<p>^^ Maybe not…D2 is in Kenya working w/ female AIDS patients. All are women who have been infected by rape, by unfaithful sexual partners or via prostitution because it’s the only way they feed their families. Some are young teenaged girls–younger than her-- who have been sold to older men. She’s doing hospice work mostly. D2 is very tender-hearted and the work is very difficult for her. She says she comes home at the end of the day and cries. It’s making her rethink her future in medicine.</p>
<p>That’s really tough work, both the the situations she deals with and the fact that it’s end of life care. What is her interest, to do Intl. work? Work with AIDS patients? I’m sure she knows that what she’s doing is about as difficult as medicine gets, but meaningful as well. Best to her with her work and in figuring out what direction she wants to head.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for sharing the touching story. Talking about Kenya, a few days ago there was a CNN article covering miserable lives of some girls:</p>
<p>[Activist</a> battles Kenyan tradition of rape ‘beading’ - CNN.com](<a href=“http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/11/kenya.children.beading/index.html]Activist”>Activist battles Kenyan tradition of rape 'beading' - CNN.com)</p>
<p>Not all families/societies will “protect” their youngsters. Sigh…</p>
<p>DS said he would like to join some student-run clinic which helps the poor. (Isn’t it really late for a post-premed to do this? LOL. This is his “pace” by his nature. He did earn some money and donated to some organization which helped the poor – again, after the application.)</p>
<p>Let’s see if he could find time while as a busy MS student. (and where will he be?! Still not very sure.)</p>
<p>D2 thought she wanted to do Peace Corp after college, but now probably not.</p>
<p>Her area of interest is neurology. Most of her previous medical experience has been doing rehab with stroke and head injury patients. </p>
<p>I have no clue why she volunteered for this program. I think she was expecting to be doing something different from what’s she’s actually doing. She thought she was going to be doing testing & education.</p>
<p>got to rewrite my personal statement. fun stuff</p>
<p>DS is attending a medical school open house today. He grabbed the opportunity even though it is a bit of of a drive. It is so rare for a school to open it’s doors to interested students before interviews.</p>
<p>Re #56: GA, I wrote back a few hours after you sent your note. Did it get through okay?</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Yes it did, thank you so much for that, she really took the advice to heart and especially took notice of what you said about location. Great advice, as always. :)</p>
<p>Busy and stressed out with applications? Do yourself a favor, take a break, and read this CC classic :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do.html</a></p>
<p>PS: results can be found on posts from 4/3/08</p>
<p>Submitted the primary today. Let the waiting game begin!</p>
<p>i’ve submitted my primaries also. my committee packet is also in. im just waiting on my transcripts to get in. they were supposedly sent last week. i also ordered a transcript for myself, and I havent received it yet even though I live 30 min away from my school. it’s driving me nuts, and im afraid they didnt even get sent out</p>
<p>For the work/activities section did you guys end up using all 700 characters? I’m a little confused as to what I should put in the description. Like shadowing seems like it doesn’t need a description.</p>
<p>It definitely depends on the activity, but most of mine were more than 600 characters with a few near 700. For shadowing descriptions, I described some of my observations and how they compared to other doctors that I shadowed.</p>
<p>ChemFreak, this is what I wrote for shadowing:</p>
<p>Shadow Dr ABC in his outpatient surgical oncology clinic and melanoma clinic at State Cancer Hospital. Focused on the formation of a strong doctor/patient relationship, especially at bedside. Observed outpatient procedures such as punch biopsies, removal of port-a-caths, and draining abscesses. Will observe a mastectomy and a wide local excision of a melanoma in August 2010. Learned about surgical treatments for various cancers, especially breast cancer and melanoma. Learned about running a busy clinic, especially working with nurses, clinical research staff, residents, other referring physicians, medical students, and undergraduates. (hours per week for this many weeks; total hours)</p>
<p>I would like to get an opinion- my daughter is in a combined BS/MD program at a state school which is not binding. She finished her junior year with 3.98 GPA and 30 MCAT and lots and lots of leadership,research, clinical experience etc.Her goal was to apply to at least 10-15 private schools and see where she ends up with.She now realizes one thing that stands in her way is her MCAT score which is not good enough for the schools she was going to apply to. She registered for the retake for July 29th.She is okay to matriculate to state school- it is not in state for us so the fees is so high. She thinks she can achieve 34-36 for retake.She took it the first time with full courseload. She is only doing full time research in the summer. BDM,CURM, Kristin, Miami and others-What are your thoughts? I do not want to discourage or get invoved in her decision making but give some practical advise. thank you for reading the long post</p>
<p>meddaughter,
Your D’s background matches my D’s almost exactly. The funniest - exactly GPA=3.98 (at graduation, 3 “A-” in singing clases of her Music Minor, her UG does not give additional point for A+, she had several). Was “in a combined BS/MD program at a state school which is not binding.” Got a bit higher MCAT on her first try right after spring finals in junior year. Ended up with tons of various awards, recognitions, honors…but most of them right before her graduation and well after her Med. School acceptances. Applied to wide range of Med. Schools outside of her program (7 additional schools), only 7 because she has limited herself to being 4 hrs driving from home. Did not apply to very top despite pre-med advisor insisting on it, none matched criteria of being close enough. She also had tons of various medically related and non-medical EC’s over period of few years. She got rejcted pre-interview only from 2 out of 8 (good by my standards), 2 others waitlisted her and 4 accepted (including her bs/md). She is going to one of privates outside of her bs/md that accepted her. Starting in less than one months. Any specific questions? Best wishes, she deserves the best!</p>
<p>Is 30 MCAT score good enough for schools like case, Mount Sinai, NYU,Northwestern? She is submitting her primary application in couple of days for 2012 cycle with her BS/MD school and wants to wait till she gets the new MCATscore in August to add the rest of the schools. Should she apply to all the schools with new MCAT date?</p>
<p>ON the MCAT higher is definitely better than lower, but my DD did get in to a top ranked state school (her first choice) as well as getting a total of 10 interview offers. It can be done. That being said, it is easier to be done with a higher score. </p>
<p>Will she apply to the state school in her state of residence? Which one is that?</p>
<p>If she has met the standards for the combined BS/MD program, but it is a bit pricey, what is her motivation for applying to other privates? Is she trying to lower costs or looking for a more prestigious name?</p>
<p>Given how much time & energy & money it takes to apply to med school, often over $5000 when you factor in interviews, etc., what does she hope to achieve by applying elsewhere?</p>
<p>Submitting her primary now is good, as that will get them started on verifying her transcript. She should make sure her LORs have arrived. She could also begin working on her secondaries by going to the student doctor network forum and seeing what the questions are for the schools she wants. Even if she changes her list a bit, the general questions will be similar. Taking the time to think about it ahead of time may give her more opportunity to answer creatively, like a politician telling them what you want to tell them.</p>
<p>Son did the same last cycle, re-taking MCAT. He did score higher 33 to a 36, BUT he retook because first score was lopsided, lower verbal. His retake had a higher verbal, 1 point.</p>
<p>Two reasons he wished he had NOT re-taken 1) some schools put his app on hold til they received new score from July test…he had sent in primary first day it was open, so held his app up and 2) every school except Harvard asked him why he re-took??? they assumed it was to increase his chances of top school acceptances so his matches and especially his safeties really did not want to take a risk on him and said so during interviews and phone calls. </p>
<p>He would not have thought so until he was told in face to face interviews.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Meddaughter,</p>
<p>Just my opinion, but I imagine others you mentioned with me will agree.</p>
<p>Do NOT retake the MCAT. It seems like retaking the MCAT is wayyy more often than not a bad idea. For one, she can’t guarantee she’ll get that mid-30s score. For two, she could do worse–and that would certainly sink her. For three, that will delay her applying until much later (assuming she wants to wait for that score to apply, which she’ll need in her file to continue the review process at the school anyway–essentially, even if she submits her apps before her score is released, she’ll just be on hold until those scores come in)–and earlier is always better with med school stuff. For four, she’ll have to explain why she retook it over and over again. </p>
<p>She has a very high GPA and seems to have significant experiences too. That means she probably has strong recommendation letters. If the only thing missing is the high MCAT score, I personally don’t think she’ll have a problem. Sounds similar to my situation–3.8/30, extensive leadership and involvement, lots of shadowing, great clinical experiences, lots of research (no publications, but many posters). I applied to 13 schools (Boston, Creighton, Drexel, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Loyola, Mayo, Missouri (home state), Northwestern, SLU, Tufts, UVA–can’t believe I can still list all of them), had 4 interviews (Missouri, Northwestern, Mayo, Duke), and enjoyed a December acceptance (so I withdrew from all schools I hadn’t heard from). I was accepted to Missouri, withdrew from Northwestern, and I guess I’m still technically on alternate lists at Mayo and Duke. Just a data point for you.</p>
<p>Basically, I think the major risks of retaking the MCAT (one of which is that there’s no guarantee she’ll improve) extremely outweigh the benefits of a slightly higher MCAT score, for an applicant that is as exceptional in all other areas like your kid. Also, for most applicants, it seems like 30’s the magic number, and she got that. If it were a 28, I’d say retake in a heartbeat. If it were 29, I’d have serious reservations. With a 30, I’d keep it (and, well, I did). </p>
<p>Instead, I’d have her focus on making her primary absolutely shine–her descriptions should be well thought out, her course list should be accurate, her personal statement should be singing to her (and a story only she can tell), etc.</p>
<p>If I had to choose between a higher MCAT and a later application, or a lower MCAT and an earlier application, (assuming all other variables stayed the same), I’d pick lower MCAT and earlier application every single time! </p>
<p>Will be interested to see what others say.</p>
<p>*the only instance I could see justifiably retaking a 30 is if it’s ridiculously unbalanced…7v, 10p, 13b would be extreme, 8v 11p 11b would be an example too. If she has a balanced 30 (my split was 9p, 11v, 10b), I wouldn’t retake.</p>