Applying to Pre-Med, Nursing, and BSMD Programs

Webinar Transcription

2025-09-10-Applying to Pre-Med, Nursing, and BS:MD Programs

Anesha: [00:00:00] Hi everybody and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anisha Grant. I am a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor and I will be your moderator for today. Today’s webinar is a special session for HOSA members on applying to pre-med nursing and BSMD programs. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we will take a, um, we’ll take, excuse me, a quick poll.

Anesha: Um, our presenter will deliver a presentation reviewing the topic, and then we will open up the floor to respond to your questions In a live q and a on the sidebar, you can start submitting your questions under the q and a tab. And of course, you can download our slides under the handouts tab, but let’s get started by meeting our presenter, Katie, too.

Anesha: Hey Katie. How are you doing? 

Katie: Hi everyone. Um, I’m Katie. I am actually now a PGY one. Resident. So I’m actually a doctor now, but I did go to Brown for undergrad and for medical school as part of their BSMD program called the Program in Liberal Body Education. Um, I also obviously applied pre-med to one of the schools when [00:01:00] I did apply to college.

Katie: Um, so I’m excited to speak to you all tonight about that. 

Anesha: Awesome. I know everyone’s excited to hear you. I think we have a pretty big crowd today. Um, but before we get started, we just want to go ahead and ask everybody what grade level you’re in. Um. And yeah, let us know on the poll. Also, I’ll just note that um, my colleague Lydia is also on the call, so she’ll be helping out with questions in the q and a and the chat as well.

Anesha: Um, so just know that, um, there are a few of us who are gonna try to tackle things as we go through. ’cause we do have a pity, pretty big group today. Um, all right, as we are waiting to hear from folks, um, I guess Katie, tell us why you decided to apply pre-med when you were applying to college. 

Katie: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question.

Katie: And I should also say a caveat, which I will talk more about later, is that I was applying prem. But I didn’t actually mention that I was in a lot of my essays for, um, like when I was [00:02:00] applying to Ivy’s and when I was applying to like, I’m from California, like state schools and things like that. Um, but I decided to apply B-S-M-D-I think partially because I knew that, um, working in the healthcare field and specifically in mental health was in my future.

Katie: And also because I wanted to explore like what freedoms I could get as part of the program that I had, um, in terms of exploring my other interests outside of like biology and the sciences. And I was really excited to have that, um, in college. 

Anesha: Awesome. Thanks for sharing your experience. And yeah, I know you’ll bring it up in, in different context as we go along, but we’ll go ahead and close our poll.

Anesha: Um, and as I shared, we have a ping big group with us today. We have about 381 folks in the room, or 397, sorry, as of right now, um, 30% of them are in the 12th grade. 36% of them. A few more are in the 11th grade. 25% are in the 10th grade. Um, 1%. We have I think four eighth graders in the mix. [00:03:00] Uh, 28 ninth graders and then 11 parents and teachers.

Anesha: So a lot of sophomore, I’m sorry, a lot of juniors and seniors with, um, some sophomore juniors and um, and eighth graders. So welcome to everybody. We’re excited to have you here. We hope we know the information will be helpful. I’ll go ahead and stop talking and hit it over to Katie and be back later.

Katie: Perfect. Alright. Hi everyone. Um, so I’m excited to get into this today. Um, as someone who obviously has now made it through the path and is on all the, the. Other end of the medical profession. Um, so I’ll speak a little bit about what the different things we’re talking about today, and I always like to introduce them because I think it can get confusing.

Katie: So I’ll start with pre-med and in a minute I’ll talk about what pre-med is not. But let’s start with what pre-med is, shall we? Um, so basically what it means is that you are. Going to college, you’re going to a four year undergraduate degree, you’re getting your Bachelor’s of Sciences or Bachelor of Arts.

Katie: And while you’re in that process, you’re thinking about applying to medicine later on. So for those of you out [00:04:00] there who might be parents on the call, um, might be from other countries, like my family was, the way that it works in America is actually very different from other countries. You have to do four years of undergraduate education first, and that undergraduate education is not specifically in medicine.

Katie: Then after that, in your third or fourth year, typically you would apply for medical school, and that’s a whole separate application that comes with its own set of as, as if you’re applying to college. Now, same thing in four years, right? You’re gonna have a letter of recommendations, you’re gonna have essays, you’re gonna have the whole shebang.

Katie: Um, and at that point you apply to medical school and then at the end of that, you graduate with your MD degree, your medical degree, which is what I graduated with, um, earlier this year. Um, so that whole eight year process is what it takes to become, uh, a resident or a doctor in, in this country. So then outside of that, there’s also nursing.

Katie: Um, nursing, there’s a lot of different pathways into it. The one that I personally am more familiar with, I will say, is the Bachelor of Science in Nursing. So with that, you still do your classic four years of undergrad [00:05:00] degree, and then after that you might apply to nursing school and get those additional years of schooling to become then a nurse.

Katie: There’s a couple of other ways to become, um, a nurse. And I will say I’m not like the foremost expert on this. It’s not, this is not a path that I took myself or applied to, but I have very good friends who are doing it and so know a little bit about that. If I have, if there’s any, any more questions come up in the q and a.

Katie: Final thing is gonna be a BSMD program. So this is what I did. And, um, in a lot of ways a BSMD program is very much like a pre-med track. I think of the pre-med track as the traditional track. That’s the way that most people in the, in the United States take to become a doctor. A BSMD program is essentially just a program in which you are applying to medical school straight out of high school.

Katie: So in, instead of applying first, uh, after high school to go to college and then in college to go to medical school, you’re actually just applying in high school to both college and medical school at the same time, um, which is what I did. So essentially when you’re applying, you wanna think of it [00:06:00] as, hey, like, I basically have to get into both college and medical school at the same time.

Katie: Typically somewhere between six to eight years. Typically more of the eight years. I think there’s only one six year program in the entire country that I’m familiar with, and that’s out of UMKC. Most programs are going to be eight year programs, meaning that it’s actually not very much accelerated. That being said, so then what?

Katie: Like what are you getting out of it? You have a spot in medical school already waiting for you, so you’ve already been pre accepted, if that makes sense, at the medical school. And so assuming that you were able to meet all the conditions, whether it be to get a certain GPA or take the MCAT or whatever it is, you meet those conditions, you will become a doctor at the end of that eight year path.

Katie: Now, A BSMD program, just like a pre-med program are, they’re both gonna be incredibly competitive. I would say that most BSMD programs in this country are somewhere between 10 students, 10 in the entire. Like school tend to, the biggest one that I know of actually is the one that I went to at [00:07:00] Brown, which is typically around 60 students large.

Katie: And so they are incredibly competitive, typically around 2% I would say, in acceptance rate. Um, and so that is typically not as variable because these programs are so small that no matter where you are applying, they are gonna be incredibly competitive. And I’ll talk more about that too in the future. Um, okay.

Katie: So what makes this all different than a traditional college pathway? So, again, I think, uh, to be a little bit more clear what it means to be pre-med or to be nursing or be part of a BSMD program, what it really means is that you have a career interest in mind. You are thinking about it, it’s top of mind.

Katie: And so you might be thinking about the courses that you might have to take. So, for example, if you’re pre-med, what you’re actually constrained by is the fact that medical schools have certain things they wanna see. Like certain classes that they wanna see you take when you’re in college. Um, so that might mean, for example, biology classes, physics classes, calculus.

Katie: But it might also mean to a lot of people [00:08:00] surprise. Um, it might also mean taking a sociology class or a psychology class or a comparative literature class. Um, medical schools just like college, they want you to be a well-rounded student as well. And it’s also holistic admissions. And so, um, people are often shocked to find that.

Katie: It turns out that being an interesting applicant actually lends itself very, very well to being a good medical school applicant as well. Um, to be someone who is in these programs, I think there’s certain benefits and certain drawbacks. One of those things is, again, you have that cons, like you have a certain set of coursework that you wanna get done.

Katie: Um, what, what else that comes with it is that you might be thinking about, um, exposure to clinical experiences. Now, as a high schooler, I would hazard a guess, and this is again, I’m coming from California, we had really strict rules around what, how, what age you could be. In the hospital and like what you could be actively doing, I will say as a college student, you get a little bit broader, and then as a medical student, you get the most exposure, right?

Katie: So you get to be working with patients, you maybe get a little bit of exposure to what a doctor actually [00:09:00] does. What does a nurse actually do? What are the different pathways in which you can get involved in a hospital or in a different kind of clinical setting to get a sense of what the career actually looks like.

Katie: So you can see what it actually means to be doing that job. Excuse me. And I’ll also say, right, as a doctor from specialty to specialty, your day looks very different. Right now I am on a neurology service. My day right now looks very different than I did a month ago when I was on a psychiatry service. Um.

Katie: So there, there’s a lot of difference even within the clinical setting of what it can look like. So let’s start with what does it mean to be pre-med? And this is where I do my first reel of dispelling. One of the most common misconceptions that really gets me, um, when it comes to being pre-med. So, and I think this comes out of, again, like, like myself, I’m a childhood.

Katie: Immigrants like it, it works differently in America than it does in other countries. Um, in America, when you are applying to college, you can apply as someone who’s interested in pre-med as someone who’s interested in medicine. But it does not mean that pre-med [00:10:00] itself is a major. You are not. Like, that is not the field of study you are applying for Pre-med, like I said before, literally just means that in your mind, in your heart, in your secret heart of hearts, for all I know you are interested in going to medical school.

Katie: You can major in anything that you would like and still go to medical school. And in fact, I will say I majored. In anthropology, um, I actually like did a little thing at Brown where I created a little, essentially my own major, but, but it was essentially anthropology. Um, and I would also say there is some strategic thought and benefit to this.

Katie: And this is where, again, this is why I drill this in with my students when I’m working with CollegeAdvisor. Um, and I, ’cause I want them to know that there is opportunity here strategically to think about what, can you write an interesting essay? Um, when you’re writing your why major essay for my seniors out there.

Katie: What can you, like, what interests do you have or what multiple interests can you, can you like list on the application where you can [00:11:00] show a place where your interests intersect and write again where that intersection is Again, probably more unique to you. And the reason why I say that is because oftentimes, again, I’ve worked with a lot of pre-med students in my time, read lots and lots of essays.

Katie: It’s really, really tough to write a unique essay about why you love biology. Let’s be totally real here. Um, I’ve. Find that difficult, found that difficult and that, that’s why I didn’t do it. Um, when I applied, I decided I was gonna apply as a cognitive science, the focus in linguistics for example. And I was able to do different parts of my application to support that interest in cognitive science linguistics.

Katie: And so my point being that there are a lot of majors that you can apply to and that there is no significant benefit to applying to a biology major versus applying to a theater major. And so what’s best in your best interest is really to apply for the major that fits your passion, fits your extracurriculars, and you can write really well about.

Katie: Um, so then the next question then is, okay, if there’s no benefit to it, to applying it, then, then why do so many people [00:12:00] do it? Well, the answer to that is when you actually get to college, a lot of the times, the classes that are part of the requirements for.

Anesha: Okay, everybody. I think Katie might be frozen. At least she’s frozen for me.

Anesha: Let’s give her a minute to come back on. Uh, we’ll continue trying to answer some questions in the chat. Okay. Yeah, she logged off. I have space. Oh, sorry. Hey Katie, you froze for us. So you froze and then disappeared. So if you could start from maybe two minutes ago. Um. 

Katie: No. Okay. Yes. Oh no. I’m trying to figure out where [00:13:00] I, where I pause.

Katie: Okay. So my point being, hopefully I am reviewing this enough. My point being that, that there is some strategy involved in when you apply to it as a major and that there is also some thought that you wanna put into. The reason why there’s overlap is because biology classes often overlap with the classes that medical schools wanna see you take.

Katie: With that being said, you could major in something like let’s say computer science or for me, like English. You could take the classes that those majors require, require out of you and also take those medical school required classes and that would make you honestly a pretty interesting applicant, right?

Katie: I’d be like, Hey, like why’d you major in computer science and why do you wanna go into medicine? Or why did you major in English? And how do you think that would apply to your career in, in medical school? And spoiler alert, I would say that those classes actually made a huge difference for me and how I think about things and how I speak about things in medical school.

Katie: Um, so I’m a big humanities proponent. Alright, so again, these are two completely separate processes and I would say, again, another big mistake that I [00:14:00] often see besides the fact that everyone’s applying biology. The other big mistake that I often see is that. People think that applying pre-med means that it has to be your entire personality.

Katie: It does not need to be your entire personality. You are applying to college, not medical school. And so it’s very important that when you are painting a picture of yourself, you’re not painting a picture of, Hey, like in eight years I’m gonna be a doctor. That’s my entire, like, that’s who I’m gonna be. The question that they’re asking is, who are you gonna be in the next four years?

Katie: Who are you gonna be on this college campus? And how are you gonna contribute to our community now? Okay, so expected academic profile. So I get this question all the time, like, what do I need to take? What a piece do I need to take? So one thing I will say is that, and I’ll do this very briefly, I gave it another admissions talk at other times, but very quickly, which is to say that if your school doesn’t offer APS or ibs, that’s okay.

Katie: At admissions officers are evaluating on behalf of what was offered at your high school. Now, that being said, I would say that if you do have APS or ibs, I would [00:15:00] encourage you to challenge yourself. Particularly in classes that will overlap with those pre-med classes. So biology, chemistry, and calculus. I would highly recommend that you take the advanced levels of whatever you can in those three categories, especially I would say chemistry.

Katie: Um, to be honest, chemistry often is a leader class actually at the college level. And so it’s something that is like a tough class for all pre-meds. And so if you can do well in chemistry, that will serve you really well in the long run. Second thing is SAT scores. Um, I would say again, SAT scores are an important because they are the great, they’re like supposed to be a great equalizer, right?

Katie: Everyone’s taking the same standardized test. That’s the idea. Um, at the end of the day, what really think I think of it as is a gateway. So once you have good enough grades and good enough SAT scores, after that, they’re really looking at a lot of the other stuff and they’re looking at you very holistically as far as whether or not you can be a good applicant.

Katie: Um, but that’s kind of like. My [00:16:00] spiel on SAT scores. And for anyone out there who’s like tempted to ask in the chat, like, do you think a 1520 is good enough for your SAT score? I, I don’t, there’s no good answer. There’s no number that I could possibly give that will be like, yes, we’ll get you, you could get a 1600 and I still can’t guarantee you to get into Harvard or, or to Brown’s Play Me program.

Katie: That’s not really quite how it works. Again, it’s very much like the gateway. Um, and then finally showing interest and depth of interest in medicine in other subjects. I’ll talk a little bit more about what that means and how you can show that in a singular. A couple of moments. Okay. Um, hopefully if any of you, and this might be my fault ’cause I cut out a little bit, but if you, any of you have been listening thus far, I hope that you know the answer to this question of do you have to major in STEM V pre-med and you know the answer to be a strong No.

Katie: Like I said, I majored in anthropology. Um, and I would’ve applied as a major in anthropology if I had known that that was a field that existed. And in fact, a lot of my application actually [00:17:00] hinged around very similar things that I actually ended up majoring in. Um, so I think one thing that was strong in my favor, I will say, is that I wrote with and will say this over and over again, right?

Katie: With genuine passion, right. To what actually interests you. And you’ll be surprised at when you look back for me now, nine, nine years later and see how accurate those application essays were, even though I wrote them that long ago. Um, and again, strategy, there’s a difference between what major you apply as and what major you end up majoring in.

Katie: So it turns out that at most colleges you actually don’t declare your major until the end of your sophomore year. And so what that means is what you apply as is a whole different, you will apply as something and you will get there and you will take those classes and you will love it or you will hate it.

Katie: Um, I certainly completely 360, or not 360, but I would say like two 70 changed, uh, the major that I ended up applying in. So, um. Thinking of it that way. Okay. [00:18:00] What else can you do to demonstrate your interest in medicine? So I’ll start with the first bullet point, which is shadowing. I think I often get a lot of questions on, first of all, what is shadowing?

Katie: So shadowing is kind of what it sounds like. You are a doctor or a nurse or someone in the healthcare professions shadow for a day. So you get to see a little bit of what they actually do during their day. Um, what, what does their day look like? How do they talk to patients? Like what, you know, what are they thinking about when they’re thinking about how to approach patients and differential diagnoses.

Katie: Um, it’s often one of the best things that you can do if you’re interested in medicine because it actually gives you a sense of what the job looks like. And you can often, um, get a lot out of the experience, especially if you’re someone who is a good observer and can kind of like glean, what are the things that I like about this?

Katie: What are the things I don’t like about this? How can I turn it into a really compelling essay, for example? That being said, not all of us have shadowing opportunities. I will say, and I’ll be the first one to say that I got into A-B-S-M-D program with no shadowing hours on my [00:19:00] application. Zero. Um, I did volunteer at a local hospital though, so that’s kind of my next bit, which is to say that at least I was in a clinical setting.

Katie: Um, local hospitals, senior homes, often these are, and it’s okay to get creative with it. How can you find ways in which you are in some kind of clinical settings, so at the very least you can kind of some kind of exposure to what it looks like and. Like, what are the, like basically, how does the day flow?

Katie: Um, when I was volunteering at the hospital, to be honest, I wasn’t doing all that much. I was just like a volunteer, helping people get places, you know, helping people who are lost get to like the MRI machine, let’s say. Um, and so it was, and I think most people on the other end of the admission side, like we’re aware that volunteering at a hospital oftentimes isn’t the most fruitful or exciting experience, but I think it’s one way to at least show that you have an interest in medicine.

Katie: Um, and then my final thing is what I put, if you haven’t noticed things that are really important, I like to put in green too. Make sure that you’re really thinking. And if, if I could say one thing to [00:20:00] my eighth graders, my ninth graders, 10th graders out there, is to start early in doing some self-reflection and thinking about why this is a field you might wanna go into.

Katie: And, and I know a lot of you, I’m sure already know out there, but it’s gonna be more than I wanna help people really be thinking about in what ways a clinical provider can act in different capacities. And the more specific and the more thoughtful you get, I promise you, the better your essay is going to turn out.

Katie: Um, so one example that I like to say is back when I was in high school, and still to this day, I’m someone who’s very much interested in education, interested in teaching. I still am, I will almost certainly become a, an educator in my future. Um, and that was something that like, that was an intersection that I featured prominently in some of my essays to, to thinking about what it meant to be a teacher as a physician.

Katie: So I can say very practically now that I’m again on the other end of it. For example, I’m teaching about hypertension and why does, why, why do you care about treating your hypertension? Why do you wanna take these meds every single day for something that you don’t feel doesn’t bother you? Like, why should you do [00:21:00] that?

Katie: And that’s education, right? Or for me, what I’m thinking about the stigma around, um, schizophrenia and I just sat the other day and spent like an hour speaking with a family about what schizophrenia looks like. Like what does it mean for a person? What does it mean for their life and what these medications do.

Katie: Um, and that’s also education. So that’s me personally. Some people think about doctors as advocates, so they go to court and they literally fight battles. Um, making sure that the laws are in favor of their patients and they can get the treatment they need. Other people think about physicians as more like hands-on, like surgeons, for example.

Katie: Um, so a lot of different ways that you can think about what a doctor means. Um, and again, the more thoughtful and more specific and the more true to yourself that can be, the better the essay turns that I promise. Okay. Some general advice. This is true for college students as well as for high schoolers.

Katie: Know which professors slash teachers are harsh graders versus easy graders. This is true for you in high school. This will be true for you in college when you’re applying to medical school. [00:22:00] Your GPA matters a lot, especially your science GPA, but in general, your GPA matter, your grades matter. And so knowing if a teacher’s, a harsh grader, an easier grader, that kind of stuff that you might hear from upperclassmen or you might hear from like rumors around town.

Katie: Around campus. Um, those are things that might, you know, influence you into whether you take anatomy this semester or next semester, right? Get your recommendations early Again, all of these things seem to be, I guess, because applying to med school is very similar to applying to college. Um, all of these things are true for you now to get your recommendations in early or at least start thinking about them early.

Katie: Start thinking about what teachers you know well and know you well beyond just like, oh, I do really well in AP psychology. What are some teachers who are really thoughtful about getting to know you, who you know are gonna be good writers, who could write about who you are outside of your grade? Um, I was able to get my letters of rec after I got into college, and I will say I think they made a huge impact in terms of a college as I got into, I, I will fully put out there.

Katie: My teachers were a [00:23:00] huge help to me. And I, I read those recommendation letters and I still think they were so, like, I was, I’m so appreciative and like lots of gratitude for the time they put in. Um. They spoke about who I was as a human and what I like, what I contributed to the clubs that I was a part of, for example, and like how I thought about the world.

Katie: All those things can be in your recommendation letter and final thing, branch out your interest. I think I kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, but one of the bigger mistakes I see again from my pre-med application is that it’s OneNote. It’s just all about you being pre-med. Again, you’re applying to college, not medical school.

Katie: Make sure that the essays that you wanna be about medicine, they can be about medicine. They can be super specific and very detailed. I do not want to see all five of your essays that you’ll be writing for school. They should not be about medicine. And I, I should also add, as someone who applied across like the top schools of the country, um.

Katie: I actually applied to most of those schools when I was applying pre-med. I did not mention an interest in medicine. I spoke about my interest and what I wanted to [00:24:00] explore in college, but it wasn’t a prominent piece of my application that I wanted to become a doctor because again, I wasn’t applying to become a doctor.

Katie: I was applying to be a cognitive science major at Yale, for example. Okay, so now onto the BSMD sector of it. So I’m kind of uniquely positioned to answer a little bit about this because I’m obviously graduated from one, um, and also applied to a couple of them. So how does it differ? Um. I’ve spoken to her about it a little bit.

Katie: One thing about BSMD programs is that unfortunately the application process, each and every one is its own unique snowflake. Um, you have to find the information by Googling around. Sometimes it’s on the common app, sometimes it’s not. At least back in my day. Some of them are even on PDFs. Hopefully they’ve improved since then, but, um, some of them were on like janky PDFs.

Katie: So the point is though, they’re typically longer applications and they might have different deadlines, meaning that some of these applications are actually due November 1st, November 15th or December 1st. So for my seniors out [00:25:00] there, do your Google it now for my juniors out there, just know that because you don’t wanna get, you don’t want to not be eligible for something just because you missed a deadline.

Katie: That would be, that would be like maybe I’m Type A, but like a worst case scenario, I’m like, man, just ’cause I didn’t know about it. Um, so what is the actual program though? How does it actually differ? Well, the first thing is that oftentimes I. We will hear, and for myself, we have fewer prerequisites to get into medical school.

Katie: So for example, because I took Advanced mathematics in high school, I did AP Calculus BC and statistics in high school. I actually didn’t take any math when I was in college at all. Versus my best friend who is now at med school, um, who also went to Brown with me, was my roommate for all like three years.

Katie: Um, she did have to take those classes. And so we had, we kind of were, we were able to wiggle out of some of those med school requirements. And for me that was lovely because those are classes that I had no particular interest in and I actually [00:26:00] truly am. Huge hater of math, unfortunately. Um, and so I, instead of those classes, I got to take really interesting classes that appealed to me.

Katie: So I took a class on, for example, the history of the prison, like of prisons and like how they existed through time and like what they mean for the world, um, and how they have shifted and law shifted today. Um, that’s something I still think about actually, uh, as I go through medical school and, um, I like take fun classes like that instead, which for me were a lot more fruitful and a lot more exciting.

Katie: Second thing, I did not have to formally apply for medical school. That’s really, I would say, the biggest sell of a BSMD program, especially as someone who worked really hard through high school. And I would also say worked really hard still during college and medical school, um, because I just applied to residency and matched obviously.

Katie: Um, so the, the grind never stops in some ways, but I will say because I had that acceptance into medical school when I was in college, there was a sense of freedom there. There was a sense that I could pursue what I [00:27:00] truly loved. And during my extracurriculars during my summer months, I really chased opportunities that I was like excited by.

Katie: So I somehow ended up, for example, um, working for CollegeAdvisor. I also ended up working for. Disney and like a psychology company really briefly, thinking about how to turn psychology, like PhD level doctorate research into something that was useful for, um, producers of Disney Children’s TV shows, for example.

Katie: So, right. So those were things that you wouldn’t think of as like a, oh, that’s not really a medical opportunity. Um, but I had a really great time learning about and doing it and had reasons and passions for pursuing that. Kind of like how to story tell. Um, the final thing is that, like I said, every program is its unique special snowflake.

Katie: Um, and so every program has its own set of requirements. I will say for Brown specifically, I did not have any GPA or MCAT requirements, so I did not take the mcat. Um. Other programs are different. Um, so I think for example, wash [00:28:00] U in St. Louis has a program, or at least used to have a program, and they had an MCAT requirement versus, um, if I remember correctly, Northwestern’s program, HPME had a GPA requirement.

Katie: Um, so different programs are different and the only way to know is the Google it online. Okay. How competitive are them? So I think I’ve kind of hopefully breached this a little bit already, but, um. The answer is very competitive. And so what they’re really looking for, I’ve kind of listed here, hopefully out to kind of indicate this is like I want everyone to kind of put on their admissions officer hat.

Katie: What am I looking for when I’m looking at an 18-year-old, maybe 17, 17-year-old kiddo who I’m gonna spend and pour resources into for the next eight years and is going to turn out and turn out to be a good person and a good doctor? You’re asking a lot of them, right? To get this from just a set of essays and a set of extracurriculars and maybe an interview.

Katie: That’s a lot for them to trust and buy into you. And so that’s why when you [00:29:00] think of it that way, that’s why some of those academic factors matter, right? They wanna make sure that you are not gonna flunk out of school in college. Um, that’s also why they wanna make sure that you really are gonna stick it through.

Katie: It’s a very, very long path. Um. I’m eight years in and I probably still have five years ahead of me before I become an attending physician, um, if I do everything that I wanna do and get done. Um, and so it’s a very, very long path. They wanna hear that you’ve thought this through and that by thinking this through, what that means is also pro like proving that you’ve thought it through those specifics I was talking about earlier, that self-reflection, the genuineness of like thinking about who are you as a person and how does that really fit in with becoming a doctor 10 years down the line.

Katie: Um, some other part of it I would say is maturity. Um, again, you are, I’m accepting a 17, 18-year-old. I wanna know that through this time you are going to be committed and stay in school and you’re gonna be a good person and also that you’re gonna be a good doctor on the other [00:30:00] end. Um, doing well under pressure and capable of surviving the medical rigor.

Katie: Y’all medical school is way harder than I thought it was gonna be. I don’t know. I don’t know who I thought I was, but I, it was, it was a hard process. Um, and so it’s definitely a process that really tests the limits of your. To be not just your intelligence. I think too many people think it’s like, it’s all about the smarts.

Katie: It’s about the smarts, but there’s a lot of like, like, you know, how flexible are you? How um, as you’re moving from team to team, person to person, different leadership styles, like how are you adapting in the circumstances? Um, and so those are some of the things that they might be looking for as well. And they’re trying to find that in you.

Katie: A 17 slash 18-year-old, maybe even younger, I dunno. Um, and then some of the ways that you can prove that, I think I’ve already mentioned, but clearly are gonna be extracurriculars and your coursework indicating interest in medicine. Okay. So what are those main benefits of a BS MD program? I’ve talked a little bit about this.

Katie: Um, one of the big ones for me, I would say is freedom. I’ve always been a little bit of [00:31:00] a nerd. Like one of my favorite things every year was to look through the course catalog or every semester was look through the course catalog and see what classes Brown was offering and, um. If I could go back in time and like not have to do med school again and still take undergraduate courses, I absolutely would.

Katie: That’s, that’s sort of the kind of human I am because I really do live liberal arts and social sciences. Um, and that was always something that I knew I was drawn to and never got to explore until I got to college. And so anyways, um, spiel being that I encourage all of you to explore those opportunities and take classes outside of your like comfort zone or what you think that you should be doing.

Katie: Um, so that was one of the huge benefits of the BSN G program. I took those classes and I didn’t feel pressured to have to get good grades in them. So I would take classes even if I like, knew it was a weakness of mine. But I was intrigued by it. I still took it and I was like, Hey, I’m already into med school.

Katie: I don’t have to worry about this. Um, for example, I took a philosophy course on like everyday bioethics realized I thought I loved ethics, realized that.[00:32:00] 

Anesha: Okay. I think she’s frozen again. Let’s give her one second to sort it out.

Anesha: Hey Katie. Hello 

Katie: everyone. Am I back? Okay, I’m back. Okay, 

Anesha: good. Alright. Okay, 

Katie: so. Um, continuing on to this, again, benefits of a BSMD program. Hopefully not too much of what I said was cut off, but explore courses. Um, the other thing is that I think I will say [00:33:00] like because I was a part of the BSMD program, I got a lot of benefits and experiences that I wouldn’t otherwise have gotten.

Katie: So, for example, my program paid for us to go to China and Taiwan for free to kind of learn a little bit more about traditional medicine. Um, there also was a program that I could go to Germany for free. COVID happens, it didn’t end happening, but I could have gone to Germany as well. Um, to learn a little bit more about aging and about different medical ethics questions.

Katie: Um, the other thing is that because you are at that institution already as an undergrad, there’s a lot of connections that you make, whether it’s with, um. Other people who are graduates of the program and who stayed on and who are now advisors or the doctors like in the area where you can kind of get a heads up on, hey, like I was interested, for example, briefly in neurology.

Katie: And I got the chance to shadow some of the best neurologists in the world while I was at Brown and learned that this was not the specialty for me. But I still got the opportunity to kind of make those connections and meet people. And as I got into med school, [00:34:00] they still remembered me and I could still prevail upon them for letter writing or research opportunities or things like that.

Katie: Like where I knew the system and I knew the people. Um, and finally obviously a big win. I didn’t have to apply for medical school. That is a torturous process. Um, having watched a lot of my good friends go through it and it’s also very expensive. Um, and I got to skip all of that process. Okay. So before, and before everyone starts asking me what classes should I take in high school?

Katie: Um, this is all kind of listed out, um, from my years of answering this question. Um, big things I’ve already mentioned. Try to take the advance of the course that you can. I really, really highly, highly recommend taking calculus, um, biology and chemistry, of course. Um, and if, if there are like, health related electives or dual enrollment classes, absolutely.

Katie: Um, I will say like I went to a high school or that wasn’t really an option or that wasn’t something that was big, big offered at my school, so I didn’t [00:35:00] actually do those. But, um, anatomy, anatomy, physiology, class and forensics, those are often really cool classes that you kind of get a little bit of early exposure, um, to things that you’ll be learning in the future.

Katie: Okay. Um, I already talked through a little bit of this, but as far as a couple of things I haven’t talked about, what does research look like when you’re interested? So, I wanna redefine research because I get this question a lot. Research in the scientific field means it’s peer reviewed research where you are working in like a lab typically, or you’re looking at clinical data and you are working under someone who’s typically a principal investigator who has a PhD, maybe also an MD, but usually a PhD, um, who’s looking at, you know, whatever information they have, sifting through it, and then publishing peer reviewed research.

Katie: Um, it does not mean you going out and doing research on, let’s say, like Alzheimer’s and tau proteins and writing a blog posted about it. I got that question once. Um, so that’s what scientific research specifically means. [00:36:00] Now as a high schooler, um, if you get a peer reviewed journal published out there, like I bow down to you ’cause I.

Katie: Don’t think I had that until like very late in my med school career. Um, that being said, there’s little ways in which you can do that. And so when you’re looking at different summer programs, I know a lot of them are kind of costly and charge a lot of money these days and more so since, since I was went through it.

Katie: Um, but you wanna look through a program where they’re actually gonna match you with a mentor, match you with a lab, and ideally give you some kind of experience with, excuse me, creating some sort of research or scientific poster and maybe presenting it. Those are the things that you can potentially also later on put on your resume, um, when you’re applying to college.

Katie: And then final thing, really like long-term community service and dedication to something that matters to you. Um, when people ask me about spikes in their application about a passion project, I. Like to point to my application and say that I didn’t have, like, I didn’t like write a book or publish a [00:37:00] novel or anything like that.

Katie: But what I did do was I spent a lot of hours volunteering at a suicide hotline. And that was something that, um, clearly to this day, as I am now a psychiatry resident, it was something that made an impact on me early on in high school, um, and was something that I genuinely had a passion for. I ended up writing my personal statement about, um, I, I also did Science Olympiad and was a captain of my Science Olympiad team in high school.

Katie: And that was actually a prominent part of, um, a letter of recommendation, uh, that one of my teachers wrote for me and really showcased, actually less so about my. Like excellence in science, but much more so about who I was as a leader. Um, I ended up writing an essay, for example, about how I feel like I failed as a leader of my science Olympiad, uh, team and how I made really tough decisions and didn’t like some of the decisions I made.

Katie: Um, and I remember actually after I got into couple colleges, like one of the admissions officers from Princeton wrote me a note that was like, I really enjoyed that particular essay. Um, so there’s a lot of ways in which you can do these things and they kind of signal this interest in pre-med [00:38:00] and pre-health.

Katie: Um, but also as part of that, you are telling them more about yourself. And at the end of the day, that’s really what a good college application shows. Okay. Um, speaking of that, that’s where these essays come into play, right? You can do the most fantastic extracurriculars in the world, but if you don’t expound upon them, how am I gonna know?

Katie: Um, well, sometimes I also know because you, how you describe them, but, um, the best way to kind of highlight who you are, where you came from is in your personal statements. Again, you really wanna be thinking about. Um, and we do a whole other presentations that I encourage you all to go to about writing essays and writing really strong essays.

Katie: I would also say that in my time with CollegeAdvisor as an advisor, um, we spend a lot of time working on essays, brainstorming essays, and like working through them line by line. Because I really do believe, especially when it comes to these like really competitive programs and top schools, the essays make a huge, huge difference.

Katie: And when I read an essay from a strong writer, I’m immediately clued in and I know, and I, and [00:39:00] I can hear much more of their voice. And you’re also writing a lot of different essays. Spoiler alert, for any of those out out there who haven’t. Um, heard already, there’s a lot more than just a personal statement.

Katie: You’re writing a lot of supplemental essays as well. Um, so some classic essays that you might see for a pre-med student specifically or for A-B-S-M-B program specifically is why are you interested in medicine and, um, what’s difficult challenge that you’ve had to overcome and what did you learn from it?

Katie: Personal statement essays might be a little bit more like, how did you grow up or what’s something that, you know, lately we feel really, um, impacted, uh, you know, how you were raised. Um, Anisha, do we wanna do polls? No, I would 

Anesha: say keep, we can keep going. Yeah. Okay, cool. 

Katie: Um, that’s on me ’cause I always run a little over time.

Katie: Okay. So, um, lemme skip past this. So what are the typical career paths for students completing each of these programs? I get this question a lot as well. So if you’re pre-med or interested in BSMB program, so this first bullet point and this [00:40:00] third bullet point, at the end of this path, you end up with an MD or medical degree.

Katie: So typically most people in these paths go on to become physicians or become clinical like they work in the clinical field, in the hospital or in the outpatient setting. Um, I will say a couple of my colleagues have gone into startups or have gone into tech and sometimes they do like healthcare related adjacent fields where they feel like their medical degree like lends them an extra expertise or things that they can kind of advise on.

Katie: So there’s still ways in which you can use your m degree degree differently at any point. Also, in this BS MD program, you can oftentimes still change your mind. So even if you are in college, just because you say that you’re pre-med or because you’re part of these programs, you can still leave the program and choose a different path.

Katie: Um, and then with nursing you can go on to become a registered nurse. And you can work in a number of different settings. And you can also pursue some more advanced roles, including a role like an [00:41:00] np, where you could actually do a lot of really interesting things with an NP and make a lot of money, um, by doing things like, for example, psych nps can prescribe psychiatric medications.

Katie: Um, or they can also be really forefront providers of medical care in the hospital setting. Um, and then after that you can further specialize, which is what I wanna do. I wanna, that’s why it’s gonna take me so long. I’m gonna become a psychiatrist and then potentially a child psychiatrist after, um, or leadership roles.

Katie: People become, for example, deans of medical schools or like chiefs of the hospital. And those are big time roles, um, where you, you can continue rising up administration, um, and still work clinically while also having a lot of leadership in terms of like how the business is run. So money, that is always a good question.

Katie: How does this work? So a lot of the times I would say, think of, um, the undergrad education as what it typically looks like for financial aid. So, you know, other le there’s other lecturers much more about that. [00:42:00] But in terms of financial aid from the FAFSA or different college scholarships, merit scholarships, those all apply to those first four years of your education for the medical school portion for the latter four years, I would say that oftentimes, I’ll be honest, there’s not a lot of scholarship, um, available for medical school, uh, which just something that’s pretty common.

Katie: And most of the times, most of my classmates, I would say like regardless of how smart, intelligent they are, most of us end up taking out. Loans, unfortunately, that we have to pay back. And the idea I think, is often that at times that if you’re going to medical school, um, first of all, you were already incredibly bright and like exceptional for getting in.

Katie: And also that you’ll become a doctor and make money and so we’ll be able to pay back your loans. And so that is why loans are much more prevalent and you, that’s like a common thing that most of us, uh, deal with. Okay. Um, and your tuition will very much vary depending on what school, what college you choose to go to as well as well, [00:43:00] I would say what college you choose to go to.

Katie: Medical school tuition is pretty much the same across the country for the most part. It’s somewhere between 60 to 80 k uh, a year. Yes. Okay, challenges and drawbacks for BSMD programs specifically, I would say that some of them are accelerated and while that’s wonderful in the terms of you might have less tuition and you also finish the whole process of become a doctor faster, you might also lose out on summer breaks, winter breaks, um, study abroad opportunities.

Katie: And you might also be forced into more intensive science coursework. So for example, instead of taking what’s preferred as two STEM courses a semester, you might end up taking three STEM courses a semester or four STEM courses. And then you’re kind of like drowning a little bit more in difficult classes as well.

Katie: Um, other things about different BSMD programs, some will ask that you commit to a primary care specialty. Others have preference for in-state applicants. Like I said, every program is different, so it’s very [00:44:00] important to look into each one and like what their requirements are. So. Now onto one of my favorite portions of this.

Katie: What are some common mistakes that applicants make and how can they be avoided? Um, hopefully if you’ve been listening thus far, you’ve gotten the first, the first bit of it, which is, please don’t talk about pre-med over and over and over again. Um, your essays are very important and, um, making sure that you’re a well-rounded applicant.

Katie: Genuinely, like all those things I’ve been talking about thus far, it, it takes all of it in order to be a strong applicant, um, to be in, in terms of pre-med or BSMD. Final words of advice, if any of you could take away one thing from this, it would be to do some early self-reflection. A lot, I think the statistic is like 30% of students in college who.

Katie: Are like, are initially pre-med actually end up staying pre-med. It’s a very, like most people do not end up sticking with it. And so if I could offer one piece of advice, it’s to think often and constantly about if [00:45:00] this is a field that you wanna go into, like I said, it’s a very long process and it’s okay to change your mind and it’s also okay to commit to it later, later in life.

Katie: Um, so thinking long and hard about why this is what you wanna do with your life, I think is important. Okay. That is it. 

Anesha: All right, we’ll go ahead and transition into questions. Um, or actually, let’s just do our quick PSA before we transition to the questions and then we’ll end and wrap up with questions. So we know folks came to us via HOSA, but if you are in the room and you have not previously worked with CollegeAdvisor, um, we please know that we have, uh, a team of multiple admissions, uh, admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process through one-on-one advising.

Anesha: Our 2021 through our 2024 data found that CollegeAdvisor students were over two times more likely to get into colleges like Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton. You can increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a 60-minute strategy session with one of our [00:46:00] admission specialists by using the QR quote that’s on this.

Anesha: Screen. During that meeting, you receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out. By the end, you’ll learn about CollegeAdvisors premium 1-on-1 packages, and be paired with an expert like myself or Katie. Katie, are you doing advising?

Anesha: No, I don’t think you have capacity. 

Katie: Not anymore for 

Anesha: sure. I hired like myself, um, who can support you with building your college or editing essays, but you’ll have access to extra like Katie through webinars, um, moving forward. All right, so we’re gonna get into our q and a. Um, the first question, we’ve been answering questions.

Anesha: Thank you again, Lydia, for being on and answering and tackling some questions. Um, you addressed this, but someone asked it and I thought it was an interesting way to talk about how students can leverage their extracurricular activities. Yes. In order to further demonstrate their, um, preparedness for college?

Anesha: Well, the, the students specifically said they were recently selected as the hostess secretary. She’s asking what are the benefits and [00:47:00] what should she focus on in the position. 

Katie: Hmm. Okay. So I think part of what I’m hearing there, like one half of it is the host, a part of it, which, um, I, I didn’t personally do in high school, so I, you all know better than me what what HOSA involves.

Katie: But that at, at its baseline mind is really indicating some interest in healthcare and interest in medicine. I, I would say, try to get the most out of it. Try to get the most out of like, I’m sure as part of the, the organization you’re getting connected, doctors, hearing from them, hearing what they have to say, like, get connected to those people, hear what they have to say, and also integrate that more importantly into how you think about yourself, your passion, your futures, and into your essays.

Katie: Like it’s an opportunity to, with without like, you don’t have to be like, as like doctor like. Patel said in this lecture, like, not that kind of citation, like literally just like thinking about and integrating their, what they have to say about medicine, healthcare as a whole into your process. That other half that I’m hearing is that you’re in some kind of leadership position and I think across all extracurriculars, um, [00:48:00] this is something for you to judge for yourself.

Katie: There are some leadership positions that hold a lot of meaning and there are some leadership positions that hold maybe less meaning. And I will say, you know, I am more than guilty of that. I was like the secretary of like the California Scholarship Federation that meant next to nothing for me. Um, and, and I would say admissions officers also were aware that it meant next to nothing.

Katie: So it’s not something that I ended up talking very much about. But on the other hand, I, like I was talking about, was the captain of my Science Olympiad team. And as part of that, for example, one of the things that I mentioned was that I organized our whole trip, our team to go to. A different part of the state to attend a competition, for example.

Katie: So I talked a little bit about that, and in the process of talking about what it meant to be, uh, what meant to do and organize those things, right, you were able to communicate a lot about yourself without, even, without saying like, Hey, I’m responsible and hardworking. You are literally illustrating that by tell, talking about the things that you pulled off, you were able to organize X, Y, z things like what were you able to pull together?

Katie: What did that require? Um, what does it [00:49:00] mean to be a leader of like, you know, people who are your peers or maybe just a little bit younger than you? And what are some of the tough decisions you maybe had to make? Um, those are all things that I, I want you to be thoughtful of. I think oftentimes we look at ourselves and are like, oh, like that’s just what I do.

Katie: And it’s like, I don’t have anything more say about it, but someone else who’s looking at what you do might have much more and be like much more impressed about what you, what you do. Um, so sometimes it’s helpful to get into that like third person perspective too.

Katie: Anisha, I can’t hear you for some reason. Is anyone else? Is it just me?

Katie: Mm-hmm. No. Oh, no. Okay. Um, maybe if you copy and paste the question in the chat, like I’ll just answer it.[00:50:00] 

Katie: Sorry everyone for tech difficulties, what’s going on?

Katie: I can also pick a random question and answer it. Um, let’s see. Oh, that’s so cool. It pops up. How do you get shadowing opportunities? Okay, so, um, that is a very good question and like I said, um, I didn’t have any as a. Girl who was under 18 at the time. But the ways that you can, I think some of the obvious ways are if you have family, friends, or you know, people who maybe work at like an outpatient practice or like, even if they’re dentists, um, or, or work in nursing homes, that’s a place to start.

Katie: Um, I didn’t know anyone. Uh, that I could shadow. So what you can also do is literally, it’s like cold emailing people. So you kind of find people in your area. Again, me, I understand that maybe some of you wanna be surgeons out there, the chances of you being able to go into the OR unfortunately, are very, very slim because the legal implications of that can be incredibly scary.[00:51:00] 

Katie: Um, so start small with like people, like maybe like other pediatricians that might work in your office. Maybe not your own doctor, but other kid, like child doctors or other people who like work in the outpatient office. Like maybe, um, like again, dentist is a good one where you could, if you are really interested in seeing procedures, oftentimes that can be a little bit less, like legally mumbly, jumbly and scary.

Katie: So you can kind of watch a procedure of some sort of, uh, you know, like a teeth cleaning or like a root canal extraction. Um, so those are all ways that you can kind of start to get shadowing opportunities. Um, yeah,

Katie: still nothing. I don’t know. No. Okay. What’s the difference in rigor between nursing and pre-med and what the difference in exams like NCLEX versus the med school exams? Wow, that is a, a good question and I will answer to the best of my ability as someone who is not also a nurse. Um, I would say that nursing and medical school, they focus on different things.

Katie: [00:52:00] So in nursing, I think there’s a lot of. You are the frontline provider. You are the person that the patient goes to when they are in fear, when they’re in pain, when they are scared that that is the nurse. Um, doctors, we, I’ll be totally honest, even as a psychiatrist, I sit in a different room and the meanwhile, the nurses that are on the floor with patients, right?

Katie: And so it’s, it’s a complete different profession, um, and you’re doing different things. Um, that being said, I would say as part of medical school, you are. Spending a lot of time thinking about like the biological mechanisms of things. So the nurses, for example, might be like, oh my God, their blood pressure is high.

Katie: Let’s give them like hydralazine. And they’ll message me and be like, can you order hydralazine on my end? Back end? I have to think about like, how does hydralazine work? Like I gotta know how it works. I gotta know how fast it works. I gotta know if it’s the appropriate thing for this person’s hypertension.

Katie: And I also gotta know, okay, if their high, if their blood pressure hits this number, what am I really concerned about? What other labs do I need to be ordering and checking to make sure that their kidneys are not shot [00:53:00] or they’re not gonna, like their brains are. Okay. Um, so those are things that I’m thinking about as a doctor.

Katie: Um, as far as the NCLEX and med school exams. Um, so I would say the nclex, I think, if I understand correctly, is equivalent to like more of our board exams. Um, they’re both. Incredibly long exams and are very different and test, like I said, very like different things. So the medical school exams will test much more of like the biological mechanisms behind things as well as differential diagnoses.

Katie: As a doctor, it is your job to figure out what the diagnosis, what’s going wrong with a wrong, with the patient when you’re handed like a whole list of numbers and a little bit of a story. Um, and, um, the nurse’s job is to be the person there caring for the patient and on hand, like, you know, again, the, you’re there for the pain, the fears, the all the things like the dressing changes, the wound changes.

Katie: That’s what that nursing is always helpful for.

Katie: Next question. Okay, good one. What are some qualities [00:54:00] found in recommendation letters? Um, so I can speak a little bit about. I’ve actually read a lot of recommendation letters at this point. ’cause now I’ve, at this point I’ve also applied to residency, but in high school I, so two things you wanna look for.

Katie: You wanna look for one letter, ideally from a STEM teacher, so science or math. Um, and then one from a humanities teacher. Those are some, at least like baseline ones, like you guys you wanna scope out, especially if those of you out there who are like sophomores or juniors, like looking ahead at, you know, who, who the teachers are in your high school.

Katie: Like those are things you wanna keep an eye out for. So my science teacher wrote me, actually it was a really wonderful, it was like four pages long. Um, my mom still has it printed and hung up at my house at at home in la And, um, it was much more about like the fact that our school was very poorly research resourced.

Katie: And, um, what I did as part of the Capita Science Olympiad team, it also mentioned like some random one-off event where I apparently was very intelligent in answering some physics question. I don’t know. So if you can have particular [00:55:00] moments, especially in your recommendation letters, um, moments that highlight either maybe like your creativity or like.

Katie: How smart you are is great, but like problem solving skills, that also helps. And then in this case, it also highlighted a little bit of who I was as a leader, showed how, like, you know, what the responsibilities that I had, how much time I dedicated to this thing. Um, and kind of also like backed me up in terms of like, you know, like it made me look good and it made, it backed me up in terms of like what I was saying about myself.

Katie: He kind of backed me up in terms of like, Hey, this girl was like, spent a lot of time being captain in the Science Olympiad team. Um, so I would say that was the quality of a really good recommendation letter. Um, one of the other ones I had spoke a little bit about how, um, I thought and how I led the class during Socratic, uh, what is it, like Socratic method discussions or something.

Katie: And that was again, another example of like a specific time and point and like story that they could tell about me, um, that really showed who I was and like how I would contribute [00:56:00] honestly in a college setting, um, as a student.

Katie: Okay. If biology is a personal passion of mine, how can I still stand out as a biology major? That’s a great question. And I should say one of you out there might be a complete like genius and God at biology, it may be out there winning like International Science fair competitions. And like for those of you out there, please, please write your essay about that.

Katie: That’s really impressive. Do that. Um, that being said, if biology is a personal, and I’m not saying that you sh I hope that for all of you who are interested in pre-med, I do actually really genuinely hope you love biology because you’ll be doing a lot of it. Um, so I would say that one thing you can really do is to think about a way in which your particular interest in biology is different from the next person.

Katie: So here I’ll give you an example of what I think is a good essay and a bad essay and spoil what the good essay I’m trying to take from my own personal essays. ’cause. That’s what I remember. So a poor essay is an essay [00:57:00] where you’re talking about, um, this one time where you dissected a strawberry in AP biology and thinking about the genome.

Katie: Really excited you to think about DNA and like you wanna do more biology in your future, because that was really interesting. Cool. I think a lot of us can right, endorse that same experience. Um, a lot of us probably will also take some sort of event biology, maybe have done some sort of like dissecting a strawberry or like a cow’s eye or whatever is happening these days in schools.

Katie: Um, and so that’s, it ends up being an essay where I didn’t really get a better sense of like, what about biology? Love you, love. I didn’t really get a sense of who you are and like why you are a good fit to be like going into biology or like, what, what does that mean for you? Um, versus. One of the essays I wrote about biology, um, was I actually about a disease that I know a lot more about today, but it was a disease at the time called kuru, which is a pion disease, which is a very interesting kind of disease that is almost, not almost, it is fatal.

Katie: Um, but the reason that that Kuru specifically [00:58:00] is interesting is because it actually represents an intersection like this is me, right? I said, I promised before that I knew myself, it was an intersection of anthropology and medicine because it was specific to the practices, like the eating practices of a particular like indigenous population where it was about celebrating successes.

Katie: And so depending on if you were a male or woman, so there’s sometimes gender in there, depending on who you were in the tribe and, and you know, kind of like how you were successful in, um, in the kill or in the win, you would eat different parts of, um. Of, of some, someone, a person who had passed away. And so because of that, different people were also getting this disease because it was associated with like eating particular parts of human body parts.

Katie: Um, and so long story short was I was like talking about how this intersection between culture and disease was particular fascinating to me. And this is not to say that any of you out there, I mean I told, I think it’s a pretty interesting story. I hope that some of you [00:59:00] guys are also interested in it, but that’s not to say that you also have to have that particular interest.

Katie: What I’m trying to say is that. If you can find a particular niche within biology, or even better an intersection of biology and something else, like maybe you really like theater, guess what? Brown actually has a class where we are, they use theater to help, um, folks with autism, um, use that as a way to kind of practice and mimic facial expressions.

Katie: And that kind of, is that thought of as like a therapeutic modality to kind of, uh, work on social skills and social interactions and social integration, right? Or same thing with like, there’s like one also for, um, neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, for example. Um, so anyways, basically really cool ways in which things intersect.

Katie: And if you can find the one that really speaks to you, that can make for a really standout essay and story.

Anesha: Can you hear me? 

Katie: I can. 

Anesha: Wow. Useless, so useless today. Um, all right, well, [01:00:00] that unfortunately is the end of our time today. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Lydia, for popping up with questions. I, I contributed very little, but I know it was still a great presentation as I heard everything that you shared, uh, we’re grateful for you for coming out and for bearing with us throughout our technical difficulties, these this evening.

Anesha: Um, again, you can download our slides under the handouts tab, um, and the recording will be available on the CollegeAdvisor website tomorrow. But until, uh, then take care and have a good one, and we hope you join. We hope to see you for future webinars. Have a good one, everybody. Bye.