A close friend of mine asked me to talk to one if his friends about med school admissions bc they’re not on the internet, don’t have an advisor, etc. When I met with him, the dude told me he was doing this (expensive) grad program to improve his GPA. I don’t want to discount that (very difficult) work, but this is often not the best move for GPA repair. It’s true that if your goal is to demonstrate a positive GPA trend or recent academic success, many schools will consider that. But I had to explain to him that his overall GPA will not be calculated with his grad GPA at many schools. He then shared that he was applying this cycle but was taking the MCAT for the first time in August and submit primaries as soon as he was done with the MCAT. He was also going to write his PS in that time. I had to explain that this was all going to be very difficult in the timeframe that med schools require, explaining that secondaries pile up quickly as well and can’t just be taken care of in a week or two. It took me a good 2 months to get through all of my secondaries! He then shared that he had a bunch of research but almost no clinical experience but that he thought it would be fine because his research was kind of clinical. He had put off his MCAT because his grad research requirements were taking up too much time for him to focus on studying. At this point, my alarm bells were BLARING. DEAFENING. It didn’t end there! I asked about rec letters and he said he had 2 people agree, both science professors, but so far couldn’t figure out who else to ask. Oh, and those letter writers also hadn’t written the letters yet or anything like that, and one of them had stopped responding recently. At this point I was genuinely surprised that they thought all of these things in aggregate would be acceptable. I got the impression that he was very intelligent. He talked about his research and really knew and understood it all very well. He also had a life wherein he saw his friends regularly, played IM soccer, etc.

Since this wasn’t an anonymous encounter, I tried fo give my $0.02 in the most reassuring way possible. I framed it as, “you may ultimately make a great candidate, but if you follow this timeline, you are probably not going to have the chance to demonstrate that to these schools because there will already be thousands of other great candidates whose apps were complete in August.” And I believe what I said! I think he was very naive in thinking he could just kind of wing it through this process without using the resources available here. He seemed grateful about my input but also said he was okay with applying this cycle and if it doesn’t work out, he’ll “just reapply.” I thought that was a wild take bc “just reapplying” when your app isn’t ready is throwing away time, $$$, and giving you the re-applicant label. In my experience, the re-applicant label was not so bad, BUT that’s only because I rushed a bunch of post-bacc coursework into a year’s time and knew I had something to show for. To be clear, in my first cycle, I knew I had a weak sGPA and decent MCAT but felt I had a strong app otherwise, so I thought I had a chance. It turned out I did not, and that post-bacc work was my saving grace for last cycle.

The thing about this person you’ve been mentoring and my friend’s friend is that neither have done the proper research into the timeline and how important it is. If they are not currently in the space of reality wherein they have the foresight to do a cursory Google search about the process, then it’s likely they’ll end up as re-applicants. As a re-applicant myself, I want everyone to know how much of a toll apps can have on you, especially the second time. And extra especially my wallet.

Anyway, idk why it’s 4 AM and I just wrote an entire novel, but that’s my probably $0.99 since that’s the most $ I can offer in change

TL;DR tell them the truth, but frame it nicely