She Only Got 1 interview with a 3.9 GPA and 518 MCAT. Why? | Application Renovation (S3 E14)

[@navnun]

I have seen every video of Application Renovation in last 2 years. Now, I can predict what Dr Gray is going to say, with almost 100% accuracy. So, here is I wonder, what would Dr Gray's feedback be, if he already does not know the result in advance? For ex: If we give him an application without telling him anything about interviews/rejections/acceptances, I wonder how much his feedback/opinion/story would change on a given application versus he knew the result in advance like in these videos?

[@matthewlee4834]

This is a brilliant idea

[@kansasmypie6466]

It wouldn't go well for his business if he guesses incorrectly.

[@IndependentIvy]

Great idea but that would be like “hey how will this do” vs what he’s doing here which is “hey I failed, where might I have went wrong”. Your test would be the empirical proof that his method works better than the prep company ads I’m being bombarded with right now because I be googling.

[@ftapon]

Dr. Gray practices Monday Morning Quarterbacking! :D We want Saturday Quarterbacking!

[@LiveLaughLoveAnna1]

Even though I'm in medical school already, I can't stop watching these videos! But they stress me out so bad, I feel like you would've completely torn apart my application LOL

[@destinygough3481]

I'm not pre-med whatsoever (Psych/Statistics Major), but these podcasts really help me study and focus on writing great papers for my classes. His advice of telling a story and showing a strong "why" is relevant across majors. Thank you for the content! These podcasts are amazing!

[@cchan848]

The first thing that turned me off is she claimed she is disadvantaged. She came here to study paying out-of-state, foreign student tuition, that is completely not disadvantaged.

[@Maureen-MO]

She is first Gen college....... so I mean why wouldn’t that qualify her as disadvantaged. I totally get the whole she is able to afford but I mean, I have no idea how but still, to me first Gen still counts.

[@sophiepellerin5517]

@@Maureen-MO she should have focused on being first gen then. Her essay was saying "I'm disadvantaged because I'm from Italy"

[@joseliinbabee]

LMAOOO

[@cchan848]

@ZHENGYANG SUN You are cute. If your parents sell their house to pay for your $90k (tuition + room & board) a year for 4 years to come to U.S and need to be homeless, I salute them. Even though I would refuse to let my parents be homeless. Foreign students of course should not get financial aid. US taxpayers' money have no place to help foreigners.

[@Love-ez8vg]

The first thing that turned me off was her first sentence "I moved to the US to pursue my education in a country that ACTUALLY gave me a chance," which gives off a negative connotation and it is not professional. After skimming through her writing, I would recommend her to take a writing course on how to professionally write better and hopefully she won't make egregious, grammatical errors again.

[@WriteYourAcceptance]

I love to watch these videos! Thank you for giving students the straight talk (punctuation!!) and still supporting them through this arduous journey.

[@cync2629]

As a fellow international applicant, her disadvantaged section just makes me *cringe* Edit: I also think that she could've been more careful with her word choice. She's not an immigrant because all F-1 visa holders are non-immigrant students. The disadvantaged section could've been more effective if she focused on her experience being a first gen college student rather than an international student in the U.S.

[@Maureen-MO]

I dont think so necessarily from my view point. I think her intentions were misplaced. She wanted to talk about the adversity she had faced and her it affected her in a major way. She is trying to illustrate that there have been different paths she has had to climb compared to others around her. However the bit that fell off is that I don’t think she understood really what aamc was specifically talking about when they as for disadvantaged backgrounds. It doesn’t just mean adversity but relates to already targeted groups which are generally a minority in society where systematically, they have to go through certain biases, or prejudice or just makes them have to cross difficult boundaries. (Correct me if that wasn’t a full description.) She is first Gen college so that is definitely a disadvantaged background and she should have focused more on how that affected but also taught her. As an immigrant, I get what she was trying to say with her story however again, that’s a life change/challenge she had to go through.

[@Sweetestdestinations]

I am an immigrant too. I came to the US alone seeking asylum. I lost my job, was evicted and lived on a friend's couch for some time. I struggled but eventually got everything together. Job, home, enrolled in school for pre med now! And I consider myself privileged for it, not disadvantaged. Definitely forged me though

[@claus1225]

It's pretty much the trend of this channel. He picked outstanding international applicants with amazing stats and tries to explain why they failed. It's too obvious what the real reason is.

[@sofias.4805]

I'm already in med school (in another country where we don't have to do all of these things lmao), but I love watching videos like this one!

[@sophiepellerin5517]

Yeah... I think the lack of clinical experience played a pretty big role I think. And yes, the fact that she's international could still have played a role for some schools.

[@Iheartrowls]

She had the average amount of clinical experience, so I was confused at his comments about her spending more time doing other activities. Volunteering in a hospital is only meaningful for so long

[@sophiepellerin5517]

@@Iheartrowls the problem was that it was from 3 years ago. The fact that she stopped and didn't do anything afterwards can raise questions about whether she really likes being around patients. The activities aren't a check list and it's better to spend less time per week over longer doing a clinical experience than doing it all in a very short amount of time and never again.

[@amaradavis8659]

I’m struggling to wrap my head around someone just forgetting to put spaces after punctuation. Like I understand that everyone goes into any job inexperienced and needs to learn but I would be very afraid to have a doctor that just “missed” that they had forgotten to add spaces to an application.

[@Vazcov1609]

I get your point but really meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

[@Maureen-MO]

I mean she is going to be an awesome doctor, she has really persevered in a new environment where she had a lot to learn.

[@jakelavalley3903]

I think that it may more be difficult for an Italian premed to find all the information necessary to create a strong application. I’m an American premed and I know it was difficult to find for me, so I’m really glad Dr. Gray did this episode. I think it will not only benefit the applicant in the video, but any international applicants in the future. Great episode :)

[@gamelaser8770]

Coming from a first world European country is not a disadvantage I think

[@daintylynn]

my thoughts exactly, since technically they count as ORM. however, to move to a brand new country must be difficult, especially if their family didn't already have relatives established here. we don't know the full story, but as someone else said, the applicant really tried to make a point out of being disadvantaged simply because they weren't a natural born american, instead of truly going into detail on the personal issues they might have faced

[@claus1225]

no, i disagree.

[@kaylaprinsloo-steiner9437]

People can be disadvantaged from any country.

[@arqumabdullah2462]

can we PLEASE get some TMDSAS applications on here

[@aabdi2001]

AMEN!

[@SourChip123]

Theres an older video thats tdmsas

[@vivianleenet]

YES!!

[@THEkille07]

As a fellow international applicant I can relate to her confusions. The last paragraph of her statement is something I also constantly think about. Do I have to explain why I want to come to US and practice here? seems like something to be done but again you never

[@oluwagbogoajimoko9035]

Hope she gets/got the acceptance!

[@negin5191]

I also came to the U.S. at the same age and started college right away. I know this is the land of immigrants, but I need the person who reads my application to know that I had to get used to a completely new culture, while not knowing the language, putting half of each college book's page in a dictionary to understand a topic, plus just finding out about the requirements for med schools (probably the same for ppl who grew up in the U.S., but at least they didn't have other things to adjust to as well). I know firsthand that it's not easy to immigrate to a new country and immediately start taking advantage of all the resources and opportunities before getting comfortable with the language, culture, and making connections. There are many stories behind our "average" applications.

[@negin5191]

@C B I’m not saying she did a great job explaining it, but she tried to say how she felt in her own words. She kinda showed how she was mentally affected by living in a new country, and I can relate to all of it! Also, this is where someone whose first language is not English struggles with communicating their story. She “simply” explained how she felt and that makes sense to me (flashbacks), because I know those things affected me and my whole pre-med journey.

[@negin5191]

@C B it’s hard to write your story in a way that makes sense to someone who didn’t go through the same. Again, I know she could do a much better job writing this section, but Dr. Gray responded in a way like the only way immigration is considered disadvantage is if you had to feed someone else or smth like that, like “someone had it worse than you, be grateful” (I have so much respect for Dr. Gray, I just don’t agree with what he said about this matter)

[@SunSunSunn]

@@negin5191 Same here as an international student but honestly, med school committees just don't care. It's just an overused "disadvantaged" essay at this point.

[@negin5191]

@@SunSunSunn I know, like oh just another immigrant 😄 cool.. not cool

[@negin5191]

I don’t understand what is wrong with “taking advantage of resources”?!! I clearly mean make good use of opportunities, like shadowing and volunteering to get to know the field of medicine, what is wrong with that? Also, she clearly says “lack of support system,” do u really think she was one of those ppl? If they give a chance to such a stellar applicant like her by interviewing her, they will eventually know what kind of a person she is, if she’s just playing the hardship card.

[@daintylynn]

looks like she thought she could get away with bypassing the character count because to completely proof read an entire section and see nothing wrong with the punctuation and lack of spaces seems a little far fetched

[@ShinySephiroth1]

I thought the exact same thing. It was to bypass the character count.

[@vivianleenet]

My other thought is perhaps she typed it up in a word processor that has some whitespace issues and then copy/pasted without proofreading at all. I've definitely done this before.

[@daintylynn]

@@vivianleenet good point, but what should be highlighted here once again is that she didn't proofread. for someone that claims to be disadvantaged and thinks of this as one of the most important opportunities of their life, they shouldn't have been so sloppy. dr. gray was on point in calling that out. i however still think it was intentional, and will probably read my app at least 5x before submitting now

[@vivianleenet]

@@daintylynn I'm not disagreeing with that! Just hypothesizing other reasons why her app had so many typos. The lack of proofreading is definitely a red flag.

[@ftapon]

Why she was rejected? 1. International student. 2. Typos.

[@jessicarivera4302]

Speaking of writing errors, Dr. Gray you (or someone else) stated she has a 318 MCAT score in the description lol rather than 518.

[@kparm23]

This isn't a med school app.

[@jessicarivera4302]

@@kparm23 calm those pompoms down

[@pleiades7817]

I thought Dr. Gray said in previous videos or the personal statement book that you should write what you hope to accomplish as a physician, but here he says not to?

[@davidsoto4394]

The fact this student has small mistakes on the essay is irrelevent. With respect to medical school. I understand that doctors must have good attention to detail but rejecting a student or only granting them one interview for something as irrelevent as a few mistakes everyone makes when writing is unreasonable.

[@itzelr3514]

I didn’t think international students had an opportunity to be admitted to Medical Schools

[@EWenskiMusic]

for the most meaningful experiences, since there are two sections in which you can write, what do we write in the “experience description” section if we are telling a story in the most meaningful remarks sections?

[@vivianleenet]

She asked that question too. Dr. Gray said if you have 2 stories you should tell 2 stories, or expand on the first to explain why it was meaningful.

[@devinnaidoo954]

Her main issue is school list. She applied to a lot of top tier schools and some out-of-state public’s. Even though her MCAT was “within range”, she attended a lesser known school: Seattle Pacific. She should have included a lot of lower and mid-tier privates to get accepted.

[@cchan848]

Only a handful of schools are willing to accept international applicants.

[@cchan848]

She should apply DO schools

[@gringote1783]

"a lot of research is school based where you have acces as someone who has a visa vs going out and getting a job...its just one of thise unfortunate things about being an international applicant" so...a disadvantage?

[@eduardocod8924]

Is crazy how you can have a almost perfect application, and just because there’s something lacking in there MD school will not take you; But, I see they have to doit just because of how competitive it is etc. I’m not a pre med, but I like watching your videos.

[@Love-ez8vg]

Are you referring to her application? I would consider her application as not close-to-perfect at all. Of course her stats were fantastic, but her writing is not professional and her stories were mediocre. I'm not a premed as well nor an English professional, but seeing her writing was a red flag and would highly suggest her to improve on it.

[@eduardocod8924]

@@Love-ez8vg In general

[@DadPT]

Dr gray how can i communicate with you? Id like help with my app too. I am a non traditional student

[@maedothaymete3366]

Hi Dr. Grey, thank you for all the advice you give us with our applications. I am applying this cycle and was hoping to submit my application on May 29th and wanted to order your book. I tried to preorder but your book wont be available until after I submit my application. Is there any way I could pay and get an electronic copy ? Thank you so much I really look forward to using your book before having to submit in a few weeks.

[@flappysabre]

You can preorder and submit your receipt to medschoolapplicationbook.com/submit get a pdf version!

[@desertrose00]

Okay if you have not been an immigrant then don’t talk about whether it is hard for them or not. The culture shock and the crappy immigration process of US can make people depressed.

[@JT-tx2ns]

these videos show me how im more than capable of getting a high score cause i would never make such goofy mistakes on my app

[@seapinkoyster]

Thank you to Dr. Gray and the applicant for sharing her application with us. I noticed that her school list is quite top heavy. It might be related to the fact that other schools may not be international applicants-friendly, so it's unfortunate that she might have not have good results from this application partially due to being an international applicant, on top of all the other things that Dr. Gray mentioned in the video.