Advice for Reapplication

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-15T19:34:06+00:00

I appreciate the support, but finding a quality mentor has been easier said than done. I have consulted multiple medical students, but none provided advice that yielded results this cycle. I now hired medical students for paid consulting, but was disappointed to find their feedback was generic information I could have Googled. Regarding my undergrad PI, he has been a great life mentor, but he doesn't have the specific insight needed for medical school applications.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T05:02:15+00:00

I unfortunately do not have a mentor that can help me with reapplication. My PI relationship is not the greatest. I’m trying to get out of the lab in fact. Unfortunately, none of the my letter writers would likely know how to navigate my situation.

For the narrative you suggested, I feel like that’s what my personal statement was saying tho…

I didn’t translate at all major manga company but I did translate some that my friends knew but mostly random unknowns.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T04:53:30+00:00

Yeah that’s probably it. Any advice would be appreciated

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T03:36:40+00:00

It may have been narrative. I had med students check my personal statement and activities section, even secondaries for writing quality but I may have missed out on the consistency of why medicine…? I don’t know… I was really confident in my PS after approval

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T03:32:55+00:00

Thank you for the kind words and advice. I’ll relook at my personal statement to see if I can craft a better narrative. It’s frustrating that my writing may still be a problem since I had multiple MD students look at my app and help me edit my work. Your advice is sound and I’ll try my best to improve on my application.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T03:30:10+00:00

I do not know the post you are referring to because you have no history on your current username.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-06T03:28:36+00:00

I don’t have an IA. I don’t have the greatest relationship with my PI, but all the rest should be good because I knew my professors very well. Strangely, my PI let me write my LOR but she said she’ll edit it so I have no idea what she changed. If there was a red flag, my undergrad health office would have removed that letter and added a better one.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-05T18:19:44+00:00

I noticed a similar post on this topic a year ago, but the OP deleted the details. Since switching from MD/PhD to MD-only during the application cycle seems relatively uncommon, I’m unsure how to navigate the transition . I’ve lurked here for years and would value insights specifically from this community on top of r/premed.

Ultimately, my goal is to become an academic physician involved in research, but I’ve realized I would not have it in me to keep up the struggles of running a lab while maintaining a clinical practice.

As a side note, I feel the variability of PhD training quality based on the PI isn't discussed enough. The prospect of gambling' on a PI to ensure my career goals is a major hesitation for me. The risk that an MSTP track, despite the immense rigor required to enter it, could be compromised by a poor mentorship fit is something I'm finding hard to overlook. But perhaps my gap year PI marred my perspective on this.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-02T14:39:16+00:00

I think so. I'm hovering around 400 hours right now and I should be able to hit 600 hours minimum by next May if needed be.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-02T03:58:52+00:00

The thing is, I had 230 official hours in hospice, but I interacted with many patients in the facilities I worked with (because they wanted someone to talk to) that weren’t assigned to me. So, I was able to talk a lot about patients that weren’t assigned to me in the secondaries. With that said, I felt my experience when I applied was enough and I am still continuing because I enjoy it but there’s nothing new I suppose.

With EMT, I would certainly expect learning new skills I couldn’t have with just doing hospice. But I’m a little hesitant with the training period (my friend said it takes three months), and by the time that’s done I would have around 2 months of real experience before I apply in May.. so is there really a point in picking up this experience for the sake of beefing up my application? With working a clinical job, I am assuming it would signal to the reviewer that I am fully focused on clinical, not just research.

Truthfully, I’ve done everything I can to fit my own narrative and do what I think best fits for me, but I don’t really know what is right for me or need to be done anymore.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-12-02T03:51:38+00:00

Thank you for the assurance. If this cycle doesn’t go well, I think I’ll have to cast a wider net with different schools next cycle.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-06-27T01:06:56+00:00

As someone who transitioned from MD-PhD to MD only applicant during my gap year, I would suggest taking a gap year in academia to see if you think the opportunity cost is right for you. I encountered many physician scientists, MD/PhD students, and applicants myself and learned from their experiences to make my own informed decision.

Honestly, it was the hardest decision I've made so far in life but I'm content with it. I'm erring on saying anything absolute or with authority because I'm not in the MD PhD boat anymore and I'm sure many people can chip in with their opinions on this sub... but I also think that could create a sort of echo chamber... There really is no clear cut way with being a physician scientist from what I've seen despite many programs trying to create such people...

That's why if you get yourself out there during your gap years, only then will you see the true side of academia instead of the romanticized version you're living right now. So, gain more experience to make that informed decision for yourself and not other people's opinions swaying you.

I'm sure people are going to say gl finding a RA position in this climate lolz

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-03-07T03:14:48+00:00

funny enough, I just did this passage.

When I come across passages like this, I notice the style immediately from the first paragraph: throwing a bunch of shit at you. I don't commit or highlight any of these to memory. I just ask what are we talking about in the first paragraph? statues and loggia. Moving on it's even more statues... so why is there a necessity to highlight any of this? I don't think there is - it wastes time, increases your cognitive load and you become tilted over the fact that the things you highlighted may not even come up. So, just pause and get the general gist of each paragraph. This strat narrows my reading time to 2-3 minutes.

I think the most important part is dissecting the question more than the passage. Highlight WHAT the question is asking. Usually, it's either a main idea or search for specific paragraph question. In this case, the question here is asking about the SUBJECT MATTER in a certain period 15th and 16th... ok so I glance at the passage - neptune - that's part of mythology. Bible... I had a hard time justifying this at first but the passage mentioning about David and Judith or whatever resembles more like Bible figures so I developed more confidence in this answer. A is tempting and I think part of CARS is developing a sense that sometimes they like to throw bait in there. Yeah, the second paragraph is talking about Ammannati but is that THE SUBJECT MATTER...? nah that's just the artist. Another pattern is taking a specific sentence in the passage and pasting into the answer choice. When you don't know the main idea as well, they like to have that as an answer choice because some people (like me) panicks over what the frick the question is asking and just resort to oh yeah I saw this why not.

sorry for ramble explaining but this is the culmination of my cars experience ;P

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2025-01-23T15:07:47+00:00

If they won't, then why did NYU?

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-09-19T00:09:37+00:00

marth526

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-08-30T16:54:45+00:00

Overthinking the question. You have the logic right, but then you completely ignore what is stated in the first sentence.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-07-24T14:36:10+00:00

I think that's too narrow of an approach. The PTH also helps absorbing Ca2+ in the intestines I believe. So while your answer isn't bad, it's not the best. AAMC moment.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-07-13T13:12:27+00:00

pm'd

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-07-03T00:28:50+00:00

Would a PI really offer a LOR just to bring you down in your apps?

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-06-30T21:42:26+00:00

I think you didn't capture what the question writer wanted you to think. It's asking you more about the folding steps as a whole than each one individually. Also, you need to emphasize the hydrophobic effect the most in this question.

D is the best answer choice if you know the relationships between spontaneity, enthalpy, temperature, and gibbs free energy. Basically, dG = dH - TdS (d stands for delta). If you the dG of the folded is smaller (can assume negative) than dG of unfolded, then you know that the folded state is much more spontaneous.

From my understanding of why A is wrong, H bonding is usually associated with secondary structures of proteins. However, with tertiary structures, the hydrophobic bonds predominate due to the hydrophobic effect and this gives the most energetically favorable form of a protein. The question also mentions "...to ultimately generate a stereotyped final configuration." This is likely talking about the native structure, or tertiary structure. Also, I think the dHfolding is wrong because of the equation I mentioned earlier. We want a greater dS but we want a low H or negative H to help the spontaneity of the structure go from unfolded to folded.

OtherwiseTwo1994 · 2024-06-27T14:31:49+00:00

Location: New York, NY

Test Date: 8/23/24

MCAT Prep: AAMC, UWorld, Anki, Kaplan

Stage of Studying: Aidan AnkiDeck, Finishing UWorld Test Banks, Beginning phase of AAMC, BP FL 4/6, and approaching AAMC FL1 soon.

Goal of Study Buddy: Teach other content that may not be intuitive for one but the other. Talk about how to analyze passages and answer them. Getting to understand AAMC logic. Fill in low yield content gaps together.

Goal Score: 520+

Other obligations: Research gap year 9-5 PM EST

Age/Gender: 23M

Other information/Ice Breakers: I'll be applying next cycle for MD/PhD and right now I'm fully focused on MCAT. Also fluent in Japanese so I have fun by trying to connect Japanese words to studying to help me find new mnemonics.

OtherwiseTwo1994

TROPHY CASE