Brief Profile:
Decided on med school during last year of college. Did two years of informal, adhoc postbac at a total of 4 different universities.
Minimal research experience: about 6 months before application, and just started to volunteer at another lab right before AMCAS opened.
ECs: 2 leadership positions in college, NCAA athlete (DIII).
Volunteer work after deciding on medicine: 1 year in hospital, 1 year in free clinic, 1.5 year in mental health outreach program.
// Applications //
Application Cycle One: 06/09/2014
Undergraduate college: Midwestern Top 25
Undergraduate Area of study: History/Humanities
Total MCAT SCORE: 519
MCAT Section Scores:
B/B 129,
C/P 132,
CARS 129
Overall GPA: 3.95
Science GPA: 3.95
Summary of Application Experience
Shoot me a message if you have any questions. Writing score: N/A
I made this MDApps in part because it was so helpful when I was applying. My advice: don't freak out when you aren't accepted/getting II's at the same rate as your friends. It's a really long process.
Application Complete, Rejected
University of Chicago
Applying for combined PhD/MSTP? No
Submitted: Yes
Secondary Completed: 07/12/2014
Interview Invite: No
Interview Attended: No
Waitlisted: No
Accepted: No
Rejected: 07/20/2014
Summary of Experience:
Extremely disheartening getting this as my first real feedback from any school. They also confirmed my rejection a week later with another email.
Summary of Experience:
This was the first day Harvard was doing interviews and my first interview overall. I was coming from the West Coast and had trouble adjusting to the time difference, which left me with 4 hours of sleep and a frantic morning before the interview.
Harvard's interview is relatively unstructured, which unlike most people I talked to, I actually enjoyed.
Interviews went alright, but I wouldn't recommend scheduling one of your most important interviews as your first interview.
Summary of Experience:
The interview day was wayyyyyy too long. Dean Witzburg is an interesting guy, but most of the day was spent listening to him and other faculty go on about the history of the med school. At a certain point I could really feel the tension from the applicants as we collectively wondered when we could go home.
Only one interview, which went well. I personally think the more interviews, the better.
Ended up with the Dean's scholarship, $5,000/year.
Summary of Experience:
Huge fan of Northwestern. Beautiful campus in the center of downtown Chicago (an awesome city that I always wanted to live in). Gorgeous new hospitals.
Interview day started off with an interesting talk with Dean Wallace. I am not a huge fan of PBL, but he convinced me that I might just enjoy it.
That followed with two individual half-hour interviews and one two-interviewee-one-interviewer panel. The latter consisted of the two of us sharing our stories and then debating who deserved the experimental Ebola medication ZMapp.
First acceptance!!! Would have been extremely happy here.
markmarkmark took the old MCAT and scored a 36 which is in the 97th percentile of all old scores.
We converted this to a 519 on the updated scale which is in the 97th percentile of the updated MCAT. We also converted markmarkmark’s section scores as follows:
markmarkmark scored a 11 on the Biological Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 129 on the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems.
markmarkmark scored a 14 on the Physical Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 132 on the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems.
markmarkmark 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.
