What if I Don’t Get Accepted?

So we’re in the heat of interview season and acceptance letters are rolling in. You may be seeing friends (and non-friends) posting their admissions but yours hasn’t come. First, let me say that sometimes those acceptance letters (errrr, emails, I’m old) come in the last quarter- so don’t count yourself out yet. It could still happen. But also, I will say that although we certainly work hard and pray hard for acceptance to medical school the first time we apply, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Sometimes you don’t hear back at all or sometimes you get a letter saying you were not accepted in this cycle.

Not receiving an acceptance to medical school is not a personal indictment on you and is certainly not a sign that you’re not supposed to be a doctor. There are some fantastic physicians out there who did not get accepted in their first application cycle. It’s okay to take a minute and grieve over it for a little while…but only for a little while, not for a lifetime.

After that brief period, here are some things you can (should) do:

Reach out to the schools for feedback.

If you applied to schools that you’re really interested in and know that you’ll apply to them also the next time around then please do yourself a favor and reach out to the Admissions Office to see why you weren’t accepted and how you could make your application stronger for the next cycle. It blows my mind how few people actually do this. When you reach out, usually you’re put in touch with someone from the Admissions Committee who will review your entire application and give you real and specific pointers as to what would have made you an applicant to whom they would’ve offered a seat. They may even be able to share with you some comments from the Admissions Committee about their thoughts on your application. Not only will reaching out to the school help your next application but it will also show that you took some initiative to become a better applicant. For some schools, the fact that you reached out to them and made the changes/improvements they recommended is a major plus.

Make a plan.

When you re-apply, there will be a place on the application asking if you’ve applied before. As someone who reviews medical school applications, it’s not the worst thing ever to see that someone has applied before and didn’t get accepted. What is hard to overlook though is if they applied before, weren’t accepted, and then pissed away a whole year not making their application stronger in the meantime. I say that to say: make a plan to be a stronger applicant the next time you apply. You may need to take more courses to improve your BCPM GPA, you may need a higher MCAT score, you may need to get more service, or you may need to get more clinical exposure. Getting that feedback as mentioned above is so important to help you make a plan for the year and not to waste that time. Do meaningful things, whether it’s a formal post-bac, working as a scribe or medical assistant, or something else equally impressive. Look at the year before the next application cycle as you have a whole year to make yourself a stronger applicant that they can’t say no to a second time around.

Lean on your mentor.

Sometimes people who don’t fully understand your journey or the end goal will tell you after a setback that it’s okay to give up and try something else. And sometimes, especially when we’re a little down on ourselves, these are the loudest people in our ears. Well, this is not the time to listen those people. Reach out to your mentor, be honest with them about your situation and your feelings and let them remind you why you started and where you’re going. If this is a physician mentor, even better. If it’s a physician mentor who looks like you, even BETTER. We understand. We all have struggles and setbacks. One of the reasons I started this blog was to tell you about some of mine while also encouraging you that anything you dream of and set your mind to, you can do! Your personal mentor can help reinforce this and if you need me to, individually, I can as well- just send me a private email.

Re-commit.

So you didn’t get accepted this go round. Don’t let that happen next time. If you’re like me, all you need is somebody to tell you no once and you’ll set out to make sure they don’t have a chance to tell you no again. That’s the mindset you have to have. Take a break and remind yourself why you want to be a doctor. Follow some Black docs on social media, read about amazing Black docs of the past, go talk to your preacher or your grandma or whatever it takes to re-focus your mind and set you back on the path. And then if you haven’t done it already, write the vision and make it plain. Then go get it.

I believe in you and your future patients need you. At this very moment, regardless of your medical school admission status, you are your ancestors’ wildest dreams.

**If you still have interviews left, be sure to read this post on Navigating the Virtual Interview and go KILL IT!!**

I hope this post provided some helpful information for you. Feel free to reach out by leaving a comment below or sending a private message. I love to hear from y’all!