In what world do you automatically get a job because you meet certain criteria?
Also, this outdated idea that medicine is best as a meritocracy is exactly the thinking that has led to systemic bias, gender inequity, discrimination, and other barriers to quality healthcare for many people in this country. There is nothing about you and your 96%ile MCAT that gives me any sense that I would get better healthcare from you than someone else who doesn’t have the extreme sense of entitlement that you seem to have.
You can disagree all you want, but most of the posters here are getting the same vibe. You are also not considering the constructive advice many of these posters have given to you. If we sense it, your interviewers do, too.
Just about everyone who applies to medical school hits the “prereqs”. There simply are not enough seats in medical school classes to accept everyone who applies. 60% of applicants receive NO acceptances. You are not the only one. And if those who do get accepted, most get a single acceptance.
And this is with applying to 20 or more medical schools. And often a combo of MD and DO schools (which, by the way, provide the same training).
OP…hugs. I’m sure this has been a frustrating and expensive experience for you.
Curious why no DO applications. Curious why your takeaway from this experience has been “inferior folks are getting in and I’m not” vs “what can I learn from people who are getting in”. And curious what your plan b is right now.
If I knew you in real life, I’d be showering you with information about masters programs in health and hospital administration, public health, bio-statistics, epidemiology, etc. I’d be showing you job descriptions of health care roles which will be paying you a six figure salary while the med students are eating dried out bologna sandwiches from the hospital cafeteria while they do their rotations. You could be running a portfolio of satellite clinics…with an MBA or masters in healthcare administration while the med students are still in residency.
This is a choice you get to make…grit your teeth and complain about the mediocre students in med school, or get moving towards an interesting career in health care which takes less time, costs less money, and will provide tons of professional opportunities.
Then work on this. Take a Public Speaking class. Find a counselor who can help you work on your people skills. Those things are critical for most jobs out there, so no loss at all to you to improve these.
When 60% don’t make it into any med school (and essentially all have the basics to make it over the bar), how you come across as a person means a ton to admissions.
Entitlement reeks from your post. It does not bode well for your acceptance.
Not to burst your bubble but, for her first go round, my daughter got into six schools. Her friends, in her Neurobiology major, were just happy that they got into one. Her interviews went very well.
She did lab work as an undergrad. She received a great LOC from her PI’s. Then she took 2 years off to study, work, volunteer and take classes in ASL.
She received a 94%ile score.
She went to Spain, on her own dime, to work in their system of hospitals, to understand the costs of health care in another system.
She volunteered as an undergrad and grad in a diabetic clinic in NorCal with medically indigent farmworkers. She was learning to use ASL with the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as speaking Spanish and interpreting for farmworkers. She paid, or had money donated, toward’s patient prescriptions if a patient’s family indicated that they didn’t have the money.
We were pleasantly surprised when she got a response from her first school (Colorado) and were shocked by the other acceptances. The majority of her UCSF class, of 130 med students, spoke more than one language or international dialect, and many knew ASL. They were from every state and university, volunteering in every capacity in every way.
If this is going to be your 4th go round, I think you may want to consider some changes to your profile. Do you speak another language? The popular ones are Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Mandarin, and Cantonese. You’re competing with the new graduating classes who have current amazing experiences and are great interviewers.
Edited to add: daughter had a 4.0 from her UC. Yes, I am bragging and am very proud of her!
If you haven’t used your undergrad health advising office why not?
You could also benefit from a private med school admissions advisor to help with the process as well. Do a google search, go to NACAC and/or IECA websites to look for experienced professionals, and or ask colleagues for referrals.
ETA: You might also consider becoming a physician assistant.
Ding ding - first generation college student. Do you have a passion for serving the underserved? Do you speak a 2nd language? Why do you want to go to med school?
Don’t focus on UVM and things you can’t change. Focus on yourself.
FYI - I once foolishly picked a doctor based on Harvard undergrad, JHU med school. Zero bedside manners. There is a prominent specialist I know who is chief poo-bah at a top hospital. His med school was ranked in the 300s. And in one of the states you are looking at.
I claim NO knowledge of the med school app grind. Good luck!
I’m hoping that your MCAT is still valid for this application cycle.
Completely cut out of your thinking, and most definitely out of your writing and speaking, the concept that affirmative action applicants are taking your spot. Whether it’s true or not, it comes off as thoroughly obnoxious and entitled. It doesn’t help your attitude, and any interviewer worth his/her salt is going to see this immediately.
Try very hard to immediately get some feedback from anyone who interviewed you in the past. I doubt you’re going to be able to get this, since it would be awkward and difficult for them to tell you why you were rejected. Have someone you know request your reference letters and see them - perhaps one of the references is not complimentary. Since you have so many references, you can simply not request to have that one sent in the future.
Quickly make a list of schools that you have not previously applied to, which would still accept your 2019 MCAT, and put in applications to them. Reshape your narrative. You’re not absolutely 100% sure, but it might be best if you said that you think you want to become a primary care physician, meaning family, IM, maybe peds. Pound this into your brain, and come up with a believable narrative for this. You have an underserved demographic that you want to serve, based upon all that valuable and formative experience that you had as a volunteer.
Get lots of coaching for your interview! Unless there’s something that you’re not telling us, that the schools only find out about after the interview, that’s the only thing left that is keeping you from getting in, that you’re not coming across well in your interview - which I totally would understand, because your post comes across as someone who would be red-flagged for rejection, because of your blaming your rejections upon affirmative action. BTW, I don’t think that there is any affirmative action for sexual minorities, just that it’s no longer a reason for flat out rejection, the way it was in the past.
I second DO schools. Also, try some private schools. There are no preferences for in-state students. TCU just opened a new medical school a few years back. That’s one to try.
The OP considers “critical thinking” as one of his strong points, but he seems not to have concluded this. If University of X says they don’t want you, maybe it doesn’t make sense to keep applying. The next cycle you now have more or less the same package as last time, but the additional question of “if he’s so good, why didn’t University of Y take him?”
I think the OP isn’t part of this discussion any longer.
But for reference, I’m going to ask @WayOutWestMom to post that site that has a lot of other health care related fields for this student to explore.
Every medical school applicant should have a plan B. And after three years if not getting accepted to medical schools, this poster needs to seriously consider other ideas.
Among other goodies on the site is a searchable database of health allied jobs. The user can search by the number of years of school required and the desired salary range.
You still did not answer the question about applying to DO schools. Besides, have you considered private med schools? Also, your MCAT may have expired, you may have to retake it.
I want to call this out: it is so completely, comprehensively, stunningly untrue. I know this first hand, as a person who has applied for jobs. I know this first hand, as a person who has hired people for jobs. I saw this with my gradschoolkid and her pals, fully qualified but, no, not getting the job ‘fair and square’.
This represents almost zero of jobs out there in the real world. I’m wondering if OP is foreign born, since this does represent the civil service in many parts of the world- or jobs which are heavily unionized.
But not in the US.
OP- there are DOZENS of highly paid, interesting roles in health care which do not require an MD. At what point in your frustrating and expensive journey are you going to start to explore those?