Brief Profile:
Like others, I found MDapps to be extremely useful during the application process so I thought I would make one to pay it back to current and future applicants. I was a little bit of an underdog stats-wise, and I\'m very pleased with how things turned out. I had an upward GPA trend- Freshman year GPA ~3.2, steadily increased to Senior year GPA ~3.8.
-Graduated 2009 -Biology Major (Honors), Anthropology minor -Research: >1000 hours, 2 summers + 1 year senior thesis in biology. Poster presentation. -Clinical: ~600 hours. Shadowed about 40 hours, worked as a nursing assistant. -Deans list a bunch. -Studied abroad. -Volunteered at non-profit health clinic with diabetes nurse educator. Assisted in educating patients, data input, etc. -1 year of AmeriCorps. -A bunch of interesting EC\'s and jobs.
Bottom Line: Do What your passionate about. I never did anything just because I thought it would look good on my resume; I did it because I was genuinely interested. Along the interview trail, fellow interviewees were shocked that I didn\'t spend my post-grad time doing research or something more \"traditional\". I love research, but decided that my time between college and med school should be spent pursuing new experiences. I think that my post-grad experiences added depth to my application, and made the interviews a lot more interesting. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
// Applications //
Application Cycle One: 06/14/2010
Undergraduate college: NESCAC (small liberal arts school)
Undergraduate Area of study: Biological/Life Sciences
Total MCAT SCORE: 511
MCAT Section Scores:
B/B 127,
C/P 127,
CARS 129
Overall GPA: 3.42
Science GPA: 3.43
Summary of Application Experience
I was a little bummed by my MCAT score, had been scoring a lot higher on practice tests. Especially the BS,( I was a bio major for goodness sakes!) I thought about taking it again, but decided that was a waste of time. It all worked out and looking back, I can\'t believe I wanted to waste three more months of my life for a few points. Skiing is way more important anyway! :-p
Summary of Experience:
There was a snafu with the secondary application. Thought I had submitted it back in July but it didn\'t actually get submitted until mid-November! Oops.
Summary of Experience:
Hold- at the end of their application cycle, they asked if I wanted to remain in a pool of students that they might possibly interview. I withdrew.
Summary of Experience:
Withdrew after Stony Brook acceptance. I called to see if I could move the interview date with my other three NY interviews but they wouldn\'t do it. Sounds like a neat program, but I\'m to wimpy to try a brand new school and not willing to fly from New Mexico for a separate trip.
Summary of Experience:
Withdrew after Stony Brook acceptance. This was a little difficult- heard good things about the school but way more expensive and the s.o. was not interested in living in St. Louis...
Summary of Experience:
Sent an in the area request and it worked! Totally sweet.
The interview was okay, but this didn\'t feel like the right place for me.
I was put on May hold and then put on the waitlist. I never sent any updates, my heart was with Stony Brook, but I held on for a while. Withdrew in June.
My interview here was no less than amazing. Liked the students, school, facilities, super friendly administrators. I was a little ragged because I was in the middle of a three day interview extravaganza. I had two interviews back to back and both ran over the 1 hour time. I barely had any voice by the time I was done, but I had connected really well with both interviewers and they were both very positive.
ACCEPTED! I was super psyched about this one. I looked back at some notes I had taken at a meeting with my pre-med advisor 3 years earlier. Stony Brook is circled, with a note next to it that says, \"good fit.\" heck ya.
skigal87 took the old MCAT and scored a which is in the percentile of all old scores.
We converted this to a on the updated scale which is in the percentile of the updated MCAT. We also converted skigal87’s section scores as follows:
skigal87 scored a 10 on the Biological Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 127 on the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems.
skigal87 scored a 10 on the Physical Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 127 on the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems.
skigal87 scored a 11 on the Verbal Reasoning section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 129 on the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills.
