Know When to Hold ‘Em…

Have you ever heard that old country song that goes: You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…

Well we’re not folding, walking away from, or running away from our dreams of becoming a doctor but knowing when to hold off a year or two to make yourself a stronger applicant is important.

I struggle with writing this post but know that I would be doing you an absolute disservice not to bring this topic up. Of course, I believe in you and your dream to become a physician but, as another doc I follow on IG says in her posts all the time: We’re not in the business of donating money to these medical schools by applying when you’re not ready.

It irks my soul to hear pre-med students say that their pre-med advisor or someone whose opinion they trust has told them that they’re not a candidate EVER for medical school. I think that if you have the desire and the smarts, you can make it happen. And there are many doctors out there who will tell you that a counselor, advisor, or professor told them this same thing…and they are excelling today as whole doctors!

I think it is reasonable and responsible, though, for advisors to give you a realistic assessment of where you are AND help you with a plan to get to where you want to be. Now, sometimes you can lack a little in one area and everything else on our application be great and boom, you still get interviews and acceptances. But if you lack in multiple areas, you need to slow your roll, evaluate where you are, and hold off on applying until the next cycle to make yourself a stronger candidate and more likely to get those interviews and acceptance letters.

Here are some things that should make you think about holding off a cycle and getting your application a bit stronger. AND some ideas of how to work on them if you need to!

You have little to no sustained service

I know that being a pre-med student is a full-time responsibility. But as a future physician, you are going to be expected to make an impact on your community, through service. So medical schools want to see you begin this path in college. And it shows that you actually care about other people and not just your own needs. I would encourage you to find a few really meaningful service opportunities that you can do over a period of time so you can make the biggest impact on those around you. If you only have one or two service experiences and they were only for one or two hours then you DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH SERVICE. And you need to make sure that you’re not doing these activities just for the hours or to check off a list, but to really get the experience and to make a lasting impact on those you interact with in the activity.

You have little to no medical exposure

Listen. If you tell me (or any other admissions committee member) that you want to be a doctor and as a senior pre-med student you can’t also tell me that you’ve ever actually seen a doctor (other than your own) interact with a patient in person, then we have a problem. You must have some medical experience…volunteering, shadowing, scribing, something! Otherwise, how do you know that being a physician is really the job you want?? Trust me, I know it’s hard to get these experiences and I know that students who don’t have relatives or neighbors as physicians have a much harder time getting shadowing hours- but you’ve gotta have it. Get as creative as you can to get it- check out this post for some ideas on how to get this important exposure.

Your BCPM GPA is low

I get palpitations to this day when I think about organic chemistry and what it did to my GPA. But it did it, I lived through it, fixed it, and got into medical school. Did it delay my admission?- yes. Did it keep me from ever becoming a doctor?- nope. Did I waste my time applying to medical schools when I knew my BCPM GPA wasn’t what it needed to be?- heck no. And you shouldn’t either. If your BCPM GPA is low you need to really consider taking a year off before applying to take some classes to bring that GPA up.

Your MCAT score is low

I wish God would cast the MCAT into the sea of forgetfulness like He does our sins when we repent. But until He does, you gotta play the MCAT game. Most schools will post their minimum allowed scores. Can you sometimes sneak in with a point lower than what they desire if the rest of your application is great? Yes, sometimes you can. Can you sometimes sneak in with 10 points lower than what they desire? Nah, playa…and it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your application is; that’s not gonna fly these days. If you taken it once or twice, and your score isn’t where it needs to be, stop and evaluate what you’re doing– get a good study plan, take a prep course, take practice tests, do whatever you need to do to make sure that the next time you take it is the last time you take it and that you have a score you need to apply and feel good about it.

You have no extracurricular activities, team experience, or leadership

You have to show that you work as part of a team, have some leadership skills, like people, etc. I wouldn’t want you to be my physician if you don’t! Medical schools have gotten savvy to this and on top of allllll the other things you need to be a strong applicant, now you have to show that you have that you’re not weird as well! You can’t make me believe that there are not clubs, groups, etc at your college so this one you should really have down. And, like service, it would be best to have this experience over a period of time to show commitment.

You don’t know 3 people who could write you a strong letter of recommendation

Now this should not require you taking a whole cycle off. But if you’ve put off thinking about it at all, it is certainly going to require some work. If you have at least 6 weeks left in the semester, then you’ve got enough time to reach out to a professor whose class you did well in and begin to establish a relationship that would lead to a good letter of recommendation. But that letter would be so much stronger if you’d started building that relationship earlier. So, if you’re not looking to apply this year, please take my earlier advice in this post and have these writers lined up in advance!

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If your current status is that you are lacking in 2 or more of these areas- you should not, and I say this in the most loving way possible, NOT be applying in the next cycle. Even if one of them is lacking, you need to have a dang good reason why and everything else in your application should be good. The truth is: there are a lot of people out there who have knocked each of those categories above out of the park. Your application is going up against theirs- make sure that it’s as strong as it can be…and don’t donate your money to these medical schools by applying if you know you’re not ready yet!

Are you torn between whether or not you should apply in the next cycle? Did this post help you or completely discourage you? (It was not meant to discourage you, but to empower you!!) Do you have any specific questions about your personal situation? I am available if you want to leave a message in the comments below or by sending a private email!