This is actually my second cycle. Last year I applied and was interviewed by Duke, UCLA, WashU, Michigan, and UC Irvine. I was waitlisted at all but Duke (rejection), but none of them panned out, so here I am for round two! I\'m lazier this time so I won\'t bother to list all 30+ schools I applied to. Suffice it to say, as of 3/31/2011, I am:
- Rejected from the VAST majority (LOL)
- Waiting on final word from just two remaining schools - George Washington and Drexel.
- Interviewed and rejected by Mt Sinai (really weird/hostile interview experience here...)
- Interviewed and rejected by Duke (really liked them too! guess they picked up on my WTF, THERE\'S NOTHING HERE about the Raleigh-Durham area though *LOL*)
- Interviewed and waitlisted by U Mich (actually it was high defer Dec --> high defer Feb --> mid tier WL. This one actually kind of pissed me off. Couldn\'t they let me know earlier? And how the hell does one go from highly desireable deferral, straight to middle of the pack WL?)
- Interviewed and waitlisted by Wash Univ
- Interviewed and waitlisted by UCSD, my top choice right now. As much as I loved Loyola, I would go to UCSD in a heartbeat.
- Interviewed and accepted by Chicago Medical School (Rosalind Franklin University).
- Interviewed and accepted(!!!) by Loyola, my second choice!!! Thank you Loyola!!!
General thoughts:
- If I could do it all over again, I would have looked ahead more in college, busted my ass harder, gotten better grades (my 3.65 is grad GPA. undergrad was barely a 3.5), done more ECs, etc, and hopefully gone straight to a MD/PhD program. I honestly didn\'t know until late junior year just how competitive med school was -- not to mention MD/PhDs!
- If I could do it all over again, I would have at least gone to post-baccs instead of straight to grad school, and tried harder to go for that MD/PhD.
- If I could do it all over again, I would also have pushed harder to get published while in grad school instead of still being in a position where I\'m wrapping up papers right now, 3 months after official graduation :(
- All that said, I still feel immensely lucky to be where I am, and enormously excited that no matter what, I\'m going to be a doctor. This has truly been my life\'s dream. I\'m not sure why I let myself think I could be happy with just a PhD and research, when really I think from the very beginning I\'ve wanted to take the knowledge research uncovers and apply it to actual, human-to-human, direct-contact patient care!
No applications have been submitted yet during this cycle.
