Experience applying to medical school
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Anonymous
| DS is applying to medical school, has a 3.9 GPA from top 25 school and 520 MCAT, very long list of activities, shadowing, research published in good journal), volunteer work, etc. So far no, interview invites. Realize it’s still early but wondering if it’s a good idea to send a letter of intent to one med school? |
Anonymous
| Are they applying as a senior or after gap year(s)? |
Anonymous
| Applying as a senior. |
Anonymous
Have heard it’s really hard for these applicants as so many kids are taking an additional one to two years to dedicate solely to research. I think all you can do is be patient, and think about what the student can do next year if they don’t get accepted this cycle. |
Anonymous
| Long list of activities but how much time with each one? |
Anonymous
| URM? Any hooks, eg, serving rural communities? |
Anonymous
|
Very long time with activities - years, 1000 hours. No hooks.
Appreciate the responses. |
Anonymous
| My kid with similar stats applied 50 schools with 2 gap years. Your kid will need hands on clinical experience. |
Anonymous
| What type of clinical experience did your child have? |
Anonymous
| OP here, DS has 3 years of clinical exp - started working in a hospital freshman year and continued each year and summers. But sounds like folks are saying that’s not enough. |
Anonymous
| Hospital volunteering, worked as a tech for eye docs. It’s kind of early for interview invites isn’t it? I don’t recall exact timing of when the invites go out |
Anonymous
Does he have 1000 hours at least as PP stated? |
Anonymous
|
Yes, is still a bit early. So haven’t lost all hope. Just wondering if anyone tried using a letter of intent and whether that helped.
Appreciate all the responses. |
Anonymous
|
It is still early. I would not worry yet — invites will still be going out for months.
Be sure to review each school’s app rules carefully before sending a letter of intent; some do not want to see them at all. I’ll add that generally one does not send a letter of intent until after the interview. Perhaps you meant letter of interest — which one could send if one had not received an invite to interview? I would consider waiting another month or so; things will shake up around then; whereas now, like I said, it is still early. |
Anonymous
| Yes, sorry, letter of interest is the correct term. You’re right. Thank you so much for the helpful reply. Truly appreciate it. |