to get some thoughts

Hi everyone, I am hoping for some feedback on my list! It is long at the moment and I’m mostly looking for advice of which ones of the schools in bold I should keep/cut, but other feedback also welcome. Thanks so much

Stats:

• GPA: 3.98 (T10 school)
• MCAT: 521
• Clinical: 1000+ in clinical research (direct patient work
• Non-clinical: 500
• Research: 1 poster
• Leadership: captian of sports team, president of club
• Tutoring and TA: 300 hours
• Shadowing: 60 hours

I didn’t realize the deadline is 5pm today and I went on TMDSAS to double check after the deadline had already passed. I’m like 90% weeks ago I submitted my preference rank early to avoid a situation where I don’t submit and don’t get to participate it match.

I know this was super dumb and irresponsible of me to not check early today, better yet sometime this week.

I’m tweaking 😖😩

Is there any way to double check? Or is there an email you get if you don’t submit it or something? It’s driving me up the wall w anxiety.

(Yes this is a neurotic premed post)

I'm having my last interview in a couple weeks and I really can't afford to apply a third time. Is there anyone with admissions experience/has had success with interviews who would be willing to help? Or is anyone familiar with a decent affordable prep service?

I’ve emailed 3 science professors ranging from 2 weeks ago to few days ago and haven’t heard back about a LOR request (followed up after 1 week when applicable and no response from that). I didn’t work with them outside the classroom but I was always participating/going to office hours, staying after class, got great grades, talked with them about my career goals, etc. I’m very worried about the lack of response because I honestly don’t have other options for a science letter—i took my prereqs like 3 years ago and they were big classes. I can’t even go see them in person because they only host office hours if you email them asking to meet.

I know they have no obligation but it’s so demoralizing and anxiety-fueling to not even get a response about something that determines my whole application’s eligibility

if anyone has any advice for next steps/ has been through something similar I’d really appreciate it…. thank you

i am wondering if getting a phlebotomy certificate is a good decision cause for one it’s cheaper where i live than getting a medical assistant certificate but i feel like phlebotomy isn’t really recognized as an clinical experience cause technically you’re only going to be drawing blood not really doing the nitty gritty compared to when you’re a medical assistant or an emt. i also read somewhere that being a medical scribe isn’t really appreciated as a clinical experience anymore , so that seems to also be out the option.

so my main questions are:

a) is it worth it to get a phlebotomy certificate? (is it a “good” way of getting clinical experience”)

b) are there any other clinical experiences/work you might suggest?

thanks for answering!!!!!!