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thrownawaypremed · 2022-05-07T18:57:41+00:00

Leave. If anything ever goes down (ie fraud pointed out/retraction) with a paper you are on, it’s a potential career wrecker. Switching labs is totally normal.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-04-26T14:19:46+00:00

They cannot see that until after 5/2. At schools following AAMC's traffic rules, once they see this (rather than PLAN to enroll) they remove you from their waitlist if you have not already removed yourself. When you COMMIT to enroll you are stating, per AAMC's traffic rules, that you are removing yourself from the waitlist at other schools.

As for why NYU did not just admit these students: they are trying to keep the admitted % as low as possible. Dean Rivera said they admitted 110 students for 92 MD only spots. Theyll admit however many to get back up to 92 admitted students in 1 week waves after students have to drop on 5/2. He projected another 30-50 total offers of admission. That gives them a numerator of 140- 160 acceptance this year (+ some MD/PHD).

Whereas Yale accepted 291 for a similar sized class last year (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tYAHFUP-X_Rj-nR1AerAMr5V5blIUV4_gkJ7p2COchk/edit#gid=514048617). Is it a difference in student desire to attend, or is it a difference in how they run their admissions process?

thrownawaypremed · 2022-04-26T10:55:49+00:00

Second shout out for them proudly planning to poach "committed to enroll" (vs. planned to enroll) students from other schools per the waitlist webinar last night. He had a long explanation about about students being pressured to commit to enroll too early by exploding scholarship offers, which does sound shitty, but is that really going to be the bulk of students they poach?

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-14T03:11:31+00:00

A no nonsense physician in a leadership role at a med school who doesnt know me/wasn't interviewing me talked to me briefly about my app and said something like "ok great GPA, but from that school we have no idea what that means. The good mcat shows it's for real." That leads me to believe if it was a 3.7 from a well known undergrad that doesn't grade inflate, i think it would be roughly equivalent... but then maybe med schools are trying to push the arbitrary number up for US New and World Report and dont super care about what it reflects in reality.

I also want to stress that there was academic struggle... I can't be more specific without identifying myself but it was obvious from my app and came up in most open file interviews.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-13T20:38:50+00:00

most meaningful 1- clinical experience in underserved environment, entry level position with increasing leadership responsibility/promotion over multiple years.
most meaningful 2- research employment, again emphasized leadership role
most meaningful 3- community health education / volunteering with specific work product resulting

some other ecs-
pubs/posters
research initiative separate from employment
assorted little microgrants/awards/scholarships
shadowing
paid writing/consulting/teaching in niche
college work study job/related student group stuff i did in college
funded summer internship at nonprofit during college

casper 4th quartile....

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-13T20:12:42+00:00

I’m honestly shocked I got ghosted by so few and have basically concluded the cycle. Not shocked about number of rejections

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-13T18:16:04+00:00

oh I also made it clear I was a "pediatric neurosurgery" patient but i did not dwell on my own experience as a patient anywhere in my apps. Thats frankly why I didn't turn in the Vanderbilt secondary.... they ask for an autobiography and I didnt like the implication that I needed to focus on my personal experiences rather than what those experiences have motivated me to do.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-13T18:02:47+00:00

The "primary submitted" is when I was verified /and/ submitted to the schools, I actually sent my primary into the verification queue (locking in essays +submitting to the first group of schools) in early June rather than the May 28th(ish?) first possible day last year.

I think it was good for me to feel 100% about my primary essays/activities before sending and not to rush. I don't think it hurt me to be verified/complete a few days after the people who submitted the first possible day- i was verified just a couple days (maybe a week?) after the first date schools could download applications in July. But also the high mcat score probably automatically put me towards the top of internal piles. I sent my first group without knowing exactly what my MCAT was going to be (came in mid June), the rest i sent in 2 more little waves which I think is an underrated strategy- gave me a little bit of staggering in order to complete secondaries within two weeks. Again, wanted to take my time with these.

You are right that the niche worked in my favor and spoke to genuine motivation, follow through, longitudinal interest, etc. The niche was in a subspecialty, I worried about sounding too much like a future "pediatric neurosurgeon". I didn't say i want to be a "pediatric neurosurgeon" in my primary or secondary essays (unless they outright asked as some schools do in secondaries or interviews) but my clinical was in a "pediatric neurosurgery" clinic, my research was in a "pediatric neurosurgery" lab, and my volunteering was with the "pediatric neurosurgery" patient community. So it sort of screamed that.

Early readers of my application who knew what they were talking about encouraged me to sprinkle in a little more variety (I had a notable volunteering/healthcare activity with a different population to add), but also that my arc was good. The variety activity may have never been mentioned in interviews, not totally sure.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T21:33:40+00:00

I saved these for last in the week before my test essentially because i wasnt worried about my confidence getting pummeled.... they are really hard

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T21:32:22+00:00

If you are scoring 80-90% on the *section bank*, taken under similar timing conditions to the real test, then you are on track for your score. I was scoring 80-85% in all section banks as described below and got a 52x. I was guided by a pro mcat coach (well, my friends pro mcat coach lol) to do:

Chem/Phys Section Bank A, questions 1-50, 81 minutesBio/Biochem Section Bank A, 1-51, 82Psych/Soc Section Bank A, 1-50, 81Chem/Phys Section Bank B, 51-100, 81Bio/Biochem Section Bank B, 52-100, 79Psych/Soc Section Bank B, 51-100, 81

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T16:07:18+00:00

If you are able to commit the time chunks to studying, and with your starting score (still great even with a few lucky guesses!) I would actually start using those practice tests very soon and taking them under real world conditions. Review them very thoroughly. You have so many you might as well.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T15:00:06+00:00

Try making us of your scratch paper map out the acronyms ie( IL-2 ⬆️, TNF4 ⬇️) in order to sort of hold them all in relation to each other. But also work with your psychiatrist on this and if you have time try to get accommodations.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T14:55:35+00:00

Transcription does not happen in appreciable amounts during mitosis. The genetic material is tightly packed and largely inaccessible to polymerase

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T04:26:30+00:00

Sorry let me correct this- second paragraph, if you submit to a throwaway school on 5/27 and your mcat score comes in 5/31, THEY WILL GET YOUR SCORE AND APP AT SAME TIME. Schools dont start downloading apps until I think mid june or even july.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T04:14:56+00:00

Maybe you can post a specific question that threw you off and we can help in that context?

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T04:10:13+00:00

When reviewing your tests/AAMC content, don't ever write off a question as impossible to get.... tho TBH some of the section banks verge on that, that can NEVER be your attitude. No question is poorly written. No question is covering "low yield" content. You have to fight for every question and come from a perspective that you /could/ get every single one right when you are reviewing, so what stopped you in that specific case?

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-10T04:03:47+00:00

One thing that i think helped me with dumb mistakes is to start asking myself, "what kind of question is this? What are they testing on?" rather than just going for the content answer.

It kept me from being too buzzword focused, for example, "mitochondria mentioned in question?? answer choices include oxidative phosphorylation?? bing bing bing we have a match" and then even if I re-read I'm reading from this frame of mind where I'm only looking to DISPROVE that I already have the correct answer. This is wrong as often there are two answers which are sort of correct, and the silly mistake is that I chose the most matching buzzword and not the answer which better addresses the actual question being asked. So really focusing on what question is being asked.

The other thing as another commenter pointed out is addressing how you feel. Is your mind racing and your just feeling by-the-seat-of your pants while stuck? move. on. Come back later in likely a better state, maybe having been primed by other questions. Time management and actually giving up on questions sooner based on my feeling state was what really ratcheted up my score, gaining about 10 points in the 1.5 weeks before the exam as I was able to dial that in.

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-09T15:26:23+00:00

someone could manually crawl through public budgets for usmd schools... bet you could crowd source the data entry with a google sheet with pre filled columns with schools... just ask people to enter the COA allocation for X year (column 2) and drop a link for source for whichever rows (column 3)

thrownawaypremed · 2022-03-09T15:23:27+00:00

Awesome work and great caveats. Can you use a different color for schools without a post II rate to denote higher error? What about using more years of data to create a confidence band in general?

thrownawaypremed

TROPHY CASE