PreHealth Spotlight: Caroline Qin

Class year: 2018
Major: Microbiology

There are many paths to becoming a doctor, but the key to beginning the journey is learning how to tell your story.

Vitals

• Applying in the current cycle
• Invited on fifteen interviews
• Accepted at three medical schools so far
• CNA at Applewood
• Member of Sandler Lab in Microbiology Department
• Peer tutor and mentor at Learning Resource Center
• Volunteer at Arbors, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and Not Bread Alone

The medical school application cycle is tough, and it can be hard to figure out what admissions committees are even looking for. What I have learned from my experience, however, is that every medical school asks the same central questions: Why medicine, and why you? It is essential that you are able to articulate why you want to pursue medicine in a passionate way and tell meaningful anecdotes from the experiences that have influenced that decision. There are many paths to becoming a doctor, but the key to beginning the journey is learning how to tell your story.

Here’s mine:

I specifically became interested in medicine because of the community I found in it. Due to the economic recession, I was raised in an unusual situation, essentially living alone from age 15. While I had financial support, this was a tough personal transition for me. During that time, I realized I wanted a career in a profession where I could build a community that I would be happy to call home. Though I did not know what that career would be when I entered college, I eventually found the families and connections I longed for in the activities that I did as a pre-med. I realized that becoming a doctor would integrate the passion I have for leading scientific inquiry and discovery with building a community between myself and my peers and patients. To me, the intersection between medicine and patient-focused care is key to the type of doctor I aspire to be.

One great thing about UMass Amherst is that there are a ton of medical and non-medical opportunities to get involved with on and around campus. I am a research assistant in Dr. Steven Sandler’s microbiology laboratory, a resident assistant (CNA) at Applewood Retirement Living, a peer tutor and mentor at the Learning Resource Center, and a teacher’s assistant for college microbiology and at Frontier Regional High School. I have also gone on a medical service mission to Peru, shadowed several doctors, and volunteered at Not Bread Alone (a community meal program), Cooley Dickinson Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and the Arbors at Amherst Assisted Living.

In my opinion, the thing that can go wrong with simply doing the activities on the “stereotypical pre-med checklist” is not an issue with the activities themselves. It’s that most people do not craft an overall narrative or take meaning from their experiences doing them. In my personal statement and additional essays, I did not focus just on the objective value of each extracurricular. Instead, I made sure to write about the impact I made, the growth I experienced, and how both tied back into the personal importance of community and medicine. Some examples of the moments I wrote about were: the emotions I felt when a patient I had grown close to passed away, the validation I found in helping an immigrant student adapt, the bittersweet successes I faced in research, and the challenges I realized that come with being medically responsible for someone.

This draws on what previous features in this newsletter have hinted at, but seriously, pursue the activities that you love. If you don’t love anything, do your extracurriculars with passion anyway, and try to find meaning in them. If you can’t, then maybe a career as a doctor is not for you.

The following sections offer specific advice for different parts of the application. These are tips and tricks that I followed, but they may not be the best for everyone. I took the traditional route of applying to medical school straight from undergraduate, but a majority of people now take gap years. It’s important to figure out what works best for you.

MCAT

The new MCAT not only tests your baseline scientific knowledge but also sees if you can apply it and integrate different fields. As such, practice is key. My overall timeline was six months. I started by taking a third-party diagnostic test to reveal my weak points in the content. Then I used the first two months just for strict content review with the Princeton Review books and the official AAMC exam content pdf and literally made sure I knew every foundational concept, content category, and topic discussed inside and out. Beginning in the third and fourth months, I used the official AAMC practice materials (Guide+Practice Questions, Flashcards, a Question Pack Bundle, a Sample Test, and a Section Bank). The final two months leading up to my exam, I took a practice test every week. That meant setting aside at least seven hours to take the test each weekend and then more time to review. The AAMC has three official practice exams. Take those last, as they are the most representative of what you will see on test day and the best predictor of your score.

Letters of Recommendation/Advising

As you go through your undergraduate and gap year experiences, find important mentors who help you develop both professionally and personally. Ultimately, it’s your recommendations that tell the admissions committee how other people think of you. UMass Amherst has you send four to six letters to the pre-med office. Don’t feel pressured to ask just professors. I ended up sending a letter from my PI, two science professors, a non-science professor, a volunteer director, and my work supervisor. Once the letters are received by the pre-med office, the advisors will bundle them into a “committee letter” and send that to the schools listed on your application. As such, it is also important to get to know Dr. Webley, Ms. Eden, and Ms. Nussbaum as well as meet with them regularly. They not only present an overview of you to medical schools but are also invaluable sources of information. UMass Amherst is lucky to have a pre-med advising office with so many resources and faculty that truly care about each individual student.

Applications

My biggest piece of advice about applying is to start early. Medical schools don’t start evaluating your application until you have everything in: primary, secondary, recommendations, transcripts, and MCAT. Therefore, the faster you complete your primary and secondary applications, the sooner your application will be reviewed for an interview slot. Try not to sacrifice quality for quantity, however. Depending on whether a medical school has rolling admissions or not, this will matter more or less. The primary application can be submitted starting in June, but it actually opens in May, and that time should be used to fill it out early. Secondary applications should be submitted one to two weeks after you receive the invitation from a school to fill it out. The hardest cut is going from your secondary application to getting an interview. Once you get an interview, do your research, and just be yourself. Regarding decisions, schools can notify you as early as October or as late as March-May.

Like this article, the cycle is long (hah), so be prepared to be patient. I hope my experiences help you along your journey!

Published December 2017