ALL My Medical School Acceptances + Why I Chose UPenn for MD/PhD

Hello friends! In this video, I go over all my medical school acceptances from when I applied to medical school two cycles ago. All of my applications were for MD/PhD programs. I also talk about my reasons for choosing UPenn for MD/PhD, including research fit, MD/PhD culture, student culture, curriculum, and location. Thanks for watching the video! If you found it helpful, please like and subscribe!
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👨🏻‍⚕‍👨🏻‍🔬🩺🔬 ABOUT ME:
My name is Royce, and I'm a first year MD/PhD medical student at the University of Pennsylvania (PhD in Bioengineering). I make videos about medicine, productivity, and lifestyle.
🎬 OTHER VIDEOS:
Reading My Accepted Personal Statement - • Reading My (ACCEPTED) ...
AMCAS Med School Application Timeline - • AMCAS Med School Appli...
How To Write The Med School Personal Statement - • How To Write The Medic...
💌 BUSINESS INQUIRIES:
[e-mail]
⏰ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
0:15 My Medical School Acceptances
2:57 Why I Chose UPenn
3:07 Reason #1: Research
4:33 Reason #2: MD/PhD Culture
5:58 Reason #3: Student Culture
6:44 Reason #4: Curriculum
7:28 Reason #5: Location
7:49 Outro
🎵 MUSIC:
Music by VirgoZilla Beatz - Jazzy - thmatc.co/?l=E0F54A75
Outro Song: LAKEY INSPIRED - Arcade
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Creative Commons - Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Video Link: • LAKEY INSPIRED - Arcad...

[@shibadoge9595]

THANK YOU for saying to withdraw from places you definitely don’t want to go to. This isn’t some trophy competition to rack up as many interviews and acceptances as possible. Respect.

[@RoyceDong]

Agreed-appreciate the comment!

[@iamnumber1ne572]

Mad props for withdrawing from other schools, including future INTERVIEWS... nice of you to give those spots to other people

[@RoyceDong]

Appreciate it!

[@MrBjorn6]

You are hard to like extremely handsome and brilliant 😂

[@ryotanishishiba5240]

what a beast

[@RoyceDong]

Appreciate the love 👍

[@EpicFailBrothers]

Really enjoying watching your content man! Im a Canadian applying to the US this coming cycle and its a great help :) take care

[@RoyceDong]

Thanks for the note, hope you find this helpful!

[@LuigiGonzales]

Love the transparency! I'm starting medical school this upcoming August and I'm more than excited to start! Do you have any tips for an upcoming first year med student?

[@RoyceDong]

Congrats on getting into med school!! I’ll definitely take note of this and make vids in the future on some tips for incoming med students (studying, work-life balance, etc). If there’s one thing I can say now it is to appreciate all the hard work you’ve put in to get to this point and take it easy until you start in August :)

[@gregtwish9709]

Loving the icons. Maybe you can add some “ding” sound effects when they appear. Just a thought 👍 otherwise clean video.

[@RoyceDong]

Thanks for the recommendation, I might try it next time :)

[@mcat1681]

Great video, informative and helps me better see what factors I should be looking for in a program. Would you be able to do vids in the future on your MCAT/GPA and any MCAT advice you could offer? Thanks!

[@RoyceDong]

Glad you found the video helpful!

[@RoyceDong]

I think my next video will be about my AMCAS, GPA, MCAT, and how I got into MD/PhD programs. I will most def have vids in the future about the MCAT, including general advice and also section-specific advice. Thanks for the input!

[@romangiacomino771]

waiting on that day in a life

[@RoyceDong]

It’s gonna happen for sure!

[@gregtwish9709]

Nice

[@shannonsujira]

Thank you so much for sharing this, it was super helpful! I’m currently applying to MSTP programs, and was wondering if you had any advice for tackling the diversity essays?

[@RoyceDong]

Yea that’s definitely a tough question that I may make a vid on in the future. I’d focus on interests and hobbies of your life that make you unique, not necessarily your demographics (which I personally initially focused too much on). Hope this helps :)

[@RoyceDong]

Good luck!

[@shannonsujira]

@@RoyceDong thank you so much!

[@acyknohigomo203]

Hi Royce, thank you for sharing your journey. I'm currently writing my "Why UPenn" essay, and was wondering how you were able to discern these factors that attracted you. Is this something that was only visible during second look? Thank you.

[@RoyceDong]

Good question. It’s true that I didn’t really get to see these factors until my interview and second look weekends. For the purpose of your essay, I’d recommend focusing on things found on Penn’s website (since you can’t really talk about student culture, for example, without actually meeting some students). These include potential PIs for research, program features, and mission statement/philosophy. I’ll make vids in the future on secondaries, so stay tuned. Hope this helps for now!

[@joeynichols8207]

Just curious- do you think you went overkill on your school list? I'm applying this cycle and don't want to send out more than like 10-15 apps.

[@shibadoge9595]

I’m curious too.

[@RoyceDong]

Good question. I probably did apply to too many schools and could’ve realistically cut my school list down to 15 total. There ended up being a lot of schools that didn’t have a good research fit for me (no PIs available in the niche bioengineering fields I was interested in), and I honestly should’ve done more research on schools to see if they had ~3 PIs that fit my science interests before I applied. If you apply to schools within your range (MCAT, GPA, competitiveness), then there probably should be no problem with applying to 10-15 schools total. Of course, consult with your prehealth or MD/PhD advisor as another opinion. I’ll probably also have a vid in the future on how to select your school list for applying to med school. Hope this helps!

[@joeynichols8207]

@@RoyceDong That does help, thanks!

[@alexwyler4570]

Why did you choose WashU or UPenn? Are you from that area in the country? Thanks!

[@RoyceDong]

I wanted to go to either WashU or UPenn primarily based on their MD/PhD program features. As I describe it in the video, the main factors for me were the research fit, the MD/PhD administration and program structure, and the student culture/vibes. Hope this helps!

[@sp4rt4n259]

Brain texture like a prune, sized like a watermelon

[@RoyceDong]

Nice lol