[00:06] Torah: Hello there. Welcome back to our last episode of the first season of Prep Me, a podcast about the sometimes trials and tribulations of pre-med. I’m one of the hosts of the show, Torah, and Chansey, as always, is here with me.

[00:20] Chansey: I’m here and I cannot believe it’s episode 13. Whoa.

[00:22] Torah: I know! It’s been a fun ride. So now we just have to get the word out and get listeners.

[00:28] Chansey: A hundred percent. This is wild. Wow. It’s exciting though. It’s exciting.

[00:32] Torah: So here’s the thing, pre-med isn’t a cakewalk. We all know it’s hard. You’re volunteering, you’re studying, you’re shadowing, you’re researching, you’re trying to find some time to party. And it’s hopefully going to be really, really worth it when you realize your dream of becoming a doctor. But this episode, we’re going to maybe end on a descending note because what if you don’t? Right? And today is a very inspiring show about what to do if you don’t get in.

[01:06] Chansey: Yeah. Which I think is so applicable because I think many people who listen to this are listening because they’re in this circumstance of, “I’ve tried to go this independently. I’ve tried to go solo. I wasn’t taking prep courses. I wasn’t listening to podcasts. I just studied from a book. I did my applications. And you know what? I was unsuccessful. I didn’t get in and I’m really bummed and I’m sad and I don’t know what to do.” And I think this podcast is a resource in many of those ways. And I think we’ve jumped around many elements of applying to medical school and lots about the MCAT. But maybe it’s worth taking a step back and talking about what these people do?

[01:44] And if it’s you now or you in two years when you are unsuccessful in your attempt, but it wasn’t because you were a poor candidate. It’s just that many people apply to medicine and many good people apply to medicine from a diverse background academically, socially, and outside of the realm of medicine. And there’s just not enough seats for everyone. So how do you set yourself aside, kind of recalibrate appraise and do it again? And how do you do it better if this is truly your dream? So I think for us the plan is to talk about what do you do if you’re in these circumstances and what can you do to better your chances, kind of get through this, it feels like a hit, and move forward.

[02:24] Torah: Okay. So then my question to you, what should you do? What’s your first step?

[02:28] Chansey: Gosh, I think the first step is probably just let the decision sink in. For many people, you find out that you’re not going to get into a medical school of your choice either two ways. Number one is you find out early because you applied to a school, you went through the prelim process of sending in your application and your MCAT scores, your academics, everything that Torah and I have talked about, and you don’t get an interview. So obviously at that point in time, you know that that school hasn’t scored you high enough to move you to the interview rounds. So it happens pretty early. It happens often in the late fall to early winter of the application cycle. So that’s an easier one. But at the same time, you may think, “Oh gosh, I really wanted an interview at that school. That’s my number one.” So you’re going to think the same way about that as you will about the schools that you do an interview for and don’t get in because it’s still sort of an unsuccessful attempt. And again, you’ll appraise both of them the same.

[03:22] But let’s say you do an interview at some schools and you wait a little bit longer into winter, and then spring rolls around and you hear that decisions are coming out because everybody looks at forums or talks to friends or badgers the administrative departments to see what week is it going to be. And then you get your letter that’s saying, “Thank you. but unfortunately, you have not been selected for a seat at medical school A.” So it’s real. You have to let it sit. And it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to be discouraged and it’s okay to feel like your life is spiraling because you’re not sure what to do and what the next steps are. But I think we want to take away any stigma and really acknowledge the realism to the fact that many and most people don’t get in, at least to the med school of their choice, many, med school at all on their first attempt. People coming right out of undergrad or even the mature student who comes in and maybe just didn’t have the time to get their extracurriculars up or have a banger of an MCAT score and they don’t get in. It’s sad and it’s part of the process. I wish there were more seats and I wish I could give every good student and every good pre-med student the option to go to med school.

[04:29] It’s just that the timeline is different. Maybe it’s not the year one that you planned on. Maybe it’s the second or third attempt, but people get in and it’s the passion and prosperity, and perseverance that gets people to that point. So I think you have to own the decision. Whatever happened, let it sink in and seek support. These are things that we talk about when you apply to medicine. So we’re like, you want to have a good support system and they’re not worth being around you if they’re not going to support you through all elements applying to med school.

[04:55] Torah: Well, one of the questions is that okay, you get rejected, and I think early on in the process, pre-interview, I think you probably end up with a fairly good idea of why, right? You know your GPA wasn’t quite there, you know your MCAT score wasn’t quite there. And so those are addressable issues. I want to focus first on you getting an interview and you think it goes okay as in you didn’t puke or something like that. It went fine. It went. And then you don’t get in. How much do you look back at your MCAT scores, your extracurriculars, all these other components of your application or go, “If I got an interview last time, I can get an interview this time and do better”?

[05:41] Chansey: Yeah, for sure. I totally can relate to that. And friends and colleagues and classmates that have been through the same thing as you what made or broke your score in the sense that most schools are generous enough that if you are rejected, they’ll actually give you a breakdown. They’ll let you know compared to the applicants that were accepted, this was your mean score. And often they’ll break it down to say, okay, here are the components of your score. And they’ll tell you, and you’ll see, oh gosh, yeah, you know what, it was my interview. Out of 40 points, I got 19. How did I get 19? I thought it went well. How do I rebound from that? Or vice versa. You’re like, “I knocked the interview out of the park but even by knocking it out of the park, I couldn’t save my MCAT that was just at cutoff or my academics that were just at cutoff, and my extracurriculars that were weak.” And it’s so helpful to see that. And not every school will have a more formal face-to-face, though some will. Some administrative like associate deans will actually call you or Zoom you or have an in-person meeting with rejected candidates to say, “Hey, let’s look at your application and I’ll give you some advice for my school where I think you could gain points if you wish to apply again.”

[06:47] Torah: That’s so generous.

[06:48] Chansey: Yeah. And I wish everyone did it, but not everyone does.

[06:52] Torah: And that’s only mostly for the interviewed candidates.

[06:55] Chansey: Exactly.

[06:56] Torah: Okay. Because you got that far and you’re obviously a good candidate. It’s just you’re not as good as the others at this particular moment in time. Okay, so then say the interview was weak, your interview score was weak, how do you address it? How do you get better at it?

[07:13] Chansey: Yeah, for sure. And I think if you’ve ever had a job interview, when you do the first medical school interview, you’re a little bit shell-shocked. Hopefully not too much because you’ve probably read and prepared to some degree. But I think the folks that don’t succeed in the interview, there’s many different reasons. Sometimes it’s based on nerves. Sometimes it’s based on prep in terms of style of interview, right? The MMI that we’ve talked about in previous podcasts is pretty universal across the country as the mainstay format of interviewing medical candidates. So if you’re not familiar with the format, if you’re not familiar with anticipating the types of stations that could come up on an MMI, that alone can just make nerves really take over and result in you underperforming. Not that you could have done exceptionally well, but if you underperform on an interview day, it’s one day. It’s those 10 to 12 stations and that’s it. So we hope the best, but sometimes people underperform.

[08:04] How can you get better? It’s going to be practice. And I’m sure we’ll have podcasts that are more specifically tailored to, okay, yes, we’ve talked about the MMI, but let’s talk about this station. This station’s always on the MMI. We’re going to teach you and we’re going to have somebody in who’s done multiple MMIs, and what their approach was to better our listeners for those stations. And I think that’s what you need to do. I think you need to expect the unexpected for themes and topics, but know how the format works. Just like on the MCAT, you can’t predict the passages right, Torah, that you’re going to see but we teach strategies when we teach for Prep101 and we talk about no matter what still apply this approach. This approach is what’s going to save you and keep you grounded. And I think a lot of people don’t have that on an MMI, those that are unsuccessful or maybe don’t score as high.

[08:49] Torah: And I think that particularly not getting a high score on the interview, I think that there’s a really big moment to just kind of look inwards and sort of say, “Okay, this is a growth opportunity. This is for me to get better at everything about talking to other people and having curve balls thrown at me. And this is something where I can talk to my friends and family and loved ones about and they can kind of say, ‘Hey, well yeah actually you tend to stumble a lot when you get nervous and you get kind of awkward and you don’t make eye contact.'” And you’re like, “Oh, I never actually realized those things about myself. Those are distractors away from my brain that I’m trying to prove that is really, really strong and my heart that is really, really pure.”

[09:34] I mean, I see this as well with a lot of students who come to me and they want to kind of rehearse some interview stuff and I’ll throw some questions at them. And in all fairness, I’ve got this sort of journalistic side, so I ask some pretty tough questions. Ask powerful questions as it were. But no, I can kind of sit there and say, “Look, you actually seem very formulaic in your answers and very prepared, but it doesn’t feel like you. And so let’s work on making sure that you shine through.” That’s actually one of the more important pieces of feedback I give some of my– And this is students that I’m kind of close with. I don’t do any tutoring or anything like that in the interview because I’m not that comfortable with providing expert advice. But I do the students that I’m close with and mentored over the years. So I think that there is a little bit like seeking out honest feedback. I mean truly sometimes brutal but honest feedback to just how you do in interviews. And I think this goes for job interviews too. I could use it. You know what’s amazing is that I answer questions for a living and then ask questions for a living. I’m terrible in a job interview. I’ve had okay, one job interview, but I was terrible in it. Amazing.

[10:43] Chansey: Oh, I’ve had job interviews where I’ve got jobs that I didn’t get. And it comes down to the interview because of the way you approached it or like you said, you let… and I’d say I identified with this at a younger age is you almost let pride take over in the sense that when you’re preparing, you’re like, “Okay, I’ve got to do this all on my own. I got to show that I’m strong and I can do it. I don’t need to seek my mom’s help or my uncle’s or my mentor’s help. I got to do this on my own. I got to show I can do it.” And you’re closing so many doors that way. And like you said, Torah, maybe you don’t come out because you become this structured mechanical like, “Oh, I know this topic and I know all the words they want to hear,” but I’ve left no personality on the table. I’ve left no personal attributes or stories in the conversation.

[11:21] And then people forget that’s what the stations are for. Sure we’ve got to have a topic to discuss or we have to have some problem for you to mull over, but I’m not really gauging you on your answer to that problem. I just want to hear you talk. I want to hear how you think, I want to hear about you. And we forget that when we’re panicked and prepping for something like this, when we’re like, “Okay, I can predict that there will be a team station where I work with somebody else. I can predict that there’s going to be at least one or two ethical dilemmas or interactions with a simulated patient.” We kind of think about all the things they want to hear and we overdo it and we take ourselves out of the interview. That’s a really good point.

[11:54] Torah: Yeah. And I think that during an interview you’re looking for how does this individual connect with others? And so following the formula and sometimes following the forums of “this is what they want to hear. This is what you got to give them,” I think is a sort of reflection of when it does not go your way. And it’s like, oh, maybe I should just be me. Maybe that’s the most important part. Okay, so then some schools will give you a breakdown of your weaknesses. The biggest cause of rejection generally is the math, right? Low MCAT score, low GPA.

[12:38] Chansey: Yeah, it’s the three things we talked about. So MCAT, GPA, and interview, that’s what’s going to be the biggest thing for most people where points are lost. And even as an accepted candidate, I was still curious about how things went at the time, so I got my breakdown. And I think for me, I looked at it and I was looking at the… what was it? I guess it would’ve been the extracurricular point, and it actually was average to low. I was like, “Oh my gosh, thank goodness I did well in the interview,” or, “Thank goodness I did well on the MCAT because my GPA was average, a little bit above, extracurricular was low. But for most people, yeah, it’s academics, and it’s an interview.

[13:13] Torah: Right? Because has anyone ever been rejected for having an otherwise stellar background and interview, but then the extracurriculars aren’t quite as high? I mean you’ve got some but not enough? Probably.

[13:25] Chansey: No, not often because they’re just not weighted the same to be completely honest. And the extracurriculars, it’s subweighted for categories. So often you’re going to do well in some of them. Maybe you don’t have a lot of jobs, but you’ve done lots of volunteering, so the offset is there. But what is the difference between being over the mean and getting a seat or being under is the three things you mentioned. Yeah.

[13:43] Torah: Okay. So then step number one, how do you improve your GPA? Grad school?

[13:49] Chansey: Yeah, there’s options. Grad school, find other academic years that you could use on an application for medicine. Master’s years. Professional programs will often be used as years counted towards cumulative GPA. So if in your four years you were like Torah and I’m pretty sure Torah, you said you stunk your first year of GPA, right? Undergrad.

[14:07] Torah: Horrible.

[14:07] Chansey: Yeah.

[14:08] Torah: Horrible.

[14:08] Chansey: So they would not help us and it didn’t help me. I’m thinking of medicine early in undergrad. But come grad school, I had two master’s years that I could use those years because they were courses. And I’ll be honest folks, it was easier in the sense that they were very structured and focused on one topic.

[14:25] Torah: Grad school courses are so much easier.

[14:28] Chansey: I don’t know, maybe we’re smarter. I don’t know. Or just we know our area but they’re just not the same, they’re not the same folks. There’s no sub-lab components, all these different essays. It’s just like, do a presentation, attend the course, get your mark.

[14:41] Torah: There’s no hoops in grad school courses that you have to jump through. There’s just, do you get it? Yes? Great. We’ll give you your grade.

[14:48] Chansey: Yeah. So that’s an option is you can do additional schooling. Some people will do grad school, others say, “You know what, I’m going to do a different undergrad. I want to go and I want to do an undergrad, maybe even still in a science or an art.” Some people say, “I’m going to do a professional program because though I want to do medicine, I also think I could do physio or I think I could do nursing and you know what, maybe I want to do these things and still go to medicine because I want that experience.” That’s good too. Yeah, certainly you could do it. Some people think, “Okay I want to just bump up a course or two,” and don’t realize that that won’t have a drastic impact on the GPA, just to address that here on the podcast. You need these full-time years. So you have to see how you’ll ultimately make the change.

[15:27] But you might decide that GPA isn’t where you want to change. Maybe your GPA is average and you’re thinking “Okay, it is what it is. I don’t think I can invest my time in doing another three or four-year degree,” or, “I don’t think I want to do grad school and I’m terrible at writing and I couldn’t do a thesis.” That’s good that you know that. So then what do you do? Look at the other components, right? Is it the MCAT? Is it the interview? I think many people get overwhelmed and say, “Okay, I’m going to ramp up everything,” and then they wear themselves thin and then nothing really gets ramped up. So move on to the MCAT, which is what we’ve talked about.

[15:59] Torah: And look, let’s face it, a lot of people who don’t score well on the MCAT are ones that didn’t take a course. The ones that tried to go it alone. The ones that tried to go alone, alone, like without a study group, which we’ve talked about. And study groups are great and they keep you honest and all that kind of stuff. And even a study partner. And the MCAT comes down to first of all experience, lots of people retake their MCAT, lots and lots. Really about half I think retake the MCAT at least once. And that includes successful MCAT med school candidates. And the course becomes a big investment. Obviously, we have a sponsor. Our sponsor is Prep101. I do want to give a shout-out to them. But we are independent of them. We are not beholden. They don’t tell us to say anything. We just do believe in the structure of the course. Well, Chansey, I’m speaking for you, but I think that’s true.

[16:50] Chansey: No, 100%.

[16:50] Torah: So I think that maybe if you go it alone the first time and the MCAT is good enough, you think, but then you find out it’s not, a course is a really effective way, a really efficient way, a really structured way to boost your score. It works.

[17:06] Chansey: Yeah. And you have to be serious about it too. Once you commit to a component that you know you can increase, like if you applied to a school that has a 500 cut off for the MCAT and you had a 501, you know that you can improve there, right? And you have to think about, okay, I’ve got a year. If I’m going to apply next cycle, I’ve got a year. What can I effectively and realistically do in a year to better my score? And the MCAT for a lot of people when you score low is the easiest thing to do if you’ve got the time to put into studying, if you have the time to do a prep course and stick to their structure and their study guide if you have it. And if you don’t, and you still want to approach the MCAT, you need something else. Is it a year-long study plan? What does that look like? That’s an investment. It can be done but you need to plan for it and be realistic or–

[17:48] Torah: Sorry, Chansey to interrupt, but I have to say, one of the things is okay, we have a recovery plan for a GPA, we have a recovery plan for an MCAT. Those are really direct and that path is really clear. What about maybe you just applied to the wrong schools?

[18:03] Chansey: A hundred percent. Yeah. I’ve got my note. You beat me to it. You beat me to my note. Yeah, exactly. Did you just apply to three schools? Because all my friends say those are the best or those are the ones my heart is in going to those schools. But think about it like does it matter in school or does it matter just becoming a position and what does that look like? What are the other options outside of that? Schools within the country, schools outside the country. Think about your path for sure.

[18:29] Torah: And I would say thinking about staying in Canada, I actually know very, very little about international schools other than it’s sometimes hard to come back. So there’s always this idea of a fallback option and going to the Caribbean or Australia. I know a couple of friends who did med school in Ireland, med school in Australia, and it was hard to get back. It was hard to get accreditation and get a position because they favor Canadian medical students. So just be a little bit aware of that. It is possible but then it’s another selection process. You go through the gauntlet again. You have your medical degree. And I’ve got a friend who’s a fantastic doctor and just an incredible person and she was kind of, not stuck because Ireland is a great place, but she was there for years sort of waiting with her husband back in Canada just keeping, trying to find paths to get back. And now she’s at U of T so she’s doing pretty well.

[19:19] Chansey: Yeah, no, that’s a great point. And I have colleagues even to date. And I think they’re excellent and I’m no further ahead than they are in terms of the education they got, but they have the hurdle of just trying to get back into this country through CaRMS, which is a matching process. It’s like the interview equivalent. Once you apply to medicine, you do med school applications, but then when you want to apply to residency and specialize, you do CaRMS. And it’s a process that is favorable to CMGs, which are Canadian medical grads and there’s very few spots for international medical grads from all the locations Torah said – Caribbean, Ireland, Australia, etc. It’s just so tough to get in and it’s just because there’s lots of phenomenal candidates, but there’s very, very few select spots. So it’s not impossible to do these things, but you have to think about what your plan looks like. If you couldn’t get back in a year or two, what would life be like living somewhere else if you were practicing as a physician? So you need to think about your plan. You need to think about what does the next year will bring, what will the next five years look like? How do I want to reapproach this process?

[20:17] Torah: And I think maybe we should also talk about this idea that if you don’t get into medicine and you look back at your last three years or whatever of really focused pre-med stuff and you go, “Maybe my heart wasn’t in it as much as I thought it was. I was doing everything that my friends were doing because we’re all in pre-med because we’re in pharmacy, and then I got my rejection letter.” And I think that you have to be open to the possibility, and I don’t want to do any dream-crushing here, but I do want to sit there and say, you have to open to the possibility and go, “Wait, is medicine really for me or was I put on this train and I’m stuck on the tracks and it’s racing forward and it’s an option?” But maybe it’s not the only option. And I think that you should apply to medicine at least twice. I think you should learn from the first rejection and apply again. But I think there’s also maybe for some people, there’s a liberation of I didn’t get in. I actually didn’t want to get in. I actually have been spending the last couple of months waiting for my results going, “Oh God, what now? I don’t know.”

[20:31] Chansey: Yeah. I think it’s twofold and I think there’s maturity in the appraisal of this kind of decision because it doesn’t give you an out, but like you said, it gives you that alternative path that you’re like, “Okay, here’s a chance that now I’m not locked into it. I know that I’m not going next year, so what else could I do?” And maybe it’s like you said, it’s an epiphany moment to think about your career or future. And if not committing to a career, what does the next year or two hold for you? Or it’s the opposite. I mean, there’s probably many people that listen to these podcasts that again, have applied and didn’t get in, or maybe they’re unsure or they’re scared of being rejected. But how do you handle that information?

[22:07] Ultimately, when you get it, it might be upsetting, it may be crushing in the moment, but does it motivate you to say, “You know what, I’m getting these guys. I’m going to get these admissions. I want to go to U of T. I’ve only applied to Ontario schools, but I’m applying all across the border. I’m going to relook at the schools and where I have my best statistical chance of getting in and I’m going to kill it next year. I’m going to revamp my MCAT because they said my interview was good, my academics were good on the GPA and my extracurriculars could only get better cause I’ve got a year to do them more. And I’m going to focus on the MCAT and I’m going to be stronger next and I’m going to do interview prep.” If you’ve got the passion and the motivation and it is medicine– And I say to everyone, medicine can be tough. Once you’re in, it is demanding, it is the long hours, but it is rewarding. And you should only go into medicine if you are so passionate that you can’t see yourself doing anything else. And if you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve applied, you didn’t get in and you still have the spark saying, “No, this is what I want,” you’re going to make those steps, you’re going to succeed, you’re going to move forward. And with the help of people like us and other resources, you’re going to do your due diligence to get there.

[23:10] Torah: Absolutely. Well, all right. I think that the idea of this podcast today, again sponsored by Prep101, you’re listening to Prep Me Podcast. I do have to give a shout-out. I think the idea of today was to sit there and say, look, it’s okay if you don’t get in your first time. There’s lots of people who don’t. Have a backup plan, have a strategic way of addressing your weaknesses. Often it’s the wrong school. Often it’s not having the equivalent score on the MCAT or a competitive score on the MCAT, which is easy to manage. GPA is a little bit harder just because it takes more time. And then the interview. And the interview just takes practice, maturity, experience, all those things you can get. So we hope that for anyone out there listening, if you’ve been rejected for the first time and you’re listening to this going, “God, do I really want to do this?” The answer is let’s have a recovery plan that also involves going, “My ego is a bit bruised and that sucks. But I have a path forward because I know my weaknesses and I can address my weaknesses and I can go at it again next year.”

[24:17] Chansey: A hundred percent. And utilize us, folks. This is the first season. And if you like us, let us know you like us either by Instagram or reaching out or just listening. And we hope if this continues seasons to come, the resources get more in-depth. We want to have people on this podcast that come from the background of the admissions office and go through the schools of Canada and hear what they have to say about the candidates that are applying, and their tips and tricks to an application. We want medical students to come in and appraise their schools and their programs and their experiences. Residents, we want to have more people and more voices on here to better prepare you and excite you and get you ready for the field of medicine if you’re considering it. So lots of exciting stuff to come.

[24:58] Torah: All right Thanks, everyone. Talk to you in season two.

[25:01] Chansey: All right, Torah, good job.

[25:03] Torah: Bye, Chansey.

[25:05] Chansey: Bye.