Reapplying to Medical School: Should You Mention it in Your Personal Statement?

Okay. Is this live? What is up Kaseem first person here. Can everybody hear me? Today we're talking about what should be included in my personal statement. And this is something that I see a lot of students struggle with. Sally. What does that be in my application bootcamp. If you guys saw on Instagram, as opposed to some throwback Thursday old school, 2016, 2013 event videos of when I was speaking to the students, but what's fun things. Um, so Shannon used to come to all my events. This is again, right? Get, get a woman who can cut your hair. And who also supports you. And my lovely wife, Shannon has supported me from day one and helping students and mentoring students. And we would drive the car while I would sleep after a call ship, I'd sleep like an hour, hour and a half over. We're driving somewhere to an event. And then I'd get out the car, splashing water on my face and go and do the event. And then she would drive us back home.

But she'd be filming our old school events before we had a camera. How many events I did. And we go back to watch the footage and Shannon's getting weepy on like a part of like the speech because I'm talking about like what we went through and she's like getting weepy. So you see the camera just like drifting down, like, or, or trembling cause he's crying. And so thank goodness I got Emmy now cause Emmy's in control of our emotions. And so she could actually film and have, we can have proper footage for you guys, but anyway, all right.

 

So reapplying medical school, one of my students applied to a medical school this year. Um, and it was one of these top medical schools and he, we talked about his application last Lachlan's listen. There are some things you did improve on your MCAT scores a little bit low. These things are happening, but I tell them, there was no risk. If you want to apply to a couple of schools, apply to a couple of schools, see what happened to they gave him a second was, you know, you need to make some changes with your application structure and you should do things differently because we don't want to see the same application over again. And he said, okay, well, what do you mean by that? And the Dean he was talking to said, one of the things you should do is you should mention why we should consider you a second time. So you should bring up that you've applied before and that you were now reapplying and let us know what has changed since the previous time you applied now for you guys, right? Cause you guys are all experts in admissions. What do you guys think about that advice? Do you think that's good advice? Should you mention the fact that you have applied before in your personal statement? What do we think?

 

Harpreet, what up? Oh, Harpreet is running right now, listening to me. I feel like I've been running, man. I had so many patients today. Like our hospital's busy today. I was running around everywhere. Third floor, the fifth floor where you are, Sally says badly in capital letters. What do other people think? I don't know what the bullseye means. I'm not up on the memes or whatever. They called emojis. Britain and you're not allowed to answer coz you're one of mine. Um, only mentioned specifics on what you've done since applying. Um, uh, if they ask giving a reason to the ad, comms just, it gives them an opportunity to see the changes you've made nurse to MD says that clear. Merissa says, doesn't the application system. Ask if you're a replicant and give you an extra state of right. Uh, like it can't just be, um, back. Right? Okay. So we got some mixed answers. It was like, yes, it will say no. And they have different reasons. Why or why not? And the correct answer guys is that you should not include anything about reapplying in your application. Why? Because we are not to crush life.

You're not being like the classics. Now you're going to get out in six months, you were gonna do some part-time. You're gonna be penalized tremendously for your snitching. Rats. What? All rats got to die, right? Isn't that little Wayne ask master splinter or something like that. Yes. If you snitch on yourself, you're going to be in trouble. Why would you, when you're given the opportunity to tell medical schools, how amazing you are, how great you are, why would you use that opportunity to point out that you are flawed, that you are not a candidate who's been accepted before? Who you are a candidate overlooked in the past? Why would you bring that up to them? Why would you put that?

Even in their headspace, they're trying to size you up, make an impression. They're trying to see who you are in this midst of all these applicants. And you're going to come out and say, Hey guys, by the way, you rejected me before. And you said I was not good enough, but as ridiculous, right? What I call your future doctor narrative because what medical schools are trying to do with your personal statement, with your applications, trying to say, listen, okay, this student has done this. And most of what they've done really has no direct tie to medicine, but we're looking for characteristics and traits that would make an amazing future doctor. So we want to create that until they can extrapolate and say, Oh, you know what? You know what? Young Andre is going to be amazing. Physicians gonna make an impact with students and do different things. You want them to be able to see that trajectory. So you don't want to bring up negative things in your personal statement, particularly as you reapplied. But here's the bigger reason why this is bad advice, nurse to MD who says, but if a medical school, a Dean of medical admissions recommends it, you should do it. No, you should not the admissions process. And also you have to think about how many applicants get rejected from every medical school.

 

Think about these guys. Every year, there are thousands of applicants. Let's call it 5,000. How many get rejected? It's called 2,500. And then of those 2,500, how many of them are emailing this Dean saying, Hey, why did I get rejected? So how thorough is this Dean being right? So we can't just say the Dean says something. You should go with it. That's not accurate. But the biggest reason is bad advice. And we always had to pay attention and, and step away from advice and look at it, say, wait a minute. Does that make sense? Is that this personal statement is going to what every single school you apply to. So what happens if you are now applying to other schools that you are not considered a reallocate at because you were only a reallocate to schools you apply to. So now you're going to blow up your whole application cycle by announcing to all the schools.

Hey guys, I'm a re-applicant. I've been rejected. Ha, look at me. So we have to take into consideration the totality of our application. You're only a reallocate to schools you've applied to before. So you don't want to mention in your personal statement, it goes to every school that you are reallocated, cause you may not actually be reallocating for that university. And you may have just cast doubt on your candidacy for no good reason. The better place to mention, right? That you are re-applicant is in the secondaries because the secondaries are school-specific and they will actually ask you even, Hey, your reallocate. Oh, but he already knows the answer. It's the secondaries because it's specific to schools and it gives you an opportunity to then address that with that particular school. Particularly if you got feedback from that school and what was wrong because different schools might say different things wrong with your application.

 

So you had the opportunity to fix it and then address it specifically. Hey, you know what? I talked to you guys after the last cycle and you guys told me that wasn't good enough. So you know what? I took the time, sat down to study for my MCAT. And then I got that Mcat score. So when you guys look at my average, and now my MCAT is light years better than it was before. You know what? When I applied before you guys told me I didn't have enough volunteer experience, you know what? I spent a whole year living in a third world country saving the orphans and the children's or the Earth's, I'm a Volunteer Extraordinaire. Accept me to your medical school. Does this make sense to everybody? This is making sense to you right now. Like the video right now, let me know that I am making sense. Y'all not talking jibberish and you guys understand why I think it's so important. I constantly say not all advice is great advice and people can have the best intentions with giving you advice, jubilation, and what we're going through. And it's sound advice because the personal statement is no place to hammer the applicant because you may not be reacted to all places. The flip side of that, right? You're like, wait a minute. Well, yeah, it would be if you applied to a bunch of schools and you got rejected from all of them, should, your school is changed or shouldn't be the same should be different. So you're gonna be applying to new schools, right? You're gonna maybe move to some lower-tier schools. Maybe you're going to add some DO schools, right? So you don't want to blow up your application and bust up your personal statement over that. And this is the third point I made the final point.

So the first point is, is a personal statement is not the place to snitch on yourselves, right? We are not Takashi 69. You will not get 2 million people on your Instagram. That's not what's going to happen when you snitch. The second thing is, is that that personal statement goes to all schools and you may not be a reallocate. The third reason that you don't want to bring it up in the personal statement is you are limited to 5,300 characters in the personal statement. If you were like most students where you're struggling is to condense your personal statement, to make it fit into 5,300 characters who were struggling with that right now, you've got a 10-page personal statement. It's amazing, but it's 10 pages. How many guys are struggling to whittle down your personal statement to focus it in? How many guys are struggling with that?

And Teddy, I see your question. I'll answer your question. Yeah. Think about that guys. How many guys are struggling to get the space? You don't know what the proper structure of the personal statement is. Right? My personal statement structure. I call it the progressive persuasive personal statement structure, right? Cause it progresses logically and it's persuasively written. So we talk about, I teach you guys how to persuasively write in my application course. Right. But we have an exact structure. And so therefore it's easy for us to frame and know where to put our sustainment. But for some of you guys, you're struggling with that. So what I encourage, all of you guys to do is to understand you have a limited amount of space. And the last thing you want to do, this is your opportunity to pull them into your life, to show them who you are and why you'd be amazing. Doctor, why would you dilute the focus of that personal statement by bringing in stray things? Oh yeah. I'll tell you about my life or my family, but my experiences in medicine. Oh, by the way, I got an F on my transcript. I just wanted to bring it up to you. Oh, by the way, I reapplied the last cycle and I didn't get in. But in that time I've been working on my MCAT score and my name, guess what? Like that's so random and it makes the personal statement seem disingenuous. We want our personal statement to flow rhythmically and beautifully and telling our story.

And Sally has an amazing personal statement. This cycle, Meryl had an amazing portal statement. The last cycle for saying right here, Is this making sense to everybody? Right? Those are three reasons, right? You should never say COVID right. I want a red cap today to stop the COVID madness. You people who are listening to one source for your COVID news, you people were like, Oh yeah. Somebody told me that. If I rubbed st. John's wart on my face, I'm immune from COVID. You got to source it. Double source it. Triple sources. Right? We got to have multiple reasons. If someone tells you anything, you should always be asking me when I'm waiting a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, why? Why are you saying I should do that? Why is that important? Why will that be helpful? And too many of you guys fail to ask that followup question. And so you get led astray by busters, who don't have a second word who don't have reasoning. Why we don't have the experience.

You don't have the insight to give you real meaningful, detailed advice as heard. If you're reapplying, should you change your personal statement? Yes or no. Let's take it right now. Let's get it. Let's take to the people. Let's vote on it. We'll answer Teddy's question. Teddy says, let me pull it up here. Should I change my personal statement as a reactant? We're going to take it to the people guys, or you're going to vote on this. Oh, heartbeat. The busting, the busters is coming very soon. I've already been filming. It's actually one of the most fun things. I like one of the most fun things I've had done in terms of filming is filming this session. Like the sessions pointing out who these posers are on the internet and how they're socially wrong.

It's kinda like reaction videos, but I'm reacting to the terrible stuff. These posers say, uh, Camille says, we should, our mom says yes. Uh, cause he says maybe, um, Sally doesn't count. Cause she has the correct answer. And she's one of my students, Lola says, yes, at least make some edits. Something should be different since then. Right? And it was like, yes, yes, yes. Change it. Change it. Change it. Sally has the correct answer. And the correct answer is this Only if it was weak, let me give you the analogy. You're in a relationship. Teddy. I'm going to pick on you, Teddy. Cause I see you there, you look in a swab. That beard is fierce. Got the white tie on the white shirt. You looking good. Okay. And Teddy, you're dating Sally and I'm saying solid cassava screen with you right there. And Sally is amazing. She's a great person. She's beautiful. You guys love each other. You guys are in love. And Sally catches you at an Airbnb with a bunch of girls.

Okay. Similar, similar to our guy, right? Thomas. She catches you cheating. And she's like, Teddy, how could you cheat on me? How could you cheat on me? I can't stand for this. I have to reject you from our relationship. I have to break up with you. I can't be with you because you're a cheater. And then Teddy's like, Oh man, she rejected me. Okay. So you know what? I'm going to go ahead and get a new haircut. It must be the haircut. It must be problematic. You know what? I'm going to go out. I'm gonna get her some fancy necklace. I'm getting her necklace. I'm gonna, I'm going to say some nice words to her.

I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna do that. Right? And then Teddy comes to say, Hey Sally, I changed this whole hair for you. I got two kind words. I got this necklace. Can we be together? And Sally's like, wait a minute, you got kind words and a new haircut. But I caught you with multiple ladies at Airbnb. The problem I have with you, the reason I rejected you is that you're a cheater. How does changing your haircut helped me want to be with you? What am I saying to you guys right now? When you get rejected from medical school, You need to change. What is problematic? What is holding you back? What is weak about your application? But so many people fail to want to be real, to want to do. What's hard. It's hard. Teddy to stop cheating. It's hard. The women from Instagram, they're in your DMS. It's terrible. It's terrible that you're a victim. Teddy. Cause they're all over you, right? You can't. There are hundreds of girls coming at you on Instagram. You can't stop. How sexy you are. Teddy man. I'm outraged for you right now. Teddy, Sally, how dare you be outraged. Shoot. Right? So many of you guys fail to take the time to say, wait a minute. I got rejected. Why did I get rejected? What is the problem? And nine times out of 10, it isn't your personal statement. Nine times out of 10. It's your bogus? Terrible M cat. It's your sub-three Oh GPA. It's the fact that you have zero research experience. You have zero clinical experience. Your resume sucks. Your GPA sucks. Or your M cat sucks. It's not a personal statement. It's the fact that your M cat was four 95.

That's why you got rejected. But what do we do? Who man? Study for the MCAT and fixing my MCAT score. That's hard, right? That's like Teddy saying, man, these girls they're so beautiful. I can't stop cheating. I'm gonna cut this hair. I'm gonna cut this hair. That's what you guys are doing. You guys don't want to sit down and do the end cap. You guys don't want to sit down and take more classes and prove your GPA. So all you do is I'm going to be write my personal statement and then resubmit that'll make the difference. Does everybody know what I'm saying? No, I'm joking right now, but I'm serious. But I'm joking. I had to make this very clear. As everybody's saying the analogy, does everybody get what I'm saying? Okay, There we go. Teddy. And like, I love this. Teddy's going, to be honest. Thank you Teddy for sharing that with us. Right? He can be honest in my case. I know it was my end cap. I know it. Right. We can wait. It's my AMCAP. To fix your end cap. If your personal statement is poorly worded, if it's unfocused, if it doesn't do justice to you, then yes, change that. But at the end of the day, that M cat is probably the problem is everybody's what I'm saying right now. This is important. I went way off the rockers for some people, some people are like, what's this guy talking about Airbnb, you have not seen the old Thomas story. You guys have not seen this. It is a classic tale, a classic tale of why men are terrible. We just need to go cheat on his wife and the wife tracked him down through Snapchat telling him and his girls, this technology fellows take your whole phone apart, get that flip phone back. She can't track that.

So anyway, the whole point is guys are focused on changing what is actually problematic with your application. So as reactants are gonna take the time to take a step back and say, wait a minute, what's really wrong with the application. And I'll say this also, as we talk about this, it's actually like to bring everything back, full circle. We started this video because one of my students was asking a Dean for advice. And I have a lot of problems with students. And I say problem students in the sense that if people would just listen to me, everything would work out. Because again, they're going to get thousands of these emails saying, Hey, you rejected me. What kind of differently to get in your medical school? Do you think they're really gonna go through your whole application and give you a really specific, meaningful advice? Like advice? They're not, they're gonna throw out some, help me. What I did wrong. And can you help me get in the next cycle? Patrice? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Patrice as the Dean. Yeah. So little ask. Are we allowed to email your questions for the second piece of advice?

Yeah. So if you guys want to like have me answer your question on the show, like on this, like YouTube or on my podcast, you guys don't know I've got two podcasts, dominate premed podcasts, the student transformation podcast. We're alive on YouTube right now. Um, but uh, if you guys want to get at me, send me an email. If you guys want me to like, actually, if you want to be heard on this show, you can send me a voicemail and I'll actually play your voicemail on the show here. People can hear your voice. We'd love to hear Lola mermaid and medicine. That's such a good name. Probably got like one of the mermaid's voice, like, like little Ariel from the little mermaid.

Okay. So Patrice says, what? So she's you're the Dean. What do you say? No, don't say they get so many. You're the Dean. Patrice. What do you have to say? When the same send you, please help me review my whole application. Obviously you're saying, listen, I got to my advice to you would be to look over your application and look for issues and things that you can improve before next cycle, perhaps rewrite your personal statement, rewrite your activity section. Let us know why we should accept you and consider your next round. If your M cat is low, work on your end cap. If you're JP, right? They give you generic. D exactly. Thank you, Patrice. Right? That's the reality. So we have to recognize this, know me.

I know you see me on the internet, but I can be anybody. You send me your whole life story and the DM, and I'm going to read your whole life story. And I'm going to send you one sentence, go forth my child. And then you're like, yes. Okay. He said like, how can I give you some profound advice in my IgM? Do you guys know what I'm saying? Like this is a 26-minute video. We're at 26 minutes right now. Think about that. Think about that. How to like, this is the problem of COVID people like, Ooh, I wonder about COVID. So I'm gonna go on Twitter. I'm on Twitter and I'm gonna get updated on his COVID COVID is not new.

It's just, it's grown viruses. The common cold. Oh, this is just Twitter. Flu. They get us the government, they set us up. These wait doctors are getting paid more for COVID patients. These doctors are trying to steal our money. Oh, Twitter says it. We've got to get into the details of it. Guys. We gotta get informed and get educated. Got to feed your brain. Does everybody see what I'm saying right now? Please? If you want to, what I'm saying right now? I like this video. Let me know that I have not lost you guys. We went way into the weeds, but I think that's like the perfect analogy for reapplying. Reapplying is you just cheated on your girl.

How are you going to fix it? That's reapplying. Exactly. Five G COVID y'all five G COVID is a frill. Gave it to us. Oh righty. Jonathan made it on here. What up Jonathan? Um, okay, so everyone has a wonderful, beautiful, outstanding day. It is Friday, Friday. I'm going to the beach this weekend with my kids. Woo. Who's excited. I'm teaching my son. How to boogie board. He's four. He's like a fish in the water. Y'all I was like a fish. I'm like an octopus in the water. I should like doing some of this. I don't know. Uh, everyone has a wonderful, wonderful day. Uh, we'll be back every Monday, every Wednesday. New videos for you guys. The podcast, new stuff. Every Tuesday and Thursday. I appreciate you guys hanging out with me. I'm dr. Pine set. Everyone have a good weekend. How do we always end guys? How do we end every single video Harpreet? I'll see all of you guys tomorrow. We got coaching starting bright and early 6:00 AM.