hey guys welcome to this week's video where i'm going through my complete amcas application that i use to apply to the 2021 application cycle if you're new here my name is maggie i'm 26 years old this is my second time applying to medical school i first applied the summer before my senior year i didn't really know the process very well i did to take the mcat i did well and i was happy with that but as far as applying i applied pretty late in the cycle only to four schools and then it took me a while to get in those secondaries that pushed me back even later anyway i got one interview got on the wait list and never got pulled off the wait list so three years later i really got my act together i found dr gray's amazing free advice that helped me a lot started working as an emt did all those things applied super early the second time around um had to retake my mcat because the first score expired um but the results of the second time applying i got 15 interview invites between md and do schools and then got 10 acceptances so i'm basically just sharing with you all the things that i did all the things that i learned along the way so you guys can have the same success um it is a hard process but with a little bit of planning and a little bit of good information and help from others i think it's definitely doable you just have to stay motivated and keep at it anyway if you're a pre-med and you want to subscribe to this channel that'd be cool like this video yada yada anyway all that good stuff and let's switch over the screen and we'll get to it also if you're curious how i'm doing this split screen video thing i'll link the video tutorial below because i feel like it's kind of cool anyway so most of the first and second page are blanked out just because it's a lot of personal information and yeah you guys don't really need to see that but one thing to note is the submission date so i submitted this june 3rd 2020 and i can't remember if i had my mcat score in or not i probably didn't but i feel like a lot of my success came from applying early the first time that i applied my submission date was probably in july and then on top of that it takes four to six weeks to get verified so you can apply without your letters of recommendation upload it and without your mcat score i highly suggest applying and do a little bit each week leading up to that submission time frame that you're able to submit it because it takes four to six weeks to get verified being early is super super helpful all right and you can see the process date mine took a little under three weeks but if you apply later i think it can it can take up to four to six weeks so this second page again that's a lot of personal information that's blanked out and you can note that in addition to a bunch of seats that you're gonna see later on i had an institutional action got in trouble for drinking in college and you know i just wrote about my reflections and how i was bad decision and but it allowed me to become a more mature sensible and responsible student for the rest of my time at mississippi college and you know that was that i honestly was really worried that this was going to prevent me from getting in but i still had success so it's okay um so then you'll see that some of my grades and if you notice this is the status as hs these were high school grades i did a dual enrollment when i was like junior or senior in high school and this really screwed me over for applying to medical school because as you can see i didn't get great grades in those classes ap calculus dual enrollment i got a c and college algebra i got to be in algebra but i did and that was in high school and because it's like any college you go to even if it was while you're in high school it goes on your amcas application so that sucks okay and then one more from high school psychology another b and then we get into when i went to mississippi college for undergrad i went there for four years and you'll see more seas i was undecided at this point had no idea what i wanted to do i was not pre-med until halfway through sophomore year and i wrote on the equestrian team like horses were my whole world at one point and um yeah that's like all i wanted to do was write on the equestrian team i also got a job as a waitress when i was a freshman so for a year i was working literally six or seven nights a week so on top of three lessons per week for the equestrian team plus traveling out of town for weekends per semester uh my grades really suffered you can see here um calculus got a c in that english composition oh i am not a fan of english or government or indian classes like those um yeah history c cal 2 i did a little better gotta be um gen chem oh that i remember literally like the only time i had to study usually was like on bus rides to horse shows um no time to study um gen chem 2 i did a little better and you can see this is sophomore year so it was really halfway between sophomore year where i decided my major i declared it chemistry with the pre-med track and told my manager i could not work more than three shifts per week that was a huge game changer wish i had done it earlier but oh well and then as you can see the rest of sophomore and junior year i didn't get any more c's i was doing a lot better and then by junior year i just completely quit working as a waitress and that obviously helped my grades a lot i got an a in organic chem one but a b in the lab and then the next semester was switch so i got like a b in organic chem 2 but an a in the lab so wasn't getting a 4.0 still by any means but i was doing a lot better if you guys are in a similar situation the money is not worth it it's a short term fix but in the long term if you're wanting to go to medical school like just quit your job or cut back like tell your manager you can't work that much okay um so i did pretty well here and then you can see did well my other classes senior year except for medical physiology which was a five-hour class i got a c and that and honestly that was partly senioritis me by then my friend and i had decided that we were going to move to san diego and we had been there for spring break and we're like let's just move here after graduation we didn't even go to graduation um yeah so senioritis also i this is at the point where i was on a waitlist for school so i was like but what if i get pulled off so that see won't matter dumb just dumb i should have really applied myself a little bit more but happens okay so after my senior year so you'll see that i went to a post-bac program and this is because so obviously i moved to san diego thinking maybe i'll get pulled off the waitlist and go to medical school or maybe i won't i worked as a lab technician in the meantime and then when i knew i wasn't going to get in i was like okay i'm going to have to reapply at some point but i don't want to apply with the same application i need to improve something and one of the things that is kind of a weakness for my application is my grade point average and you'll see even after the postback i had a 3.31 science gpa and a 3.35 um cumulative cumulative gpa that's quite hard to say so what i decided to do was do a postback program to increase my gpa and it actually did increase i don't have the exact gpa from my first application but i think the first one was like probably 3.14 and like three point i don't know something a little lower than that so it increased it by a little bit and then at least like the last thing on my application wasn't this c and med fizz so i got some mainly a's and a few b's in that post back program but i only did two quarters because financially i couldn't continue my um loans kept like not coming through that i was getting dropped from the classes i wanted to take so i wasn't even like taking the amount of classes i wanted to it was just a whole mess so i only did two quarters and then i felt like that was going to look bad on my application that i didn't finish the program so i was kind of lost at what to do at that point and then as you'll see in my extracurricular section later i ended up working as an emt and that was the best decision ever because it was amazing clinical experience and then i decided to retake the mcat because three years later it had expired like i mentioned and that kind of put me on the right track to reapply but for a while there i had no idea what to do after this post-bac program because i felt like it looked bad that i didn't finish but ended up not being as fat as i realized so you can see the high school 2.5 that is from those dual enrollment classes that i did and uh really i wish i hadn't done that in high school i anyway okay so you'll see 509 this is from the first time that i applied i was so happy with that 509 so proud of myself my number one motivation studying that summer was do well the first time so you never have to take it again which is so funny because then it expired and i had to take it again and i think going through the mindset of convincing myself to retake the mcat three years later was pretty hard i looked into pa school and all those things but the number one motivator was i told myself when i'm 50 years old i'm gonna look back and if i decided not to reapply to medical school because i didn't want to take the mcat again i will be so disappointed in myself i have to at least try like that's just a silly reason not to reply reapply to medical school so i like ditched the gre book that i had had for two weeks and i was like all right my mindset is right i'm retaking the mcat i did a lot better the second time and the top three reasons i took more full-length exams i timed myself throughout most of my studying because i knew the first time i hadn't finished and um so timing more full-length exams and i gave myself a lot of time to study because i was working full-time as an emt so i was incredibly happy with that score um even though i didn't want to retake it i was like okay well since i did better like this actually really helps me since i do have a lower gpa so next we get into the extracurriculars and if you want to hear me talk about how i wrote these descriptions as a story you can go to my um other video maybe i'll put it up in the thing that like comes across you know um and i talk about how i went about writing these as stories and i compare the descriptions to my prior application to the ones here anyway if you're interested in that you can watch that video but in order to not be like repetitive i'll just talk about like why did these experiences and um yeah so community service volunteer you'll note that this is only 10 hours i would not have put this on my application unless and the only reason that i did was because it was only 10 hours because of covid it got cut early because this was like right in the midst of covid beginning but i didn't want it to look like i hadn't like done any volunteer work in three hours and it did get cut out early because of covet so i just went ahead and put it on there and then emt this was a most meaningful description just because it was incredibly meaningful to me um i had amazing experiences but ultimately like there was so much i wish that i could do when we had a critical patient and like just handing them off to other people to go be fixed it's like i want to be the doctor like i want to be the one fixing them so that was an eye-opening experience i highly recommend working as an emt um if it's full-time i wouldn't recommend trying to do full-time on top of school but if you have a gap year it's an awesome awesome experience and then i worked as a caregiver for a quadriplegic mom and this actually came up in my interviews because i also worked as a helper for a disabled radiologist and the woman wanted to know like do you have a special interest in this and not really like i enjoyed these experiences a lot and all that but i like i didn't purposely seek out these experiences or i don't have any specific interests it was just it just happened and they were amazing experiences and i talked about that here and then working as a nanny this is kind of i worked a lot as a needy in that awkward like two-year period between applying to medical school the first and second time because i just didn't know what to do with my life and i hated my lab tech job so i worked as a nanny for a while and moving on oh lab tech like i said um i got this job right out of college and it was kind of cool because the research side of things was really cool they took fat tissue from animals isolated the stem cells and then re-injected them for osteoarthritis to treat osteoarthritis and that was really fascinating but my day-to-day tasks were not fascinating and i only lasted on that job for six months i'm not a fan of continuing to do something if you don't like it as you might be able to see so research i did this in undergrad and it was a great experience um i think a lot of under undergrad institutions besides the whole culver thing under normal circumstances if they have research like approach your professors ask them about it get involved it's definitely a great thing to have on applications and maybe you'll love it maybe you won't like it but it's nice to know and just like see that aspect of all that research stuff anyway so i did research um for a year and a half or two years i was also in my snacks chemistry club me my friend did that and it was super fun and i did some volunteering at hospitals that's another way um a great way to find volunteering is like everyone has a hospital near them unless you're in like a really small town um but if you're near a city there's a hospital by you so all you have to do is go to their website and search somewhere there is a tab or page about volunteering and you can just like go to the information sessions they have or just like sign up straight on the website that's what i did for two different instances when i was like back home in ohio i went to i drove an hour to go to the big columbus and or to go to the hospital in the big city columbus and then when i was in college in mississippi went to jackson at the hospital so just go on any hospital's website near you and find what volunteer opportunities they have because that's where i found most of mine and then you'll see here that i just clumped together my shadowing because at this point i had three different um experiences and i don't i didn't even have room to do three different i think i have a total of 14 here uh yeah i've i don't know i think i have 14 experiences so i couldn't even um make these separate if i wanted to and you'll see that i did shadowing abroad in spain that was a wonderful experience um it's definitely like not something you have to do and it's also expensive but if you have the money and you're interested it's pretty cool although i think i would have definitely got more out of it if i were able to speak spanish um but luckily a lot of the doctors i followed each day they did speak english it was just a lot of the patient interactions that i wasn't able to understand in the moment it kind of had to be explained to me after the fact but it was a really cool experience um and then a tip for finding shadow shadowing around you cold call cold email literally a hundred different practices and you'll find shadowing besides all this clothing stuff or even with all this covet stuff there's a girl that i tutor for the mcat and that's what she did she called 30 plus different practices and finally found one person respond to her and she was able to shout out for two weeks so like if you're saying oh i can't find a shadow and can't find shadowing and you haven't called a hundred practices around you then get to colin a lot of people will say no a lot of people won't even answer um but all you need is that one doctor who has a private practice who's like yeah i'd love to have you so that's what i did to find the shadowing with the do um because it had been like five years since i shadowed when i applied the second time so i was like oh crap like i need to find shadowing luckily i fit it in right before covid so and that's why it's only 16 hours i plan to do more but coven okay another volunteer experience again this was i drove to columbus an hour away from my home over all through or like through the whole summer and it was awesome just went on our website found out the info of how to get involved with volunteering and it was really cool and then like i said so my server experience is most meaningful because it really was the catalyst to choosing my major so to me like you might be like oh my server job means nothing to me but it had a huge role in deciding my major and becoming pre-med so that's why it was most meaningful and of course equestrian team because horses were my world i loved it so much even like junior and senior year when i was doing better in grades like i cut out the working but i did a question team for four years loved it miss it wish i could still do it but it's a little expensive when you're not in college anymore and then my college has like um tribe clubs and tribes instead of sororities and fraternities so if you're wondering what the heck laguna social tribe is it's basically our sorority um and then here's my personal statement uh i actually didn't have i haven't made a video just going over my personal statement yet but maybe i'll make a separate video anyway you can see here that i started with kind of like a story that was like kind of interesting the helicopter flying in and how that is related to me really wanting to be a doctor because we just hand them off to the team of nurses and doctors this critical patient who's like bagged can't breathe like blood sleeping through his nose and it's like i want to be a doctor i don't want to be handing him off i want to know how to fix them and then i just go through more stories and talk about how growing up like i really rarely saw people who looked like me being a physician i had no no doctors in the family i never went to doctors as a kid so yeah but i yeah anyway you can read that okay as far as where i applied where i interviewed and where i got in oh wait first let's talk about letters of recommendation so obviously i x out their names but i got one from my o chem professor so i had him for ochem1 and ochem2 and he was my advisor so he was a great person to get a letter from even three years down the road where i was really worried where he uh like wouldn't remember who i was but when i emailed him he responded oh my gosh maggie i'd be so happy to write you a letter like they were hurt um him and my other professor both were like yes of course and they wrote me letters for the first time too so i was happy that they remembered me and if you're a non-trad non-traditional student and you're worried about this um don't be because if like you did have a good relationship with them even if it was three years ago they apparently still remember you um so ocam professor slash advisor and then a employer so the job where i was the caregiver for the quadriplegic mom she wrote me a letter of recommendation and quick tip ask early she had some computer troubles and it got to the point where it was mid towards the mid to end july and i didn't have her letter because she was having these computer issues and i was like i emailed her and i was like if you're not able to write my letter like i totally understand i'm because she hadn't responded to my text prior to that to follow up i was like i totally understand like just let me know because my secondary applications are complete and just waiting for your letter so some of my secondaries got a little bit delayed because i was waiting on that last letter so ask early follow up when need be and then ask them like if you're too busy i understand like just let me know so i can have somebody else like i need to know if you're too busy and you can't write it or like what's going on like my secondaries are waiting on this letter and then my third letter was a my biology professor i had her for like genetics and cell bio no genetics and something else and then i also did research with her so another like great person to ask for a letter um these were the only three i got i there is like a i got one more from the physician that i shouted for dio but i didn't end up sending it to any schools like this right here isn't blanked out i didn't send it um actually i don't think he ended up uploading it either and then i would say at least like either look at the schools you're applying to to see how many letters you need or just get more letters because there's one school on this list i wasn't able to complete the secondary application because i was missing a non-science professor letter and i was like i'm not about to just go ask some random non-science but i didn't have anybody that i had a good relationship with and i just didn't want to go through that it was only one school but to avoid not being able to complete an application and if you have more people to ask go ahead and get more letters like unlike me get a non-science professor letter just in case you need it for one of the applications okay now we can talk about where i applied where i interviewed yada yada i don't know why i'm saying yada yada blah blah blah anyway okay so the ones that are highlighted are schools that i interviewed at the ones that are crossed off are ones that i didn't finish the secondary application you can see um the uniformed services university of health science blah that is the one where they needed the non-science professor letter so i didn't finish that application ohsu i'm really disappointed in myself i was so burnt out because i did this plus d.o plus texas because my dad lives in texas i thought i'd be a texas resident ended up not being it but i was still like filling that out that application and by the time ohsu they had sent it kind of late i was so burnt out and i didn't do it and i'm really disappointed in myself even though they're a public out of state school and i probably had very little chance i just you never know and i feel bad because my boyfriend's from oregon and i should have done that secondary so yeah um what else this pink dot is because most of these i applied to really early but this is one that i added late and then i ended up never hearing from them so whether that's because it's late or because i never would have if i had applied early we will never know and then this pink x um i got an interview invite but didn't attend the interview because i already had 10 acceptances at that point so and my boyfriend doesn't want to move to wisconsin and i'm like okay i don't care at that point okay so case western is actually the school that in 2017 i got my one interview at got waitlisted and what do you know this time around i got another interview and got waitlisted so i was quite bummed just because i feel like i've grown so much as a person that's like how can i have the exact same result that was result um that was a little a little hurtful but it's okay obviously i have plenty of other options kaiser i interviewed at never heard back from um then go to that one neomed okay all the rest or okay wsu interview dot got rejected and the rest got interviewed at and accepted so i'm currently oops deciding between colorado cincinnati and wake forest those are our top three but i have no idea where we'll end up going because waiting for financial aid awards so far cincinnati is the cheapest because i get in-state tuition all right so that wraps up this week's video my final result of applying to 28 schools was 15 interview invites and i got accepted to six md schools and four do schools still deciding on where to go but i hope that this video gave you some ideas and tips on how to go about applying when you're ready to apply or maybe some tips for the mcat or writing your descriptions um and i look forward to next week's video subscribe like this video you know all that good stuff