medical school application F.A.Q.

As requested, this blog post will be dedicated to what I learned about the medical school application and admission process from the BSCP conference (if you don’t know what this conference is check out this blog post.)

My advisor at the conference was Dr. David A. Neumeyer, MD, Dean of Admissions at Tufts University School of Medicine. I found myself in a uniquely fortunate situation to ask a few questions about the application and admissions process that I had for a while.

Present at the conference were also other professionals related to the admission process which I also had the chance to speak with, one of them being Dr. Carmon Davis, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

So here we go!

How important is your GPA, compared to other things really?

Dr. Neumeyer answered this “your GPA, aside from the MCAT score, is really one of the key parts that will allow us to assess how likely you are to succeed in medical school. We want to see that you can produce A quality work –with a few B’s– to determine if you will be able to succeed in the much more difficult courses you will encounter in medical school.” In other words, if you can’t pass your undergraduate courses, you won’t be able to pass the medical school courses.

What if your GPA is good but not perfect, what other factors are taken into account?

Dr. Carmon Davis stated “Admission officers take a holistic approach when looking at applications. More often than not, a well rounded student is chosen over a student with a 4.0 GPA who has no outside involvement other than school. They will take into account the number of credits you are taking, if you have a job, if you have children, if you volunteer, if you are part of organizations, if you are involved in extracurricular activities, etc.

What do medical schools think about summer classes? I’ve heard its frowned upon.

This is FALSE. Taking summer classes is a great way to improve your GPA and learning! Taking core classes during the summer such as Organic Chemistry may be a little questionable, but they will consider the circumstances as to why you had to. However, taking an elective and enhancing your learning is great. You can take a class you are very interested in –that you normally wouldn’t be able to take during the fiscal year– and boost your GPA! I, myself, am taking French this summer because I have wanted to learn the language since as long as I can remember, and the perfect opportunity arose this summer!

When should you apply to medical school and when should you take the MCAT?

This answer is a mixture from the AAMC and my professor. You should begin working on your application in the spring (typically your junior year) so your application is ready in the fall and you can get ready to enter medical school the following fall. The MCAT should be taken in the summer after you being on your application in the spring. So summed up,

begin application in the spring (junior) –> take MCAT in the summer –> finish up your application in the fall and submit (senior) –>enter medical school the following academic year!

Who should I ask for letters of recommendation?

You should have letter of recommendation letters from “people who know your science” as Dr. Davis stated in the conference. This means that getting to actually know your professors and working with them is imperative. The last thing you want in your application is a generic letter saying “Yes, this person was a good student in my class.” You want someone that can speak on your work ethic, your personality, someone that will really vouch for you and can attest that you will one day make a great doctor. You also want a letter of recommendation from someone who has seen you invest yourself in the community and can speak on behalf of your “people skills.” The main idea, is that you need to ask people who truly know you, those are the people that will give you an exceptional letter.

What if you feel your application isn’t strong enough by your junior year or if you don’t get accepted the first time around?

Let me start off by saying don’t get discouraged. Everyone’s timeline is different and there are many different roads leading to your ultimate goal. Just because you decided to take a gap year or were forced to take a gap year doesn’t mean that you will never get in. Dr. Davis and Dr. Neumeyer both spoke on this, taking a gap year/s is something that is becoming increasingly popular. Many things they’ve seen students do is get a master’s degree, work as a lab tech, and travel, amongst other things. What they like to see is how students took this extra time to enhance their learning and their person as a whole. They also look to see how this experience made you medical school ready.

If you have any questions that I didn’t already address don’t hesitate to contact me or comment below! If I don’t know the answer, I’ll do my best to research it or we can find out together! I plan to keep this post as a live document to add anything else I might learn along the way or remember later. So keep checking back to see if anything new was added.

á bientôt,

Winny ❤️

more than medicine

This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to attend this year’s Biomedical Science Careers Program Conference, BSCP. This conference is open to minorities ranging from high school to postdoctoral students. We had the chance to meet many successful people in the sciences working in many areas such as, in industry, academic labs, medical doctors, professors, deans of colleges, even people that had created their own company or were CEO’s and CMO’s of an established company.

I want to break down the conference and tell you a little bit about what it consisted of more in depth and what I learned.

BSCP is a two day conference established in 1991 by Dr. Joan Y. Reede, MD, MS, MPH, MBA, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School. (Yes, we actually got to meet her and ask her anything. And yes, I am still fan-girling over this amazing woman.)

On Friday, April 6th in the early afternoon a few students were invited to Harvard Medical School (this was first come first serve upon registration) where we had the chance to hear about their graduate programs, their medical school, and how to apply to these programs. Afterwards, we took a tour of a few of the labs at the medical school. Everyone had their choice of 2 labs they wanted to see. The ones I chose were Dr. Lahav’s and Dr. DePace’s Lab.

Dr. Lahav’s lab focuses on the signaling pathway of the tumor suppressor p53. Dr. DePace’s lab focuses on the mechanism and evolution of gene expression utilizing drosophila as a model organism.

(I just realized I could turn my experience from this conference into a novel so I’m going to try and condense it.)

The actual conference started later that evening where we had dinner and listened to a keynote speaker, Dr. Freda C. Lewis-Hall, MD, DFAPA, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Pfizer Inc. She was absolutely phenomenal. The night ended with a workshop.

The next morning, Saturday, April 7th, each student got paired with an advisor. My advisor was Dr. David Neumeyer, MD, Dean of Admissions at Tufts Medical School. At first I was a little intimated by him but he was so friendly and related that I opened up in no time. I got to ask a ton of questions that I didn’t even know I had and would otherwise never have been able to ask such a qualified person (this could a whole separate blog post on its own, let me know if your interested in reading about this!) Throughout the day we had two more keynote speakers: Dr. Jeff Leiden, MD, PhD, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vertex Inc. and Dr. Michelle A. Williams ScD, Dean of the Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and ended with two more workshops.

Now, if you’ve gotten this far I want to take some time to tell you about what I learned.

Be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. Many people will tell you that you can’t, and you may even doubt yourself sometimes but believe me you can!

In one of the workshops, Constructing your Career Agenda, Dr. Yvonne Gomez-Carrion, MD, FACOG told us confidence is key and that throughout her career she had heard her fair shares of “you can’t do it” but you can only go as far as you allow yourself. So I asked “Dr. Gomez-Carrion was there ever a time that you doubted yourself?” and she answered “Of course, everyone has those days but that is why its important to surround yourself with a support group that will lift you up when you can’t.” Another panelist present, Dr. Edward A. Kravitz, PhD, also mentioned “If you get accepted into a program believe you can do it, because the people that accepted you already believe that you can.”

2. Representation matters!

As I sat in the gigantic conference room I was overwhelmed by the talent, passion, and drive these wildly successful people exhibited (particularly, the women of color present) One of my mentors “Winny, you have some challenges ahead, not because you’re not intelligent or you can’t do it because I fully believe that you can, but because of what you represent, you are a triple minority: you are black, you are Latina, and you are a woman.” and in that room these women confirmed that this was true and that we would have to work a little harder and a little smarter but it is not impossible. I will never let my sister or any other young woman of color believe that because of the color of their skin and because they are women that they can’t do something. Too many people have shed blood, sweat, and tears for us to be where were at today and I have no intention of letting their sacrifice go to waste and keep the fight alive.

There is so so sooo much more that I learned but for the sake of keeping this blog post a reasonable length I will end here, but please by all means if you want to know more ask me!

warmest wishes,

Winny ❤️

maine & new york

During spring break 2018, I travelled to Maine with two of my friends (Carla & Surenna) and New York with my boyfriend (Roberto). These two states are the complete opposite Maine was more relaxed but in New York everything was hyper-speed.

My friends and I had planned the trip to Cape Elizabeth, Maine for the 13th and 14th but we decided to go to a day early because there was going to be a huge snow storm and we wanted to avoid driving in the middle of that. So on our first day there we went to go see the Portland Headlight.

Order from left to right: Surenna, me, & Carla

Order from left to right: Surenna, me, & Carla.

Lighthouses are Carla’s favorite and that why we decided to go Maine. It was freezing in Maine but in our defense New England had been having some weird weather were it was like 70 degrees one week, so we just kind of assumed the weather would stay like that, least-to-say, we were wrong.

On our second day, we were snowed in but thankfully our airbnb was amazing and had a sauna inside (I didn’t use it, but it was still nice to have) and we were able to relax, watch movies, cook, and goof around (as you can see by that third picture.)

Order from left to right: Carla, me, & Surenna.

Order from left to right: Carla, me, & Surenna.

On the third day, we checked out of the airbnb and went thrifting. We didn’t think we would find anything but we all actually ending up finding a ton of cool things.

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Now onto New York, let me begin by saying there was nothing “relaxing” about New York. We were on the move the whole three days we spent there. According to my phone we walked an estimate of 33,215 steps, but I am pretty sure we walked more.

On our first day in NY, we checked into our airbnb in Brooklyn then took the train ti Manhattan where walked around Times Square and ate some pizza, but most importantly we watched the Phantom of the Opera on broadway at the Majestic Theater. The play was phenomenal! The tickets were a little pricey at about $100 each but I would highly recommend that you take the time to watch this play if you are ever in NY! The props were amazing, the details were meticulously designed and thought out, the actors performed with such grace and passion. This will definitely be an experience I will never forget.

On the second day, we went to go see the Statue of Liberty, but I stupidly forgot to adjust my camera settings and the pictures came out way way way too bright, and of course I didn’t check till we got home that night. So the best picture I got of Lady Liberty is that picture in which Roberto is standing in front go her.

After that we headed over to Canal st. and Little Italy, we went to this really cool market on Canal St. called Canal St. Market. The market had little shops which were very artsy and trendy. There were also a few artists displaying their work which was really unique (but also common in NY). Then, we kept walking in Chinatown till we entered Little Italy in which we had dinner at a restaurant, that I can’t remember the name of, I am horrible, I know. After that we kept on walking a few and went home for the night.

On the third day, we checked out of the airbnb and walked around the city some more. My cousin had told me about this old railroad track that had been turned into a sort of garden called High Line and the Chelsea Market so we went to go check that out. High Line was very much hipster and we were able to get a ton of cool pictures, it had amazing views of the city. The Chelsea Market was kind of like the Canal St. Market, artsy and trendy, we got some souvenirs from there. Afterwards, we ate some more pizza and started on our way back home.

Let me know if you guys have any questions about any of the places I went to this week and/or if you have any suggestions on where/what I should go see next!

warmest wishes,

Winny ❤️