Coffee & Career Hour
A genuine & informative podcast on all things career - hosted by two career counselors and friends. From practical strategies to motivational & reflective content, this podcast is here to empower and guide you to find meaningful work, make informed career decisions, and reach your full potential. So, grab a cup of coffee and join in for some career talk.
Coffee & Career Hour
Navigating the Medical School Application Journey with Expert Insights from Nicole Samani
In this episode, we connect with our special guest, Nicole Samani, the founder of Next Step Admissions - an admission counseling service that aims to empower students to achieve their fullest potential in their educational journey. Nicole's journey from indecision at UCLA to founding her own educational counseling firm is nothing short of inspiring. With her strong foundation in counseling and over a decade of experience in higher education, she excels at building relationships with students and supports them in gaining admission to their desired programs. Nicole shares her expertise on the essential components of the med school application process, including the nuances of primary and secondary applications, timing the submissions strategically, and the vital role of interviews in finding the perfect fit.
Dive into the distinctions and similarities between Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) and Doctor of Medicine (MD) programs, and discover how aligning your application to these unique philosophies can significantly impact your acceptance chances. We unravel the myth of the "perfect" medical school candidate by discussing the importance of crafting a holistic application that goes beyond GPA and MCAT scores. From choosing the right experiences to writing compelling personal statements and gathering influential recommendation letters, find out what truly makes an applicant stand out.
Finally, prepare to conquer the medical school interview process with confidence. Gain valuable tips for navigating various interview formats, including traditional, multiple mini interviews (MMIs), and panel styles. Explore the significance of understanding open, closed, and partial file interviews and how they influence your preparation strategies. Whether you're just beginning your journey or contemplating a career shift into medicine, this episode provides the guidance and motivation you need to navigate the path to medical school with clarity and purpose.
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- Email: info@nextstepadmit.com
- Website: Next Step Admissions- nextstepadmit.com
- Instagram- @nextstepadmissionsprep
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your process and your timeline will be very different from that of your peers, your friends, things of that sort. So be very conscious of your experience, focus on your pathway and note that all it takes is one school.
Speaker 2:You are listening to Coffee and Career Hour. Welcome back everybody. Thank you for joining us at Coffee and Career Hour. We're super excited today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have a. Very well, it's still around Valentine's Day season, right? So we are gathered up with the girls and having a good old career conversation. As always On this podcast, we try to educate you as much as the many things Armin and I do in our everyday lives and beyond our work, but we also like to bring on special guests who are experts in different areas of the world of work.
Speaker 2:Yes, and today we're excited to learn more from our special guest, nicole Samani, who will give you a chance to introduce yourself and let our audience know about your background and all the expertise that you have today. So thank you for joining us, nicole, and we'll actually go ahead and get started. I'll ask you to please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and experience working as a grad school consultant.
Speaker 1:All right, amazing. Thank you both for having me here today. I'm so excited to share a bit about my background and to just support anyone here that can benefit from this episode and all the information we'll be sharing today. I am Nicole Samani, I'm a college counselor and I'm also the founder of my own education consulting company, next Step Admissions. My journey into college counseling actually started at UCLA.
Speaker 1:When I transferred over to UCLA, I was actually really uncertain about my career choice. I felt incredibly lost as a student there and I actually ended up taking a career planning class and I did a bunch of different assessments in that career planning class and everything pointed me in the direction of different helping professions, and college counseling was one that really stood out to me and felt like it could be a fit. When I was a community college student, I was always the one like helping my friends plan out their classes and lay out next steps in life and I was like wait a second, that aligns and so does everything with the values behind it, the skills that are needed. So I spoke to my professor of the class and I asked what I should do to pursue such a pathway, and he shared that I should apply for the UCLA Career Center Peer Advisor position and apply to grad school. Starting off I had no idea what the educational pathway was to get me there, so I was very happy to have that direction and have the experience at the UCLA Career Center. Very happy to have that direction and have the experience at the UCLA Career Center. I think that was where I really built my foundational skills in terms of just communicating with students and public speaking, which has been so huge for me in my professional career, with doing workshops and with just speaking to students on a day-to-day basis. So that experience at the UCLA Career Center was a big one for me that I hold very close to my heart now. And thereafter I ended up applying to grad school.
Speaker 1:I pursued my master's in counseling, specializing in college counseling and student services at Cal State Northridge. I've been working in higher education for over a decade now and in that time I've had the pleasure of working as a community college academic counselor. I've been able to teach in the community college setting. I've had the opportunity to work at another educational consulting company helping students apply to medical school consulting company helping students apply to medical school, and now I am working with my own students as well as the founder of Next Step Admissions. So what got me there with the grad school consulting was taking on the role of creating an admissions program for a med school prep company.
Speaker 1:With that process I was able to support hundreds of students. I trained counselors and editors to continue supporting students in the same way and my experience there really showed me how I value the individualized interactions with students and wanting to help them really grow through the process like watching that confidence development and seeing them get to that final goal was really meaningful and you know that really reminded me and got me to see that I love the individualized process and working with students on that one-on-one basis. So I decided to expand out into my own company helping pre-meds through the medical school application process, helping high school students apply to undergrad and helping students apply to other graduate programs like law school, pa school, pharmacy school, things of that sort, although my main emphasis is the pre-med process and, as I mentioned, I love seeing the growth and development and success that comes with that process and it's been incredibly meaningful and I look forward to sharing more about the med school admissions process with you all throughout the session today. So that's a little bit about me.
Speaker 3:That was such a full circle moment for you. There's so many things in your story that kind of come back to the original time of when you started to work one-on-one with students as a career advisor at the UCLA Career Center, which is so funny. We keep bringing on people who have been in that position and I love that. And now you are running your own business where you get to talk about one of our favorite topics, which is graduate school and leading students into that professional world. And knowing that your emphasis here is in medical school and working with pre-med students, whether that's at a high school age or when they're in college and getting ready for that next step, can you give us a little bit of an overview of the admission process and what applicants should really kind of expect?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Yeah, something to keep in mind about the application process is that it is a long one. When students apply to medical school, it's around a year-long process. So, to start, I always tell my students to be very patient, because you're going to want answers, you're going to want updates, but it's a very long and oftentimes strenuous process. So patience is really a virtue throughout this process, your friends, things of that sort. So be very conscious of your experience, focus on your pathway and note that all it takes is one school, one acceptance, to build that career and to become a physician. And if you stay committed, stay focused, it will happen. It's just a matter of the how and the patience throughout the process.
Speaker 1:With that being said, the med school application process has different components. So you'll find the primary application, secondary application, interviews, different letters that you can send throughout the process as well. The primary application is the medical school application that's going to go out to all medical schools and that's going to include things like your personal information, academic background, your grades, your stats like your MCAT score. Your personal statement will go in there. Experience descriptions will go in there. The different letter writers, your letter writers, will send the letters in supplementally, but this is where you'll identify who your letter writers are. You'll have your school list selected here and for some students you may be completing alternate essays like the other impactful experiences essay that would fall within this application as well.
Speaker 1:For the primary application, this opens for submission in May, and the sooner you submit, the sooner you'll be able to progress through the cycle, because the med school application process is rolling. So obviously it's always better to submit something perfect as opposed to something that you know may lack quality, but submit it as early as possible, as close to that first date as possible, to be able to get ahead of the timeline. Then, after the primary application, will come secondary applications. These are going to be school specific applications and questions that you'll be receiving from almost all medical schools. Most schools will not filter out before secondaries, so in most cases, be ready to get these applications from almost every single medical school you've applied to. The essays can vary from like four to five different short answer essays to literally like 10 one-page essays. So be ready to dive into a lot of writing over the summer, because that's the phase that this is going to come in. And then again, timeline is very important. The sooner you submit for most schools, the sooner they'll be able to review your application. Some schools, like top 20s, oftentimes don't have that same rolling timeline, but in general you want to be getting things in as early as possible. Even for those top 20s If they see you're submitting later, oftentimes that doesn't help your application process. So sooner the better, always.
Speaker 1:Once you get your primaries and secondaries in, you've kind of gotten through the bulk of that first part of what you need to do and it becomes a waiting game of schools reviewing your application and deciding if they want to invite you for an interview. That interview process will vary for each school and for each student. If you're applying to DO schools, you can start hearing back early summer for interviews, all the way until like March of the next year. If you're applying to MD schools, usually that'll start like very early fall and that can go out into around February. But I have seen students get those interviews later and that can go out into around February, but I have seen students get those interviews later. So once your secondaries are in it's going to be a bit of a waiting game and this is the part that takes a lot of patience on the end of the student and where every student's process is going to vary. Again, all it takes is one. So if you get that interview in October or February, all it takes is one acceptance to make a difference in your career. So patience is incredibly important there.
Speaker 1:But if you do find that you want to do something and like you're getting a little bit impatient waiting, you can send a letter of interest, which I usually send or suggest sending, in late fall or early winter for schools that accept it, because not every school accepts this. So we'd want to check on that. If the school accepts a letter of interest, this is your way of basically letting the school know that you're still interested in applying and these are the things on your application that kind of align with their program and these are the updates that you've had since applying. So if you are submitting a letter of interest, you always want to make sure that you have updates included in it. We don't want to just reiterate what they have from the fall or from the summer. So that's where it's also important to constantly stay updated with new experiences and new grades, things like that, depending on the phase that you're in in life when you apply.
Speaker 1:And lastly, after that interview if you do opt for wanting to verify with a certain school that this is your absolute top choice, then what you can do is run through that interview, know that that's your number one school and from there you can send a letter of intent which basically lets the school know that if you earn an acceptance to that school you will attend. We only suggest doing this for like top, top, top choice schools. If you are looking into multiple different schools and you just want to kind of have the best option possible and you're open to different opportunities, a letter of intent isn't usually suggested because you're kind of providing a commitment to that medical school. But that is something helpful to just keep in the back pocket if you either know you really want to go somewhere or you feel really confident about like an interview experience you had at one school.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's kind of the entire process with interviews. Keep in mind that at that point that's kind of like a fit check when you make it to the interview, like they like what they've seen on paper and now they want to see if you'll be a good fit for the school. And on the other end, the interview is also a chance for you to determine if you will be a good, if the school will be a good fit for you as well. So allow yourself the opportunity to interview them simultaneously, because hopefully you will have choices at the end of it. But we want to make sure that you know you're going in informed as you run through the process and know that a school is a place that you would want to end up at for the next few years.
Speaker 2:Wow, what a journey people have to take before getting into medical school. It's interesting there's a lot of similarities with law school applications and one of the pre-law advisors at UCLA and like the rolling admission and certain things like that committing to a school. There are similarities with law school, but it's interesting that this one starts in May. Usually we see graduate applications start in the fall, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was surprised to hear that the first primary applications start in May, so how long would you say, if people are applying in May for primary, by the time they do secondary and then by there there's a waiting period, but then they get interviews? When do people start to get admitted?
Speaker 1:So that's the part that varies significantly for every single student and that's where the anxiety can kind of start to peak as you compare with peers. You can start getting in anywhere from July through March, so it varies significantly from student to student. For DO schools, that's the one that you'll start seeing in July, especially if you have a very early interview.
Speaker 1:For MD schools, usually those acceptances will start rolling in and around October. So those will take a little bit more time. And then it's also going to vary school by school. Some have a set turnaround time, of like within two to three weeks they will get back to you, or they will at least let you know if you're moving on to the next batch of applicants that they're going to review for acceptance, while others may state we'll get back to everybody in January or February. So you can start hearing back for MD around October, for DO around July, and that is rolling through the next few months of the cycle. And then there's also the case of like you may hear from one school in July or August and may hear nothing until February of the next year.
Speaker 3:So it's like a two year process then. So students when they're applying, let's say, let's take 2025. If I start my application this May, ideally like, let's say, all everything goes well at mid-instance, I wouldn't know until next summer, next fall, and then I wouldn't start until 2027 fall, so you would start 2026 fall.
Speaker 1:So if we apply, let's say, may 2025, you will matriculate by summer 2026 or early fall 2026, depending on that exact timeline, and then that's where your primary apps will be submitted. If you're applying 2025, somewhere around May, june or July 2025, depending on how early you are Secondaries you'll start receiving them early July or beyond, depending on when you submit your primary app. And then, depending on how fast you get those secondaries in and when the schools review your application, you will be considered for interviews, which DOs can start as early as July 2025, but MDs will probably start closer to the end of September 2025, rolling into 2026.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Nicole. Can you please clarify DO versus MD for our listeners too?
Speaker 1:Yes. So these are both fantastic paths toward medicine. We are starting to see more similarities between the two. One is considered a medical doctor degree, the other one is considered a doctor of osteopathy, but both as a basis of holistic medicine and they focus a lot more on preventative care and focus on treatment of the mind, body, soul. So oftentimes if you are looking at an osteopathic physician, they may focus on trying to solve a problem before they see it. So there's going to be a lot more of a preventative route and they may oftentimes take assessment of, let's say, diet, lifestyle, exercise, environmental factors, things like that, in addition to medication, to make adjustments to your life that can lead to better medical outcomes in the future for you. While allopathic medicine, which is the MD route, focuses a lot more on evidence-based medicine, so with that they're oftentimes waiting to see the symptoms come about and provide treatment accordingly, and medication is again used for both. But you'll see it a little bit more commonly with the allopathic route. Both of them currently are taking these routes. Both routes currently are focusing on the holistic medicine approach a little bit more in this day and age. So you'll see a lot more commonalities in the way that the two practice, and you'll also see that oftentimes, at the end of the day, residency programs end up being the same for these as well.
Speaker 1:If you are looking at osteopathic medicine, many of them do take the primary care route. That's not to say that you can't specialize. It can just be a little bit more difficult to specialize sometimes. But if you're taking advantage of your medical school experience and really pushing through that for different research opportunities, clinical rotations, things like that, the specializing can occur with that as well. Also, when you're running through the application, stats for DOs are a little bit lower than the stats for MDs. If you're applying to both MD and DO schools, we do suggest having exposure to both so that you can identify the two pathways and your personal statements can be tailored to both of them. And then one last thing with DO is they have like osteopathic manipulative medicine as a measure of uh, as a method of treatment, which isn't going to be very common outside of osteopathic medicine. They're really the only ones that can do that, so that's something to note as well amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like it's the philosophy. Ultimately, both pathways allow you to become a doctor and practice and help people heal and improve their lives, but it's the philosophy that you work around which is super important. I think in any kind of graduate program that students are applying to, right to think about what is the philosophy that I'm going to be operating with, because the classes, the theories, the way that you'm going to be operating with, because the classes, the theories, the way that you're going to be learning in that program is all going to be run by that foundational philosophy. So I think it's really important to kind of think about that and be intentional when you're applying or choosing programs to apply to. Can you please talk a little bit about the common mistakes that UC applicants make when applying to medical school?
Speaker 1:Yes. So mistakes happen very frequently in the application process just because, as we discussed right now, you see how many different moving parts there are and it can be incredibly difficult to focus on all different aspects of the application. I think one of the simplest mistakes is the timeline and not applying early or submitting much later following application deadlines. I think early submission is the easiest way to get the application cycle working in your favor, and submitting late or holding off on submissions of either primary app or secondary, or waiting for your letter writers to submit much later in the cycle, can all impact your process. So I think seeing a deadline, like when you apply to college if you apply on the day apps are due, you're totally fine in most cases, but when you're applying to medical school, you don't want to wait until the end. You want to submit as early as possible. So application opening date versus deadline is one of those misconceptions that students can sometimes fall into and you want to make sure that you are getting ahead of the timeline.
Speaker 1:I think another one is focusing on their stats, awards and accolades and achievements. Stats are a great entry point with your application, but medical schools want to know who you are and I think that's a really big difference from everything that's gone on academically to get into college and things like that, or even getting certain experiences when you're a college student. Starting off the academics are one of the things that come up most frequently. You're seeing what awards you've gotten, what achievements you've gotten. But with the app, while that's incredibly important as a gateway entrance point, they want to know who you are, what skill sets you possess, how you're going to contribute to the medical school, how you're going to contribute to the medical community down the line. And that comes from becoming personal and feeling a lot more transparent and open with the application process. So I think that's another common misconception is focusing on, like the stats and awards and achievements and as opposed to allowing the committee to see who you are as an individual.
Speaker 1:And lastly, I would say another misconception or another common mistake is not applying to enough medical schools, so keeping the list really minimal. Oftentimes you'll see students from a certain city that want to try to stay in that city and may only apply to like five medical schools, which sometimes that works out really well, which is awesome, but you want to do whatever you can to keep the cycle in your favor. So my preferred suggestion there is applying to a minimum of 15 medical schools, ideally 20. Of course, your stats make a difference. If your stats are at a higher point, like I'm comfortable with that 15. If your stats have a little bit more variability, then that's where we may want to look closer to 30 or something like that.
Speaker 1:And I always suggest a combination of in-state, out-of-state schools, private schools, public schools, so that you're doing whatever you can to increase your odds and then also applying to the right schools, because some may have preferences for in-state or out-of-state or certain experiences or populations they want to see that you've worked with. So making sure that while we want a broad school list, we also want to make sure that the school list includes schools that would actually consider you.
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Speaker 3:Now let's get back to our show. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say like 15 to 30 schools. That's wild.
Speaker 1:I think the national average is currently at 16. And I always like to be a little bit above that. But yes, that's where that high number kind of starts.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, because students will ask us all the time you know what is? How many schools should I apply to? It's very different for other types of graduate programs, right. Even for law school or general other grad programs, we definitely have a lower range than 15, 16 that we recommend. Also, because every application is so tailored to the program, right, and you do have to be really thoughtful in your applications and we want to make sure our clients and students know that it's not just going to be you write, you do one set of application and submit to all these programs. You have to be very intentional and tailored. But with medical school, it sounds like it's important to be above the 15 range just because you have to increase your odds and it's super competitive.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and with that, having knowing that each school is going to ask for a secondary application and that means that this person who is applying has to have, like straight, solid time management skills throughout the summer in the application cycle, what have you seen that works with you know, many times students who are completing their college programs are still applying to medical school. So how do you see that your, your clients, really balance these high number of applications and questions and being personal with their everyday life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. I think one of the benefits of the application timeline is that if you are a student, it kind of falls into the beginning of your summer. So I always work with my students to kind of gauge their summer coursework or summer work experiences to try to keep the first half of summer a little bit lighter in terms of academic load or career responsibilities. If they are not able to modify that, then usually I also encourage significant conversations with family and friends, kind of letting them know that the summer is going to be their time to be focused on commitments regarding the application process. So I've had a lot of students that had either moved family vacations or had to miss certain opportunities to be able to allow for time for this process, opportunities to be able to allow for time for this process. It is a really large commitment and that's where I really suggest pre-writing secondaries. So once you submit your primary application, or if you're even ahead of the game and your primary is done earlier, start preparing those secondary essays early on. There is access to past prompts which can absolutely help you. Or you can even start with writing drafts for the most common secondaries and then tailor that as the schools come in Just because once you start receiving secondaries, within two weeks you can receive secondaries from almost every school and that can be a couple hundred pages of writing and it's incredibly strenuous and exhausting. So that's where the earlier process of submitting your primary app until the time you start getting secondaries is the time that I think you should really take advantage of as a student with pre-writing, because deadlines haven't hit yet and you can kind of manipulate the process a little bit more in that way.
Speaker 1:I had a student last cycle and we met multiple times every single week and I just saw his hair growing a little more and a little more and a little more and he's like a little more and a little more and a little more and he's like I have not left the house in six weeks by the end of it. But he got interviews to multiple top 10 schools and the result paid off. So I think it's just keeping in mind what can come at the end of it. That discipline can be really exhausting. It can you know? You submit your primary application and you feel like you're done. You feel like you've done the hard work, but that next month or so is really when the bulk of it begins because of the fast turnaround times and individualized process, so altering commitments to whatever capacity that you can.
Speaker 1:If you're able to opt out of a summer course or no summer course the first half of summer and pick something up the second half, that would be great. If there's a way to navigate your work experience to do part-time work over the summer, that would be amazing as well. If not, make sure you're taking advantage of evenings and weekends and have those difficult conversations with family and friends. Of course it's important to still take care of yourself in the process, because we don't want you to crash or burn out and you know self-care and routine here and there is important. If you go to the gym, if you enjoy hiking, if you enjoy cooking, if there's like a dinner that you want to do here and there, absolutely like, continue having a little bit of normalcy to take care of yourself. But it is something that involves a significant commitment for those couple of months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds really intense for the first couple months of the application process, going back to the beginning stages of what that may look like. This process and this dedication really does start kind of at the beginning of one's decision to want to pursue this type of field, and for us we see a lot of individuals who are, you know, focused on their GPA when to take different entrance exams. So can you tell us, can you talk a little bit more about how your GPA and MCAT scores are compared to other parts of the application, like the extracurriculars and personal statement? What does that look like? And then a little bit of a follow up is if you're someone who graduates college and then wants to pursue medical medical school down the line in a few years, what does that mean, what? What might that look like for someone as well line in a few?
Speaker 1:years.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? What might that look like for someone as well? Yes, so stats are an incredibly important part of the application process in terms of opening the door and having schools wanting to learn more about you upfront. So I always say like, if you have great stats, that can be a way to open doors for schools, to make them want to learn more about you and really dive into the personal statement and experiences. Unfortunately, if the stats aren't solid, that can be a factor that can impact your school list. So that's where we'd want to have a more extensive conversation regarding the application process based on stats that are there. So higher GPA, higher MCAT score, more doors will open up front for you.
Speaker 1:However, once the stats are there, the application itself is what matters most. The rest of the application is what's going to tell the story of who you are. It's going to show who you are as a holistic applicant and your ability to contribute to the school and the field of medicine overall. The stats can oftentimes show your academic confidence, your academic competence and your scientific inquiry, but your passion for the field, your communication skills, problem-solving skills, leadership, initiative, teamwork, bedside manner all that comes from your experiences and personal statement. So again, stats can serve as that medical school. If a school is considering a student with your stats, they're probably considering many other students with similar stats as well. So what's going to set you apart from the numbers? And that's where everything else comes in. So stats are important, but I think now more than ever, being a holistic applicant matters even more In terms of stats.
Speaker 1:You want to have your prereqs done, or as close to done as possible, as early as you can in the process. If you have all your prereqs done by the time you submit your primary application, then med schools will be able to see that as a way to gauge your ability to succeed academically in those classes. If you have a couple prereqs left over, that's okay. You just want to kind of keep this in mind as your own baseline and also, if you have your prereqs done earlier on, that's going to support you with the MCAT, because the content for the MCAT oftentimes overlaps with what you'll be learning in the courses. So the sooner you pursue those courses, the easier your MCAT prep process will be.
Speaker 1:For a student that's taken a few years off, there are a few different recommendations Depending on how many years have been off and how you performed in the undergraduate setting and what you've done since graduating. One route is you may not need to repeat classes. Some schools have prereq deadlines, others do not, and, like I've worked with students that ended up like pursuing PhDs or master's programs in other fields in the sciences and they didn't need to repeat the prereqs because they were already in the field in some way or had continuous science coursework. But if you haven't taken any science coursework or you're a complete career changer, that is where you're going to want to do a little bit of an academic exploration process, going to want to do a little bit of an academic exploration process.
Speaker 1:Postbacs and master's programs are great ways to get the coursework in and this will be in specific settings where other students will be alongside of you running through the same process and you'll also have advisors as a part of the process that can write letters for you and help guide you in whatever way to make sure that you're running through the courses as efficiently and timely as possible.
Speaker 1:However, I do also note that those programs can sometimes be costly, so students may also opt for, like DIY postbacs that they'll do independently at a local community college and complete those prereqs in that way and then also keeping in mind potentially specialized master's programs that have connections with medical schools, so that can also boost your chances of actually getting into the medical school if you pursue one of those, because oftentimes if you have a certain GPA and MCAT score and completed the courses in that program with like a B or better, let's say, they will give you a guaranteed interview and in those programs oftentimes you will be doing your first year with the medical students.
Speaker 1:So that also allows the school to see that you're able to handle the load a little bit more comprehensively as well. So you're kind of already getting a foot in in many cases. So that's, those are the different routes that I would consider. If a student has taken some time off, and also if you've taken time off, make sure that you're obtaining experiences in the field. I know a lot of times people may take time off, pursue other commitments, may have other responsibilities to support family, things like that, but make sure that you're able to ultimately show medical schools why you're pursuing a career in medicine and that's going to come with relevant experience.
Speaker 2:I love that you talked about that. There are always opportunities to pursue this pathway, even if maybe you didn't start at a younger age. And I think in the work that we all three of us do, we see oftentimes a lot of students who are so focused on. I need to figure this out right now, because it's almost as if those doors aren't going to be open later on and that's not true. And that's the same that goes for any other graduate program.
Speaker 2:When I work with my pre-law students, I talk about the same thing. I always say law school will always be there. Same goes here. Med school will always be there. Right?
Speaker 2:So let's say you don't realize that this is your passion early on in life, it doesn't mean that you can't get there.
Speaker 2:Sure, it'll take a little bit longer or there might be a few extra steps, because now you have to, you know, do a post-bac program, get your prerequisites in and maybe get more experience in the field.
Speaker 2:No problem, if you realize that this is your passion later on, you can still reach this pathway. So I love that the messaging is very similar around med school as it is for other graduate programs, and you talked a little bit about people being a holistic applicant, which is so, so true. Because, again, students get so fixated on stats, gpa, mcat scores and their grades and transcripts. And, yes, those are important, but you have to be able to talk about why you want to go into this field, why you would be a good candidate for a program, but also why you would be great in this industry once you're practicing right. So can you talk a little bit about how students can approach both their essays as well as their recommendation letters and just the rest of the application process with the mindset of being more holistic? How much emphasis should they put on other things besides their statistics?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely so, with the personal statement and what comes out in secondaries, other essays and even letters. I always suggest getting personal, and that's a very different experience for students, because when you're in college, most essays are very academic or providing perspectives with evidence behind it, and this is the first time in a long time where students are probably going to be running through this process of actually sharing personal information about themselves, and so I always share with my students that you want to allow the committee to see who you are as an individual and share stories that are unique to you, always include anecdotes that are tailored, specific and allow us to understand exactly why you're pursuing a career in medicine and, as mentioned, your passion for the field and the different skills you possess that will make you a good physician at the end of the day. This is going to involve a lot of reflection through your different experiences, and they may not even be medically related experiences. It may be something that happened in your childhood. It may be, you know, getting injured as a kid and realizing you didn't have health insurance and how that impacted your treatment. Or it may even be an experience that you had with a provider that treated a family member or someone that you shadowed that ended up impacting you. So every student's journey is going to be different. Every student's story is going to be different, but personal is what's going to make the difference, and details that allow us to see who you are and where that commitment came in.
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid to show collaboration, to show teamwork. You can even bring in experiences like TA opportunities or leadership positions you held in, like a research setting or clinical setting. This is also a place to allow your unique experiences to shine. So if you founded a program that isn't really common, or supported an underserved population in some way, this is where you highlight it, because this is what's going to set you apart from other students. Something I share with my students is, if I cover all personal pronouns in your personal statement, will this be a statement that's only relevant to you? If so, good, that's a personal essay. If not, we'll run through it again and see any parts of it that can be tailored a little bit more so that we can ensure that it's unique to you. So always keep in mind anecdotes are incredibly important.
Speaker 1:It's going to be very helpful in allowing you to identify how you've grown throughout your process as well, and when it comes to your letters, I think the same thing applies.
Speaker 1:You want to make sure that you're getting letter writers that know you and can speak on the different experiences that you've had in settings with them.
Speaker 1:If it's a professor, we want to make sure that it's a professor that knows you, as opposed to a class where maybe you went in every day, got your A but didn't communicate with the professor at all independently, or with the peers grade or even participated in a project that the professor now uses as an example for their class, or had a collaborative opportunity in a discussion section that got them to see your understanding of the subject area and allowed them to see how you can support your peers.
Speaker 1:Those are more unique opportunities to showcase that skill set that you have and will allow your letter writers to also identify that as well. And I think the same thing comes in with clinical letters, research letters, community involvement letters, leadership letters. The more your letter writer knows about you, the better the letter will be, and the more skill sets they can identify about you, the more likely a committee will take that letter with higher regard. So always make sure that with your letter writers you're finding people that know you and I always suggest to my students like write down stories and examples for your letter writer to reference, so that they can also tie that into the letter and showcase the skills. Because they work with a lot of students, they may not always remember exactly what you did, so give them that little refresher as well and advocate for yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Getting personal sounds like it's one of the key parts to your secondaries. As you're filling out all of those applications, we can say that you know, for some individuals writing can come a little bit easier than for others, but where we see a lot of the time individuals kind of struggle is in the interview process Now bringing what's in those documents in that application to life so you can see that I am the person that you were just reading about. I am that person that you know served that underserved community or did this type of work, or these are the examples that I have to bring. Can you walk us through a little bit what happens during a medical school interview, knowing how they're screened kind of through their secondaries and how applicants can really best prepare?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. If you make it to the interview phase, give yourself credit, because that is a huge step to achieve and many students forget that. They're so focused on that final outcome of getting the acceptance. But if you make it to the interview, that is huge. That means that the medical schools like everything that they've seen on paper and they want to meet you and consider having you as a student. So take a moment, give yourself credit, pat yourself on the back, because you do deserve that in that moment. Getting an interview is a really big deal. With that being said, there are different types of interviews and when it comes to preparing for interviews, I always suggest mock interviews as the top pointer, because the best way to perfect your interview process is by practicing. That's a way to build your confidence and this is the phase, honestly, that I love the most, because this is where I see my students transform the most and build confidence in themselves and why they're a fit for a certain medical school. So keep in mind there are different types of interviews. Interview day itself can involve a campus tour if it's in person, which we've seen a shift away from that since COVID but they can provide campus tours. You may have a session with the dean or current faculty providing a little bit of information on the medical school. There may be an info session or a meet and greet with current medical students, which oftentimes occurs either virtually or in person, depending on the setting of the interview. A lot of my students find significant benefit to those student sessions because that's where they really get an idea of the culture of the campus and the community, both in terms of the faculty engagement and the way students may support one another. So if that's even an optional session, I always say go, because I know earlier we spoke about making sure the school is a fit for you as well, and that's a big thing. That comes with the interview process and allowing you to communicate with existing students is a way to see whether you want to go there. So that's kind of like the logistical side. Then we have the interview types, which can be a traditional interview, a multiple mini interview, a group interview, a panel interview, and each of these interviews you will be the focus. Obviously You'll be answering the bulk of the questions. You will be the focus. Obviously You'll be answering the bulk of the questions.
Speaker 1:A traditional interview will typically have you with one interviewer running through standard questions. They may ask questions related to your experiences as well, or questions where you're able to identify different skillsets. So, going into the interview process, I always suggest reviewing your application. Make sure you know what you wrote in your primary app and in your secondaries and why you want to go to this school. Do your research on the program and I always suggest running through your experiences again and noting down stories that you can think of that can come up in interview questions. If they ask you about a challenging time in an experience, if they ask you about a leadership position, if they ask about a time where you didn't get what you want in a research opportunity, a time where you had a challenge with a colleague, a time where you succeeded or took initiative, prepare examples of these different skill sets and these different types of questions so that, if it comes up, you're ready to go and if it doesn't and you get something else, if you've already prepared to this capacity, it's going to be easier for you to run through your arsenal of different experiences and different answers to then be able to think on the spot and identify something unique. But yes, traditional questions will oftentimes have standard questions that you'll see, tell me about yourself why medicine, why this school? And again different questions to learn about experiences and skill sets you possess.
Speaker 1:The MMI is very unique to medical school applications. This is a multiple mini interview and usually they will give you a very specific scenario unrelated to anything in your application and they'll give you a couple minutes to prepare to answer the question. A lot of these questions will have moral and ethical reasoning included in them. So with that, I would suggest identify different moral and ethical issues that could be relevant to the field or just going on in the world in the current day, so that you can include that in your answer For MMI. I always tell my students that they're trying to understand your critical thinking, your thought process, your logic. So this is a good place to think aloud because that allows them to see how you get to a final outcome. If they ask you a question. This is a consolidated version. But if they ask you something like you're on the road driving to work and you see a car accident, 10 cars ahead of you, would you get out of the car to help or not? The more information you give them, the more they're able to see your thought process in identifying what the best way is to navigate such a scenario. So that's going to be a little bit about the MMI.
Speaker 1:Group and panel interviews are seen as well. They're not as common, but the group interview is where you will be a student amongst other medical school applicants. You may get the same questions. You may get different questions. They may even have you participate in an activity with the peers and then a panel interview will be you along with multiple interviewers on the other side, each asking you different questions.
Speaker 1:One other distinction with the application process is some may be open file, some may be closed file and some may be partial for the interview, which is a difference in how much access they have to your application for the interview, which is a difference in how much access they have to your application.
Speaker 1:An open file means they see everything.
Speaker 1:So if you are an applicant with a lower MCAT score or lower GPA and your interview is open file, make sure you're also prepared to talk about any low grades or performance on the MCAT. If it's partial, file with that, they usually have access to your experiences and personal statement. So if you again have lower stats now, you're in luck, because that's probably not going to come up, they're going to focus more on the experiences and personal statement. And then closed file means they know nothing, they've seen nothing about your application. So those distinctions are also really helpful for you to keep in mind as a student, in terms of how much you're reflecting on past experiences, and then also what they may ask, because if it's an open file, they already have the basis of everything you've already done. So they may ask you to talk a little bit more about a certain clinical experience or a certain research experience, while if it's closed file they know nothing. So you're going to have to kind of give a basis of what's occurred and go back to the basics.
Speaker 2:Wow. The interview itself sounds also very all-encompassing, right. There's so many different components to it. I hadn't even heard of open file versus closed file. So it's cool to see that there are these different variations and for the student to know, like you said, how much to prepare, whether they're going to have to give all the basics of all their experiences in the interview or if they know that it's going to kind of be more targeted towards particular experiences because the interviewers are seeing their entire file. I think that's something very unique to med school and really cool to know that students get these different options.
Speaker 2:But what a process, right. It definitely is something that you know you have to be very intentional about and dedicate a lot of time, effort and energy. But I love what you said in the beginning that it only takes one school to get you to this goal statement, because, yeah, if people are applying to 15 to 20 schools, I know sometimes students also get caught up in the. You know I want to have my backups, but if I get into one, I still want to get into this other one. That's like my dream school, and sometimes even getting into one doesn't make them feel like they're good enough, but that's ultimately.
Speaker 2:It only takes one school. You know, yes, it would be ideal if everyone got into their dream schools, but at the end of the day, you're still going to become a doctor, you're still going to be able to practice and help people heal and and improve their lives. So it only takes one school. I'm going to stick with that. I love that. Thank you so much, nicole. Can you give us one final, any final advice that you have for applicants who are applying to med school? Just through your expertise?
Speaker 1:Yes, ooh, that is a tough one. As you've seen, it's a very comprehensive process, so there are logistical points of guidance that I can provide. But I'm going to take a different approach and identify having grace with yourself throughout the process Because, as we discussed, there are so many different moving parts and it can get really easy to get caught up in that. But remember how far you've come. You are applying to medical school and that has taken so many hours of commitment, so many experiences. You've pursued so many difficult courses, a lot of reflection beyond what you've probably done in years. And note that that takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of strength and you deserve to have grace with yourself through this process because it's a difficult one, but the outcome will be worth it.
Speaker 1:And keep that in mind as you run through every step of the medical school application process. You finish one step, another one comes at you right away. But take a moment, have grace. Remember you just submitted your primary. That deserves some credit. You just submitted your secondaries. You're waiting for interviews, but you did it. And keep each one of those wins in mind, because that is a huge point of success in itself. And having grace with yourself. Having that confidence and being your biggest advocate is what's going to get you to that finish line.
Speaker 3:I love that, having grace with yourself throughout this process. I think for anyone out there, our end goals look so far right. They look so far away, and there's all these challenges and bumps we can anticipate in the road, but every time you get closer you take one step. I love celebrating each one along the way. Thank you so much, nicole, for your conversation and for individuals who are curious about wanting to apply to medical school or any of the professional graduate programs that you support with, where can they reach out to you?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely so. They can find me on social media. The social media handle is Next Step Admissions Prep. They can also find me on my website, nextstepadmitcom admitcom. Or you can also send me an email at Nicole at next step admitcom and I will be happy to answer and provide support in any way that I can.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, nicole. We'll put all of these in our show notes as well for anybody listening to have easy access to Nicole's contact information, but we do definitely encourage anyone out there who's thinking about applying to medical school or any other type of graduate program. Nicole is obviously an expert, has a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge and really great advice to share, so make sure that you are using resources that are available to you and reaching out to folks who can support you in this process. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy our show, we ask that you write a review on Apple Podcasts to help us reach more people looking to level up their career Want to connect with us.
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