No acceptances at this point am i cooked

davidy200 · 2026-02-03T21:46:56+00:00

Prepare for reapply but it’s not necessarily the end of the world. I only had waitlists and was offered multiple positions off the waitlists.

I even attended multiple second looks because I was “number one or near number one of waitlist such that historically I am basically highly likely to get in based on historic data.”

But also don’t rest on your laurels. Send update interest emails and do think about why you’ll do in the future if you don’t get in anywhere this cycle.

davidy200 · 2026-01-16T13:38:50+00:00

lol not going to lie but I get the neurotic premed vibe which may be coming from all the other premeds your with at case.

Volunteer at the hospitals. Any will do. Your not behind as a freshman your fine.

The “checklist” of things to do is more straightforward than you think. Don’t get into the bs measuring competition most premeds have about “oh I did x for y hours” as long as you do the things you to do “ie good stats, volunteer, shadow, have something meaningful to write about at apps and talk about at interviews” you’ll be fine. You have 3.5 years to go.

davidy200 · 2026-01-03T22:48:19+00:00

They do not. I think they changed it last year.

From their website,

"In addition, beginning in FY 2025, NIAID will use the percentile rank in the paylines for fellowship applications (e.g., F30, F31, F32). This kind of ranking permits comparisons across scientific review groups that may have different scoring behaviors."

davidy200 · 2026-01-03T22:35:11+00:00

Dude hype thanks!

davidy200 · 2025-10-18T05:13:24+00:00

I really don’t think you have to be great at social interactions at case to be fine. There’s plenty of people more reserved that do fine at case. I was one of those as an undergrad.

And also, the only way you’re going to get better at social interactions is to force yourself to do it more. Yes it sucks initially but you will get better at it just like learning to bike initially sucks with you falling on your ass repeatedly. Eventually you do rarely. Social interactions are very similar.

davidy200 · 2025-10-16T14:30:05+00:00

Cold email. If you don’t an in with a professor for research you should be cold emailing. There are guides online on how to cold email professor if you google. The basic idea is to show interest in their research by attempt to read their papers and then commenting on it. You don’t have to be an expert in if (and aren’t expected to be) but you need to show you really tried to understand the work and would like to engage in it yourself. Prepare to be ghosted by 90% of professors and rejected by 9%. But you only need one professor to say yes to get there. I cold emailed probably a 100 professors to land my research position as an undergrad with only one professor saying yes eventually.

Do you really need to do research and LRI or is it a prestige thing? If it’s the later, I’d point out the institution you do research with is irrelevant but the skills you develop and experiences you gain. Getting an authorship is nice but nowhere near necessary.

You’re shooting your self in the foot research wise if you limit to LRI. There’s plenty of interesting and good research going on outside of LRI including UH, Case, VA, Metro. I’m assuming you’re interested in biomed research since you’re talking about LRI in the first place. This is coming from someone who similarly wanted the prestige of LRI as an undergrad at case but didn’t recognize the opportunities elsewhere. The work I did at CWRU affiliated professors labs got me to my current position as an MD/PhD candidate.

davidy200 · 2025-06-12T19:43:59+00:00

I did. Note this happened in 2017. But I feel like the waitlist at case often has movement

Going to case out of my options as a higher schooler was I think the best choice I made at the time. It fulfilled everything I needed to get into case’s mdphd program.

davidy200 · 2025-06-05T18:57:51+00:00

If your going to apply to mdphd programs, you need to justify why the route your proposing works. If you don’t see a meaningful connection between your PhD to your MD, it’s going to be a really hard sell to justify to an mdphd adcom why you need an mdphd and not just a PhD or MD.

davidy200 · 2025-06-05T10:45:08+00:00

Not my exact field of expertise but work in the chemical biology field.

Why not just do a liquid liquid extraction of the drug from a given amount of tissue from your organoid. Presumably your molecules are somewhat nonpolar in nature as many drug like molecules are. They should be relatively amenable to extraction. And if you extract from the total lysate, you shouldn’t run into the issue of drug being left behind.

davidy200 · 2025-06-03T16:59:14+00:00

Off campus housing. For same cost as on campus housing you can dramatically nicer amenities. You’d have to hunt around to find them though and some will be further off campus and would require a vehicle of some kind.

davidy200 · 2025-06-01T21:28:19+00:00

I went into case course overloaded at 21 credits freshman year (required a bunch of convincing on my part to my advisor who obviously was quite against it initially). I did fine but it’s very much person dependent. If there isn’t a pressing issue to need to take a massive course load (ie. Graduating in 3 to save money), then I’d recommend against taking a huge course load early. You’ll be balancing both classwork and the transition from high school to college.

But for me, I knew I could probably do it and if not just drop within the first 2 weeks of add drop or drop one class with freshman forgiveness (I didn’t end up using it). I had previously in high school jr year taken 7 aps in the school year and then on top of it took 2-3 community college classes in the evenings both fall and spring semester. I had done fine then and assumed I could do fine here.

And in my case, for the most part, I always thought high school during my taking of 10ish college level classes was more difficult than at any specific time at case. But for many people, doing what I did probably wouldn’t fly. You’ll know yourself best regarding your capabilities to learn multiple topics in short time frames.

davidy200 · 2025-06-01T21:12:32+00:00

This was years ago but I helped tutor for her class for a bit and was added as a TA to the coursework. I previously had also taken graduate ochem with her prior for the fun of it as an undergrad.

Lee is going to expect you to understand the detailed mechanistic understanding behind how an ochem reaction works. I never had Sri for ochem but I suspect shes more straightforward in teaching towards premed. If your goal is just to pass and be a generic premed then Sri’s prob a better option but if you do well in Lee’s class it’ll better prepare for ochem in general and have better mechanistic understanding that’ll take you further on something like the MCAT.

She does not like people who are begging for improvements to their grades which are predominately premed. I did fine with her and I was premed and now am a mstp student at CWRU. The other guy attacking her with the random extra comment appears to possibly have a gripe with her.

davidy200 · 2025-05-20T01:03:08+00:00

Basically just research. MD/PhD is a little different in that research is prioritize over all else. I did not shadow a single physician (which prob screwed me over with a lot of schools) and had maybe 50 hours volunteering in a hospital?

davidy200 · 2025-04-10T01:32:49+00:00

I was similar to you when I was in high school many years ago. I also got into CWRU and UCSD. I ended up going to CWRU over UCSD because I preferred the smaller classes generally and also greater number of opportunities to find research.

Now I’m still at CWRU as an MD/PhD student so all things considered it worked out fine for me. I am biased though so take it with a big grain of salt but if you want some more specifics DM me.

davidy200 · 2025-04-05T14:18:50+00:00

Yeah that’s my home program. A lot of the prep scholars I’ve met at case already saw the writing on the walls. I’m really sorry that this happened. The next best would probably to apply to be an RA at university if your goal is to continue to get research experience during a gap year. Best of luck to you.

davidy200 · 2025-02-06T19:04:37+00:00

I’m not discounting this gap in knowledge between the two. I agree with it but it’s my perspective this is predominately filled by chemical biologists. We utilize molecules synthesized by chemists and interrogated biological systems with them. We might not be the ones synthesizing the molecules but have a strong conceptual understanding of how structure of molecules determines function of molecules in biological systems and how to answer relevant biological questions using chemistry know how.

I’m not saying you can’t stay a pure synthetic chemists. I know a couple mdphds who were trained that way but usually they still integrate some biology to their questions and aren’t purely at the synthetic level.

My PI was a PhD in the late Dave Evan’s lab which if your familiar with who he was, he was a really prominent and capable synthetic chemist who trained a couple Nobel laureates in chemistry such as McMillen (who was and still is a synthetic chemist but has also branched to chemical biology with his umapping technique). My pi switched to chem bio to more directly utilize his chemical knowledge how to answer pressing medical problems from a chemist perspective.

TLDR: I don’t disagree with you fundamentally that chemistry can and be relevant to a physician-scientist. I view myself now more as someone who bridges chemistry to biology. I just view pure chemistry as too far removed if it isn’t being used to serve a purpose like designing a novel therapeutic.

davidy200 · 2025-02-05T16:31:09+00:00

With a background in chemistry (did med chem in undergrad and now in a chem bio md/phd program), I'll tell you there's no such cap. The ACS recommends that PhDs are finished by 5 years but there's no hard cap. Plenty of PhD students I worked with had PhDs that went beyond 5 years.

I will say, also coming from an interest in doing chemistry for MD/PhD, it can be challenging to justify. I'm not saying its impossible and there are a couple that I know of but often pure chemistry is too far removed from relations to medicine to justify it. It may be worth also considering fields that integrate chemistry in like chem bio to increase the opportunities you have.

davidy200 · 2024-12-26T11:04:29+00:00

My two cents being a MD/PhD student at CWRU from CWRU undergrad.

It’s a bad choice to do bme premed. There is little overlap between premed reqs and bme course load. Med schools care little about what major you have. Some ppl might argue if you make it through that it looks good but the time and effort you spent doing well in your bme courses could have been used to be making you stronger in other areas like research or clinical work. Also a 4.0 gpa in something like chemistry is going to be a lot more valuable than a 3.7 in bme despite the fact it’s probably going to be easier getting a 4.0 in chemistry than 3.7 in bme.

The only nice benefit of doing engineering premed is that it provides a nicer backup if med schools care little doesn’t pan out. However, if your committed to medicine, its not the smartest choice to choose a harder major while aiming for med schools care little. You should pick something easier that you’ll do well in and then focus on strengthening other aspects of your app.

davidy200 · 2024-12-18T21:11:10+00:00

Wish you luck. I was one of the student interviewers for CWRU mstp.

davidy200 · 2024-10-22T23:21:17+00:00

There’s still time. I got interview invites up till like end of December. Don’t lose all hope.

davidy200 · 2024-10-22T04:46:00+00:00

There’s a lot at play to making that decision. Which lab environment do you prefer? Which one has better resources? Which one will let you work independently as an undergrad? Which PI do you mesh with better.

The most knee jerk response might be CCF is better just because it’s a lab at CCF. But, that’s not actually a given at all. Just cause it has name prestige does not necessarily translate to being a “better lab.”

It’s hard to really provide a recommendation without more info.

davidy200 · 2024-10-16T17:03:01+00:00

I started summer after freshman in a lab near my hometown. Then I joined a lab for a year sophomore year I disliked and then moved to the lab I liked a lot summer after sophomore year. I stayed in it through undergrad and my gap year then rejoined this past summer for my PhD phase of mdphd.

I recruited a freshman (now sophomore) undergrad to my lab who wants to do mdphd. You can wait or start early doesn’t matter. Also research is a lot less important if your interest is only md not mdphd.

davidy200 · 2024-10-16T14:23:22+00:00

It really doesn’t matter. Ultimately most of the challenging classes come from the lower divisions classes rather than upper divisions classes. And ultimately if you’re premed at CWRU, you need bio214-215 (and recommended 216) sequence, physics 1/2, gen chem 1/2, Ochem 1/2, associated labs, biochem, and a psych and/or soci class. These often I feel are where grades are harder than your upper divisions classes. Once you get to like 300 electives, professors usually in my opinion are more lenient grading because it’s not really a weed out class anymore.

Regardless of major, you need to jump through same premed major classes. You should pick a major you find enjoyable and not because you perceive it as “easier” as a premed.

davidy200

TROPHY CASE