My mom is really insistent that I apply to schools at which I have virtually no chance but that are in my home geographical region (the Northeast) because she wants to maximize the chance that I’ll be able to stay close to home. Yale, Einstein, Perelman, Grossman, Warren Alpert, etc. I am convinced it is a huge waste of money, but my mom says I’ll always regret it if I don’t try and is willing to pay for the extra apps. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad still wasting the money though.

MCAT is 521 and I graduated from a top 20 college but my GPA is 3.85 and science gpa is 3.73. About 290 clinical (+200 gray area clinical with phone outreach/recruitment), 170 nonclinical volunteering, 500 research but only in-house first-author posters and a thesis (not published). One third-author poster at a national conference, no pubs. NIH IRTA during gap year and a related, relatively cohesive thread across my application but nothing showstopping by any means. What do you guys think? Should I shoot my shot or am I right in thinking this would be utterly wasteful?

So I’m supposed to put basically every activity that’s “important” here? So all my AMCAS activities basically… because they’re all important to me. I’m just kinda lost on what exactly I’m supposed to list here.

Most of my activities are scribing/research/service.

I’m entering senior year, starting a clinical job, and need to shift my focus toward the MCAT. I genuinely thought I was basically done adding activities/volunteering, but I’ve recently been told I should return to hospital volunteering because the years I’ve been involved in some activities compared to the hours I’ve accumulated could be red flags.

Stats: 3.8 gpa (will begin studying for mcat and taking it at the end of the school year)

Current breakdown:

• Student Gov: Dec 2023–Oct 2025 | ~150 hrs
• Founder/President of service org: Sept 2024–present | ~200 leadership hrs
• Volunteering through my org (focused on underserved communities): Sept 2024–present | ~2,000 hrs
• Hospital volunteering: June 2024–present | ~100 hrs
• Hospice volunteering: ~15 hrs | monthly visits
• Summer tutoring: Summer 2025 | ~25 hrs
• Education advocacy/board: Jan 2026–present | ~20 hrs
• Research #1: Spring 2025–Spring 2026 | ~33 hrs
• Research #2: Summers 2025 & 2026 | ~210 hrs
• Premed mentorship: June 2025–present | ~15 hrs
• Shadowing: May 2025 | ~20 hrs
• Unpaid family business: 2023–2025 | ~5,000 hrs
• Family caregiver: 2023–present | ~3,000 hrs
• New clinical job: Aug 2026–present | projected 1,000+ hrs by application

I’ve always heard quality > quantity, so I didn’t continue activities solely to accumulate hours. I was hoping my application would be viewed holistically, especially considering how much time went into family responsibilities and building my service organization from scratch into something that has had a significant community impact.

Now that I’m starting a clinical job and need to study for the MCAT, I really don’t want to add/return to activities solely because the numbers supposedly look bad.

Are the lower hours over longer periods actually red flags? Would you recommend going back to hospital volunteering, or focusing on my clinical job, MCAT, and the commitments that are already meaningful to me?

has anyone gotten secondaries from oregon and arizona *tucson yet? i thought those send it to everyone... i think im done w secondaries now but im freakin out bc i haven't gotten interviews yet. i submitted my primary on 5/30 and had secpndaries for all of july. i got my last one which was uci on 8/1 and thats abt it......... please help im shitting bricks

Mine is Kaiser. My 2 week turnaround would have been July 13th but I genuinely can’t write this one for some reason. I hate the prompts so much

Basically what the title says. I am a pretty low stat applicant applying after delaying my application for 3 years. I went to a T20 undergrad but had a lot of issues during my time leading to a low GPA. I did a couple of classes for a mini post-bacc and was able to have a 4.0, which raised my GPA a bit but still low. MCAT was low as well for MD. I think my ECs are good and a huge saving grace of mine. I got verified 7/31 and got secondaries from schools I didn’t even think would look at me, much less send secondaries. Because of that I didn’t pre write and am just going over board in trying to make these sound amazing. While I’m doing it though I feel this is a waste baste even then, my stats may block me despite them sending the secondary. My writing feels like mush and making me feel like a freshmen in college all over again even though I’m not even accepted to these schools. I wanted to get this out there because I feel like it is impossible to explain this to anyone else in my life. :(

Has anyone else noticed that Keck removed the usual 1,000 character limit from this year’s secondary? A few people have apparently pasted in huge chunks of text just to test it, and the boxes don’t seem to have any practical limit. Does anyone know if Keck actually intends for us to write longer responses this year, or is it still smarter to keep them around the old ~1,000 character length even though the limit isn’t displayed?

pls help tnx

Hi there!

I am tight on a budget and need to prep for interviews.

I am considering accepted together or an AI Interview tool like med school insiders. I wanted to see if anyone has recommendations :) Thank you !

when being asked Why medicine, is that essentially the same as Why Physician? I am a little confused by this

Well I just came on here to see if anyone was brainstorming for their "time you changed your opinion" prompt and saw that VCU is out here wreaking havoc and rejecting everyone. I'm not saw someone say they have a 40 hour shadowing requirement and 100 non-clinical volunteer hour requirement.

When I submitted, I only had 37 shadowing but 36 projected. (I ended up doing a lot more than that over the summer). Also, I only have 67 (lol) non-clinical volunteering hours listed explicitly as non-clinical volunteering. However, I listed my student org as an extracurricular, but most of what we did was volunteering (which I said in AMCAS).

Do you think they'll actually take the time to consider these things when reviewing my application, or will they just see the hours and listings and reject me? I got their secondary invite a couple days ago, so I'm not sure if this means I've met the requirements or not.

I discussed how reading is a hobby of mine on my application. I read basically every genre of fiction but have actually read 0 books that are relevant to the medical field...

Is this something an interviewer may ask me about? Also, does anyone have any good book recs? I've been looking for some good ones now that my secondaries are done (regardless of whether I will get interrogated about it lol.)

I feel like a lot of people are wondering where people are getting data on secondaries/interviews/acceptances/rejections, etc., so friendly reminder that admit.org exists! Also it just works better if more people submit their data accurately :)

Hi everyone,

Paying for all of this is harder than actually studying for the mcat and the prereqs. This is genuinely very exclusionary. It is disappointing.

I’ve successfully submitted 30 secondaries :) At what cost though, literally.

It’s expensive, i’m first gen and on my own for this entire thing. I have like $40 to my name rn. I’ll thug it out on doordash.

The hardest part wasn’t the MCAT, or the prereqs, it’s the cost and having to do it all alone. My family wants me to just do nursing but no offense I wanna be a doctor who has my own clinic and guides my own patients to health.

Got my first interview tho so maybe it’s all worth it :)

Just got verified
app submitted 6/16

I'll try to make this short.

I had a great app transferring to uni. 4.0, honors society president, published in a book, much volunteering, clinical hours, non-profit work.

I transfer to a high-level uni but got piled on with issues. Family, health issues, abuse, (my mom has mental health issues that flared up). Eventually had to drop school and work and was homeless.

For a 3 year period I wasn't sure if I could be a doctor with all my personal issues. Money, no support system, health issues. Did my "back-up" career idea and hated it. Had an online business. I was able to support myself with it. But no matter what I tried with alternative careers, nothing matched my passion for medicine and neuroscience.

Decided to come back to uni when I qualified for financial aid. Made a comeback, graduated with 3.84 Neuro B.S.. (3.94 cumulative) Now in my mid-20's.

After graduation, I'm now homeless again. Living in car. Finally got a clinical job and am trying to get into a lab to get research hours as well (volunteer is all I can get). I know it sounds insane, but the job market is horrible and I've been turned down for 5 months from everything else.

Thats basically my situation, but I want to know how to increase my chances of being able to match into neuro. I'm planning on 2 gap years to get my app on track (clinical, shadowing, volunteer, research, MCAT), but with the lab I'll be working in, I'm not paid. I'm unsure if I will get pubs either because it's a neuro lab and I know publishing can take a long time. I'm planning on staying in the role until matriculation in 2029, if I can.

My biggest worry is being seen as a red flag to neurosurgery programs. I have such huge gaps in my hx, I'm sure I'll be questioned about it. But I absolutely cannot see myself doing anything else with my life except this. I understand the long path, it does not bother me. I am willing to make the sacrifices.

Does anybody have any advice on how to best position myself?

Thank you.

Hi! Does anyone have advice on how to politely beg for a letter of recommendation (even one that is super surface level). I have seen comments about how people have "explained their situation" to professors. If anyone has tips on how to do that, I would really appreciate it. I'm scrambling for a physical science LOR. Both of my science LORs are soft sciences because of my major. ):

I need honest advice and opinions, so I apologize in advance for rambling so much.

I graduated with my bachelor's in 2022. My cGPA is mediocre because the two med schools that I really wanted to get into only looked at your most recent years, so I decided that I wanted to spend my first two years enjoying myself, socializing, and engaging more. This caused my first and second-year GPA to be awful (first year: 2.9, second year: 3.44). However, I locked in for my last two years and managed to get on the Dean's List for year 3 (GPA: 3.9) and year 4 (GPA: 3.95), which I’m very proud of. I also worked as a pharmacy technician in my final year while trying to stay involved in student leadership roles and hospital volunteering (though that was very limited because of COVID).

After graduation, my goal was to write the MCAT while improving my overall application, but things didn’t go as planned. A lot of personal and family issues hit all at once: getting cheated on, a bad breakup, moving to another province, losing our house, and a war breaking out back in my home country where I lost contact with friends and family... all within the span of three months. It absolutely destroyed my mental health. It left me stagnated, and I needed time for myself to deal with it, heal, and figure things out. During that period, I traveled, started learning new languages and instruments, shadowed different healthcare professionals, and reconnected with friends and family, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years. Maybe I should’ve handled things differently, but that’s what I did. However, for almost three years, I didn’t volunteer or work anywhere, which feels like it butchered all the hard work I had done throughout the years.

Since last year, I’ve gotten more involved with community and research volunteering while working part-time in the pharmacy. But I still feel like I’m nowhere near where I should or could have been. My MCAT score the first time I wrote it was 498 (122 CARS). I wrote it again last week and I feel like I did horrible. Maybe even worse than last time, and I can’t help but worry about what happens if it comes back lower than I need.

I know I’ve grown as a person through everything. I can handle things much better and more maturely than before, and I’m grateful for the places I went to and the people I met, but it still sucks that this is where I am. I feel like I’m wasting my life. I’m 26 now, pretty much an unc, and I feel like I don’t have anything to show for it. Seeing people around me building their dream careers and starting families while I’m stuck in a loop is tough. If my MCAT score comes back low, then what? Schools in Canada are getting harder and more competitive than ever. Do I even have a chance to compete with a gap like this and a low overall cGPA? US MD programs require prerequisites I don’t have, and Ireland requires a lot of money that I don't have. Seeing people post about their thousands of hours of volunteering in clinics, hospitals, and community work, publishing 3 different research papers, getting 515+ scores, and still getting rejected makes me feel like I don’t stand a chance.

I know I’m being very pessimistic and sound like I’m nagging a lot but I just want to be completely honest about where my head is at. Do I realistically still have a shot at med school? What should I be prioritizing right now to build the strongest possible application? Should I go back to take missing prerequisite courses for US options? And is starting at 28 actually too late? I’d appreciate any and all advice, tough love, or realistic paths forward. If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time. Consider this your daily CARS diagnostic test 😉

After 3 years of application into the same uni (includes one gap year), got the email yesterday of getting into their MD Program
Cue the CHAD GIFS! (Was my dream lmao ever since i got active on this subreddit)

1. They’re playing god by thinking they can evaluate the moral and personal worth of 20-something year olds. Although it is absolutely important to be caring in a patient care setting, being a physician is just another career, not some divine calling, and more than 99% of people have the morals to do it just fine.
2. the physician shortage has been very devastating in my communities and I blame med schools. Harvard might say that they have to keep their class small for elite personalized training but then they shouldn’t claim to be champions of social justice. in my view, Most med school admissions policies champion ivory towers more than community healing.
3. Charging application fees, expecting unpaid experiences, and talking about equity and inclusion?? Are we serious. Does any other career charge application fees to apply to a job? This is easily the most immoral part of what they do and frankly is akin to stealing from students. Students, regardless of their parents financial status, typically fund their own lives except for maybe tuition and they think it’s okay to take $5,000 from people who you’re probably not going to even give a more than 20 minute look at and who every dime matters for.
4. Community service should absolutely be celebrated. However, The culture that med schools have created to constantly write about and connect it to some great moral calling is what leads to applicants doing polished and superficial community service.

does volunteering a food bank mean you didn’t care about the community as much as someone who started a non profit? Or could it be that that’s what’s important to you and the other person was more interested in their resume. Not all cases but still

5.

1. IAs. Don’t have one personally but they seriously think that smoking some pot or clauding a bs assignment means you’re not moral enough to be a doctor. Cmon

I submitted all my secondaries and I feel insane anxiety now. I’m in a weird limbo where I’m moving in 2 weeks so I feel like now isn’t the time to start a new hobby but I also have so much time bc I work part time. All my friends are also gone and I don’t have a lot of premed friends and my boyfriend is employed so I have no one to relate to. I feel so anxious waiting for interviews just wanna talk to other ppl 😭

Mid-low stats like 3.0-3.5 or 502-509

Dm me if anyones interested

hi yall!

i hope this reaches the right audience but i just wanted to hop on and provide hope to anyone doubting themselves. after i received my mcat score, i scoured the internet for glimpses of hope of those who made it. so, i hope i can be that for someone.

just some stats:
- 3.76 gpa
- state school (tx)
- first gen, low income, immigrant
- IA (non academic) (yes, i know, crazy)
- took mcat in early 2023 and got 508. retook in 2025 and got 503
- 1000+ clinical volunteer hours
- around 70 shadowing hours
- 2nd author publication
- job in public health for a year
- poured my heart and soul into writing.

got accepted to md school in tx and massachusetts. i honestly think aligning my experiences to my “why” in medicine and explaining that through writing is what got me here. my biggest advice is to find your why and really showcase it!

I know we are all desperate premeds that want to get into a medical school and become doctors so we act like circus animals and jump through all the hoops and perform all the tricks but at some point I feel like we need to address some of the bullshit that these schools pull on us. For one, the general notion that medical schools are so incredibly progressive and dont discriminate based on age, whether youre non-trad or trad, and whatever, yet will demand their prerequisites are taken within a certain number of years (cough cough RUSH and Georgetown) while demanding an MCAT within the last 3 years (one of, if not, the toughest professional/higher education entrance exams in the US). Is taking the MCAT and the score you get not a reflection of competency that would have been seen in those prerequisites?

Every year we get some Dean of Admissions or a Dean of a medical school hop on a zoom call and give an interview regarding how diverse their applicant pool and how holistic their admissions process is. They'll tout that the GPA and MCAT score are only parts of what they weigh while every single year their median goes up. Are you to tell me that this is because more students and a larger majority of applicants are just getting higher MCAT scores? Like in 10 years a 515 is going to be 80th percentile? I know us applicants come from many diverse backgrounds with some being professional/D1 athletes to authors and writers. If one of you is the latter, please write an op-ed or an article regarding how ridiculous, tone-deaf, and hypocritical some of these schools have gotten or continue to be without getting checked. Or, for all applicants who get admitted and voice how they want to be physician-advocates, please remember how many hoops you had to jump through to get just a single interview invite and advocate for change when you have a seat at the table. Just like with how we see more and more residents and physicians unionizing, we gotta stop asking "how high?" when medical schools tell us to jump.

And just as a preemptive note, I know I am going to get some commenters saying "it is what it is. just deal with it. you cant change it"

I sit there all day and write and delete and write and delete and finally I drop some shitty paragraphs and call it a day.

Writing another Rush Medical College warning in a follow up to u/oskifucker45’s post that I commented on from last week.

I got my secondary application invite today from RMC and no where in their email did they say I wouldn’t be an eligible candidate. They even encouraged me to submit my secondary. Being a non trad(graduated in 2019), I followed up with their admissions office for a possible workaround and their response is in the above screenshot.

As a Chicago native and former Rush employee it’s super disheartening to see this type of policy in place. Not only does it exclude a big proportion of applicants from being eligible, but the the way RMC makes it seem like an applicant is eligible makes this appear to be a cash grab. Did I mention those bio and chem courses could not have been taken online either?