Application Cycle One: 2005

• Undergraduate college: Stanford University
• Undergraduate Area of study: Biological/Life Sciences

• Total MCAT SCORE: 511
• MCAT Section Scores: B/B 130, C/P 129, CARS 123   Detailed Breakdown
• Overall GPA: 3.85
• Science GPA: 3.84

Summary of Application Experience

Primary application submitted on 08/04/2005.
Application processed on 08/12/2005.
Secondaries started rolling in soon after 08/12/2005.
Wrapped up all of my secondaries by 10/15/2005.
Started interviewing in mid-November.
Finished interviewing in early February.

... waiting ...

I was terrified of this process, especially because I bombed the verbal section of the MCAT. Only one person (at UCLA/CalTech) asked me about the score, so I presume that most places don't care if there is a tiny blemish on your record. It also helped that I had significant research experiences with two top-level profs at Stanford. I'm sure that their letters made my app stand out.

Once you get to the MSTP interview stage, the most important thing that you have to do to get in is show your interviewers that you know your research in and out. This part is the scariest because you never know what your interviewers are going to ask. Try to know the history of your field, where it is going, and some of its un-answered questions. Remember that these guys are trained to see through bullshit, so don't give them any of it. The other thing that helped me was that I was awarded an outside fellowship that will cover my PhD years, which means that these programs don't have to worry about funding me for 4 years.

It's much easier to give this piece of advice than to receive it, but relax during your interviews. Most programs have already made their major cuts by the time they get around to interviewing you. Some places will be offering spots of half of the people they interview.

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FINAL DECISION: UCSF

Alrighty, this was a tough one. I had the incredible luck of being accepted to the majority of the top MSTPs in the country. I ultimately decided to join UCSF's program. Most of the people in my situation weren't able to make a rational decision; we were guided more by gut feelings/emotions than facts. With that preface, here are the three things that helped me choose UCSF (primarily over Harvard):

1. Research/Potential Advisors - Although the research that occurs at other places is larger and more varied, I didn't find research that excited me as much as the research at UCSF. It was really hard for me to understand this because Harvard seems to have everything covered. It seems counter-intuitive, but Harvard is so big that it takes more work to identify exciting labs than at UCSF. Even after meeting with about 15 potential mentors at Harvard, I didn't have a solid list of possible labs. This worried me because I really want to spend more time doing cool science than looking for it. At UCSF, I was able to find a few labs that I really liked, based on research only, and, luckily, I really clicked with three of the PIs running my labs of interest. It was really important to me that I start the MSTP feeling the way that I do about the research and the PIs at my school; I didn't want to have faith that it would work out.

2. City - You can't beat San Francisco ... well, NYC can ... btw, the Tri-Institutional program is great, but I knew that I would choose UCSF over Cornell any day, so Tri-I came off the list relatively soon. This is a tough one to explain ... When I started all of this, I decided that I wanted to live in a real city, not like St. Louis or Stanford. Boston, SF, and Seattle were the places that I liked. In the end, SF was more like the place I was looking for than Boston or Seattle. Boston, despite being a very young city, has less of a city feel than NYC or SF.

3. People - The members of UCSF's MSTP are a varied bunch. I certainly don't mean to say that the people at Harvard were bland, but they were a little more like each other than the people at UCSF. I actually liked both groups of people for different reasons, so I'll stop before I accidently insult someone. Here is where I must have a bit of faith in UCSF because not too many of us at the revisit were sure that we were going to UCSF (very different from Harvard). This means that I actually got to meet the majority of the entering class at Harvard, and we had a great group dynamic. I hope that UCSF will attract some cool people :)

Well, that's it. I don't argue that my points are flawless--in fact, I know that there are holes in my thinking. There are also lots of confounding factors (e.g., I may know UCSF's research better because I'm in the Bay Area, so that made it easier for me to identify the most exciting research). It was a lot harder to say no to Harvard than I thought it would be! At this point, I'm going to try to not second guess myself, enjoy my last quarter at Stanford, and get ready for a hell of a ride. Good luck with your applications! If you've made it this far, I hope that I was useful to you :)