<p>From my D’s experience, you have to match your stats to your list of schools and set up acceptance rate for yourself. My D. was shooting for approximately 50%, which approximately has happaned, as there always grea area. For example, would you be accepted if you did not withdraw after school put you on waiting list? But at the end, withdrawal or not, the numbers were 4 out of 8, which tells me that estimation of stats matching schools was correct. Even very superior applicant might not get a single spot if his application is out of synch with his list.</p>
<p>I agree with curmudgeon’s suggestion that it tell a story only you can tell about why you’re interested in medicine. I think it’s also important to show why you’re interested from a variety of perspectives too: eg, I went with service, leadership, science/academics, and advocacy as my main drivers to medicine, and wove together a concise little statement about how each of those was developed and where I’d like to go with them in the future. </p>
<p>Definitely agree that you should include what you envision for you future, and WOWMom’s examples of primary care vs research/subspecialist is a good one. </p>
<p>Another nice piece of advice (in my opinion) was that your PS should show them, not tell them, what’s awesome about you. So instead of saying “Compassion is important in medicine, and I am a compassionate person, and I think I will be in the future too” you could say “While shadowing an oncologist, I noticed what a difference it made when he showed how much he cared about his patients by taking time to listen to their stories or by placing his hand on their shoulder when they were scared about a new diagnosis. I emulate his compassion when volunteering with teenagers at an after school program by making it a priority to get to know them and to show them that I care about them. In the future, I envision a career as a compassionate clinician who provides excellent patient-centered care.”</p>
<p>This shows that you shadowed and paid attention and learned something, that you find working for others personally satisfying, and that you value patient-centered care. Plus, it’s probably more entertaining to read?</p>
<p>kristen, thank YOU for showing and not just telling what a personal statement should look like!</p>
<p>Happy to help. I think I also should have mentioned that this just so happens to be the route I chose; I’m not claiming it’s the best or only way, just that it worked for me and the type of application I was putting together. I tended not to choose a very formal writing style, and tried to make my essays come off as conversational (in other words, these are the same things I would tell you, using the same words etc, as if we were talking on the phone). Yours might be completely different, but I don’t think this strategy would steer you completely off course. </p>
<p>Another tip I liked was to always push yourself to say why or because or whatever; you’ll notice I included those words purposely in my little example above. I think the rough draft should be way too long, have way too many illustrative examples, etc etc…and the whole point of editing is to figure out which of those examples paints the most complete picture of you. The reason for this is that anyone can say anything about their accomplishments, and the onus is on YOU to prove that you’ve done the things you say you’ve done.</p>
<p>It should give you goosebumps when you’re done reading it! Edit edit edit!</p>
<p>The process has begun. We (at my school) have 10 weeks to submit all necessary documents in order to receive priority service by the committee. 2013 is going to be an interesting year, :eek:</p>
<p>I’ll be applying this cycle. Hopefully all goes well. :)</p>
<p>I am set for a May 2013 MCAT. I wanted to take Kaplan but the classes that fit my timeline for the exam are far away. So, I was thinking of taking the online version. Does anyone have experience with Kaplan’s online course or know of any other way to add structure to the MCAT Prep? Thanks!</p>
<p>Question for current and prior applicants (or their parents). D2’s colleg uses a committee letter which won’t be sent out before Aug. 15th. Is this going to disadvantage her for rolling admission schools? </p>
<p>Mostly I’m wondering if she will be able to get secondaries before her file is complete.</p>
<p>^Short answer: no.</p>
<p>Long answer: My school didn’t even conduct committee interviews until the start of fall semester, and I was one of the first applicants with a completed letter…in September! It worked out just fine, although of course I agree that the earlier the better in terms of all things related to med school. I agree with the conventional CC wisdom that earlier is better, but I don’t think mid-August should be considered “late.” If I were in her position and were concerned about the Aug date, I would first figure out if the Aug 15 deadline is a hard/serious one–perhaps it’s just what they recommend. Then, I’d get as many ducks in a row before that date as possible–make sure AMCAS is submitted and verified, pre-write essays using prompts from SDN, confirm that the committee has all the info they need, etc etc.</p>
<p>But in the end, sometimes policy is policy and you just can’t beat it. (This was the case at my school.) There’s no reason it should ruin the entire experience for you! Might be the first time you’ll just have to roll with the punches this process throws (and beware: there’s a lot of them!).</p>
<p>The Aug 15th date is the absolutely earliest letters will be sent out. </p>
<p>Committee process begins in late January with a hard March 23rd deadline for requesting one.</p>
<p>But thanks for the answer, kristin. She plans on submitting to AMCAS in early-to-mid June.</p>
<p>My son has wanted to become a doctor since forever. He is a relatively strong student, with an improving gpa (3.5+) and the possibility of a good MCAT score, but he doesn’t have any experience shadowing doctors. He has worked as an EMT in hs, and has worked in a hospital setting to help doctors find patients for their research studies. His school (a top pre-med school) has a class that has its students shadow doctors, but that doesn’t start until the fall of his senior year. That is to say, he’ll get in lots of shadowing hours, but he can’t declare those hours on his application. Will this be a weakness in his application?</p>
<p>Does your S plan to have a gap year so he could have more time on this? Did he volunteer in the hospital in college years?</p>
<p>Unlike your S, DS has not thought of becoming a doctor in high school or even early college years. Ironically, he had completed his preregs relatively early, even though it took some time before he was determined to jump into this career path. So, he took a gap year as he really needed that extra year to ready himself. He did volunteer at two hospitals but did not shadow any individual doctor - I heard most premeds would not skip shadowing though. Many of premeds got the opportunity through the premed club, which DS did not join.</p>
<p>I heard DS shadowed doctors at least 4 times AFTER he had been in med school. I believe he had done one of the shadowing right before he flied home for this Christmas, as an MS2, when he was supposed to spend time on preparing for STEP-1. It appears he tends to one step behind a typical premed. LOL. Last time he was home, every family member became his “patients” as he needs to practice his physical exam skill. When he saw a doctor, the kind doctor actually spent some of his precious time with him on how to do physical exam after the doctor had learned he would be in this carer path. This winter break, he wanted to check everybody’s blood test result.</p>
<p>^I palpated my friend’s lymph nodes at a bar last night at her request, LOL.</p>
<p>@ mcat, no. DS plans to apply in 2013 for the 2014-2018 class. He’s not worried in the least that he doesn’t have much shadowing now; says he’ll get that all next year. I wonder if it’ll help that his school is very well known for providing a wonderful premed program. I mean, adcoms might know about the school’s process.</p>
<p>Since I know that applicants will be taking their MCAT RSN (Real Soon Now), I saw this article about the most effective methods of studying and retaining material:</p>
<p>[Applying</a> Cognitive Psychology to Education](<a href=“http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/1/1.full.pdf+html?ijkey=Aq5/rcztL2GbI&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi]Applying”>http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/1/1.full.pdf+html?ijkey=Aq5/rcztL2GbI&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi)</p>
<p>It’s an analysis of educational psychology research over the past 50 years on the most effective study techniques. It notes that the most commonly employed techniques (re-reading, highlighting) are the LEAST effective way to retain information. </p>
<p>Most effective–distributed practice, practice tests and (believe it or not) flash cards.</p>
<p>
Oh, no, DS never likes to use flash cards.
I once asked him whether he likes to use flash cards. He said no but he prefers to make his own notes while studying, and later use his own notes as if it were flash cards (but they are in the form of notebook, not in the form of flash cards.)</p>
<p>DS’s private music teacher before college once told him how effective the distributed practices were for her. She talked about this using her personal experiences when she was a student at a music school. I am not sure whether DS has “internalized” this – She did teach him well.</p>
<p>When DS was back home this past holiday, he did have a lot of distributed practices, on his music instrument though (not necessarily on his STEP-1 study.) He said when he is at school, the environment and atmosphere there naturally makes him study more than at home because many other students study very hard.</p>
<p>I will take it two weeks from today, ready or not. My FL practice tests have been all over the map. This is causing me much stress. If I score on the high end of the range I’m good. However, if I score on the low end, then it’s time to take the GRE.</p>
<p>^ Is your FL test from Kaplan? It is rumored that one of Kaplan FL tests (FL 13 or 14? not sure which one) is notoriously hard but should not be taken right before the real test due to its potential “confidence destroying” effect. The test items in that FL test are sort of unreasonably difficult.</p>
<p>However, building up the mental and physical endurance for this kind of test is a must. DS said that toward the end of the test, he was just somewhat “too tired.” This likely has something to do with the fact that his last section, which is BS, was particularly hard. Many SDNers complained afterwards that they did not know that the test takers need to know a completely new “foreign language” in order to answer some questions in this biology section.</p>
<p>Wish you a good luck.</p>
<p>If your son was tired at the end of the MCAT, just wait until he takes STEP 1. It’s 8 hours.</p>
<p>And another factoid from the world of cognitive psychology: your mental acuity and attention to detail declines as the day progresses, with it reaching its nadir in the late afternoon, while your manual dexterity improves in the afternoon.</p>
<p>(This why at work we try to save mindless, repetitive physical tasks for the late afternoon.)</p>
<p>And plum–just had a convesation with D2 this morning about whether she needs to proactively reserve a March MCAT sitting now or should she wait until she gets her score back before making any decisions on a retake. </p>
<p>She was on her way to the library to use their wireless (faster and more reliable than at the apartment) to take a practice exam.</p>
<p>^ This is driving me nuts. I have until midnight to decide if I should reschedule my first attempt. My AAMC exams have varied from 34 to 44, but tpr exams have been nuts with a low score of 29. I don’t know how much weight to give them vs. the AAMC exams. :(</p>