Ask AZK about being Pre-med/Getting into Medical School

[AZK]

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AZK,

I am not familiar with your past or really anything about you although I have seen your poker posts, so please forgive me if I am asking common knowledge about you or anything that you have said before in this thread or another.

I am in my 3rd semester of college. My major is biomedical physics (imaging, oncology, nuclear med, etc, its not wide known, only undergrad college offering it is the one im going too).

My questions are:
1) I can honestly admit that for most of my life I have been a waste of talent. I was considered "brilliant" in early high school, the kid who never missed a math problem and wrote awesome papers. Once my senior year started, I really slacked off. Going into college, my freshman GPA was like 3.2, and I got a C in chemistry. First semester of my soph year, my GPA was like 1.7 with 2 D's and an F. I am currently retaking the F and plan to do the D's next semester (one D was in chemistry again [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]).

Do medical schools look for improvement? I am enrolled in some very hard classes right now (anatomy, differential equations, linear algebra, programming, and like 2 more) taking 22 units, and it has seemed that I have regained my passion for learning. I actually study a lot now, not stopping until I know everything I can...

Is there still hope or are those bad grades going to haunt me forever?

2) How did you balance the premed courses with poker? What was your major? I love poker to death and would consider being a pro if I could do well enough at it, so its natural that I want to play a lot. I also am competing for a Div. 1 school in cross country and track, so I am extremely busy. How did you prioritize?

3) Studying for MCAT...did you do this all the time or just like the summer before you took it?

4) How med school going? Time for poker?

Thanks a ton for whatever feedback you give. I really appreciate it.

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This might be long...anyway, here goes:

1) Yes, medical schools look for improvement, so obviously if you started off as a trainwreck and then improved dramatically this would be looked upon favorably. As much as I don't want to say this, or have people misinterpret, it'd be better if you could explain this with something like depression, new environment, sickness, death in the family, etc... so much of what people gather from you/your application is based on how you spin facts/details. You do not want them to know that you just felt like not working/studying/caring, this is VERY bad...everyone has a bad semester or a rough beginning, so you aren't abnormal, but you really need to turn it around. For most people it's their freshmen year, due to the freedom, but if you are still getting Ds/Fs sophomore year...something is very wrong. Medical schools don't buy the "well i had a tough major" I really wish they did, if I would have known this going in, I would have majored in something easier... don't get me wrong, I loved biochemistry, but I really got sucked into it because of organic, and being a biology major would have been better. My grades suffered heavily as I struggled through Calc 2/3 and 3 semesters of Physical Chemistry, there is no question about it. Make no mistake, a 4.0 psych. major (with all pre-med reqs completed) looks better than a 3.0 chemical engineering, philosophy, religion triple major. I don't care what anyone says. This is how they think of it, you have the premed reqs to do, but otherwise the rest of the time is yours, so technically that means you should be doing something that you WANT to do, which means you should LIKE it and be GOOD at it...so if you pick a major and suffer, they assume you are trying your hardest because you like it and want to do it, so knowing that, how good does it look if you are failing your major? Are you really interested in biomedical physics? If you are, great, pursue it. If you aren't but it sounds like a badass major, GET OUT NOW. No one cares how bad ass your major sounds, if you dont like it can't hack it, you are only going to screw yourself. I too suffered a bit from the "brilliant" (or so i thought) mentality of not having to work hard in high school and getting good grades and developing a very lazy attitude towards studies as a result. This is very bad. Medical schools don't want lazy but brilliant doctors. They want people with a good sense of morals and ethics, who like to work hard and apply themselves, the intelligence follows, but more they want people that WANT to do this and WANT to be here and genuinely CARE. If you don't care about running labs or looking up medical histories/facts but you can memorize a text book that isn't going to get you very far. Maybe you can [censored] the interview, but too many of these people make very bad doctors, and would be better off doing something different. Don't play this card, it's [censored].

Quick summary from your last line: stop taking such hard classes and schedules and get your [censored] together. If you are smart enough to take these classes, you should be smart enough to realize that college like everything else in life is a game, it has rules, certain ones you can bend, others you can break, and others are as solid as stone. People that do well in college do not study 24/7 or have the IQ of Einstein, they see the system and they know how to play the game.

The grades will not haunt you forever, if it's just a minor hiccup, you need polarize your transcript. It looks better if you have 1 semester as a 1.7 GPA and and the next 5 semesters 4.0 vs. 1.7, ,2.3, 2.7, 3.0, etc...that is not going to hack it. You need to sell yourself.


2) Luckily, I didn't discover poker til junior year summer, by then I had already completed a majority of my undergrad and pre-med reqs, I already had my grades set and only took 2 classes all of senior year, I totally slacked, but by then my fate more or less was already decided. I would not be here right now if I discovered poker 2-3 years earlier. I was a biochemistry major and poker took over my life once I started, I got Bs in easy classes senior year due to getting back from the casino around 9am to make 10am class, sleeping through it, going home, sleeping all day, rinse/repeat. Juggling this with a neurotic ex-gf and a pretty active social life was difficult to say the least. Depending no your personality, it might be impossible to balance poker with the pre-med reqs/med curriculum. I am an all-or-none, binge-type person. When I get into something it's 100%, there is no compromise, it's black and white, so for me, it is impossible to combine poker/medicine.

I prioritized by realizing what was most important, I played club hockey freshmen year with the premed reqs, I couldn't hack it, too much. Between practice, partying girls, class, premed, extracurriculars, something had to go. I stopped playing hockey to free up more time...Ironically as I write this, I haven't played in 5 years and I am buying a pair of skates this week and I am going to get back into it. I imagine you don't have a lot of time for premed/poker/D1 XC. You need to decide what YOU want to do. Realize whatever it is it's fine, but also realize your decisions influence your future options. If you want to continue XC and try to be a pro, kiss medicine good bye, basically pick 2. Also, make sure you really want to do medicine, I realize how stupid it is to say this, as I used to roll my eyes when people said this to me, since how can you possibly know if you want to do it when you have no idea what it really involves? I wish I could describe what it is, but I don't even have a 100% correct picture of what 'it' is. One thing is for certain you must have a passion/obsession with learning for the sake of learning (you will be a student for the rest of your life - this goes along with if you are dreading school now, get out, you will be taking tests in some form for the rest of your practicing career, or so i hear), be prepared for long hours, periodic boring/mind numbing work/interactions with people, depressing/sick people, flack from everyone and a lack of appreciation. This is the negative side of what a lot of people tell me, I also see the good, it's not hard to imagine what it is.

Basically, just remember, the hardest part is getting your foot in the door, the most important thing in getting your foot in the door is your application, the most important thing on your application is your MCAT score and GPA (sci and non-sci) this should help you prioritize well. The 2 most important things that should occupy the most of your time is striving to achieve perfection in both of these categories.

3) I would start studying 4 months beforehand, it depends how well you take tests. I took a princeton review course which helped me becuase it put me on a schedule, the work would not have gotten done as well if I wasn't on one. Take as many practice tests as you can. I took about 8 i think, if I was lucky, this was not enough. I still got a little spooked throughout the day of the exam. This is not just a test of knowledge, it is a test of your mental strength. Once you know everything in the review books the only way you can get better is by practicing it. It's just like a sport, amateurs practice until they get it right, pros practice until they can't get it wrong. corny quote, but applicable to a lot of things. I know people that took somewhere between 18-20 tests, a test every saturday from the beginning of class. They did better than me, and not by a point or two, substantially better, we were equally as smart. I cannot stress this enough, take as many practice tests as you can. I probably studied 3-4 hours a day for the first 2 months. Not a lot, not a little, but pretty much all I could muster with my research getting in the way. In hindsight, I would have studied more. I always say that though. At the time I thought I was studying as much as possible. About a month beforehand I studied everyday all day, no breaks except for food/sleep/gym. I also started doing verbal passages everyday since my verbal score sucked.

4) Medical school is [censored] awesome. I am so glad I am finally here, and I am enjoying myself. It is harder than anything I've ever done, we are basically human encyclopedias, the amount of material they expect us to know is insane but I love it. I am in a very good place right now mentally/emotionally/physically. A lot of people are depressed, it's important to balance your life and I've done a pretty good job, I also don't really get depressed easily, but there are definite stretches where you just get worked...it wouldn't be worth it if it wasn't like this.

I have no time for poker. I tried playing poker throughout anatomy, the first 10 weeks of school, I barely passed it. I was playing 2-3 hours a day and all day on the weekends, I was kidding myself thinking I was only playing 10 hours a week. I wasn't going to class and barely treading water, I was about to drown, the bill passed and the games started to suck. I'm upset it passed but in someways it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was already on the decline and growing tired of poker but this finally put me over the edge. It got to a point where I wasn't enjoying winning as much as I used to, and I was becoming increasingly upset/angry when I lost. Add to the fact that due to my personality I was starting to reach a point where I was playing higher than my skill level because the money at lower levels was becoming increasingly meaningless to me. I had a few disgusting swings in sept/oct and I was not in a good place. I wasn't sleeping well, eating right, working out. It was just like last year, I realized I needed a change. I decided to quit online because I was too much of an addict, I allow myself to play live, since I found a few nice juicy games in the area with good $$$, but recently I have just been totally bored by them, and rarely play. I might resume this summer for money, but otherwise I am more or less done. Realize I didn't end poker badly, this is very standard for my personality. I become obsessed with something and consumed, eventually the fuse burns out and I drop it and move on to something else. If my personality wasn't like this it would be easy to play poker in the first year of medical school. If I could also handle the money at 1/2-3/6 I would be able to play, but for now, I have enough saved up and it's not worth my time to sit there and grind... I'd rather watch tv, sleep, go out with friends, etc... playing 10/20-25/50 simply isn't an option since I need a significant edge to play those games, which requires a lot of game selection, time spent studying, watching, learning, and I don't have time/desire to do that right now. Once my lifestyle catches up (I still spend like I am playing poker) and I feel the pressure of being broke I will probably start playing again to make money, the solution is to live like a poor college student, but I'm having trouble doing that...I have seen lots of people try to come back with disastrous results, so I doubt I really will. For the first time in a while I am ok in knowing that I will never be as good/on top of my game at poker as I once was. It's ok, it was a chapter in my life and it's more or less closed. I'm more excited about the next chapter.


I think that's about it. Let me know if I missed anything or if you have more questions. Also, realize I didn't mean for this post to come off as harsh if it did, I don't know you and I'm not judging you, I'm just laying it out how I see it.

[AZK]

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Just realize that every question you get wrong on ur tests in premed/med school means someones dies.

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This is dead wrong and a pretty disgusting viewpoint. I can't believe you would say this to someone or actually believe it.

[CamelZoo]

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First of all, you are no AZK. Second, I do pay for my tuition, which costs 3k a year, not 50k. Third, I guess nobody ever makes mistakes huh? It was one semester, not a whole college full of it. Get a life, make your first few posts here meaningful.

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fwiw some of the best med students (and doctors) are the ones who didn't do great in undergrad, worked/did other things after graduation --> re-did premed reqs/mcats/etc and entered med school with a refreshed, mature perspective... but the emphasis is on the maturity

[CamelZoo]

ps props for doing this thread ari

[AZK]

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ps props for doing this thread ari

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Thanks bro. Feel free to add anything that I missed or you feel differently about...

[Will_Son]

Any tips for interviews? I don't know if I need to be more specific but I'm just looking for general tips. What kinds of things to read up on and such.

Thanks.

[AZK]

Go to SDN and read what people say about their experiences interviewing at school x. The more competitive the school the more [censored] you will have to know for the interview. What are your thoughts on ESC research? Cloning? Terminal care? Healthcare reforms? Etc. If a school has a particular philosophy for something, make sure you know it as well as any positives/negatives to their belief system (cough georgetown cough)

Everything above is for really competitive schools.

Most schools just ask you to talk about your self, your application, your lifestyle, what you do for fun, who you are as a person, why med., which field, where do you see yourself in 10 years etc...these are easy to [censored], but be honest in your [censored], they aren't looking for a right answer, just that you can communicate and speak and not spit up on yourself. Certain schools have closed/opened interviews, there is a big difference between these two, know which interviews are open/closed at a given school, know how many interviews they have, and by who, do this so that you will be cool, calm and collected on interview day.

Cliffnotes: Look sharp. Be confident. Don't be a jerkoff. If you do these 3 things 95% of your interviews will go smoothly.

[mmbt0ne]

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Go to SDN and read what people say about their experiences interviewing at school x.

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But understand that SDN is the 2p2 of med school applicants only with a higher proportion of dicks and liars.

[AZK]

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Go to SDN and read what people say about their experiences interviewing at school x.

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But understand that SDN is the 2p2 of med school applicants only with a higher proportion of dicks and liars, and otherwise socially retarded people that should not be doctors.

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fyp

[Eevee]

HEy AZK just wondering what sort of premed extra curriculars you did and the kinds of real life work you did (internships, volunteer,etc) to "pad" your application.

-EV