Ask a Doctor Anything: Live Q&A with Brown PLME Alumni

Webinar Transcription

2026-05-05-Ask a Doctor Anything – Live Q&A with Brown PLME Alumni

Anna: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Good evening, or afternoon, or morning, whatever time it is from wherever in the world you’re joining us. We’re so happy you’re here for our webinar, “Ask a Doctor Anything: Live Q&A with Brown PLME Alumni.” My name is Anna Vande Velde, and I’ll be your moderator today. I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, and have been with the company for almost five years now.

Anna: In addition to working with students one-on-one, I’m a co-captain of our essay review team, and I’m really happy to be here tonight. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’re gonna start off, um, just by hearing a bit, um, from our guests tonight about their experience at Brown, and then we’ll get right to the [00:01:00] Q&A to answer as many of your questions as we can.

Anna: On the sidebar, you can download our slides, and you can start submitting questions in the Q&A tab anytime. Uh, without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce to you our panelists tonight, Dr. Katie Chiou and Dr. Ishaani Khatri. Um, can we just go in the order you are on this slide, um, and you could just say hi and briefly introduce yourself?

Anna: So we’ll start with Katie.

Dr. Katie: Hi, everyone. I’m Katie. I’m happy to be here tonight. Ishaani and I are actually the same class, um, so that’s… I, I know it says 21 and 25, but I think that was just like- Yeah … when we graduated from college and we graduated from med school, um, which is fun. But yes, so we both went to Brown for undergraduate and then went to Brown for medical school, which is how the Brown PLME program works.

Dr. Katie: Um, and I’ve been working for CollegeAdvisor for quite some time now, so I’m excited to be here tonight.

Dr. Ishaani: Hey, everyone. Um, it’s so nice to see Katie and, um, [00:02:00] again. So me and Katie, like she was saying, were classmates for eight years. Um, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, then I was in Providence. I lived in Providence for eight years, and now I’m in New York City as a medical resident.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, also have been in the college advising space for… I think since I was a sophomore, so maybe like eight or nine years now. Nine years

Dr. Katie: now. It’s

Dr. Ishaani: insane. Um, and then obviously I applied to these programs myself, like about a decade ago. I’ve been advising students in this space for like, you know, seven to eight to nine years now, and I also had the lovely opportunity last year as a fourth-year medical student actually to read on the PLME application committee, so I also got to see the other end of it and like evaluate, um, applicants as well.

Dr. Ishaani: So I’ve really experienced the advising and application process from every different perspective, and I feel like it gives me a lot of, um, insights and that I’m excited to share with you all tonight.

Anna: Well, we’re excited to have you both with us. Um, it’s so great that the timing worked out for both of you to join.[00:03:00]

Anna: Before we get into, you know, the, the heart of the presentation, I thought it might be helpful for y’all to know who’s joining us. So I’m gonna open a poll. Please go ahead and let us know what grade you’re in, or you can select other if you’re joining as a support person or an educator. And while you do that, Katie and Ishaani, I was wondering if you could both briefly share where your favorite place was to hang out on Brown’s campus.

Dr. Ishaani: Such a hard question. Okay.

Dr. Katie: I… There was this, like, tea shop that opened up that I really liked. They’ve since opened more, um, but Ceremony was a place that I really enjoyed being at. It was, like, this little, like, tea shop that did, like, teas and matchas. And then I also was… Everyone has, like, a library favorite, and mine was definitely The Rock.

Dr. Katie: I was a Rock stan.

Dr. Ishaani: Yes. Okay. I feel like you said tea shop, and I was like, “She’s definitely gonna say Ceremony.” Yeah, Ceremony is awesome. Um, and then I was also a lib- Like, my library was The [00:04:00] Rock, so I did all my step one studying there. Like, I had sat at the same exact desk for six weeks and, like, worked.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, so yeah. Also kind of the same answer as Katie.

Anna: Great. All right. So we have two votes for Ceremony and The Rock. Uh, and it looks like our poll results are in. We have, um, the, the largest group is in ninth grade, almost 40%, really thinking ahead. Um, about 30% in 10th grade, 20% in 11th, and then we have, you know, a few eighth-graders, a few 12th graders, and a few who said other.

Anna: Um, so we have a nice spectrum with us. Thank you everyone for joining us. I’m gonna close the poll, and next we’re gonna hear first from Dr. Katie and then from Dr. Ishaani, just some background information about their experiences, and then we’ll get to the Q&A. Um, so Katie, I will hand it to you first.

Dr. Katie: Yeah.

Dr. Katie: So I’ll start by talking a little bit about my college [00:05:00] application process. Um, I’m from Los Angeles, California, so my baseline was a lot of the UCs. Those were my state schools. That’s where my mom wanted me to go. Um, so that was a large part of my application process. I also did, you know, your classic target and safeties.

Dr. Katie: I did a lot of IVs, um, and I did a couple of BS/MD programs. And for those of you who might not be familiar, we’ll be talking a lot about BS/MD programs today, since we’re both Brown PLME alumni. A BS/MD program is essentially a program in which you have a conditional acceptance into medical school out of high school.

Dr. Katie: So, um, just like any other… I know, ’cause it works differently in other countries, that’s why I always like to be very clear on how it works. Um, in America, you do have to do an undergraduate degree first. That’s the BS part of it, so a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts. After that, typically- Um, typically it’s four years, and then you would apply for medical school, which is another four years.

Dr. Katie: Um, so Brown PLME is a program that is in total eight years, and just like that, you, you do your undergraduate degree, and during your undergraduate time, you’re just like any other college student, and then when you’re in med school, you’re [00:06:00] just like any other medical school student. Um, except for the fact that you had an acceptance, um, straight out of high school, and you might also have slightly different requirements.

Dr. Katie: Um, and that will differ between different BS/MD programs, and unfortunately, there is no, like, one clear-cut answer for all of them. You kind of do individual research on how to apply and what the requirements are. Um, so for me, when I went into the application process, I was actually pretty… I was more of a pre-med oriented, uh, student.

Dr. Katie: So Brown was one of the couple, like a handful of BS/MD programs that I applied to, but it wasn’t my main focus of my application process. I was mo- main- mainly looking at applying pre-med, um, different top schools. Um, so for me, as far as research, it was actually interesting ’cause I’m not from the East Coast and so my mom was essentially like, “We’re not going there until after you get in.”

Dr. Katie: So once I got in, I did a nice field trip across the East Coast. Um, but before that, I really do a lot of my research on schools online, um, and figuring like what schools were good for what, what were the vibes of each school, um, and asking upperclassmen for all of that [00:07:00] information too. Um, I did go to a public magnet school, so that was also part of like, you know, figuring out the application process, is figuring out like, you know, what school you come from and what- where your upperclassmen go.

Dr. Katie: Um, and then I also did a lot of my research through school blogs. Um, I recommended MIT’s ’cause they had like really cute cartoons also of their writers. Um, I also, I do a lot of these like essay-writing webinars, um, and my big takeaway from any of those is to spend a lot of time brainstorming and drafting, but more time brainstorming your essays.

Dr. Katie: Um, and that was a huge crux of my application process. So, um, for Brown’s PLME program, I think the main schools I was considering at the time, uh, were Yale, Princeton, and UCLA. Um, UCLA because it was close to home and that’s where my mom wanted to go. Um, Yale because I think something about the vibes of, of Yale and it being like a liberal arts [00:08:00] school and also it having this like, um, this kind of ox- uh, this college, residential college program that was similar to the, uh, how Oxford and the schools in Europe run.

Dr. Katie: That was really appealing to me. And then I also had Princeton, which had offered me a really sizable financial aid package, so that was also, um, a strong contender. My mom also really liked the New Jersey area. Um, but I think one of the couple of things that I, um, was debating, first of all, I think the conditional acceptance to medical school was a huge factor.

Dr. Katie: I, um, am someone, and you’ll see kind of the differences also in, in what Ishaani majored, that I majored in, um- But I was always, like, not a very good science student. Um, I was not a science person, I was not a math person. And so, um, it was very appealing to me that I could do a program where I could have a conditional acceptance, but also be part of the open curriculum, where I could kind of take, like, random classes in a lot of different departments, and mix and match.

Dr. Katie: And I ended up doing, um, a social science major, and I ended up, like, creating … [00:09:00] essentially creating my own major, DIY-ing a major, which is a very classic Brown … Like, that’s kind of, like, the, um, joke about a lot of Brown students, is we do a lot of, like, exploration and kind of creating our own major. So I ended up majoring, um, under science, technology, and society, with a focus in medical anthropology and mental health.

Dr. Katie: Which, that in itself was, like, a whole paragraph of a sentence, which I think kind of exemplifies how sporadic I was and how I explored many different classes, and then ended up pulling it together into, like, a major that made a lot of sense for me. Um, I think one thing that people often don’t realize when they’re thinking about all these top schools, like I just, I just pitched to you a bunch of top schools, right?

Dr. Katie: Is, is the differences between each of the schools. Between their, their kind of, their, their vibes and their attitudes. It’s a huge thing that you wanna do research on. Um, on the size, UCLA is notably much, much larger than these other two schools. I ended up figuring out that a large school wasn’t actually, wasn’t really a good fit for me.

Dr. Katie: Um, and then also that even amongst the top schools, there’s a lot of huge differences in the curriculum. Um, I referenced here, for example, Columbia’s core curriculum and Brown’s [00:10:00] open curriculum are kind of like the, the polar opposites of each other when it comes to the Ivy League schools. So that’s something you definitely wanna know going in, right?

Dr. Katie: And b- and in what you’re choosing. Um, I would also … There’s, like, s- small things about each school. I mentioned Yale’s, like, residential colleges. Princeton has, like, this whole thing where you can only … You can’t double major at Princeton. Um, and the other thing I was really paying attention to was what my experience as a pre-med would be like at each of these schools.

Dr. Katie: So I spent a lot of time thinking about that, um, and looking at what advising and mentorship would look like at each of these schools, and ultimately decided on Brown. Um, I think that Brown cr- It’s kind of like a … They support a lot of independent learning, and they really, like, are … It’s a g- it’s a good place for someone with a lot of intellectual curiosity.

Dr. Katie: Um, it also is a very, like, advocacy-based school, I would say, more so than any of the other schools that I mentioned here. Um, and so a lo- a large part of who I am today, I think, is shaped, at least, I mean a strong part, I spent eight years there, um, in part by what Brown had to offer me, and also what Brown Med School had to offer me.[00:11:00]

Dr. Katie: Um, so I spoke a little bit about my major already. There was a lot of freedom in deciding my major. There was … I chose a major in which there was some structure, so I had to do a lot of science classes, um, as a student who was going to medic- uh, into medical school. But at the same time, um, there, there’s just some, like, really interesting classes.

Dr. Katie: I think I Was a little bit of a nerd in the sense that every time, like, the, the, um, classes for the next semester came out online, I was always so excited to go through the curriculum, ’cause you would, you would encounter some really cool classes. Um, I took a class on Buddhism and death, for example. I took a, a philosophy class on contemporary moral problems.

Dr. Katie: I took a class about prisons. I took a class on the history of psychiatry. And all of these things, granted I am a psychiatry resident now, but all of these things are actually classes that I regularly reference and think about even in my work to this day. Um, I feel like I have a much stronger foundation actually as a doctor because of it, and people are always impressed when I pull out, like, random books or random knowledge out of my brain because of this.

Dr. Katie: Um, [00:12:00] that being said, I, I… One of the things that I debated, and I get this question a lot, is can you double major? Why did I not double major? Why, why would you double major? I think a lot of the times we go into college thinking that for sure we’re gonna double major. I was certainly that way. Um, and one thing about Brown PLME is that we have advisors actually within the program itself that are assigned to small groups, and, um, they’re doctors.

Dr. Katie: A lot of them are actually alumni of the Brown PLME program. And one thing that one of my advisors said to me once stuck, which is that I was someone who was so voracious at taking classes that whenever you choose a major, there are always pro- Like, there are classes that you don’t wanna take that come along with the major, so maybe even math class that you have to take, or there’s, like, a English literature class that was, like, the 18th century that I, like, wasn’t super excited about in the English major.

Dr. Katie: Um, and those classes, you have a limited number of classes you can take in, so that was something else that, um, indeed, like, told me why I should [00:13:00] on- like, major in one thing, but also I, why I created a major because I ultimately got to take all the classes I wanted to take and then just kind of basically put forth an argument for why these classes made sense for me as my interest and my major.

Dr. Katie: Um, but yeah. That’s kind of, um, a little bit of my major logic. Um, I would say that Brown has a lot of interesting majors, and when you’re researching colleges, to spend a lot of time thinking about what those majors are. Um, just quickly, like, like, we have, I think, like, five different neuroscience, within the breadth of neuroscience, five different majors.

Dr. Katie: And so know the differences between them when you’re applying so that you can kind of indicate that you’ve done your research and you know why you wanna go into the major you wanna go into. Sorry, Ishaani.

Dr. Ishaani: Oh, no. No, that was amazing. Um, yeah, I feel like me and Katie clearly had very different interests, um, when we think about what we majored in.

Dr. Ishaani: But h- honestly- You know, I, I think it’s like, so well, that kind of goes to show just how incredible a place Brown is and how they have such, like, a diversity of curriculum. Um, [00:14:00] so but s- going back to the beginning, you know, when I was in y’all’s shoes, you know, when I was in 11th, 12th grade, what was I thinking about when I was applying to college?

Dr. Ishaani: So I applied, uh, kind of like, honestly pretty similarly, similarly to Katie. Never after, like, I feel like in college and in med school, we definitely don’t talk about our college application process. It was my first time hearing about Ka- Katie’s college application process. But, you know, I, I applied to many undergraduate schools.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I applied to BS/MD programs, and kinda like Katie, I applied to, like, a broad breadth of colleges. So I, of course, applied to, like, Ivy League schools. I applied to some, like, private schools I was really excited about. Um, I was from the Chicago suburbs, so when I think about the state schools I applied to, it was primarily the ones in the Midwest.

Dr. Ishaani: So I’m from the Chicago suburbs, Illinois, so I of course applied to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is, like, our flagship school in Illinois. Um, it’s an amazing institution. And then I also applied to, like, other big, uh, state schools in the area like Wisconsin. I applied to Michigan, which is, like, another incredible public institution.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I think [00:15:00] one thing that was really important to me and one thing that I, I kind of really talk about with my students is the fact that I intentionally, um, did not apply early decision. I, especially as someone that was applying to BS/MD programs, um, a lot of them it’s like, you know, the, the, the process is pretty drawn out.

Dr. Ishaani: You, like, apply to some. You maybe get invited to, like, do an interview, then you interview. And if you applied ED, then it’s like, oh, well, you could just lose all those applications. And then for me, it… I really cared about those enough and I, I also didn’t feel s- really strongly about one specific school.

Dr. Ishaani: Like, I had no dream school that I was like, “I need to go there and I wanna boost my chances, and it means I’ll have to go there.” So with all that in mind, uh, for me, I was like, “You know what? I don’t think I want to apply ED anywhere. I wanna have my options open. I wanna see what I get and then pick my best option.”

Dr. Ishaani: So I was really intentional about not applying ED. That being said, I did. I know a couple of schools. I know things have changed in, a ton in the past 10 years. But I know a couple schools had, like, early actions where you still had to apply early, um, but minus the [00:16:00] binding part. So I, I definitely applied early action to a couple places.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I also think there’s, like, a couple of, like, public schools that were, like, early action, um, and I just wanted to get my app in early just to be, like, done with it, so I applied to some of those programs in that same way, um, so I could really cast a wide net and pick from my favorite, uh, institutions. Um, then when it came to the writing the application, so it was hard work.

Dr. Ishaani: I think that’s something that people don’t talk about enough. I feel like everyone was like, “Oh, like, senior year’s so chill,” like, senioritis, blah, blah, blah. I think, and may- maybe you disagree with me, Katie, I think the hardest year, and everyone’s like, “Junior’s the hardest year,” I think the fall of senior year was, like, my hardest semester in college ’cause I was taking all these hard classes ’cause I was a senior in, like, a, you know, my last year of high school, all these APs, et cetera.

Dr. Ishaani: And I feel like college apps themselves, kind of an additional class with like how much you have to write. So my two cents when it comes to like the process of the college [00:17:00] application, get that Common App out of the way early. Um, I think ideally like have it done by like September at the latest. Like really just draft it, be done with it over the summer.

Dr. Ishaani: So when you’re actually in school, you can just focus on your supplements. Um, and also again, with every essay, but especially the Common App, you’ll have so- you’ll be like, “Oh, I want this person to read it and that person to read it and this person to read it.” Um, sometimes there are too many chefs in the kitchen.

Dr. Ishaani: People give you like, like someone’s like, “Oh, add this,” and someone’s like, “Oh, take that out.” And you’re like, “Ugh, what do I do?” So I think having like just, just a couple of people look at your Common App, um, and give you those, those final pieces of input. Like don’t ask for too many people’s advice ’cause then you’ll just kind of feel scrambled and you’ll be like, “Wait, do I wanna do this or do I not?”

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I’d also advise that. So like for me, I was so– I’m so grateful. My mom is like a really… She like reads a lot, um, so she I, I think is like a very, uh, thoughtful and mindful like reader, and she was like gave me such amazing advice for all my ed- edits, um, and my essays. But I was intentional that I was like, [00:18:00] “You know, my Common App, I’m gonna do with my advisor from school.

Dr. Ishaani: Mom, you’re not looking at it. This is what it is. You wanna read it, but I’m not taking any edits.” Um, but my supplements, she was incredible and she helped me a lot with them.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, so that is that. And then, you know, again, I cast my net wide. So a little bit more specifically about schools that I got into and that I was really excited about. Um, I got into… So like, you know, Katie really fantastically explained what BS/MD programs are. Um, there’s also some BS/MD programs that are state-specific that are like, “Hey, you live in this state.

Dr. Ishaani: This BS/MD program is only for residents of this state.” So in Illinois, we had a program like that that was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and it was affiliated with the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Medical School, which is the flagship medical school in, um, Illinois. So I applied to that program.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I got into that, which I was really excited about. I also, um, uh, got into the BS/MD program at Rensselaer [00:19:00] Polytechnic and, um, Albany Medical College. Again, like I have a little bit more of a computational background. That’s what I kind of emphasized in my application. So I think like a Rensselaer Polytechnic institution kind of maybe fit with my like goals, um, and my profile of what my interests were.

Dr. Ishaani: So I got into those like three BS/MD programs. There’s of course so many I applied to that I didn’t get into. Um, I applied to some private schools I didn’t get into. Uh, some I did. Schools that were really on my docket when I was kind of finalizing things were, “Do I wanna go to UIC’s program? Do I want…”

Dr. Ishaani: Which is like the eight-year program and have that guaranteed seat. “Do I wanna go to Brown, um, with the PLME program? Or also would I wanna consider some other Ivy League schools?” So I was like really excited about Penn and Cornell. I think at the end of the day, I- I think part of me, you know, thinking about, like, the schools I got into and, like, y- the University of Illinois in Chicago is, like, a fantastic institution.

Dr. Ishaani: People do great things there. But when I thought about, like, you know, the average student there, and it was a commuter school, and, like, what my classmates would be like, it wouldn’t be the traditional college experience. So [00:20:00] part of me felt a little bit nervous. Like, if I… What if I got into there, and then I realized midway into undergrad, you know, like, I don’t want to do medicine, and then I’m at this undergrad institution that I’m not even excited about.

Dr. Ishaani: So I think it quickly took that off the list ’cause I was like, “You know what, Ishaani? If you got into med school, or if you got into un- went to undergrad somewhere, and you decided you want to do medicine, or you wanna do something else, I really wanna go to a place that I’m excited about, and I’ll be happy with my undergrad experience, and I won’t be like, ‘Oh, I, like, sacrificed this, and now I regret it.’”

Dr. Ishaani: So I think I really wanted to go in a place that I could be happy about my undergrad experience in and of itself. So that kind of, unfortunately, took UIC off the list for me. Um, also with respect to BS/MD programs, like, some are eight-year programs, some are seven-year programs. I actually… Some of them are like, “Oh, like, don’t you wanna finish it all faster?”

Dr. Ishaani: I actually liked that Brown’s program was a full eight years. I didn’t wanna, like, you know, rush through undergrad, um, or… Like, I wanted to enjoy undergrad, make friends, like, have fun, enjoy my, [00:21:00] explore my academic interests ’cause if your undergrad, you know, is kinda cinched into three years, you have less time to explore your own individual interests and the like.

Dr. Ishaani: So I didn’t really wanna rush into anything. And I think one thing that I’m really realizing about medicine, like, medical school, residency, it’s a very, like, straight to, like, defined path. In this, like, long journey that is medicine, um, you know, like, the, the years that you’re in training are very well-defined, and the, the time you have to, like, develop your own niche and your own perspective and what makes you different as a doctor.

Dr. Ishaani: It’s like for Katie, like, she’s, has this, like, really unique background, and that’s because of her undergrad degree ’cause in medical school we did the same exact thing, whether I was computational biology or she was that. So I was like, you know, the place that I wanna develop my niche and my interest, that’s undergrad, and I wanna go to a place where I have a lot of freedom and I can become the doctor I want to be, and I can kind of set that up self up in undergrad.

Dr. Ishaani: And then during medical school, I’ll do the med school thing that everyone does. You [00:22:00] know, I’ll take the exact same s- board exam as everyone else and the exact same classes, et cetera.

Dr. Ishaani: So as a whole, like, Brown was the place for me for that. Like, I loved Brown as an undergrad institution. I could see myself going there as an undergrad, loving that experience, and if I decided medicine wasn’t for me, be really happy with that experience and go into whatever I might, might wanna be in. Um, and I also really, something I really appreciate about Brown is, yes, I came in as someone who was, like, very computational and had, like, a little bit more of a STEM background.

Dr. Ishaani: But I think just the education we got at Brown as both an undergrad and a medical student institution, it left me with, like, a very humanistic, social view of both medicine and also just, like, the world in general, and I’m really grateful- To carry in that perspective and just like how I lead my life and how I think about things.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, I sometimes joke with my friends, like I really could have gone to Penn and I think the Ishaani that would have come out of Penn undergrad versus the Ishaani that would have come out of Brown undergrad would have been two extremely [00:23:00] different people. Um, and I really like this version of myself. I wonder what Penn Ishaani would be like.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, she’d probably be a lot more like type A. I think Brown kind of chilled me out a little bit. I think, again, to be frank, like to be someone who gets into a BSMD program and even considers them and these like, I had to be pretty type A in high school. I don’t want to speak for you, Katie, but, um, I think Brown really like made me more well-rounded as a person.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, and again, medicine as a whole is a very rote and uniform process. The places where you kind of develop into who you are and like what kind of doctor you want to be specifically, that’s in your undergrad years. That’s in your gap years. It’s like some of the few times that you really have time to explore your interests and reflect on what unique perspectives you’d like to bring into medicine.

Dr. Ishaani: Uh, then kind of going into my major. So I’ve talked a lot about how I wanted to do computational biology. Um, and you might be wondering like, okay, like, well, how’d you pick that? So I knew in [00:24:00] high school, like in high school, I was like very like math and science person. Like I was on like, you know, advanced math track, love my math classes, love my science classes.

Dr. Ishaani: I still enjoyed my English classes, but I definitely had to like work harder to do well than the way I didn’t have to as much in my math and science classes. And so as a junior, I took an AP computer science class. Um, absolutely loved it. Uh, my high school had this thing that was kind of effectively called like you like TA the class as a senior that you took as a junior.

Dr. Ishaani: So as a senior, I essentially TA’d my AP computer science course, which was really fun. Um, and when I thought about like, what makes me unique going into medicine or like, what do I want to bring us? You know, I was kind of in this rock and a hard place where I was like, oh, I really like computer science, but I like medicine.

Dr. Ishaani: And I was like, oh, I have to pick one. Um, but then I realized that at places like Brown, they actually have like a combined major where I don’t have to pick one. I could do both with computational biology. I remember there was a handful of schools that had computational biology as a major. [00:25:00] I think of the ones I applied to remember it was like Brown had that as an undergrad major.

Dr. Ishaani: Penn had that as an undergrad major, which also like kind of was another reason I was excited about Penn. And I also think like the University of Rochester had that as an undergrad major. So those were like my three that I was like, I’m extra excited about them. Um, I think briefly I considered like, oh, should I do computer science and a pre-med track at Brown?

Dr. Ishaani: But again, exactly to the point Katie was making, like there are courses that you’ve taken in your major that you’re like, oh, everyone hates, like I have to take this course. And by kind of combining things and like, you know, double dipping a lot with like a lot of the pre-med requirements kind of overlap with computational bio requirements.

Dr. Ishaani: It made my schedule have, like, less required things and more things that, like, I was just pursuing because I wanted to. So it really gave me freedom to explore classes of interest. Um, especially at a place like Brown where, like, you know, the whole thing is like you’re the architect of your own education.

Dr. Ishaani: I think it’s a really freeing and exciting experience, [00:26:00] but I also think it’s not for everyone, to be frank. Um, with that much responsibility, like, you know, with great responsibility comes with a lot of, a lot of power. Um, so you know, if you’re someone that’s, like, I definitely, like, heard of friends of friends who, like, were really undecided coming into Brown and really unsure about what they wanted.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, and some of them, I think, kind of quickly figured it out or, like, found something really unique. But for some people, they just, like, tried a bunch of things out and they were kind of confused, and they feel like sometimes they, like, not, like, floundered, but it, it’s, it’s challenging. Um, so that’s, I think for me, like, for someone that really knew what they wanted to do and kind of stuck with it, it was a great experience.

Dr. Ishaani: But I think if you’re, like, totally undecided and, like, “I’m not sure if I wanna do engineering or poli sci or, like, anthropo-” Like, it’s something, like, that, like, really vast and you can’t think of a way to combine them, or you don’t, like, wanna, like, put in the, like, initiative and, like, to, like, melt things together.

Dr. Ishaani: I think, you know, having those guardrails off, like, you have to really figure a lot of stuff out and be very proactive [00:27:00] yourself. And I love having this unique major. Um, it really gave me a unique perspective in medicine. I have a formal degree, so it’s definitely something that I think about when I, you know, have my background in medicine as well.

Dr. Ishaani: So those are kind of… That was, like, my Brown experience. I feel like, um, again, Katie and I majored in very different things, but when I look back, I think we had very similar, very positive Brown experiences, which just goes to show that you can go to the same place and have so much in common, but also do so much different.

Anna: Yeah. W- well put. Thank you both for sharing a bit about your experiences leading up to your time at Brown and then, um, during your time at Brown. We hope you all found this information helpful. Uh, you can download the slides from the link in the Handouts tab as a reminder. And I forgot to say at the start that this is being recorded, and it will be emailed to everyone who registered.

Anna: We’re gonna get to the live [00:28:00] Q&A now. As I get to each one, I’ll read it out loud and then paste it into the chat so everyone can both hear and see the questions before our panelists respond. If your Q&A tab isn’t working for some reason, just double-check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

Anna: All right. Our first question, and I- I’ll read the question and then Katie and Ishaani, I’ll sort of leave it to you. Um, who… Like, if one of you feels you have an answer ready to go, great, and if the other one wants to add on, perfect. If not, no worries. Um, so- This question is about Brown being a liberal education, and how, how much of that liberal ed- education part do you think is favored when admissions officers are looking at applications?

Anna: So for example, will they [00:29:00] favor students that have humanities and social science-aligned extracurriculars, um, or, or do you think that’s, that’s not so important?

Dr. Katie: I’ll s- start, but then Ishaani, I’m curious to hear your answer too, ’cause you majored in, in like computational bio. Um, but I would say my, my starting point is always that I think a lot of the times a lot of the students that I advise…

Dr. Katie: Am I cutting out? Okay. Um, the students that I advise are pre-med, and I find that a lot of times people think you have to have a one-note application, meaning all of your extracurriculars have to be about medicine. All of your essays have to be about medicine, and that makes it a very one-note application.

Dr. Katie: It means that I don’t understand who you are. So as a reminder, when you’re applying to Brown PLME, you’re applying to get into the undergrad as well as the medical school. So you have to get into the undergrad first, and, um, that means [00:30:00] that y- you know, you should be a well-fleshed-out student and also have a good idea of what you’re interested in when you’re in college.

Dr. Katie: What kind of college degree are you gonna do? What classes are you gonna take outside of just being a doctor? So, um, when I think about extracurriculars, it does not have to be like liberal science related, it doesn’t have to be humanities or social science related. I certainly also had medical extracurriculars, um, and also did like science-y things.

Dr. Katie: Um, but it’s really about chasing your interests and what you’re passionate about in your extracurriculars as much as you can, in whichever way that leads you. Like, maybe it’ll lead you more towards coding, for example. Maybe you have like an interesting, like, computer science tech background. Maybe it leads you into, like, policy and political science, which is, like, more liberal artsy.

Dr. Katie: Um, but when it comes down to it, I think that our classes tend to be composed of people who have interesting interests, um, things that maybe are not typically pre-med, like for Ishaani, like the computational part of it, oftentimes a lot of people with pre-med backgrounds, [00:31:00] um, in the traditional path don’t have.

Dr. Katie: And then for me it was more liberal arts. Um, we all have like, you know, interests in things that we wanna pursue in college.

Dr. Katie: One-note applications. Uh, point. I don’t think they’re weighing one m- one more over the other, ’cause like the people in our class I think are pretty well proportioned out.

Dr. Ishaani: Sorry, I think the, the question actually might have cut out for me. Do you mind repeating it, Anna?

Anna: Yeah. It was, given that Brown has this liberal education of lens, how important do you think it is for students to, um- in high school participate in more humanities-based extracurriculars versus science and medical.

Dr. Ishaani: Yeah. So yeah, I think Katie kind of hit the nail on the head. I think it’s not like, oh, it’s a humanities-based place. That means everyone who goes into it is like not STEM and they’re more on the liberal arts kind of doctors. That’s not true at all. I think they have a pretty good split. That being said, when [00:32:00] I think about the ethos of Brown as a whole, I think, you know, they definitely are looking for people that are like very humanistic and very, you know, like committed to like patient care and advocacy.

Dr. Ishaani: That being said, like, you know, I don’t think I did anything advocacy related in high school. But I think a lot of people go into medicine for a lot of different reasons. I think some people go into medicine being like, you know what? I know that I’m like going to be an MD PhD and I’m going to run a lab and like wet lab is my passion and getting an MD PhD is my passion.

Dr. Ishaani: And that’s awesome. Like that is amazing and so amazing. Like that’s something to be really proud of. That being said, I think at Brown, like it’s more so in the ethos to like celebrate like the more the advocacy and the humanistic and like I’m going to treat all my patients as individuals. So it’s like an ethos with like the institution as a whole.

Dr. Ishaani: But you can [00:33:00] have a background in the humanities or STEM versus field. I also think the point that Katie brought about like the OneNote application is really true. I think a lot of the people I advise are like, oh, it’s like all my extracurriculars have to be related to medicine. And I’m like, that’s not true.

Dr. Ishaani: Honestly, sometimes looking like someone that like all you do is medicine can honestly, to be honest, I think hurt you a little bit more because yes, you’re going to be a doctor, but what shapes the way you walk through life and how you talk to people and how you interact with people and how you understand the world.

Dr. Ishaani: It’s a lot more than medicine. It’s like, you know, your teamwork skills and do you interact with people from a lot of different backgrounds or how do you engage as like a leader? Are you a captain of a sports team? Like for me, I, so many of my Brown undergrad essays, people are like, oh, like you must have like talked about like all your bio or medical stuff.

Dr. Ishaani: I talked about how I was on the fencing team. My whole Common App essay was about being a jazz musician versus a classical musician. So like music was really important to me. I loved my sports time. I talked about like women in STEM club. So it wasn’t all related [00:34:00] to medicine. And I think that’s also what made me probably stand out as like someone who’s like a very, you know, I’m interested in the STEM field, but I of course like have this humanistic and thoughtful and like very broad view of the world.

Anna: It sounds like Brown is the place where the ethos is come and explore your interests wherever they take you. And what I’m hearing from both of you is do that in high school. Follow your interests, see where they take you, and if you’re the right fit for Brown, that, like, that, that’s just gonna shine through on your application.

Anna: Is that a fair summary?

Anna: I’d

Dr. Ishaani: say

Anna: so. R- on a related note, someone asked to hear from both of you about what your extracurriculars were in high school.

Dr. Ishaani: Um…

Anna: I know, Ishaani, you just shared some of yours. Do you have others to add?

Dr. Ishaani: Yeah, totally. So I can start. Um, [00:35:00] so I think the, the big ones for me, again, was music. So I played the upright bass in both jazz band and orchestra for all four years of high school.

Dr. Ishaani: I was really grateful to go to a high school that had, like, a really fantastic music curriculum. So when I would say I’m part of these, these groups, like I did one period a day, so like 40 minutes a day of jazz for all four years of high school. I did 40 minutes a day of orchestra every single day for four years of high school.

Dr. Ishaani: So I did a lot. Music was a really big part of my high school experience. I made a ton of friends in school. Um, it was honestly, like, I think the appreciation I have for, like, music as a whole is, like, really based on those experiences, and I’m really grateful for it. Um, so that was one of my big things. I also was on the fencing team.

Dr. Ishaani: I was a captain when I was a senior. In hindsight, like, do I fence? Do I think about it now, like, even in college? Like, no, not really, but it was fun at the time. Um, and then, um, I was also a, like, a leader of this Women in STEM club, which was really fun [00:36:00] as well. I think those were, like, my big three things I did, like, with respect to school.

Dr. Ishaani: Then you’re probably wondering, like, what about the more BSM-y thing? Like, what did you do? So I, um, between my junior and senior year, so, like, I feel like I’ve been talking about the junior year summer, like I did have some, like, big extracurricular. So my thing that I was really proud of was I got an internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago, actually.

Dr. Ishaani: They had a summer research program for high school students. Um, and it was related to, like, diabetes research. My dad has diabetes, and I was able to actually connect that pretty well in my application to PlayMe, which I think stood out And then I also did volunteering for like three years of high school at like an assisted living facility that was like two blocks from my house.

Dr. Ishaani: I would like pop in for like an hour a week for like three hours, you know, for all, most, like most of high school. And just like, again, I don’t do anything like medical or crazy. I wasn’t like saving lives, but I would just like talk to people, play bingo, like paint nails, like just hang out. Um, and I think, you know, I didn’t work in a hospital, but it was, in an assisted living facility, you see a lot of people that [00:37:00] are really, really sick, um, which I think now is like my daily life.

Dr. Ishaani: Like I see a lot of people that are sick, um, a lot ’cause I’m a doctor. Um, and I think having exposure to that and kind of explaining that like, “Hey, I know what it’s like for someone to, you know, be not feeling well and maybe not even like have full, be fully with it, but I can still interact with them and I still enjoy interacting with them,” I think, um, came, hopefully I hope came through in my application.

Dr. Katie: Yeah. For me, um, I really pulled together my application by, by, by doing this kind of… I, I made an argument at the time I applied with the cog for, with an interest in cognitive science with a maj- uh, with a focus on linguistics. And so I had a couple little things in like kind of different areas, um, that I was hoping would like piece it together.

Dr. Katie: So the first, I think my main extracurricular that really still stands with me to this day is I worked at a suicide hotline. Um, and I was lucky enough to be able to [00:38:00] do that because I was in a big city that happened to have a suicide hotline that was manned by teenagers for teenagers. It was a very unique experience.

Dr. Katie: Um, and clearly one that stuck with me. It was what I act- actually ended up writing my cognitive essay about, was sort of working on the hotline, the importance of words, and connecting that to my interest in language. Um, and also my experiences, like for the first time encountering kids in abusive households and thinking about, at the time I was like, “I’m interested in neuro- like from a neuroscience perspective, how does that impact language development?”

Dr. Katie: Um, again, I’m a psychiatrist today. I’m going to child psych, so it clearly made a big impact and I think… But one of the th- some of- that’s like a one that’s not classically medicine maybe, but was intended also to demonstrate like, hey, I’m calm under pressure. If someone comes to me in a crisis, I know how to handle crisis, I know how to talk to people, and those are all skills and things that I still use to this day, obviously.

Dr. Katie: But also was kind of my first inkling like, oh, medicine really could be for me because it [00:39:00] was the first time I had like, I would come home from an extracurricular and I felt excited and rejuvenated to talk to my mom about what I did that day and like what, you know, what stories I heard. And, um, realizing that that kind of like one-to-one helping people is where I got satisfaction versus I also did, like Ishaani, in my junior year a summer program at UCLA, um- in bioengineering and, uh, absolutely hated it.

Dr. Katie: I was like, engineering’s not for me. Um, don’t like research. I just, I didn’t have it in me to chase a question. Um, and people, like I have really great friends who are in research and really great friends also who are MD-PhD and like really care about research and I simply, I think I’m just not a research-minded person.

Dr. Katie: Um, and that’s okay. And so that’s, like it’s just as important high school of, as learning what you like. Sometimes it’s also just about eliminating what you don’t like. I feel like oftentimes when I went into Brown with the open curriculum, I would read through the classes and I’d be like, I’m interested in like a bajillion things.

Dr. Katie: I know [00:40:00] also the, this half of classes I’m j- I’m definitely not interested in. And that was just as helpful when narrowing down like what I was gonna take for that semester. Um, so I did a, a summer research program. Um, and there’s different ways to evaluate, you know, I know a lot of them cost money these days and they can be out of the budget for families.

Dr. Katie: I think making sure that it’s a program that assigns you to a mentor, that puts you in a lab, ideally is for several weeks at a time and has like kind of an end product of some kind of poster or something. Um, the expectation is absolutely not for any high schooler to be publishing anything paper-wise, but I often get questions like what the word research means.

Dr. Katie: Research is referring to peer-reviewed publication, right? So it doesn’t count as research if you are going out there and researching, let’s say, Alzheimer’s online and writing a blog about it. It’s, it’s really cool, like that’s a, that’s a sep- kind of separate thing. But I, that’s not what the research we’re talking about often in the scientific field, just to make it clear.

Dr. Katie: Um, I also was the captain of my Science Olympiad team. We did pretty well for our state, and it [00:41:00] actually featured really prominently in my letters of recommendation. I got to see them after I graduated. And after I got into school, sometimes admissions officers will write you a little note. And actually, I think, uh, like two of my admissions officers actually remarked upon Science Olympiad, which I was surprised about because, um, one of my supplemental essays was about how I failed as a captain in Science Olympiad.

Dr. Katie: But I think it was really notable that a lot of my teachers talked about it and talked about, um, what it meant for me to be a captain of a team, um, that was pretty under-resourced and underfunded and didn’t have parents who were helping out, um, but still did, you know, as well as we did across the state.

Dr. Katie: So Science Olympiad was kind of like my big science-y thing. I did volunteer in a hospital, um, kind of similar to Shawnee. It’s just like being in a clinical space. It’s just like seeing patients who are sick, learning how to talk to patients, learning what the medical environment looks like. Um, I wasn’t doing anything like clinically, like super clinically related.

Dr. Katie: I actually had no shadowing hours coming into PLME. Um, I just didn’t, like the LA is really, [00:42:00] has really strict laws about what age and who can shadow, and so I, all I had was hospital volunteering. But that was, you know, an initial exposure to the hospital and what it looks like for patients to come out of the hospital.

Dr. Katie: Um- So like that was a kind of my more medical sciencey extracurriculars. Um, I was the editor-in-chief of my school’s literary magazine. I had like some essay competitions that I wrote about, and that was kind of like my humanities language, um, like third of my extracurriculars. And then, um, I also had like my teen line and my mental health things.

Dr. Katie: And then the rest of my extracurriculars were kind of like random. I talked a little bit about taking singing lessons and the fact that it was something that I did purely for fun and like was not … Didn’t look good extracurricular-wise. Like, I wasn’t part of an organized choir. I didn’t end up winning any competitions.

Dr. Katie: I did absolutely nothing with this, like the fact that I did singing lessons. Um, but I talked about it in one of my essays and like what it, like the impact that it made on me. And so I think that goes to say like you, you [00:43:00] know, we chase different things, we find interest in different things, we fi- we find we don’t like different things through our extracurriculars, and those are all things that end up coming through in your essay and kind of like your path.

Dr. Katie: They’re expecting to see a person who’s still learning what they enjoy. You don’t have to go into the college application process being like, “I definitely know what I wanna do,” right? Like I said, I applied as a cog sci, uh, cognitive science major with a focus on linguistics. That’s definitely not what I majored in.

Dr. Katie: Um, I didn’t even know anthropology existed at the time when I was in high school until I took an anthropology class in college and was like, “Oh, this is the way I wanna think about the world. Um, this is actually right up my alley. This research actually is interesting to me.” Um, and so it, it all … But, but what they wanna see is someone who’s growing and following their passions and kind of moving along the way.

Dr. Katie: Um, yeah. That’s a little bit about my extracurriculars.

Anna: Thank you both. Uh, Katie, you mentioned, you know, you tried research, realized it wasn’t your thing. Um, we have a question [00:44:00] about research. Mm. Um, so it- Katie spoke to her high school experience. Ishaani, did you do any research in high school? And then to either of you, could you speak to the research opportunities at Brown?

Dr. Ishaani: Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I guess I could talk about my research really quick. So I did, again, that summer between junior and senior year, I did some d- research related to diabetes. It was like wet lab research. I was in, in this program for like five weeks. Um, obviously no publication, like a little presentation where I talked about it at the end.

Dr. Ishaani: Honestly, could, could not even tell you what it’s about now. I totally forgot. But you know, obviously I, I could sp- in my college application, I could speak to it very thoughtfully, even though looking back, did it like change my life or was it super meaningful? No. Um, but that’s what I did. Um, I also, I think one thing I wanna add to like Katie’s, I think points, like, you know, like the whole idea of like volunteering and research and shadowing.

Dr. Ishaani: I sometimes get a lot of questions from people like, “Oh, how many volunteering hours should I have?” [00:45:00] Or, “How many shadowing hours should I have?” Or, “Should I have publications?” Et cetera. Um, obviously every BSMD program’s different. Um, I can only speak to, like, PlayMe ’cause I kind of have a sense of, like, what is really important to PlayMe.

Dr. Ishaani: But when I think about, like, the numbers, like, if there’s person A who, like, did 20 hours or let’s say 50 hours of volunteering, but, like, was really thoughtful about it and s- could speak to it in a really lovely and thoughtful way versus person B who did, like, 200 hours, but, like, they just kind of mentioned it, like, in their Common App, and then their Common App is, like, kind of a regi- re- regurgitation of their resume, and it’s like, I don’t even know what they did there, and I’m like, “Huh.”

Dr. Ishaani: Again, per- like, it’s really… I think one thing you’ll realize, um, when it comes to any application, whether it’s for a job or for med school or for residency or for college, it’s really what you do is important, but how you speak to it and how you weave it all together and, like, it presented as who you are is, is more important.

Dr. Ishaani: So don’t focus and get, get hung up, hung up with, like, “I need X number of hours and this much shadowing and this much volunteering.” Really think about, [00:46:00] like, going with experiences, like, being very present when you’re there, um, and being really able to articulate what you’re experiencing thoughtfully. So, like, when I advise my students when they’re like, “Oh, I’m gonna be volunteering at this,” or, “I’m gonna be shadowing at this,” I’m like, “Hey, at the end of every day, like, jot down some bullet points, like, if you had a really meaningful patient encounter, or you saw something that was, like, really shocking and really, like…

Dr. Ishaani: Sh- Talk about, like, write those things down so you can, like… And then when you are, you know, writing your supplemental essays, you can reflect back on this.” Another thing that I feel like we don’t talk about enough, like, is advice for, like, being a good writer. Um, you know, I’ve worked with, like, a lot of different students, and this is totally unrelated, so sorry to, like, get on a little tangent there.

Dr. Ishaani: I’ve worked with a lot of different students. I think, you know, in the United States, like, public education varies so much from school to school. Um, some people unfortunately don’t get great English education, and I think college, this is the first time that you get, like, this kind of, like, creative nonfiction writing experience that you have to do about yourself.

Dr. Ishaani: My biggest piece of advice is, like, okay, how do I [00:47:00] become a good… Like, people are like, “How do I know, like, what good writing is?” It’s reading. So I remember when I was in high school, m- my parents, like, kinda made me, like, read newspaper articles because they’re like, “The reason, the way you’re gonna get, become a good writer, Ishaani, is by reading good articles.

Dr. Ishaani: So you gotta read a New York Times article every single day.” Um, they’re like, “It can be whatever you want. It can be in the fashion section. It can be in the business section. It can be an opinions piece, but, like, read a piece of creative nonfiction a day, like short form.” ‘Cause, like, I feel like when all you guys do in your high schools is, like, read books, like, no, you’re gonna have to write essays.

Dr. Ishaani: Read a good essay every single day, and I think that really shaped me into a good writer. So if you’re, like, a ninth grader and you’re like, “How do I prepare for my college essay?” Just keep reading. Um, so I’ll, I’ll get off my soapbox about that and then let Katie talk about research experiences at Brown, and then I’ll talk about the same.

Dr. Katie: No, I support– And also, I think, um, the New Yorker was quite good, and then I actually– And I still do this, ’cause I’m still– You guys don’t even know, I’m still, we’re still writing personal statements out here every time we apply for new things, like for [00:48:00] residency. Um, I always, like, try to read some memoirs to, like, get into the headspace, ’cause memoirs, it’s like a, a way to learn how people write about themselves in, like, a truly gifted way.

Dr. Katie: These are really great writers. And, um, it helps me get into the headspace. So I recommend, like, popular memoirs. So memoir- like, just, like, l- like read memoirs and see how they kind of like structure, especially a memoir, like a short-form memoir even, like one that’s like, oh, they took an excerpt into The New York Times, for example.

Dr. Katie: Um, that kind of gives you, like, a good sense of how you can engage an audience and talk about yourself and tell a short story about yourself, um, because that’s ultimately what a, a, a personal statement in your Common App should be, right? It should not– I saw one question, like, it should not be about your extracurriculars.

Dr. Katie: It not shou- it should not be about trying to, like, gather up all of your accomplishments and trying to relay that, because there are other places in the application for you to list all your extracurriculars. Your Common App should really be a story about who you are, um, and should, it should really communicate, like, an overall sense and kind of a uniting factor of who you are.[00:49:00]

Dr. Katie: Um, so for me, for research at Brown, I think one of the huge benefits, we haven’t talked a lot about, like, uh, BS/MD PLME, but one of the huge benefits of PLME is actually the continuity of, like, being there for eight years. And, um, oftentimes you get access to doctors, to graduates of PLME who are still in Rhode Island.

Dr. Katie: You get access to a lot of exposures that, um- That, that are nice because you get to continue that work for eight years. That being said, like Brown as an undergrad also, one of my best friends is, um, went the traditional pathway. She actually just graduated and matched into ortho, um, for Cor- from Cornell Med School this year, so shout out to her.

Dr. Katie: Um, but she was traditional pathway, and she also was able to find research mentors very easily. I think when you are out there and researching colleges outside of Brown and kind of looking around, um, that is one thing that you wanna pay attention to. Like, how easy is it to get research mentors at the undergraduate college that you’re at?

Dr. Katie: Like, how do you, how do people reach out? Um, and are people, like, super helpful and interested in helping out [00:50:00] students? Um, I would say again, as a PLME, I think it was really helpful because I was able to continue on some projects for a really long time. Um, I know that was true for some of my, um, projects over at the psychiatric hospital.

Dr. Katie: I would also say that I, I happened to do, um, a lot of child psychiatry research, and I completely got into this field because I had good mentors, because I would reach out and people would be interested in, you know, like taking me on under their wing essentially, and that’s ac- that’s not true of every institution.

Dr. Katie: I definitely, I definitely feel like, um, sometimes at larger institutions it’s a lot… It’s you, you might have to reach out more, and you might have to attempt, um, like more people as well, and kind of do a lot more advocating on your behalf to get research opportunities. Um, versus Brown was for me at least, like the right size for me to be able to find mentors and then also kind of latch onto mentors and, um, it was really nice to graduate from medical school with some of the mentors that I had known and, and like being able to say like, “Thank you so much.

Dr. Katie: You’ve helped me so much along this way.” [00:51:00] Um, I’m someone who is like a big, I’m a big proponent of mentorship. I’ve had really great mentors, and I can only hope to be like a good mentor in my future, too. Um, so I did a lot of like child psychiatry research in, um, the forensic system actually, um, when I was at Brown.

Dr. Katie: Yeah.

Dr. Ishaani: Yeah. So my research experience at Brown, um, I, I think, again, like the continuity is a really great point. I think that Katie touched upon, like you’re here for eight years. You get to make this relationship with people for eight years. Um, I think that was really special. I think I came into, um… This is kinda my honest opinion, so I came into undergrad being like, “Oh, I really like research a lot.”

Dr. Ishaani: Um, but I think I, you know, I initially like struggled to find research, um, that I was excited about, and I think the reason for that is because I was trying to, like again, trying to figure out what I was interested in. Um, and I think I realized that the computational biology program at Brown was actually a lot more basic science focused, and when I thought more about my [00:52:00] interest in, um, computational biology, it was a lot more on like the clinical translational side of things.

Dr. Ishaani: Again, like Yes, I like research, um, but I knew that I liked in like wet lab or basic science. I wasn’t trying to think too much. I, I wanted to think more about like how is this impacting people, like, in research, like more directly related to like clinical outcomes, um, because I wanna be a doctor and I wanna like really see the tangible impact.

Dr. Ishaani: You know, like that’s, that’s why we’re MDs and we’re not PhDs. Um, totally different kind of head space and like where like what gives you excitement, what kind of answering, what kind of questions gets you ex-excited. Um, so I think it took me some time honestly to find people that did research in the computational space, but that were like more on the clinical side of things.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, and I, I think that was tricky for me, honestly. Um, so my research experiences, I don’t know if I’m having like g- like longitudinal research experiences, um, across my time at Brown. Um, and that’s also something that, you know, again, I, I think I still think [00:53:00] I’m becoming a great doctor for it. I don’t think my journey is like I’m disappointed with or anything like that.

Dr. Ishaani: But something to reflect on, um, and you know, I guess pass along to you guys is like when you look into these places, obviously like try to do a little bit of looking into like what are the doctors there doing, what are they researching. Um, I kind of found for the computational clinical space, like Brown had…

Dr. Ishaani: was, is j-just as I was kind of leaving was trying to like make more of an ecosystem in that space and like more research opportunities in that space. So I wasn’t able to take advantage of it, um, the way I’d exactly have liked to. But I also know that there are students like in s- the similar spot as me, like maybe just, you know, have found better mentors or better fits for them.

Dr. Ishaani: So it could have just been like a me experience.

Anna: Thank you both. Um, I’m gonna give you both a little break here so I can talk quickly about, uh, some of our students and their success stories that we’re really proud of. Uh, the first one is DJ. He grew up wanting to be a physician. He was active in relevant [00:54:00] extracurriculars and sought out challenging coursework.

Anna: As a scientist, however, he found that writing narratively, uh, was challenging, and the college essay style just didn’t come naturally to him. So he signed up to work with CollegeAdvisor, and in the end was accepted by five colleges, including Johns Hopkins, where he received an institutional scholarship of around $61,000 per year.

Anna: And you can see, kinda see in that, uh, picture he’s wearing his Johns Hopkins T-shirt, uh, representing proudly. Another student, Abby, reached out to us because she was an aspiring first-generation college student, meaning, um, her parents did not attend a four-year university. Her immigrant parents had no experience applying to US colleges, and she wasn’t receiving much support from her teachers or school counselors and was feeling really alone in the process.

Anna: She was thinking ahead though and connected [00:55:00] with us as a sophomore. She ended up applying early decision to Cornell, where she was accepted and received full financial aid. These are just two examples out of the 10,000 lifetime clients CollegeAdvisor has guided through the application process. Our team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts is ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one-on-one advising sessions and essay editing.

Anna: To learn more about how you can get started with CollegeAdvisor, scan the QR code to sign up for a free 60-minute strategy session with an admissions specialist on our team. During that meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out.

Anna: That would also be a great place to ask the questions you have that we may not have time to get to tonight. Um, I also wanted to point out that Katie and Ishaani present [00:56:00] webinars for us regularly, so please check our schedule, um, if you’re interested in learning more from them. Some folks are asking about that in the chat.

Anna: Um, so they– There’s more on, on the calendar with them. Um, but anyways, please scan the QR code to sign up for that, uh, free preliminary assessment of your profile and to get our recommendations on what you can do to stand out. At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and so much more.

Anna: We are here for the whole process. I feel like this hour flew by, um, and it looks like we’re gonna have time for just one more question. Um, how did you both know for sure that medicine was the right path for you?

Dr. Katie: I, I think it takes a lot of time. I [00:57:00] am someone who will always say… First of all, I’ll start by saying I think it’s like the stat is like 30% of people who go into college pre-med actually end up staying pre-med. I’ll start there. And I think that if you’re not asking yourself every year If you still wanna do this, um, then something’s going wrong.

Dr. Katie: You should be asking yourself that because we- it’s a very long path. Ishaani and I are both in residency, and we both still have multiple years left, possibly, like, more than that if you- if we pursue fellowship. Like, I will be, like, 31 by the time I finish everything possibly. Um, so it’s a very, very long path, and you should be constantly questioning yourself, “Is this still something that I wanna do?”

Dr. Katie: Um, and trying to get experiences that help you answer that question. That’s, that’s, I think, really the goal. Um, and so there’s never… I mean, now that I’m a doctor, I guess I’m, I’m, I’m here for the long haul. But I think prior to this, like, truly there was never a time when I was like, “Oh, I, um, I know 1000% that this is, this is the only path for me.”

Dr. Katie: [00:58:00] There are always, there were other career paths that I absolutely would’ve considered, and I would say that if I had gone to some- one of the other schools that I had mentioned earlier on, it’s possible that I wouldn’t be a doctor today. That being said, um, I was talking a little bit about that experience that I had on the suicide hotline where that one-on-one immediate feedback and immediate relief brought truly, like, a, a, a lot of satisfaction to me.

Dr. Katie: And I, I always think, like, when you’re thinking about a career, what is it that brings you satisfaction? And having that immediate, like, I did a thing, it resulted in this, and I see improvement. I got immediate thank you from my pa- from my patients. Um, and I kind of see that, like, trajectory of change and improvement and, and healthiness, um, really is satisfying to me.

Dr. Katie: And that was, that was, like, a huge part of what I think, when I was in high school at least, that, that, just that little knowledge kind of helped push me more towards the medical path. Um, I would also say that with Brown PLME, I wanna… It’s, it’s not a path that is, [00:59:00] um, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like, like, locked in.

Dr. Katie: Like, you can drop out of PLME at any point. So for example, you can finish Brown for college and then not go on to Brown Medical School. We absolutely had classmates who did that. Um, we also had classmates who finished, um, undergraduate and medical school with us and are actually right now pursuing different careers and things that are not in medicine.

Dr. Katie: Um, I also know people who finish residency and then go off to do other careers, like they go into consulting with their medical background now and try to work within the medical healthcare space. Um, so a lot to say that there are multiple opportunities for you to change your mind, and that’s actually one part of why I also really wanted to do, like, that full eight-year program instead of an accelerated program.

Dr. Katie: I wanted to have a really fully fleshed out undergraduate experience to really assess, is this the right path for me? Because once you’re, once you commit, and y- you know, you’re, like, committed as, as I am in residency, I guess now, um, it’s a really long pathway. And so you really should be asking the question of yourself frequently, um, [01:00:00] if this is still the right pathway for you.

Dr. Katie: Um, and I, I usually actually tend to respect students more if they’re able to tell me, like, they, they’re considering other things, ’cause it really tells me that they’ve tho- they’re being thoughtful about the medical career and why they wanna go into it

Dr. Ishaani: Yeah, I think that’s a, that’s a really great question of, like, how… You know, like, a- and I also think it i- it is really, you know, I think the SME programs, you gotta think about it as a concept. Like, you’re, you’re 18 years old saying, “Hey, I wanna be a doctor,” knowing that residency at the earliest could, like, be, like, you know, you could be a full pledge- that you’re not even gonna be a full-pledged attending at the absolute earliest till you’re like 29, you know?

Dr. Ishaani: You’re, you’re committing yourself to, like, maybe a, a 10-year journey. Um, so it is something that really re- requires frequent assessment, frequent reflection. Um, and I also think, you know, a- as is with most careers, you don’t know what it’s like until you’re doing it. Like, no one knows what it’s like to be a doctor until you’re a doctor, so how do you know if you wanna be a [01:01:00] doctor if you have to be a doctor to figure out if you wanna be a doctor, you know?

Dr. Ishaani: It’s like this kind of, like, well, how do you figure that out? Um, but I think the point that Katie brought of, like, thinking about what makes you happy, what gives you joy. And then also maybe I, I’m, like, really… I love my career in medicine. I know Katie is, like, feels the same, but I, I love being a trauma medicine resident.

Dr. Ishaani: I think it’s the best. Um, and I also think the thing about medicine is I think there’s something for everyone. The subspecialties within medicine are so different. If you’re someone that’s like, “You know what? I like fixing a problem immediately and then not seeing that patient again and, like, moving on to a new one,” there are program- there are, you know, different specialties of medicine that have a lot more, like, short-term, uh, intense but short interaction with patients.

Dr. Ishaani: If you’re like, “You know what? My ideal practice of medicine, I don’t… I, I, I wanna be talking to my patients a lot. I wanna be talking to my patients a little. I wanna be doing a, like, you know, doing clinic,” or, “I wanna be in the OR,” like, or, “I wanna do a little bit of both,” you can find your perfect specialty.

Dr. Ishaani: Um, you can also find your perfect [01:02:00] specialty and then be like, “You know what? I’m kind of… Clinical medicine is really hard, and I’m a little bit burnt out. I wanna switch to consulting.” Or you could say, “You know what? Clinical medicine is… I love it, but I l- education’s really important to me, too.” You can do part-time, like, working with medical students, part-time clinical medicine.

Dr. Ishaani: You can… It’s, it’s a very, like… I think medicine as a whole is, like, this kind of, like, black box, but it is a very, as with a lot of careers, it’s, like, a very choose-your-own-adventure career. You can find something that’ll work for you. But then, you know, the question of, like, well, how did you know what you wanted to do?

Dr. Ishaani: Um, maybe it’s a little bit diff- like, I was… Maybe I’m not as, like, introspective and as reflective as Katie, um, but I feel like in undergrad I just kinda did my thing. I churned through it. I went to medical school. The first few years of medical school, honestly, is just, like, basic science, so I was like, you don’t really get what it’s like to be a doctor until, like, that much in the first few years.

Dr. Ishaani: And then in the third and fourth years, like, that’s the, the first time you really get a sense of like, oh, like, th- this is what being a doctor is. And I was just really lucky. I loved it. Um, and it [01:03:00] just kind of, it kinda all worked out for me, so I, I, I don’t really know if there’s that much more to be said.

Dr. Ishaani: I also think you gotta sometimes… Not every- I think sometimes we have this, like- misconception of like a dream career of like, “Oh, you want to do this since you’re 18. Like you’ve been dreaming of being a doctor forever.” I’m like, “No, I kind of just picked something and did it and I’m really happy it all worked out for me.”

Dr. Ishaani: And it’s, it sounds really simple and really silly, but I think that’s the truth and I’m really grateful for my career. I’m, again, like residency is busy. It’s, medicine is a long commitment. I’m also gonna be frank, like me and Katie both work a lot of hours. Like there are hours I’m in the hospital for like over 70 hours a week, which is a lot.

Dr. Ishaani: But again, I’m always would be ha- I would be so much happier doing something 70 hours a week that I really like and that like is emotionally really satisfying, intellectually stimulating than like working 40 hours a week and like staring at the clock counting down the minutes. So yeah.

Anna: I think that’s a, a lovely note to [01:04:00] end on.

Anna: Find what you love, keep seeking out your passions, and they will, they’ll take you in the right direction. Thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you, thank you, thank you Ishaani and Katie for sharing your expertise. Uh, if you haven’t been able to scan that QR code yet to schedule your free assessment with us, please just keep your browser open until the webinar officially ends, and at that time, you should be redirected to the booking page so you can get your free hour with us.

Anna: Um, we are officially out of time. Thanks everyone for coming out, and have a, a great rest of your day, and good luck with your applications.