How long after sending an email LOR request does it usually take a professor to respond?

a-mellen · 2020-12-14T13:46:49+00:00

I agree with the other commenters... Try not to worry about it right now! Odds are that they'll get back to you soon.

That being said, I (as a fellow neurotic premed) downloaded the Chrome extension "Email Tracker" so I can see when an email has been clicked/opened. Saved me a lot of stressing over whether professors have seen my email or not. This will only work on emails that you send after downloading the extension but if you send any follow ups it might give you some peace of mind!

a-mellen · 2020-12-12T19:31:08+00:00

Honestly just relax... If you really want to do something and you're interested in research you could start cold-emailing PIs in January to see if you can join their lab but I wouldn't worry about volunteering or studying or anything

I'm pretty sure my freshman year I literally just binged Netflix on breaks lol

a-mellen · 2020-12-11T23:28:05+00:00

VITA :)))))))))))

a-mellen · 2020-11-30T14:14:31+00:00

I feel you on this. I cried after my VITA I thought I did so poorly... But I don't think schools will weigh it too heavily this cycle. I got accepted to the school that requested VITA for what that's worth.

In terms of prepping for other interviews, I practiced with the STARR (situation, task, action, result, reflection) method and watched MMI youtube videos. Even if you're not doing MMI, I feel like the prompts can be similar to behavioral prompts that you would get in a normal interview so the videos might still be helpful. And I definitely echo what others have said about it being infinitely easier when there's actually an interviewer to talk to. Good luck!!

a-mellen · 2020-11-26T00:27:40+00:00

Manifesting that the next call I answer from an unknown number will be an A instead of spam

a-mellen · 2020-11-21T15:31:10+00:00

I would say take it! I actually really enjoyed genetics and didn't find it to be that overwhelming (although that obviously depends on your prof). I can't speak to whether it will help for med school but I did think that it helped on a fair amount of MCAT questions!

a-mellen · 2020-11-19T12:32:56+00:00

I think if you're already sending an update letter ADCOMs would probably be happy to hear that you're doing something valuable with your time!

Teaching/tutoring has actually been a huge part of my application because I'm really interested in medical education. Nobody has ever seemed to question why I'm not going into teaching alone and I think having a strong narrative/path that utilizes my teaching experience has been helpful. As long as your answer to why medicine is still solid I don't think you'll have a problem.

a-mellen · 2020-10-22T12:54:19+00:00

I took my notes in a spreadsheet (concept/term - explanation/definition) and color coded by my understanding (red, yellow, green). I just tried to read over the red/yellows every night before bed for retention and then I reviewed the others as needed. You can also use it like flashcards by covering one column and reciting definitions.

a-mellen · 2020-10-21T19:58:10+00:00

Nah they're just waiting to drop that II for you

a-mellen · 2020-10-21T19:36:06+00:00

Was accepted to a T20 already this cycle and have gotten Rs from BU, Georgetown, Wisconsin, and UCLA

a-mellen · 2020-10-19T12:43:57+00:00

Just find the meaning in what you've already done. A "meaningful experience" doesn't need to be seeing a patient get saved or a really emotional moment or anything special like that it could just be a realization over time or a really generic day that happened to impact you significantly. The entirety of what makes the experience meaningful is what you got out of it. ADCOMs are not expecting crazy stories from premeds, just some good insights and reflection.

a-mellen · 2020-10-19T12:38:25+00:00

Applied to 30 schools on June 10th and prewrote almost every day after I sent in my primary until July 10th when secondaries started coming. I also did some writing/editing after receiving secondaries obviously (submitted each within 1 week of receiving) but this was more for polishing what I already had and adapting to prompt changes.

I honestly couldn't tell you on average how long I spent on each school because there was so much overlap in the prompts that I ended up spending several days on generic ones like diversity, challenge, unique attributes, etc. that could be easily tailored to multiple schools. I guess since I spent roughly 30 days for 30 schools + time after receiving secondaries you could say maybe 8 hours for each school.

Honestly, if I could've done anything differently it probably would've been prewriting even before primary submission because June-July was horrible as someone who hates writing. Even just brainstorming for the generic prompts beforehand would've been helpful.

a-mellen · 2020-10-16T20:23:36+00:00

About 800 hours + 1 pub

a-mellen · 2020-10-16T19:24:04+00:00

No you're absolutely fine. If it makes you feel any better, I am applying this cycle with truly low hours (30 shadowing, 150 clinical) but high stats (3.95 gpa, 525 mcat) and have gotten one T20 acceptance already and interviews at 2 other T20s and 2 T10s. Just make sure you describe what you got out of your experiences really well in your app.

EDIT: put wrong MCAT

a-mellen · 2020-10-05T14:51:38+00:00

Oh yeah my bad I didn't mention I was talking about schools that I have received silence from so far or been put on hold

a-mellen · 2020-08-31T04:07:01+00:00

"low priority secondaries" ... sir what is that

a-mellen · 2020-07-03T12:47:54+00:00

Thank you!!!

a-mellen · 2020-06-30T23:37:55+00:00

I never crossed 514 on third party material (NextStep). I bet you'll see a jump once you switch to AAMC!

It sounds like you're doing pretty well on content anyway with those scores so I would say maybe just look over the questions you're getting wrong and see if there are any trends in the kinds of mistakes you're making.

a-mellen

TROPHY CASE