By now, ya’ll know I want to be a doctor. Yeah, yeah – got it. But how do you get into medical school? There is no short answer to this question really, but right now I’m smack dab in the middle of studying for the MCAT and creating my application. Both of which are very time-consuming and very expensive (several thousand for every application on average – yikes!)

So let’s talk about the medical school application process and timeline and how I am managing it all. I’ll leave the cost for later.

The Breakdown:

Basically, the application is broken down into:

Biographic information – easy peasy lemon squeezy

Transcripts – again, pretty easy unless you’re like me and have been to 4 schools and each one charges me a somewhat nominal fee for their stupid piece of paper after I paid a not-so-nominal fee to attend their school in the first place. This has to include each and every class you have ever taken. You have to hand input every class, grade, credit, and semester of every.single.class. over several years of your life. Kill me.

MCAT scores – This is currently in the works for me. Somewhat simple to input in the application once you receive them. Oh, but wait, you don’t get your scores until about a month after taking the test so in order to have your application in “on time” – this test needs to be taken earlier rather than later.

Work + Activities – This is a rough one for me. For the regular MD schools, you get 15 spots for everything. I think a lot of students find it difficult to even fill those spots, but I find it difficult to keep it to only 15 even with all the messy combinations. You have a few characters to describe your activity and you move on. Sounds easy enough – but this is complicated because you have to “tell a story” about the experience, what you did, and what you learned. This needs to be an impressive story in a short amount of characters. Osteopathic schools and schools in Texas have their own version of this game.

Personal Statement – This is a doozy. Having to explain my entire life and ten thousand jobs in 15 slots is hard enough, but now I have to write about all of that in the context of why I want to be a doctor. Phew.

Letters of Recommendation – This one was easy for me. I am quite the charming person it seems. I asked around old professors, research PIs, doctors I’ve worked for, past supervisors, etc., and almost nobody said no. And screw you to the one who said no! MUAHAHA

If you are like me, you compile all of this lovely information into a fancy spreadsheet and eventually put that into three common application systems for MD schools, DO (osteopathic) schools, and the Texas school systems. Each of those has its own cost. Then you upload your letters, which can be complicated in its own right since you can’t read the letters. Then you choose which schools you want to send your application to – again, each school has its own fee. After all of that, you send in the application and someone with a super fun job looks over everything and makes sure you didn’t lie or make any of it up (yes, I took a class called Love and Atonement. It was awesome). That takes around a month.

If you are wondering how I am managing all of this – I’m not. Just kidding, I have a lot of spreadsheets and I track every little thing that I do. If I spend 5 hours shadowing, working, or watching a seminar, I track it. This helps keep tabs on everything for later and I have a long dynamic document.

This is an interesting process and not very fun if I’m honest. Stay tuned to see me get through it all without pulling out all my hair in the process.

Stay sane my friends!

XO Melmo