Episode 76: Preparing for the Application Process

From Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, this is the Funky All Access Mid School Admissions Podcast. Hello again everybody, I'm your host Christian Esman and I was feeling in a funky mood today and found some funky music to intro this episode.

Great to be back with you. Hey, this one is a little bit different. We're not obviously not featuring a med school on this one. We're talking about some important things, topics around preparing for an application cycle. But we'll get to that in a second. I just want to mention really quickly, Ben, to a few conferences and conventions, and I was at

the AMC's national annual convention and that was in Atlanta and there was a fair associated with it for pre meds and it was so cool to meet people that listen to my podcast stop by our table to say hi and

I met someone who flew in from Connecticut and another person who flew in from Texas just because they heard me talk about the upcoming fair on my last episode. They came to the conference and it was a unique experience to be in that room where there's med school, missions people from all over the country.

The WAMC does this every year usually when they have their national conference and so next year the conference is going to be in San Antonio, Texas. So we'll see if they have another fair and if so, I'll invite you to come to San Antonio. So more to come on that next year. Also while I was there at the conference I

met some wonderful people from the University of Utah and it was on a podcast. They had a podcast station kind of set up and they have a whole host of different podcast shows and so I sat down with a real pro who does this for the University of Utah and so I was on their show and it's called the Scope. I'll put a link to it in the show notes but that was unexpected.

and

the annual biomedical research conference for minoritized scientists and it was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was amazing. There were over 6,000 students there from schools all over the country and it felt like every university that has a research program or masters or med school or MD-PhD program had a booth there. It was unreal and

So I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the Abracam site. So if you're an undergrad or graduate student doing research and you want to submit your work there, students were doing poster presentations and oral presentations of their work, it's something really to check out.

a great experience, I think, for students. So I'll put a link to that. The location for next year's Abracams is actually going to be in San Antonio as well. I think it's just a coincidence, but they're not over the same weekend. They're actually about, I think, two weeks apart in November of 2025. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes too, if you want to check out what Abracams is.

All right, so today, this episode is really for people who might be considering starting the application process for the next cycle and what you can start to do to prepare. In this conversation with Dr. Kathy Lee, we touch on a number of topics such as studying for the MCAT and carving out that kind of time. How much time should you really be dedicating to?

studying for the MCAT. We talk about drafting personal statements and thinking about who you're going to ask to be a letter writer for letters of recommendation among some other things. So this is kind of a

a primer however you want to pronounce that primer or primer for getting ready for the next cycle and so if you're maybe a freshman or a sophomore this might give you some things to think about and what you have to kind of prepare for or if you're on the your

teeing yourself up, getting things ready for the next cycle. Hopefully getting this to you now can give you some things to think about and start to prepare for ahead of time. Okay. So with that, I'm going to tell you about my guest today. She's a friend of the show. Um,

She's Dr. Kathy Lee, and she's a native of Northeast Ohio with an extensive background in science and education. Dr. Lee earned her PhD in molecular genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, followed by her postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell and at Case Western Reserve University.

She joined John Carroll University in 2006, where she was not only taught in the biology department, but also took on several key roles, including the director of pre-health professions, where she was guiding students on their paths to healthcare careers. And then this past June,

Dr. Lee joined our admissions dream team at the School of Medicine and where she continues to assist and support the next generation of healthcare professionals. So it's a great conversation with her. I invite you to sit back, listen, take notes, and enjoy. Thanks.

Well, today I'm joined by Dr. Kathy Lee. She is the newest member of our dream team here at Case Western. And she's been with us now a little over four months. And prior to that, she was a pre-health advisor or the pre-health advisor at John Carroll University, also another college here in the city of Cleveland. And we're talking the other day. And I said, hey,

Would you mind, would you be willing to put your pre health advisor hat back on for a little bit and jump on and do a podcast episode with me? And you said, absolutely. I was. So all time listener Christian, first time caller. Well, thanks for, thanks for, for your willingness to do this with me, Kathy.

Of course, I'm thrilled to help out. All right, so what we were talking about the other day was I asked you, I said, so Kathy, do you remember when you were working with undergrads?

what you were doing maybe at this time of year. So at the time we're recording this, it's, we've just flipped the calendar in the last week or so from October to November. And what, how you were kind of prepping your advisees if they were intending on applying to medical school after maybe their junior year going into their senior year or as they were getting ready to graduate. And you said, oh yeah, that's like, I totally remember that. So I said, let's talk about it. So,

Take us, we have a little outline here, but Kathy, kind of start with when you had your students in October, November, what were you starting to prep them to do?

One of the big things is that they really need to start thinking about whether it's realistic or not to apply in the upcoming cycle. That is usually where I started the conversation because typically students would get to this point in the academic year and they would come in and they'd be very excited because they're like, I'm gonna apply to med school. This has been my plan since I started that this coming summer is gonna be med school application time.

And the first thing I'd say is that sounds great, but let's make a plan. Make sure it's a realistic plan that you are actually ready to apply in May or June of the upcoming year. Because sometimes students think that they're ready when they're really not as ready as they could be, or it's not quite the right time for them to apply. So what was the first

sort of litmus test that you would ask them to do to see if they are ready to apply or not.

One of the first things I would ask them to do is to get out their portfolio or their list of activities or their journal or their diary or whatever it is. I advise all my students that are incoming freshmen to start taking notes and recording all of their activities, all of their experiences, all of their shadowing, their work, their extracurriculars. I really encourage them not to develop a resume, so to speak, but to keep a running list

of all of this information. And so I would ask them to pull that out and let's go over everything you've done. Let's look at how many hours of shadowing you've had. Let's look at what kind of volunteer work you've done in a medical space or a non-medical space. What kind of experiences have you really had up to this point that have informed your decision that med school is the right place for you? So that was usually our starting point.

And I mean, if people have been listening to this podcast for a while, that's not the first time they should have heard that because that's come up having some kind of living document or like you said, a journal, pen to paper or using digital, you know, electronic means you need to be keeping a running record of all the stuff you've been doing. And so I'm glad to hear that it wasn't just me talking about it. Yeah.

Absolutely. They should even be recording things that they think are not really directly relevant to medical school. Like sometimes a student will come in and I'm like, hey, I know that you waited tables all summer at that restaurant. Why isn't that on your list? And they say, well, that's not really relevant to medical school.

Absolutely it's relevant to medical school. You should be recording all of those things. I don't care if it was working in a hospital, waiting tables, doing landscaping work, whatever, that should all be part of that record. So make sure everything is included.

Yeah, so just so listeners that maybe new to this or aren't quite sure what or why we're emphasizing to record these things in Amcast and I'll share a link to the Amcast workbook.

in the show description that you can see what goes into the application. But since you may not have that in your hands right now or in front of it in Amcast for each experience, they ask for the context, first and last name, the contact phone number, the context email address.

The date you started this activity, the date it may have ended, how many hours you did in this, an experience description that's 700 characters. So that's just, and then there's 15 of those experiences you can do.

So recording who to your point, like if you joined a student organization, who was the leader of that organization or let's say faculty advisor that could be the main contact for that name, email address, phone number, getting that and remembering that.

when you're a senior on something you did when you're a freshman or sophomore might be, now your brains are younger, but then mine, but it might be still a little bit more difficult to feel really hard to dredge that information back up. And believe me, you think you're going to remember, but you don't. It's just you get so busy and so involved with so many other things that that shadowing you did back when you were a freshman over winter break.

You need to record all of that information because you're going to forget it. Yeah. And jot down some stories or some things you remember doing in those organizations or experiences or work that you did is going to be super helpful when you have to go write some of these descriptions.

Yeah, exactly. Anything that stood out to you, anything that really maybe shocked you, or maybe it was something you didn't expect. And then how did that really change you? That's what medical schools are looking for. Were you changed by that experience? Didn't really show you that medicine is the right path for you. Did it make you rethink your decision about medicine, a career in medicine? Those kind of reflections are always really helpful when it comes to writing those

most meaningful experience summaries. So out of those 15 activities that Christian just mentioned, you need to pick three of them for the MCAS application and label those as most meaningful to your journey to becoming a physician. And then you get another 13, 25 characters, 1,325 characters to explain why it is most meaningful or how it impacted your decision to pursue medicine.

It's a lot of writing and sharing reflections and things that challenged you and how you're still trying to grow and those kind of things.

we can't emphasize that enough, I don't think. I mean, I know I've talked to students, current students, or who had just applied, who did this kind of practice, and they were thanking themselves that they did it when it came to May when the application opened because it really just made life a little bit easier. Do you recall meeting students who followed your instructions?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And the stress levels between students who did the recording and the students who did note recording, totally different, right? This whole process is stressful enough. You want to do whatever you can do to lower those stress levels when it comes to medical school application time. So this is a great way to lower some of those stress levels is by keeping that record, keeping notes, making sure that you are keeping track of all that information.

Now I realize when we say this, Kathy, that it is one more thing that a busy student has to do or that we're recommending that they do. It becomes a new behavior that you have to get into practice of doing because it is one more thing.

on top of course work and activities and stuff that somebody has to do. But I think we're hearing from you that, and me, that it will pay off in the end. Absolutely, it will. And if you incorporate it as part of the activity, you make it a habit, right? And then it becomes second nature.

When you go, I would have to think a student who may be applying as a senior and they if they've been doing this say since freshman year or even sophomore year, if they go back and read some of the stories they wrote about things that happened or challenges that came up and they may see things realize they see different things today as a slightly older student than they did when they were a sophomore or a freshman and they can see how they've grown or

matured in different ways over a short period of time.

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times they will look back at something they wrote as a freshman and they laugh at it. They're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I wrote that. That was so naive or so clear that I wasn't really ready for that thing that I did, but I did it anyhow. And now that I think more about it, these are some of the things that I learned from that activity. These are some of the ways that I grew from that activity.

So yeah, yeah, it is kind of interesting to watch them go back and look at some of the things that they wrote when they were a first year or an example that comes to mind. I could see because we read some of these things in some of our essay responses and I could see someone writing maybe as a freshman that they had a class where they had to give a presentation and

they wrote at the time how giving public speaking was they were scared to death of it and it didn't go well and it just is one of the public speaking is hard because it's hard to practice because you have to be in front of people.

to practice public speaking, you for the most part. So it's a tough one. But I have to think that if somebody wrote that as a freshman, but then over the course of time, they had more experience, more practice as a senior, let's say, they, as they went back and read, they realized, ah,

I do feel a little more comfortable now getting in front of people and sharing my thoughts or presenting some information to people that I'm not as shaky and nervous as I was three, four years ago. So that's an example. I think how you can look back and see.

how you've changed and maybe be able to write about something like that. Yeah, I had a student come in one time and she had written something as a freshman where she was volunteering at a hospital and there was a patient that was rude to her. Like patients can be rude. They don't feel well, they're in pain, they're away from their families, they're away from their, like there's a lot of reasons for patients to be unhappy in the hospital. And this patient had been rude to her and she just went on and on about how shocked she was that this patient had snapped at her and was rude.

And she had since picked up a PCNA position, a nursing assistant position, and she's like, oh my gosh, patient's rude to me all the time, and it doesn't really bother me at all anymore, because I now have a better understanding of why they react that way. But she looked back at that entry when she was a freshman and was just so like,

She was trying to help them, right? Like she was trying to to comfort them and that person was just rude to her. And so yeah, that's a similar thing where she's able to look back and go off.

I'm so glad I took that PCNA position because it really taught me so much about working with patients and being sympathetic and empathetic to what they're going through and what they are experiencing. It's not about me, it's about that patient experience.

Let me ask you, Kathy, what about planning for the MCAT? What was your timeline for your students about starting to come up with what that plan could look like? See, that was another

point where we can say, are you really going to be ready to apply this coming cycle? So when I would sit down with my students in October or November and they say, I'm going to apply next year, well, what is the plan for the MCAT, right?

Do you have 18 credits next semester along with a research position and this volunteer thing that you don't want to give up? Like is there a really room in your schedule next semester to adequately prepare for the MCAT? While it's not the most important thing, it's still an important metric that medical schools use to make a determination about your candidacy. So you still have to do well on that MCAT.

For most students, my most successful students have invested 350 to 400 hours of time. Now for some students, they spread that out over six months. Other students compress that into three months, but you really kind of have to know your learning style and you have to know how you adapt best to taking those high stakes tests.

So, on average, 350 hours is a good way to gauge whether or not you're going to be prepared. Also, students who take more practice tests just do better on the MCAT. It's like anything else. It's like playing the piano or a sport or a game of poker. The more you practice at it, the better you get.

And so I always recommended to my students to take at least 10 practice tests. And there's lots of free ones out there. They don't have to spend a ton of money.

But take about 10 practice tests, and you should see little increases in those practice test scores over time. So again, that's something else you have to factor into your schedule for the next semester when you are getting ready to apply to medical school. It's a huge commitment. You have to make a plan for it. You can't just say, oh, I'm just going to prepare for the MCAT. Well, what does that look like for you? And there's a lot of different ways to prepare for the MCAT, but you have to come up with a plan that works best for you.

Yeah. So your goal is to get a great MCAT score. What's the plan to get to get to that goal? One of the things I always said to my students is that a goal without a plan is just a wish. And nobody gets into medical school on a wish, right? You have to make a plan. You have to have a goal. And those two things have to come together to get you to where you want to be. That's great.

That's great. It makes me think of, I've done, I've met with students who were unsuccessful.

in an application process the prior year and I've asked them what where do you think things may have could have been done differently or better and I've met too many students who said I thought I could study for the MCAT during like say my second semester of my junior year or senior year I thought I could do it and I tried to do it and I didn't do any of it well and it

I thought I'd do it over winter break. I'd study really hard when winter break comes. What's the last thing you want to do sometimes as a student?

study and get home, get home cooking or you're seeing family and friends and you just feel like you need a break. And for some students, the last thing they want to do is really get into MCAT studying, but just go on a Starbucks over winter break and like, leafing through some prep materials is not maybe the best use of time.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of the time students end up using winter break to come up with their plan and to come up with that schedule that's going to work for them. That's what

I know students go into winter break with good intentions. We all do. I'm going to get so much done. And then like you said, the family gathering start and oh, this friend came in from out of town. You have to spend time with them. That's an important part of what you should be doing over winter break. You cannot use your entire winter break to just study and prep and write.

right you need to have that break after after the semesters over so a lot of times students would come back from winter break and they're like yeah i did take one practice test and i came up with this study schedule and i'm like great you accomplish something very important

Now you just got to stick to that schedule and follow through on the plan. That's good. It takes a lot of self discipline to do that into a semester. When you have coursework, you're also working on when you mentioned doing about 10 practice tests. I was reminded I could think back.

Years ago, in our interview process, interviewers were able to see MCAT scores. And I remember interviewing a candidate who had just an MCAT score that was really high. And I asked her, this is a really high MCAT score. How did you tell me about your study process? Because I get questions about this a lot from prospective applicants of how to perform well on the MCAT. And she said, I took a ton of practice tests.

And she said what she felt, and I remember this distinctly, I mean, this has got to be over 10 years ago, but she said, I simulate every time I took one, I simulated what it would be like. I got up on a Saturday morning, I started it at whatever, it was at eight o'clock in the morning and the end pad is commences. She said, I would get like to the library and I would start at eight o'clock and I simulated the way the test

timing-wise, break-wise, and that's what I would do. And she said it wasn't fun, but I just wanted to simulate that process so that when I went to take the test, it didn't feel all that unusual or uncomfortable.

Yeah, very familiar, right? If you practice that way and you walk into that MCAT exam room, your stress levels are going to be lower and you're going to do better as a result. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Love that.

Yeah, but I mean, that takes a again, self discipline to be a second semester junior or second semester senior. And you know, you got a Friday night and you have plans to get up the next morning and really do well on this.

I mean, you might be saying no to some friends about some stuff, some plans to do Friday night, you know? So it does take a lot of self-discipline if you want to do it this way. But it speaks to your commitment, right? It really shows that you are truly committed to becoming a physician and to being in medical school. You think you need self-discipline now to see it into medical school?

And it's nothing compared to the self-discipline that you need when you're in medical school. So to me, all of these things that they have to do to get ready to apply, these are all little mini tests on whether or not they are truly ready and truly committed to this process of becoming a physician.

Yeah, great point. Great point. All right, Kathy, what else would you be as you remember back? What else would you be telling your students, your advisees to maybe start thinking about? Yeah, this is also the time when you really need to start formulating your list of target schools. Where are you going to apply? Too many times I met with students and they were like, well, I'm from Ohio, so I'm just going to apply to all the Ohio schools.

Terrible strategy, right? Like this is not how you should be approaching applying to medical school. It takes a little bit of time and research to really figure out the best medical schools for you to apply to. A lot of students will go into the MSAR and they say, well, my metrics match with the metrics of this school, so that's where I'm gonna apply. All right, well, that's one piece of information that can help you decide whether or not that's a good fit for you, a good place for you to apply.

But you should also be investigating other things about that school. Is it an area where you're going to be happy living for four years? Is it a good mission fit for you? Every medical school has their own mission, their own theme, the things that they like to focus on. And does that mission really align with your own personal philosophies and what you want to do as a physician or as a medical school student?

Some schools have great research opportunities. Other schools, not so many research opportunities. Is that something that's important to you as well? And so that can affect the schools that you apply to. So there's a lot of different things that students should take into account when they start thinking about applying to medical schools. This is usually the time when I say, okay, let's pull out your list of schools. Where are you applying and why are you applying to those schools?

And usually students are like, oh, wait a minute, list. What are you talking about? And so this is the time you should be putting that list together and really thinking very carefully.

about where you're going to apply. You can apply to all medical schools. It's not cheap to apply to medical school. You're going to be spending some significant money in application fees. It's not like when you apply to undergrad and there were application fee waivers or a lot of schools don't even have application fees. This is a totally different ball game, right? So you have to be pretty judicious when you're thinking about applying to

medical schools that you're going to target. Yeah. And then when you're doing that research, you should be looking at the prerequisite courses that they require because then if you still have another semester to go or you have another year to go, you usually most med schools require the prerequisites be done prior to matriculation. So

you can apply while you have those classes scheduled to take during that application year if you're applying during the year, like say your senior year. But if there's something that they, in particular that they require, you better make sure that's on your list of classes to take the upcoming semester or the next senior year.

Yeah, Christian, that's an excellent point. Because there's variability between different requirements for different medical schools. And there are things that they strongly recommend. You should see strongly recommend is you should do that thing.

So yeah, that is a really great point. That's another thing that students need to pay attention to. I always recommend I love developing spreadsheets. I'm a spreadsheet person, like develop a spreadsheet with the school and where it's located, how big is the class? What are the special prereqs?

What are their average MCAT scores? You should have all of that sort of mapped out on a spreadsheet and that will make it a lot easier for you to evaluate which schools are going to be good targets for you, which schools are going to be reach schools for you, and which schools maybe you shouldn't spend the money on applying to.

Something else that came to mind too is you're talking about researching med schools and asking why is sometimes can come down to is it urban or is it in a rural location? Right. And because I get it, many prospective students, medical students are like, I just want to get in. Yes. But I've had people apply to us and ultimately get accepted. And then they come back and say, I just don't want to go to med school in a city.

Well, why did you go through this process?

And Cleveland, our med school is located in Cleveland and it's not in downtown, but we're in a major city. Ultimately, you know, so that person had wasted quite a bit of time and financial outlay to ultimately they got it in someplace else, but it was a rural location. Yeah. And it just made me wonder, why did they go through that process with us if they knew we were urban and they really wanted to be rural or vice versa?

Exactly, exactly. And I've always told my students, you really got to be ready for this process because it is expensive. And I mean, all the different ways expensive can mean, right? It costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of time. It can be emotionally expensive to go through this process, right? So

make sure you're putting your time and energy and money, where it's going to have the biggest payout. Mm-hmm. For sure. All right. Let's see. How about, when we talked the other day, you mentioned something that didn't occur to me, but you had said that you would tell your students to start to reach out to potential recommenders that they would be asking for a letter of rent from. And it wasn't, at the time you told me,

actually asking them for a letter of recommendation like right now in the late fall. Say a little more about that. Yeah, one of the worst things that a student can do is go to somebody and say, I need a letter of recommendation and it's got to be in by Monday. Like that is always good going to be met with a consternation, right? So this is the time of year when you can start planning those seeds and say, Hey, I plan on applying to medical school.

in the upcoming cycle. I'm going to submit my application in May. I was wondering, do you think you could write a good letter of recommendation for me? Start having those conversations now, and that way, in the springtime, when you get really busy with everything else, you're not rushing. You're not rushing your letter writers. Letter writers don't like to be rushed.

And you can start claiming that C now and you can start sussing out. Some people may not be willing to write a letter of recommendation for you. Some people may say, I don't feel I'm the best person to write that letter of recommendation for you. You should really find somebody else who would represent you more accurately and more thoroughly than what I can do.

And so you may have this list of people in your head like, oh, I know these four people will write letters of recommendation for me. You may get turn downs from two of them, right? And then so then you're going to be scrambling. Oh my gosh, I need to find some other people to write letters for me. And again, in the stress of a spring semester, when you're having for the MCAT and trying to get ready for applications and paying attention to your courses or whatever else it is you have going on,

Scrambling for letter writers is like one of the last things you should be doing. So right now is the time not really to be asking for those letters, but asking, would you be willing to write a letter for me in the springtime? And that can really help, again, lower those stress levels in the spring when you know you have those people who are ready to write letters for you, or maybe even starting to write letters for you at that point.

Again, when you're asking for letters, especially from faculty members or physicians, these are busy people. They have careers, they have lives, they have a million other things going on, and they may not be able to accommodate you if you ask for a letter

even a month out and say, oh, I need a letter of recommendation for you and it's due in a month. They may say, that's not enough time for me. I'm going away on this conference and then I have this other thing to go to and then I am involved in this lecture series. I will not have enough time in the next month to write a letter of recommendation for you. Students sometimes get that answer and then they're shocked. They're like, oh, I can't believe it. They won't write.

You are the person who did not give them enough time to write that letter. So by planting those seeds now, they will sprout in the spring and you will be much happier as a result.

Yeah, so it's about laying the foundation, like you said, plant a seed now. And then when you come and they might say to you, yeah, Kathy, I'm happy to write a letter for you. Yeah, I think I could do that for you. You might say, when would you like me to reconnect with you after the first of the year, which would I might say, you know, why don't you reach out to me in February and we'll set up a time to meet or we'll get coffee or we'll jump on Zoom or

Please bring your resume. That way you can get stuff prepared and then you know when you reach out to them in February. Say, hey, Dr. Sowens, a member back in, you know, December or November when we talked. Like, oh yeah, let's do that. Let's get that going. I mean, I.

I totally agree with you that there are people that if you come to them the last minute, it might be like, oh, I can't. I'm I'm going to be out of town all month. And then you're panicking. Right. This was like you're locked in. Exactly. My instructor likes me. They wait. I got a good grade in their class. I'm a they're a lock. And then they tell you, yeah, I'm not going to be here this semester. Right. I'm a sabbatical. Right. Exactly.

Yeah, so I usually recommend planning the seed in November and then following up in like early February and sending them another email and saying, hey, I made progress. I'm going to apply to med school. Here is my resume and here is my personal statement. I'll automatically send those things to your letter writers because it usually helps them write a more complete and thorough letter about you.

which brings me to our next point, which is get that personal statement started. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, now is really when you should start thinking about what you're going to put in your personal statement. What are you going to include? What experiences are you going to talk about? I could we could probably do an entire podcast about what should be in and what should not be in the personal statement. Usually gave a one hour seminar on personal statements alone.

But this is really the time when you need to start, if you haven't started drafting it, you really need to start drafting it at this point. It's going to change a lot. At between now and when you submit it, nobody submits their first draft of their personal statement with their actual application or else they shouldn't because it's very obvious to people who read it like,

This is just their first draft. They did a lot of thought and effort into this. You know, if there's grammatical errors or whatever, right? Like your personal statement has to speak to your reasons to pursuing Madison as a career.

It has to reflect upon the experiences that you've had that have really pushed you in that direction. You can talk about a lot of different things in your personal statement. Usually students struggle with what do I put in and what do I leave out. You can't talk about everything. It shouldn't just be a regurgitation of your CV or your resume. You really have to be much more reflective in your personal statement. You can include things from your resume and your CV. You can include those facts.

But you have to really dig deep and get a little bit personal about why you are pursuing medicine as a career.

I think you told me a story, but it was kind of extreme, but you were, or a little exaggerated, but you said, I would read first drafts and say, this is all kind, it's nice, but there's, let's just use this one thing right here. This is the best part, this one thing, and rewrite the whole thing.

But keep this one thing and expand on it a little bit. So like you said, the draft that you write today is not the one you're going to submit. It's going to take some time to iterate and get where you want it to be by May or earlier kind of thing. Earlier is better. Earlier is always better.

But utilize the resources that are available to you. If you've got a writing center on campus, take it to the writing center. You've got pre-health advisors, have them read it. People who have been through this process before and gotten into medical school, like you know that senior, so-and-so,

who's going to Ohio State, whatever, have them read your personal statement. Like this should not be a solitary exercise. This should be something that you share with other people and say, does this really say to you why I'm pursuing medicine? Does it give you insight into who I am as a person and the things that I've been through and experienced that have told me that medicine is the right career for me? Like, would you put this personal statement

with me if you read it alone, like without me in the room. Sometimes personal statements come off very generic. I want to help people and I love science. That can't be it in your personal statement. It has to be very specific to who you are and what you've experienced.

I just got back from a conference and one of the hot topics among admissions people was the topic of generative AI and how applicants maybe or will be using generative AI.

I think the consensus kind of was it's if you want to use it to help you start as you prompt it with your own information. OK, but but a big but you should write.

Like you just said, we can tell when it's personal versus when it's very generic. And so, and I think the reason why, no, not think, the reason why I think a lot of us felt like saying no, you can't use generative AI is not fair because I know for years there have been people who either

utilize their pre health office advisors to help them or like, you know, go over things with their application or they hired admissions consultants who helped them write their, you know, or assess their personal statement. But there've been a lot of people in the past who didn't have access to those kinds of resources. And if you see this as kind of 11 leveling the playing field a little bit, I can agree with that. But

It still has to be your work.

Oh, I agree. I would never tell a student don't use gender V at all. And like you said, I always told them the same thing. It's OK to use it to get started. It's OK to maybe even have it help you form a structure for how you're going to put these pieces together. But those pieces have to be your creation. It has to be your words, and it has to be your voice, if that makes sense.

I think General AI is like anything else. It can be used as a tool, but it has to be used the right way. Yeah, responsibly. And some of our colleagues from other medical schools said they put things in their secondary applications this year saying that you attest that the work you're submitting is your work. And it's not that of pure

somebody else writing it for you or using a tool that wrote the whole thing for you that you are testing that this is your work. And I think that's important. Absolutely. Now you're giving your word, your promise, your oath, in a sense that what you're submitting is really your work, your personal work. Yeah. So. Yeah.

So start drafting. Would you say students should maybe as they get into December, maybe over winter break? We told you them to take a break, but maybe start to get some ideas flowing or start to put something on paper just to get it going.

Just get it going. You know, write out some bullet points. What are the things that you think are going to be most important to include in that personal statement? And you may come up with like 10 bullet points. Oh, these are all important. You can't talk about 10 important things in 5,300 characters. You only get 5,300 characters. That might sound like a lot, but a lot of times when we started writing.

And I'd be like, okay, so how many characters is this? They're like, um, it's only it's 12,000 characters now. And I'm not done yet. I'm like, oh, you were done. You were done. Yeah. We got a thousand characters ago. Some slash some some slash and burn in with this because

You got to get it down to 5,300 characters or less, less better in my mind. I usually advise my students to aim for 5,000 characters and that way they would have the flexibility to maybe add in something if they really felt it was absolutely important to add in.

So maybe you come up with 10 bullet points as you're just starting to come up with ideas, but be ready to start lining out most of them to get down to maybe three themes, three things, three themes to start to put together into a narrative format.

Right. What's your take is a good is a good initial goal. You know, I've known students who have been really deft at being concise and they're able to include a little bit more or they can weave a couple of experiences together.

Yeah, sometimes they're really good at weaving multiple experiences together. So they end up talking about actually four or five different experiences, but they do it really concisely or they link them together in a way that makes sense. And then I've had other students who have really focused on like two things that they went through, but those two things were so impactful and

really were their aha moments. Some students have those magical aha moments where everything is clear to them. And other students are like, well, I didn't really have one of those moments. The theories of things, right, exactly. And so again, the personal statement should be very similar to you.

I don't like the fact that AMCAS calls it personal comments. I don't know what that means. But they've never listened to me when I've said, maybe you should change the title of this. They just ignore me, so whatever. But yeah, yeah. This is a time when you need to start really thinking about what's going to be in that statement, in that essay. What about a couple more things? Then we'll wrap it up.

One thing we're talking about the other day, we're kind of just brainstorming this conversation was you suggested that the perspective applicant should be thinking about at this time of year, what kind of experiences? Is there anything they might need to want to shore up like a little more of this, a little more of that either over winter break or into the next semester prior to applying?

Yeah, I think that's, again, a really important part of why you should keep those records and have that available to review when you get to this point. Because you may go through those records and go, oh, I only have 20 hours of shadowing. I know that most medical schools want to see more than 20 hours of shadowing.

I'm going to start planning for winter break and getting three more days of shadowing in or whatever it is. This is the time when you can start identifying what are the holes in your application? What are some things that medical schools might look at your materials and say,

I really think they should have done more of this or why didn't they do, you know, 90% of our students have this on their application. And yet this student doesn't. Like, why is that missing? So again, there's only so much you can do between now and application time. You're looking at like six months, really. And so you have to keep that in mind. And again, be realistic with your time. You're not going to be able to do an entire research project.

and prepare for the uncat and do 100 hours of shadowing. And like, yeah, in mind that there's only so many hours to the day and you have to maintain your mental health and stability.

And so this is kind of the time when you have to be realistic about what can I do over the next six months to fill in any holes or gaps in my application materials. And I think this is where you, like you just brought it back, the realistic plan comes into play. Because so far we've talked about looking at prereqs maybe from schools I might need to do. Minimum 350 hours to study for the MCAT.

We've talked about talking to letter writers. We just mentioned experiences that might need to do, try to shore up or get a little more of.

that might seem overwhelming. You might look at that and go, I'm maybe probably not ready to do this. And so then this might be this time of year, it might be a time where we start thinking about gap years. Like I think, because then you, I think that gives applicant permission or student permission to kind of take some pressure off themselves.

and maybe say, OK, I'm going to choose one thing or two things to do over the next six months, not try to do everything because it just sounds unrealistic to try to cram all that in. Right. Right. And again, you want to apply to medical school when you are most ready. And if that is not something that's realistic in the next six months, then that's OK to lane your application by one year.

If it makes you a stronger applicant and gets you into your dream medical school, then that one year is so totally worth it. And not a stress bag. Yes. About it. And that way you get through the application process and then you get to your interviews and you're relaxed, you're confident, and you are prepared.

That's one of the most common questions I think we've been getting recently is questions about gap years and then what should I do? And my response usually back to people is it really depends on what more you need or what you want to do. It's not something I'm going to tell you like, oh, you should go do this one thing because I don't know what

you might need right or what that student is passionate about like they should not be looking at medical school applications as a checklist of things that they need to get done you know they should of course pay attention to the the required parts

But we also want to see that you're pursuing your passions that you are really invested in whatever it is you engage in whether that's volunteer work or employment and clinical settings or.

teaching refugees how to speak English, right? We just want to see that passion and that fire for being engaged with other people and helping them accomplish some goal, right? As a physician, you're going to be helping people accomplish their goals. We want to see that you have that experience in working with people from diverse backgrounds that you're able to interact with and communicate with people who are from different walks of life and different lifestyles and different belief systems.

And that can be done in a lot of different ways. And so we want to see you engaging in something that's going to be fulfilling to you, not just another checkbox on an application. Kathy, can I ask you if you've seen now that you're on our side of this and have been reviewing applications with us now, this cycle, is it fair to say you've seen how high we keep the bar for passion and what that looks like? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And now when I think about when I interacted with students in their undergrad years, maybe I should have talked about that passion piece a little bit more, right? Like you really have to have that fire, and that has to come through in your application materials. This is something that you have to want more than anything you've ever wanted before in your life, and it's got to come through. And if it doesn't,

you're going to get passed over. And it really doesn't matter how strong your metrics are. It doesn't matter if you got that perfect MCAT score. If we don't sense that that fire and that passion, you're going to be skipped over.

Let me just wrap up here by asking you, since you've now spent almost five months with us, and like I mentioned, you've been reading applications with us, coming to admissions committees with us, would have been some of your takeaways now that you've been on our team and seeing this from our side. Oh, there's a lot.

And there really is. Well, I have been listening to your podcast for some time. So I really had some of those insights already. But again, really being prepared for this whole process and just seeing, you know, one of the big things that has really stood out to me now that I really think about that question is that students can acknowledge when they've made mistakes in the past.

and can talk about it in a way that really shows that they're taking ownership of that mistake. That, oh, I didn't get into medical school last time because this teacher didn't like me and they gave me bad grade. Like they can own the fact that maybe they didn't go into that class with the best attitude or the best set of skills or whatever.

and they take responsibility for that bad grade or that thing that happened to them and that they're able to talk about it in a second application or in that first application they can acknowledge a mistake that they've made or a challenge that they've overcome.

and they do it in a way that really shows that they're taking ownership of it and that they've grown from that and that they've really learned about themselves and what their limitations are through that process. So I think that's probably been the big thing is that it's great to talk about all your successes, but if you talk about your challenges and the things that you've overcome in a way that shows that you're really taking ownership of it and that you've overcome

circumstances that other people may not have been able to get through. Those are the things that really hit home for me. Like, oh my gosh, this person has been through so much and yet they are still determined and still on this journey to becoming a physician. That's great. Well, that's.

I love that you're seeing that and that you're experiencing that. I would also add to that, too, that I think you've seen that we value when you said when applicants can say that I've made mistakes, but also can say that there's things I'm still working on. I may have not overcome. We talked about public speaking earlier, but to say like, this is really something that I'm continuing to work on to become a little bit more comfortable with, but there are other

Let's say skills or life skills or things that you can say, like, yeah, I identified this, but I'm still, I'm aware of it. It's one of my areas of improvement. So we value that as well. I've been asking you all the questions. What would you want to ask me? Oh, gosh. Christian, what do you think you would change about the application process? If you had a magic wand, what would you do? I've actually been thinking about this.

I would make an AMCAS 2.0. I would, I think my opinion, it's been added on to a lot over the years. And we mentioned earlier, there's a lot of writing in AMCAS. And then you add on the layer of secondary applications.

And schools have multiple essays that you have to write that are specific to that school. Some have some overlap between school to schools. There's being some talk about future consolidation of some questions potentially. But I think maybe

In my opinion, it's getting too much writing. There's too much writing for an applicant to do. And I had a thought in the day about what about a 2.0 where it's reimagined in a way that maybe gets back to what schools are really looking for and it won't be as buried in.

sometimes essays or long response kind of things. That's, if I could wave my wand, I think maybe that would be something to look at closely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So go to that. That would be great. Okay. Because it also goes back to my comments on generative AI. So we're expecting applicants to write

so much. And if they start to lean on a tool like chat GPT or another generative AI tool, that's when things can, I think, get a little out of control for an applicant. It becomes too easy to do that. And because you're only so much time, you want to get these things turned around.

becomes too easy. So maybe the process has gotten too unwieldy in the writing aspect and we could rethink what that application could look like to get back to another way of assessing if somebody is ready for this journey. Yeah.

I still think the writing is important. Of course. I think it's absolutely necessary, actually, especially for school like case, who does a lot of essay based exams. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think you're right. I think it's getting unwieldy.

And again, this process is already stressful enough. And that just stresses students out even more when they've got additional essays to write. And this one wants this secondary. And that's secondary. And so maybe some consistency from one school to the next would be. And then on the other end of that, when there's all this writing that's been done, who has to read it?

We do. And that's why it takes us a long time to get decisions back to people because there's so much letters of recommendation pages of that stuff. And then all the essay responses and the

You're three most meaningful that have now 2,000 characters in there. And the personal statement, 53, people, their human eyes are going over these things. It just takes a long time to read and set the size. Sometimes students don't believe that people are reading all of this stuff. They don't really read all of this. Yeah, they do. They read it. A good school will read all of this stuff. It's very

holistic process to go through every single one of these essays to go through every single letter to read every single one of your experience descriptions like it takes a lot of time yep so and then with applications increasing and it just

It is, it's a huge lift for us too. Yeah. So, so yeah. Well, listen, this has been enjoyable. Thank you so much for spending a little time, extra time with me. Oh, Christian, it's my pleasure. It really was. I really, I always enjoy your conversations, but I love talking about pre-health stuff, so I'm never going to give that up.

Well, thanks for being willing to put that hat back on. Anytime. Anytime at all. We'll probably do it again, too. That would be great. I would love that. All right. Well, I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. All right. Thanks. Thanks so much, Christian.