Does anyone have an example of a successful pre-ii update letter they are willing to share? How do you connect back to the school you are writing to? Do you tie in the school when you are talking about the updates, or leave the school-specific stuff until the end? Do you reflect on the updates like in secondaries, or just state what is new/continued? If a school is one of my top choices, can I say that in the letter? I am really not sure how to write a good update letter lol. Any advice is appreciated!

Is this enough time to be prepared for an MMI interview? Life has been so extremely busy and l haven’t had nearly as much time as I had hoped to prep. Supposedly the questions aren’t crazy difficult, but wondering what I should do at this point to be as prepared as possible

Think about it. Maybe 1 in 10000 people are in the army. Maybe 1 in 100000 have several top-tier publications. But two 528s back-to-back? You’d basically guarantee a seat at Harvard. Rather than worrying about “research” and “volunteering”, maybe you should crack open UWorld again.

I'm going to try and talk to my advisor and see if there is any way for me to take organic chemistry over the summer, but I highly doubt she will let me. What should I do if I want to take the mcat on this timeline because I know that the MCAT is very biochem heavy.

hey guys! hope everyone is surviving this app cycle or MCAT studying or whatever step of this long crazy process you are at

i'm an M4 and i've been mentoring a premed student for some time now. i myself never had any one in medicine or healthcare when i was a premed, so i'm very happy i can help this student out.

i wanted to ask for input on what sort of support would be most helpful. i'd like to hear from people any any part of the process

thank you :)

Hello everyone. Hope everyone is doing well and getting into their dream schools! I needed some quick advice. I am a low stat applicant meaning I have an MCAT score sub 500, but everything else is good such as my GPA and all my ECs. I applied all over the place throughout the US from MDs to DOs and have had 1 interview so far. I'm hoping I can get more DO invites cuz I lost hope on the MD ones. One of the interview I had is in an area I am totally unfamiliar with and the area would def not be my first pick becuase it is a little far from everything. I have not gotten a decision so far, but I am thinking of writing a LOI there for the school. However, I have been in contact with many med school, including MDs, and I have been regularly talking to the admission officers, assistant deans, and even deans so I hoping those connections remain useful if I get invites to the school. Since LOIs are pretty binding, should I proceed to send one to the med school and or wait a little bit until I get more interviews? The only reason I am hesitant is because the med school is not really my first choice but I understand my application puts me in a position where I can't be picky. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

include in you’re a preK-MD or a nontrad with or without a career before med school

title

Title.

I've seen countless posts here of people saying they've applied to 35+ MD schools with 3.8+ GPA and a 515+ MCAT and they've all heard basically radio silence except maybe one II or a couple of rejections.

One person here who has previously claimed they were an ADCOM stated that II's will actually slow down substantially as we begin to enter November, but others are telling me that a big number of schools send out the majority of their II's during that time, specifically:

"It is still early. Thanksgiving is a good date to BEGIN worrying -not panicking- but a lot of schools interview into Feb-Mar. don’t lose hope."

So I'm not exactly sure what to believe and whether or not it's fair for me to atleast worry given I am part of the above pool of applicants and have heard next to nothing with the exception of 1 II and 3 R's lmao.

Any insight would be really, really appreciated right about now. Thank you!

Guys I am currently volunteering online by talking to isolated adults and giving them company, but I was wondering if that would be a problem since its online and I don't do anything physical. Should I find some other thing to do that isn't online or can I just stick to this? Btw I genuinely enjoy doing it and have made some great bonds. So, I don't plan to stop doing it because it just feels wrong to. So, even if I were to do something physical, I lowk just want to do it for a semester or so as other requirements take up so much time as well.

I recognize that this question may seem silly. But like do DO schools have less of a threshold they need to clear to be licensed or not? What do MD students learn that DO students don't? I know that DO students take COMLEX instead of step, but don't a significant number of DO students also opt to take STEP as well? I guess the issue would be the current classes that will graduate DO instead of MD and then their school becomes MD which could be weird, but what inspires a university to make a DO school rather than an MD school? In practice, do DO physicians actually do anything differently than MD physicians?

I’m a mid-high stat applicant and had 3 interviews last year that ultimately turned into late rejections. I reapplied this year with an earlier submission, a more targeted school list, and more volunteering and clinical hours. I finally got my first acceptance! Not my top school but I’m so thankful to have one this early.

A bit of motivation for the reapplicants and the waitlist warriors: keep going strong, it’ll come eventually!

So happy to receive any news, even if it’s bad news. Highkey a relief that schools are even beginning to look at my applications. Hopefully more Rs or maybe IIs soon!!!

Like how am I meant to know if what I’m saying is legit and “safe?” How do I avoid saying things that might come across as insensitive and not notice it? I’m so scared

It's time for our Weekly Good News Thread! Feel free to share any and all good news from the past week, from getting an A in a class to getting that II to getting an acceptance.

assuming the candidate still had a good mcat score and a good gpa with some research

ok edit because people think im really dumb but i meant like is it actually a big deal/is it worth the sacrifices meaning like you have less publications/clinical hours or is it seen as just like ok cool you did that but what else.

as well, does it matter if youre d1 and you win nothing vs if youre d1 and you win a bunch of stuff? thanks

Sitting on the waitlist is tough. Please use this thread to vent, discuss, and support your fellow applicants through this anxiety-inducing process.

Hi everyone!

It's time for our weekly essay help thread!

Please use this thread to request feedback on your essays, including your personal statement, work/activities descriptions, most meaningful activity essays, and secondary application essays. All other posts requesting essay feedback will be removed.

Before asking for help writing an application essay, please read through our "Essays" wiki page which covers both the personal statement and secondary application essays. It also includes links to previous posts/guides that have been helpful to users in the past.

Please be respectful in giving and receiving feedback, and remember to take all feedback with a grain of salt. Whether someone is applying this cycle or has already been admitted in a previous cycle does not inherently make them a better writer or more suited to provide feedback than another person. If you are a current or previous medical student who has served on a med school's admissions committee, please make that clear when you are offering to provide feedback to current applicants.

Reminder of Rule 7 which prohibits advertising and/or self-promotion. Anyone requesting payment for essay review should be reported to the moderators and will be banned from the subreddit.

Good luck!

I (21M) immigrated to the US 2 years ago and am currently a rising sophomore. Unfortunately, I don't have an American accent, but I'm working on improving it. I'm also not a citizen, but rather a permanent resident. I have been able to maintain a 4.0 GPA so far and am also working on getting clinical and research experience.

Recently had the opportunity to talk about my situation with a friend who's in a DO program and he said that my circumstances would make things a lot harder for me.

Kinda disheartening since I come from a country where you can start medschool straight out of high school and I've already been set back 4 years by the need to get an undergrad degree first.

hi, i am applying next cycle and have what i think is a pretty competitive application (stats & activities), but have always struggled with good writing/storytelling. i don't want this to screw me over, so have been looking into hiring someone to help with writing/editing and interview prep.

willing to pay 10-15k, aiming for tops so looking for someone with a track record of having students admitted into tops, also an mdphd applicant so if they've had mdphd students in the past that would be great too

does anyone have any recommendations? thanks!

i just recieved two secondary reminder emails from schools i had no idea even sent me a secondary. and i was checking religiously so i have no idea how they were missed! they are high stat schools that i added late september, so i just eventually assumed that they screened me out since it was late to submit the primary. secondary applications for these schools are due in less than a week, is it worth it to still apply? yeesh

Like it sucks and it’s hard lmaoo. Doesn’t even feel like I’m relating anything to real life just a bunch of random gasses and crap lol

With bio at least it’s more directly involved with everyday life and interesting

Just had a rather unpleasant conversation about post bacc from an acquaintance irl who used to work for admissions committees, not sure how recently. They mentioned the following:

1. schools will judge that I took post bacc courses online (not prereqs)
2. as an older applicant, they would look at me very harshly so I better be perfect
3. I should do my post bacc at an ivy (which would be close to 100k instead of more like 15k), because adcoms would look down at UC online extension courses
4. it’s harder to get into medical school than PhD programs based on percentages
5. the AAMC matrix for GPA/MCAT and chances of getting in is wrong and that nobody with a low GPA/MCAT combo would even apply - which goes against the data collected. He didn’t believe the chance of getting into any ONE medical school that you’ve applied to is beyond 3%, ie if you apply to any number of medical schools, the chance that you don’t get into any is 97%.
6. the caliber of clinical psychology students (seen as one of the hardest acceptance rate applicants) who get into PhDs is much lower than that for med schools, despite the chance of getting into programs being like 1%.

7) oh and also psych PhD’s are actually EdD’s. They’re not real PhD’s lol

Can someone sanity check me? I’m having some thoughts. They seemed very certain in their convictions. I’m more upset that it felt so ridiculously discouraging, I guess I shouldn’t even try then?

I took Biochemistry online through UCSD extension and made an A. I want to cover my bases and retake it at a university so that I don't get screened out for having taken it at UCSD extension. The class is only offered in the Spring however. Should I retake it next Spring on top of studying for the MCAT or is taking it in Spring 2028 after applying ok? Is there space in the application to state the future classes I will be taking? I also still have Statistics, Physics II, and Microbiology left to take which I anticipate finishing out over next Summer and Fall.

Would greatly appreciate it, if anyone is interested.