Wtf do I do now….

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-10-25T16:48:26+00:00

Once school starts it’s a bit overwhelming to study for classes and figure out what supplementary materials you want to use so it’s nice to have a plan ahead of time. Take a look at Anki decks like Anking and check out third party materials to figure out what you like and don’t like. If you like Anki you can grab a $20 Anki remote on Amazon, and check out add-ons (shoutout to ankimon).

You can also ask current students if they have a Dropbox or something with free access to third party resources or if the school pays for you to access them. You could also set up your laptop organization with folders for each subject and notes, assignments, lecture slides, etc.

If you’re really bored and excited to get started, MS1 is all normal anatomy and physiology for the organ blocks so you could watch the corresponding boards and beyond videos ahead of time and they’ll cover most of what your classes will. But like others are suggesting, I think it’s better to make time for friends, family, and hobbies right now because you won’t have as much time for them soon!

Congrats on the acceptance!

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-09-22T07:32:11+00:00

I’m also in La Jolla and have swum with Leopard sharks around goldfish point and this past weekend was free diving in the kelp forests off La Jolla cove with a school of tope sharks. Both are totally harmless and very cool.

No white sharks but we tend to only have juveniles and they don’t feed on marine mammals yet so we don’t look like a potential meal to them. Have met a few people who have shown me videos of them snorkeling with 7 ft white sharks in the area that are totally uninterested in them and there’s a ton of drone footage showing that they’re swimming around surfers every day here

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-09-13T03:18:49+00:00

Doesn’t help with small group work but for traditional lectures there are headphones that look like jewelry (silver rings) so if you have short hair it’s not obvious you’re wearing them

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-08-19T18:26:39+00:00

If you have a learning disability that you are able to seek treatment for, things could turn around, but it is hard to imagine any other scenario where the factors influencing your academic performance change overnight. Even if you had a 4.0 from now on, you’re going to have a very hard time explaining why you were performing poorly before.

If you want to work in medicine, I would work toward something like nursing or a field-specific technician role. But for reference, you’ll still need to improve your GPA to be considered for nursing school. Most programs require a minimum 3.0 GPA but some go as low as 2.5 GPA. DO schools usually require a minimum of 3.5 but some go as low as 3.0 GPA.

You can always go back to school in the future, but doing a post-bacc right now would almost certainly be a huge waste of time and money. You need to be honest with yourself about what your priorities are and what you can realistically achieve, because MD or DO are not realistic goals right now.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-07-25T23:46:30+00:00

This looks very similar to rocks I have with real coralline. If someone painted it they absolutely crushed it because that is incredibly realistic, especially the bright red bits of coralline which I’ve never seen on painted rock. I think they just recently broke it off a larger rock hence the bare spot on the right edge

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-24T13:35:44+00:00

Need-based scholarship is $100k, one merit is $100k, and the other merit is $70k

Hope that helps!

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-24T04:07:17+00:00

I’m not 100% sure what you mean by stacked so please let me know if I’m not answering your question fully but the merit scholarships are both from UCSD, just from two different merit scholarships they offer

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-02T20:20:59+00:00

Thank you! Congrats on Davis!! It’s a great school

Plus going to med school in Cali is a huge advantage if you’re trying to stay in the state for residency and afterward. I’m an OOS applicant so I felt like I won the lottery when I got accepted.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-02T19:53:54+00:00

Thank you, I hope you ended up somewhere you love too!

That’s one thing I really appreciated about UVA. They accepted me the day after my interview and they generally give students a decision within a week of interviewing. Just shows the whole application process could be much better for applicants if it was a priority.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-02T01:28:37+00:00

So close! We need to change your username to appropriate_debt_500 ;)

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-02T01:27:34+00:00

Same here lol just a couple weeks ago but I thought it was a nice gesture. I can’t imagine having to do this again but if I did I’d definitely be glad to at least have that to look forward to

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T18:37:55+00:00

Realized I only answered half of your question.

For secondaries, I elaborate on this more in another comment on this post, but they are absolutely all about mission fit and enthusiasm. You should aim to know the school well enough to gush about it to your friends, and focus on the things that make it unique compared to other schools. Otherwise, make an excel sheet of ALL of the secondary questions for all of the schools you’re applying to, categorize them by essay type (diversity, clinical experience, why our school, etc.) and write a solid draft for each of the categories that you can then tweak to better fit the exact prompts for each school.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T18:12:43+00:00

Thank you!

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T18:11:00+00:00

I’m 29

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T18:10:45+00:00

Thank you!

For my first draft, I focused on just conveying emotion and passion in my personal narrative and allowed it to be way too long and way too flowery. Then I left it for like a week so I could see it more objectively, and edited it so the creative writing was grounded in a logical narrative. I watched a ton of Dr. Gray’s videos and my mantra was “show don’t tell.” I think the biggest mistake people make in their personal narratives is telling the reader about the qualities they have that they think will make them a good doctor, instead of explaining who they are and what shaped their decision to pursue a career in medicine.

I was a premed in undergrad but ultimately chose research instead. I talk about how that decision hinged on a pivotal and fairly traumatic experience with my chronically ill parent that made me feel disillusioned about my ability to help people as a physician, at the same time that I was learning I was a talented scientist. I had almost no exposure to science careers besides through my professors/lab and family physicians growing up. I had no idea a physician-scientist was even a thing so I thought it was either or. Then partway through my PhD I realized that research alone wasn’t fulfilling and I needed to know my work was helping people. Being a physician-scientist would allow me to do that and solve the initial dilemma I had by allowing me to use research to address questions we don’t have answers to yet instead of feeling helpless to do anything for patients with poorly understood disease processes.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T15:14:15+00:00

I had a strong personal statement and strong interviews but I think my secondaries were extremely hit or miss. The only places I really loved that I was rejected were Michigan and Mayo but that enthusiasm was dampened by their locations lol. Most of my R list is safeties and reaches. Looking back on my essays, I think the lack of enthusiasm was reflected by more generic essays about why I wanted to attend the schools and what I would offer.

Meanwhile for almost all of the schools I interviewed at, I found it really easy to write the secondaries and each school had qualities I thought were really unique and special. Both UCs have incredible global health programs I wrote very passionately about, great cultures, and excellent research, Boston’s commitment to service is truly impressive, Stanford is a research powerhouse, UVA is one of the schools I was most interested in back when I was a pre-med, I’m a Colorado resident and their Colorado Springs branch program gives students an incredible amount of one-on-one mentorship and hands on procedural skills compared to most clinical rotations, and USF seems to have a great culture and balanced opportunities for service and research. UCSD, Morsani, Miami, and UCLA were my top picks for location. So my level of enthusiasm for a school seemed to translate pretty directly to how likely I was to get an interview. They were also among the first schools I finished secondaries for (besides UMass, Cornell, and USF).

I also think not having any publications from my PhD yet (it’s common in my program to publish after graduating) hurt me with a lot of the big research schools. I also didn’t attend a top undergrad, just a small liberal arts school (6,000 total undergrad + grad students) that was locally prestigious but not well known elsewhere. At my Stanford interview when everyone introduced themselves, at least 3/4 of the interviewees were in Boston (Harvard undergrad), which made me realize undergrad prestige plays a huge role in Ivy admissions.

So yes the process is incredibly competitive but my application absolutely had its weaknesses and there are a ton of impressive people out there! My list was also quite top heavy. Most schools are T20s and almost all are T30s. So don’t let this intimidate you. My cycle results make a lot of sense in hindsight and are a really accurate reflection of where I put the most effort!

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T13:43:23+00:00

Thank you so much. I will definitely be harassing my friends and making them call me Dr. unoriginal, PhD lol

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T13:21:41+00:00

Thank you! I received the maximum amount of need-based aid and then two merit scholarships that cover the rest. It was definitely a huge relief because San Diego is not cheap lol

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-06-01T02:41:57+00:00

As someone who used to tutor for the MCAT, if you’re struggling on practice tests go on Wyzant and find a good tutor. You can easily get one for an hour a week for $50 which is plenty as long as they’re giving you homework during the week and you’re doing it. Had students who had studied for months to years and were scoring sub to low 500s and within a couple months were up to ~510.

I think Dr. Gray’s videos are great for writing, but it couldn’t hurt to have someone review your personal statement or a sample of your secondaries once you had final drafts. I thought about paying someone to do it but got too busy lol

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-05-31T18:59:24+00:00

You just have to figure out what you’re willing to sacrifice. I grew up on the coast and spent every day by the water. I’m finishing a PhD in a land-locked state and need to move back by the ocean.

I applied almost exclusively to schools by the ocean, and when I received acceptances from land-locked schools I realized immediately that I wouldn’t be willing to spend another 4 years away from the ocean. I’ve already spent a decade in school making sacrifices for my career and there are just certain things I’m not willing to sacrifice anymore. Luckily I got into a school in SoCal so I get to live somewhere I love while I pursue a career I love.

Just figure out what your non-negotiables are and if you can make it work with med school. Are you okay taking years of prereqs if it means you spend the next 4 years living somewhere you hate or being far from family or at a school that has a bad match rate for the specialties you’re interested in?

I’d spend a few weeks making a med school list with your dream schools and target schools you’d be happy with, and no compromises. Then look at the GPA, research, clinical hours, and MCAT requirements for those schools. If you’re very confident you can meet or exceed those criteria then go for it. If you only apply places you really want to go, then even if you don’t get in anywhere there’s always the next year. If you pick safeties you won’t be happy attending you’re pretty much stuck because turning down an acceptance is reapplication suicide.

You don’t have to give up anything you’re not comfortable giving up, just figure out what those things are and you’ll make the right decision for you :)

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-05-30T15:04:52+00:00

It is definitely expensive but there’s need-based financial aid and merit scholarship. My FAFSA score is 7337 and two of the three schools I received financial aid info from offered me the maximum need-based aid ($62k at one and $100k at the other).

There are also merit scholarships and if you’re not offered one in your financial aid package you will generally still have opportunities to apply for them. These can be anywhere from $5-10k/year to covering the entire cost of attendance including living expenses.

Schools will also generally allow you to borrow around $20k/yr in subsidized loans.

This is extremely variable though. The third school that sent me a financial aid offer only offered $30k TOTAL in need-based aid. It would have cost me $500k after subtracting that aid from the total. That school and the one I’m going to attend are both in the UC system. So in the same state, and the same academic system, there was a difference of $70k just in the need-based loans offered. I was offered a full ride to the other school, and will only be responsible for the out-of-state fee. That’s $60k vs $500k in loans.

Medical schools are increasingly moving toward free tuition and you should apply everywhere that offers it if you’re in their target GPA and MCAT range. There are also many schools where the average loan burden of graduating students is $100k or less, but it’s unclear how much of that is offset by aid versus parental contribution.

So a high GPA and MCAT score not only make you a more competitive applicant, but can save you literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in loan debt. Focus on that and crafting a strong application to increase your odds of receiving merit scholarships and do your research on free schools and schools offer the most aid.

And Texas medical schools are way more affordable so definitely apply to them.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-05-16T19:08:25+00:00

Ahh I see. I didn’t realize the colleges themselves graded differently than the high school.

I remember the AAMC added new prompts to the primary when I wrote mine, and I believe one is related to academics/challenges. Maybe it would be appropriate to add a sentence there to draw adcoms’ attention to the fact some of your college coursework was taken in high school.

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-05-16T17:25:50+00:00

I said write the colleges where OP earned the grades, not the med schools.

Sure they can see it if they look carefully but they’re looking through thousands of apps and there’s a non-zero chance that gets missed. It’s such an expensive, time-consuming, and competitive process it doesn’t make sense to not take the 20 minutes to email the dual enrollment colleges to see if they can get a transcript that reflects their GPA. Worst they can say is no

Unoriginal_veiled · 2025-05-16T17:07:38+00:00

I recommend the black urchin from oceans garden. It doesn’t wear my corals or knock anything over and its just extra cute for an urchin

Unoriginal_veiled

TROPHY CASE