18 interview Snakey (521/3.97)
Hi everyone! I'm super grateful to be in a position to share my snakey :)
GA ORM M, 521/3.97, 1 gap year
8/9 Prev, 4th Quartile Casp
1 hard science + 1 humanities degree
6 very powerful LoRs from all close mentors
T25 private undergrad (on full-ride merit scholarship)
3,300 hours basic science research (1 submitted pub to T3 journal, 1 first-author upcoming)
750 hours socioeconomic health disparities volunteering/advocacy work in my community that turned into research (several posters, invited talks, 2 submitted pubs)
300 hours narrative medicine research
1.5k clinical hours as Chief Medical Scribe in the largest scribe program in the state + 400 hours as a cancer patient volunteer (that tied very well with my narrative)
Lots of leadership around campus focused on building community
10 awards (ranging from a full-ride merit scholarship to undergrad to national ones for my work in health disparities)
Extremely strong narrative and essays (was told verbatim by my Harvard, Cornell, and Mt. Sinai interviewers that my PS was the singular best essay they have read during their time on admissions). I felt fairly good about most secondaries, didn't pre-write a ton.
Here are some of my takes/advice on a few areas:
Major: Doesn't matter what you study in college. Pick something you genuinely like, take the pre-reqs, and maintain a high GPA if possible. I will say though, doing a hard science major will make it easier to adjust to basic science research/MCAT prep. I also know a few people who full sent a humanities major and were accepted to a T5 med program, but they originally weren't planning to pursue med in the first place.
Undergrad prestige: Matters to an extent. It felt like during my interviews at HMS, Sinai, and Stanford, everyone went to a HYPSM-caliber undergrad, which honestly was very discouraging. But you should focus on what you can control: being the best student, community leader, and advocate at your university, and results will follow. After all, you aren't necessarily being compared to the Harvard grad with 10 first-author papers - it's more relative to the other undergrads at your own school.
Stats: I do think stats, especially the MCAT, is the singular most important metric of your entire application :( That being said, as long as your stats are (roughly) above the 25th percentile on MSAR, you should be good!
Clinical experience: I believe there is no hierarchy when it comes to clinical experiences. I had an interviewer who went on a little rant after I told them I gained much perspective during my scribing experience, because "it was nothing like residency, which is when you are truly learning clinical medicine.” This means you shouldn't choose to be an EMT simply because people on Reddit view it as the best due to direct clinical exposure. Pick an experience that allows you to connect meaningfully with patients, which doesn't always have to be clinically related, and stick to it. Imo there's no need to constantly bounce around different roles.
Research: Pubs, especially basic science ones, I think, are overrated if you are applying to MD-only programs. Everyone knows how much luck and time are needed for publishing as an undergrad. I had ZERO published research when I submitted AMCAS, but having over 3k hours was definitely enough for me to write meaningfully about my experiences working with others and on my own project. Imo, the strength and quality of your PI letter matter much more. If pubs are not possible in your lab, poster presentations/oral talks are a great way to build a track record.
Do you strictly have to do biomedical research? No, but you should. I had a friend who did a lot of humanities-related language research, but they were in that major in school and had a last-minute pivot into medicine.
Non-clinical volunteering: I believe, should be an area that you use to differentiate yourself, not treat as a checkbox. So find a community you resonate with (or see yourself being able to tangibly uplift) and don't leave when things get hard.
Gap year: Being set on taking a gap year was incredible in allowing me to deepen my relationships with my mentors and pursue experiences that I otherwise would've turned a blind eye to during my senior year. If you are in no rush, a gap year is great! But by all means, if your application is ready by the end of junior year, definitely apply.
Application: I felt like the PS was the hardest part of my application. I started by brain-dumping my life story, then filtering out the experiences that were not necessarily connected to medicine. I studied English comp in college, so writing and creating a compelling story come naturally to me, but I read a lot of samples from current Hopkins and Stanford med students (you can find these on Google, but they're lowkey generic) and used them as inspiration to help outline my own essay. Instead of getting anyone in medicine to read my PS, I had help from my English professor, who has published tens of novels. While people in medicine are great at judging if your essay is veering off course, I recommend giving your story (your PS is a story after all) to friends and people not in medicine to get their reaction. A good essay should evoke some emotional response in your reader, or, at the very least, leave a mark on them.
I submitted my primary on the first day it opened.
For secondaries, I pre-wrote 400-word essays for the basic leadership, diversity, adversity, "why us," and gap year prompts the second to last week of June. I turned in my first secondary mid-July, and my last (Duke) around August 10th. On average, I spent 4 hours per day writing and tried to do 1–2 schools per day at a minimum.
Interviews are very important. If you asked me to quantify their impact, I couldn’t (but don’t worry, I’ll get on admissions to get a clearer answer), but it is a common misconception to believe that the interview is all that matters at that stage, meaning the rest of your application is still considered post-interview. Your interview is treated like a rec letter for the final admissions committee. I looked through SDN to find school-specific questions that were asked in previous years, and really worked on not being a bot and speaking clearly (yes, I practiced speaking in front of a mirror every day for a minute without saying uhms). Treat your interviews as if you were writing a rec letter for yourself. So with limited space and time, you want to highlight the best and strongest qualities about yourself. Thus, you need to tailor your answer to an interviewer who very clearly read your entire file, vs an interviewer who didn’t.
Group interviewers, like those at Dartmouth and Emory, were very nerve-racking, but in retrospect, were fairly easy and were nothing to stress about. Kira sucked. Some MMIs were pretty straightforward and had questions I were expecting. Others, like a school I was WL at, I genuinely don’t know how you were supposed to prepare for. Look up common questions on SDN and on AI. Imo, the way you answer and how much your personality bleeds into a conversation that is expected to be rigid is more important than the content of your answers (also true for trad interviews)
After everything, I really believe the most competitive medical schools are looking for individuals with a perspective on life and humanism that cannot be found in other students from a similar demographic/upbringing. What really made me stand out were my awards, work in narrative medicine and socioeconomic health disparities research/volunteering, and my narrative.
Feel free to DM me any questions! I remember how uncertain I felt a year ago while I was applying.