Application Cycle One: 2005

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

• Total MCAT SCORE: 523
• MCAT Section Scores: B/B 131, C/P 130, CARS 132   Detailed Breakdown
• Overall GPA: 3.73
• Science GPA: 3.62

Summary of Application Experience

So it's October, and I'm copying my personal notes over to this mdapplicants profile so it can hopefully be of use to those of you who are applying in the future. I wish I had found this site sooner, since it's a lot easier to keep track of my own status this way, too...

6/30/05 - AMCAS submitted (transcripts already verified, so just waiting for the AMCAS itself to be reviewed)

7/8/05 - AMCAS processed and verified

7/18/05 - Have completed 4 secondary applications at this point and am processing 4 more, which I intend to complete this week. I only have about 5 days left to finish up Yale & Columbia (started them 9 days ago). This process has gone smoothly so far. The VirtualEvals that my school is using has worked out great; I got the UPenn e-mail and was finished with a complete application (including LORs) less than 1 hour later. Hopefully being on the ball will make up to some extent for sub-par GPAs.

8/9/05 - Am done with 11 secondaries. I am currently only working on Stanford's. I'll be away from my snail mail for the next two weeks, which could cause problems with Vanderbilt and UPitt (being a little presumptuous, aren't I?). I have yet to receive any secondaries from schools that screen pre-secondary.

8/12/05 - Got my first screened secondary (UCLA).

9/3/05 - Now have 6 interviews, and am feeling very fortunate. Of course, with my dearth of knowledge of the medical system, I am feeling nervous at the same time. Why oh why am I interviewing at Hopkins first? Couldn't I have gone somewhere else first as a warmup?

9/28/05 - Um, UNR's application is on paper. It's the only one. I have to handwrite this mother or I have to typewrite it. That's just disgusting. At least they have pre-secondary interview invites.

10/15/05 - Got accepted at UMich - on a Saturday morning at midnight! These people are great.

10/27/05 - Am pretty tired after those interviews. I know that this is a good problem to have, but it's hard when you're looking at things from 'inside the dog' (gratuitous John Gaddis reference). After getting into UMich, I canceled my USC interview. I just couldn't justify to myself why I'd spend all that time interviewing at a school that yes, I would like to go to but no, not more than Michigan. Also, the waitlisting at JHU is not a bad thing at this point. It will help keep me humble, and it's also a heads-up to you who are reading this: schools want to see more than just a semester of research. Either that, or it's because I taught my interviewer how to beer bong. Whoops!

I'm also for sure not filling out the OHSU and Duke secondaries.

11/10/05 - Finally got my rejection letter from UCSF. Dear UCSF: Reno is closer to San Francisco than Los Angeles is. Oh, it's a tax thing. Right. My dream of returning to the West Coast for med school is slowly being snuffed out.

11/12/05 - Just visited Princeton for the first time after interviewing at Penn. The football game was amazing, and yeah I'm only saying that because we won. And I'm really excited because I'm done for November. Hello, college life.

3/30/06 - Figured I'd update this thing. Getting into Penn is huge for me, since I love the school. Complicating things is a merit scholarship from Michigan. All things being equal, I'd take Penn over Michigan. That having been said, when need-based financial aid comes around, we'll see if all things are equal.

Rant: if the schools don't tell you your need-based financial aid awards until early May, they're putting an enormous amount of pressure on you to figure your life out in essentially two weeks. Unless, of course, all schools give equal financial aid. And I'm sure they don't. I'll update this when I know more.

5/5/06 - I have now withdrawn from all but Penn.

7/6/06 - I just got an unexpected phone call from Dean White at Johns Hopkins. I'm *stoked* about this, since I loved the school on my interview day. I have a week to make a final decision.