How They Got In: Case Studies of Successful Pre-Med Applicants

Webinar Transcription

How They Got In: Case Studies of Successful Pre-Med Applicants

Lonnie: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisor’s webinar, “How They Got In: A Case Study of a Successful Pre-med Applicant.” My name is Lonnie Webb, and I will serve as your moderator for this webinar. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’re first gonna begin with our presentation, and then we’ll have the opportunity to answer your questions through our live Q&A, which will be towards the end of our presentation.

Lonnie: We’re gonna share a lot of information with you all during this webinar, so at any time, I really encourage you to go ahead and visit our Handouts tab, and you can download the slides, uh, right there. If you’re, if you’re having any technical difficulties, please reach out, let me know. Um, but please save your questions for the Q&A section by visiting that Q&A tab.

Lonnie: All right, so with that said, let’s now meet our presenter.

Dr. Katie: Hi, everyone. I’m happy to be here tonight. I [00:01:00] am Katie. Um, I am currently a resident, and I’m also a graduate of the Brown PLME program, which I will discuss in a little bit more detail in my talk. Um, but suffice to say, I went to Brown for undergraduate, and then Brown for medical school, and now I am a doctor serving at Mount Sinai.

Lonnie: Love it. Well, we’re so excited to have Dr. Katie with us. She is experienced and knowledgeable on all, many topics, but most importantly, the topic around applying as a pre-med or even BS/MD, uh, applicant. Okay, so before we get into our presentation, we would love to know what grade you are in, so you probably saw a prop that just appeared on your screen.

Lonnie: If you could let us know, just ’cause it gives us a sense of who is joining us live, and then we wanna make sure that we are, you know, speaking to all those who are represented. So I’m gonna give everyone just a couple more seconds as I [00:02:00] see the responses are coming in rapidly. All righty. Okay, so here are the responses, um, from our poll.

Lonnie: We have 33% of our live audience are in the 11th grade. Followed by that, we have 30% that are in the 12th grade, 25% that are 10th grade students, and 10% that are 9th grade. And actually, I just seen, um, we also have a few 8th grade, uh, students who are with us. So that is really awesome to see that we have some middle school students with us.

Lonnie: So with that, Dr. Katie, I will pass it back over to you.

Dr. Katie: Thank you All right, we’ll get into it. Um, so I’ll start by saying, um, right, I’m now a resident. Um, I’ve also been doing college admissions for quite a while now. I think it’s been… Oh, God. The– [00:03:00] when– every time I say it, it adds up to more. It’s, like, been nine years of me doing, um, college admissions, and as you might imagine, in my work, I primarily work with pre-med students as well as, like, STEM students, like pre-engineering students.

Dr. Katie: And so I’ve read a number of applications at this point about pre-med. Um, I also am myself a pre-med applicant. Um, and I also applied to BS/MD programs, which again, I will explain a little bit later ’cause that’s ultimately what I ended up doing. But I’ll talk a little bit about what, you know, what does it mean to be pre-med, and also what is it, what is a BS/MD program?

Dr. Katie: What am I even talking about? So let’s talk about what, what inspired it. Um, for me, it always been a consideration. Um, I think, I, I mean, I’m a child of immigrants, and certainly my mom was, is happy for me to be a doctor. Um, and I had volunteered at the county hospital in the summer of ninth grade, and that was honestly like…

Dr. Katie: A- and I also did a kind of this, like, cardiothoracic internship thing in the summer of tenth grade, which was honestly a program that has now… I think a lot of these programs have now since gone up [00:04:00] greatly in price and in cost. And so, um, if anyone has any questions about finding programs like that and also choosing which ones are actually worth your money, we can, we can definitely touch upon them in the Q&A.

Dr. Katie: But that was kind of like honestly my beginning and my end to my exposure in terms of, like, classic medicine. Um, I’m from Los Angeles, California, and there were really, really strict rules around shadowing opportunities and, like, being in the hospital. There’s, like, age requirements that I simply did not meet as a high schooler.

Dr. Katie: And so, um, I wanted to, I just wanted to say that I got into a number of, uh, a good, a, a good number of Ivy Leagues as a pre-med student and also into a BS/MD program, right, without having any shadowing experience. And so I always start there to be like, I am not someone who cured cancer. I’m a very normal person.

Dr. Katie: I did very normal extracurriculars and was also able to be successful when it came to getting into top schools as a pre-med student. Um, but for me, I think what really actually kind of inspired this whole trajectory is that I worked at a t- a suicide hotline when I was in high school. This was an [00:05:00] opportunity that I very much found for myself.

Dr. Katie: I was always a pretty proactive kid. Um, I, I had mentioned already my mom’s an immigrant. She just… She was not someone who grew up in the American system, and so she, like, to her, extracurriculars were like, I don’t know, like, that’s not really something that they did. Um, and so she very much left it to me do a lot of my extracurricular research, and that’s something I did.

Dr. Katie: Like, every single year around winter break time, I would, like, settle in, use the internet. Nowadays, you guys also have a AI to help you with this and, like, kind of like figure out what opportunities existed in the area that I could do, and honestly, like, boots on the ground, try to find, um, interesting and unique opportunities.

Dr. Katie: And a suicide hotline actually came to me Because of by way of, like, really distant, I had heard in passing an upperclassman, she was, like, running for some election thing, and she had mentioned working in a suicide hotline as one of her extracurriculars, and I immediately was like, “I wanna do that. That sounds really interesting.”

Dr. Katie: Um, I ended up doing it and found it to be one of the most rewarding experiences. Um, for me, it was a kind of a… I, I figured out what [00:06:00] brings me a little bit of joy. And, um, I had also done this, like, biomedical engineering, like, summer research program at UCLA one of the summers and discovered, wow, engineering is not for me.

Dr. Katie: I actually really- I always hated math, um, and physics, but I was like, “This is definitely not for me.” And so this- it was really nice to also have this other extracurricular that kind of pointed me in what brought me a lot of joy. Um, and the reason why engineering didn’t do that for me was actually because I think some people are really good at having, like, long-term passion and goal and knowing that this, like, you know, working on a stem cell f- like, piece of research could solve and cure, like, thousands of lives in the future.

Dr. Katie: And for me, working the suicide hotline, I was like, “Oh, there’s something about, like, thinking about and working on and continuously improving in my ability to speak to patients and make them feel better, and get that immediate feedback,” that was really rewarding for me. Um, I don’t think I mentioned this actually.

Dr. Katie: Uh, but I a- [00:07:00] I’m a psychiatrist now, so this is a very, very, um, apt thing that I did in high school. And looking back, it’s like, oh, you can very clearly trace my trajectory, but at the time, I was, like, just doing something ’cause I thought it was interesting. Um, and so that was something that I really enjoyed doing.

Dr. Katie: And, and I also quickly realized that ultimately the office life wasn’t for me. I’m, I’m someone who, like, really enjoys doing things and staying busy um, uh, for better or for worse. Um, I like to be busy when I’m at work, and then if I’m not busy, I would like to be off work. That’s kind of, like, how I like to live my life.

Dr. Katie: Um, so in terms of choosing high school courses, I went to a pretty STEM rigorous high school. I went to a magnet school, um, but it was public over in Los Angeles. Um, and I was lucky enough that a lot of the STEM classes that were offered were AP. I did not have IB at my school, and people often always ask me, like, “Oh my God, how do I know what classes to take?”

Dr. Katie: The most important thing that you should all know is to take the classes that are offered at your School, meaning that you are assessed against your classmates and assessed based on what is offered at your high school. And so if there are no APs at your high school, [00:08:00] that’s okay. Honestly, a lot of the top, like, boarding schools, like these like Ivy feeder schools, they don’t have APs either.

Dr. Katie: It’s really just a matter of, like, what your high school has to offer. My high school didn’t have IBs. I don’t lose a single ounce of sleep over the fact that I didn’t take an IB class, right? Like, we- I didn’t have it offered, so how could I have taken it? That being said, I think a couple of things that they really wanna see you take are going to be AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics.

Dr. Katie: It also helps to have the maths. Um, I would say if you’re interested in STEM at all, which I would imagine a lot of you guys are since you’re at this talk, I would say that definitely you wanna have calculus under your belt. That’ll be, um, d- something that they, a lot of times, like, these top schools want to see.

Dr. Katie: Um, and then also having, like, these rigorous STEM classes. These are some of the tougher APs, I would say. And also I would, I would, I would say that as a pre-med student, some of the harder classes are, you know, what they colloquially call weeder classes, meaning that the classes that, um, are meant … Th- they’re

Dr. Katie: It’s colloquially called this because they’re meant to weed out the people who can survive an intro chemistry class versus the people who don’t [00:09:00] do quite as well, and then that GPA ultimately makes it really difficult for them. Um, I would say that, like, chemistry is, like, the biggest, baddest of, of, of those villains.

Dr. Katie: Um, and that’s why it’s important, I think, to have good exposure to chemistry when you’re in high school. Um, there were other classes that people classically also think as, as very medicine-focused, like anatomy and physiology was offered at my school, and I, I didn’t take it. And so I also get the question a lot which is like, “Do I need to take this class?

Dr. Katie: Do I need to take that class? Like, do I need to take every single, like, medicine-adjacent class ever in high school?” And the answer is, like, no. I think the an- the, the, the real answer is that you should take the class that you’re interested in, and you should also take the most challenging classes offered to you.

Dr. Katie: So for example, I opted for AP Computer Science over anatomy and physiology Honestly, kind of because it was an AP course. I don’t really have an interest in computer science. Um, and, but, you know, it was really nice to have that exposure in high school. It was something that I ha- like, I learned a little bit of, and I knew I would probably never do again.

Dr. Katie: And so it was also a process of elimination for me, of like, what do I like and what do I not like? Um, [00:10:00] and so the, you know, college admissions officers are typically assigned to the location of your high school, like, in terms of like, they’re assigned to an area that your high school’s loca- localized in.

Dr. Katie: And so you might be surprised to find out that they actually are probably familiar with your high school. Um, if your high school sends X number of students to top schools or if they send a large amount instead of small amount, like, they typically have a feeling and an idea of your school. And so they also will know, um, your school counselor has to provide them how, like what other students are doing, h- what grades they’re getting, um, how the GPAs are looking, and what kind of classes are being offered.

Dr. Katie: And so they’re, that’s all the information that college admissions actually have even before they looked at your application. Um, and so that’s why it’s important to, I think, like think of it in that perspective as well. Like, how are you shaping up against your classmates at the same high school as you?

Dr. Katie: Um, and that’s kind of how you balance the rigor of classwork. Um, when it comes to extracurriculars, I totally remember how tough it was being in high school. I feel like the balance [00:11:00] of having to do all of this stuff on top of having a bunch of classwork is very akin to, honestly akin to being a pre-med, and then being akin to being a medical student.

Dr. Katie: The grind does not stop, unfortunately, because no matter how much higher you get, you will always be trying to do extracurriculars on top of being, of doing advanced coursework. And so in some ways, I think of it as like, this is your training wheels. Like, this is like the start of how you figure out how to study effectively, and also how to juggle all the activities you’re doing and how to balance time.

Dr. Katie: Um, and so for me, one of the things that I always did, and this is through college, and well, med school, I had this as a choice, but through college for sure, was I always balanced the classes that I knew were harder for me with classes that I knew would be easier for me. So for example, my AP STEM courses were always tougher for me.

Dr. Katie: Like, I was always someone who had a hard time in AP Physics. On the other hand, like AP English, AP History were always breezes for me. They were, they were classes that like I knew that I would get an A in, or AP Psychology is another [00:12:00] one that was like an easier class I knew I’d get an A in. I didn’t need to study too hard.

Dr. Katie: And so I always made sure that I was always taking Whether it’s like two STEM classes and the rest were humanities classes, for example. And for college, I did the same thing. I would take two of my pre-med classes, and then the rest I would take would be humanities classes or things that I was interested in.

Dr. Katie: Um, or balance of like maybe I had like some writing classes along with some reading classes, along with some, like a class that was more for fun, like an art class. Um, it’s all about figuring out how you can balance it such that you can keep the best grades possible and also make sure that your stress levels aren’t continuing to rise and that you burn out.

Dr. Katie: That’s a huge part of, I think, learning where your limits are and how to, how to keep that balance while at the same time taking like classes that on paper look pretty advanced still, right? Um, I would also, yeah, like I would think about, you know, volunteering once we get the hotline, and then I often stayed at school pretty late for an extracurricular that I did called Science Olympiad, um, of which I ultimately became captain, and we were pretty successful [00:13:00] as far as like at competitions in like the district-wide area.

Dr. Katie: And so I think that was something that certainly helped me get into, uh, college. Um, a number of the colleges that I ultimately got into, I’m trying to think of which ones I wanna say it was Yale. Maybe it was Yale, maybe it was Princeton, um, actually mentioned, like, my extracurricular in Science Olympiad.

Dr. Katie: I remember being surprised at the time. I was like, “Huh.” Like, Science Olympiad seems like a pretty classic activity. I feel like a lot of people do it. I never made it to the national level, so it didn’t really seem like anything that stuck out until I graduated from high school, and I actually read my letters of recommendation, and I realized that my teachers really highlighted all the work I put into Science Olympiad, especially as they were, like, the faculty advisors for that club.

Dr. Katie: And so that’s another thing that I want you all to think about is the kind of the lesser-talked-about things. Um, things that are, like, kind of, like, the qualitative pieces, like the letters of re- uh, the letters of recommendation, your essays. These things actually all end up coming together to make for a really successful [00:14:00] applicant as well.

Dr. Katie: Because at the end of the day, the person who’s reading your application is a human, and you want that human to fight for you to get into sch- into, like, I don’t know, let’s say, like, I’m gonna use Brown ’cause I went to Brown. You want the admissions officer to fight for you to get into Brown, and so the best way to do that is to be memorable, but also to come off as a human.

Dr. Katie: And no matter what, like, if a teacher writes a four-page letter of rec- letter of recommendation for you, for example, something crazy like that, right? Like, an admissions officer’s gonna remember that because someone else vouched for you that hard. Or you write this really spectacular essay about … For me, I wrote this essay about how I felt like I failed as a captain of Science Olympiad, and that was something that I don’t actually know if that stuck out to anyone, but, you know, it was a qualitative piece that I’m sure was in some way memorable to admissions officers, which is why they commented on it when I, after I got in.

Dr. Katie: Um, terms of standardized testing, my biggest thing ever that I’ll always say, like, hands down, beginning and end, is to take it and choose between the SAT or the ACT. I know a while back there [00:15:00] was some test optional, like, rumblings. I think we’ve actually gone the other way on that, and I think people are definitely moving back towards taking the test.

Dr. Katie: And so for m- for almost … Actually, for everyone out there, I would encourage you to take the test and study for the test, and don’t rely on a test-optional policy. I think schools more and more are liking to see a good standardized test score again. Um, I would say take, take a practice of both the SAT and the ACT, and literally just pick the one you’re best at.

Dr. Katie: There is no preference from schools about which one you take. Whichever one you feel like is more in your strengths, or maybe you just, like, kind of, I don’t know, like, you vibe with the questions a little bit more, take that one, okay? Um- I, I mentioned SAT twos here. That’s no longer a thing, so ignore that part.

Dr. Katie: But in terms of SAT and ACT, I would say, like, you know, aim for the best test pos- best score possible. You can absolutely super score it. Um, I think most people say, like, taking it about three times is kind of like that golden number. Um, you don’t wanna take it too many more than that, and you don’t wanna take it

Dr. Katie: I mean, if you [00:16:00] can get it less than that, absolutely go for it, and you can get like a, you know, perfect score on your first try, like fine, go for it. But like around three times the golden number, I would say. And then I would also say that don’t try to keep taking it to get like a, get the perfect score because once you reach a certain, I think num- uh, like around a certain like high, like high enough number, it’s really much like diminishing returns.

Dr. Katie: Um, because everyone is aware, admissions officers are aware that sometimes you just have a bad day or maybe like there was an essay that you just didn’t really quite like understand, or the questions were a little bit weird, or the passage was a little bit odd. Um, and so it’s not as though a perfect score, like a 1600 over a 1580, that doesn’t make any weight of difference.

Dr. Katie: I definitely think of SATs and GPAs as a gateway. So thinking of it as like once you reach like a, a high enough number, at that point, it really is up to everything else in order to make the difference between you getting in versus not. Um, I wish there was like a, a number I could tell you all to [00:17:00] reach, like there’s like a golden number, like, “This is the threshold.”

Dr. Katie: But it’s really just like once you’re like … It’s like you’ve reached a, a decent enough number where I’m like, okay, like the, at the rest of this it’s, it’s kind of like up to your application. And then at that point, it really is up to the rest of your application to either make the case for you or make the cas- case against you.

Dr. Katie: Um, hopefully that makes sense. And then AP tests, I would say, um, definitely matter, particularly in STEM if you’re interested in pre-med. ‘Cause I’m, I’m sure you all know that at the end of the day, grades can be … Right? Like, they can be kinda subjective. Like, maybe you have an easy math teacher, maybe someone else has a really hard math teacher, and they get a B, and you have a really easy one, so you get an A.

Dr. Katie: It can be kinda subjective based on the teacher. AP tests, though, standardized, are kind of the end all be all. You do want to be aiming, um, for ideally primarily fours and fives in the STEM, in the STEM APs, especially if you’re thinking pre-med. I think it can be very helpful to have like such a s- like that strong backing because it means, it signals the admissions officers that you are competitive and also that you will survive a rigorous college coursework [00:18:00] Okay.

Dr. Katie: Extracurricular activities for me. Um, so I kinda touched on all of these a little bit already, so I won’t go into too much detail. But for Science Olympiad, I was the captain of the team. Um, I won a couple of events, and typically I did more of the biology-oriented events. Um, research-related extracurriculars over the summer, I always, always get questions on that, and I would say that, ugh, I…

Dr. Katie: This is where I’ll kind of get into my expli- like, what financially makes sense. And I think more and more, I went to high school years ago at this point, and more and more there I’ve been seeing a lot of these, like, for-profit and honestly programs that are popping up where I’m like, “I don’t think this is a good program.”

Dr. Katie: And I’m looking at specific- I’m thinking specifically of those, like, weekend leadership camps, or, like, yeah, like, week-long, like, leadership, uh, orientations where I’m like, I don’t really understand, one, what are you learning, and two, uh, what are you really getting out of, like, a weekend, uh, excursion, like a two-day thing, right?

Dr. Katie: I’m like, “Well, I [00:19:00] don’t… What are you getting out of this?” Um, I think extracurriculars over the summer are useful for a number of reasons. One, um, they can be useful if you are using them to help experience what college life might be like. Not just like college life in the sense of like, “Oh, I’m living in a dorm, I have freedom.”

Dr. Katie: Obviously, that’s great too. But also, like, what is a college course like? What are– what does a homework look like? What does it look like to be part of a seminar class where you’re discussing with your students and you’re engaging with, you know, very different coursework than you might be used to? For example, like maybe you really like psychology, and so you end up taking a anal- animal modeling, like animal brain modeling and behavior class.

Dr. Katie: And you might find that this class is very different from AP Psychology, right? You’re probably gonna be reading, like, research papers. You’re gonna be thinking about experiments that are done that help people understand how the brain works, which is not something you might be doing in AP Psychology, where you’re reading from a textbook.

Dr. Katie: Um, so I think that’s where those experiences can be valuable. When it comes to research, I get this a lot, especially with my pre-med students, um, but I’ll start with the saying that you will have years ahead of you to do [00:20:00] research, right? I’m a doctor now, and I, sadly, still have pressure on me to do research.

Dr. Katie: Um, so this is me years later saying that I am still doing research, and I’m still out here doing my best, just trying to get things done. Um, so- When I talk about research, what I mean is peer-reviewed publications in the sciences. So typically, this is separated out into, like, people will say, they’ll call it like bench work, meaning like things where you are going into a lab and you’re, like, doing little pipetting and you’re looking at, like, DNA or you’re looking at cells.

Dr. Katie: Um, and then there’s kind of more like clinical work where you’re looking at maybe, like, patient information. You’re using statistics to answer a question that you have about like, um, how much does, like, a week of oxycodone actually impact people’s pain post this surgical procedure, for example. Um, now, when it comes to looking at these programs, and I, I know some of, some of, there must be some parents out there who are also listening to this, what is worth your money?

Dr. Katie: I would be looking for something that’s multiple weeks long, so I’m thinking like [00:21:00] four weeks long to six weeks long ideally, even longer is great. It’s associated with, like, an accredited institution, whether it be like a university or maybe the program itself is, like, well-known. I know as someone from California, um, I could think of like the co- like the Cosmos program, I think is what it was called, through the UCs, for example, was like a well-known accredited program.

Dr. Katie: They run it year after year, and it’s typically, like, four weeks long, right? That’s like a, that’s like a good program where you’re actually immersed and you’re kind of learning information that can be, can be kind of interesting, and maybe can help you understand whether or not you want to do a field or not.

Dr. Katie: Um, you might also be looking at something where you are going to be assigned to a lab. So, like, um, for the biomedical engineering research I did, I was assigned to one person’s lab in particular. A per- a, a, I had a principal investigator, meaning, like, this was a PhD or an MD who was, like, heading the entire lab, and I was doing research under them.

Dr. Katie: Um, and then at the end of the summer, you, like, present a poster. So you learn how to put together a scientific poster, and you learn to present it. And that’s something that [00:22:00] you can mention in your, um, college applications come when it’s time. And so those are some of the things that I’m looking for where I’m thinking like, “Okay, if I’m going to pay money to go to a program, what are the kind of the markers of what I’m looking for that are actually gonna be useful?”

Dr. Katie: Um, I have seen a lot more of these programs, again, like these, like kind of like vague leadership programs or these programs where they’re bringing in people to talk to you. I’m not saying that lectures aren’t useful, but I am saying that, like, ideally, if you’re looking for research specifically, you wanna have some component of being assigned a lab Excuse me, and I’m working on something.

Dr. Katie: The last bit I had was clinical experience. I put a question mark after it because as I mentioned before, I would d- I, I would describe my clinical experience as relatively, like, normal. Like, I worked at a… I volunteered at a hospital and I, I didn’t even have that much patient-facing care, if I’m being totally honest.

Dr. Katie: I worked in the discharge lounge, so I was, like, helping people with discharges. Um, and I wasn’t, like, at bedside or anything like that. That [00:23:00] being said, if any of you are looking for clinical experiences, I, I would look outside the box. Like, think, like, nursing home. For me, like, the suicide hotline kind of fit into this box a little bit.

Dr. Katie: Um, think about just, like, different ways in which you can, um, get close approximation people who, like, care for patients in a medical capacity, like nurses or anything like that. Like, ’cause even, even just being in that setting can be a, a learning experience for what it means to be in the medical field.

Dr. Katie: And of course, if you have family friends or if you know people who you feel- who, like, are in a private practice or you can shadow, um, that is always incredibly meaningful, and I would say, like, absolutely snap- like, take those opportunities because I, I do think there is nothing quite like shadowing to really understand if that’s a job that you wanna do or not.

Dr. Katie: Okay. Um, research experience. Gosh, I kind of already mentioned all this. I got ahead of myself. Um, but like I said, d- I think the biggest thing I wanna mention here that I wanna be clear and touch upon is that to do your research early for programs. A lot of the applications, it’s now August, um, [00:24:00] but a lot of the applications are typically due somewhere in the February, March timeline.

Dr. Katie: And so I highly recommend, like I was saying, winter break, sit down and just do a ton of Googling. There used to be a website, I think, on University of Rochester’s website that was like, “Biomedical Summer Research Program” that was like just a whole list of hyperlinks that are probably all outdated now.

Dr. Katie: But I would literally create folders, and this is started from, like, early on, even freshman year, because some of these programs are only open for… like, they’re only available for your junior s- the summer after your junior year because that is com- typically considered, like, your most competitive year.

Dr. Katie: And so sometimes you’re looking for programs, maybe you don’t qualify yet, maybe you don’t ha- like, maybe you don’t, you don’t get in one year. That’s okay. Reapply next year, right? And so that’s the whole point of doing your research early because a lot of these deadlines will sneak up on you, and a lot of them also have a lot of requirements.

Dr. Katie: They’ll be like, “Yeah, you need a teacher recommendation, you need a resume, you need an essay,” right? You wanna get these things done early on when you can. Okay. So when it comes to crafting [00:25:00] essays, so because I mentioned BS/MD programs here, I’m going to spend a brief moment to talk about what a BS/MD program is, and then I’ll answer any questions If they come up in the Q&A.

Dr. Katie: A BS/MD program is a conditional acceptance program. It is a program in which you get into medical school at the same time that you get into college, which means that for me, when I was in high school, uh, among the many pro- uh, schools that I applied to as a pre-med, I also applied to Brown, Brown’s PLME program or, or the Program in Liberal Medical Education.

Dr. Katie: And, um, so I applied out of high school. I wrote some extra essays, and what it meant is that I had a seat reserved for me at Brown’s medical school, assuming that I met certain requirements. So it’s a conditional acceptance. So for different BS/MD programs, every single one is different. So some programs may have a GPA minimum.

Dr. Katie: Maybe it’ll be like you have to have a 3.5 GPA, or some programs will have an MCAT requirement. It’ll be like, you have to take the MCAT, and you [00:26:00] have to get an X number score on it. Um, the MCAT, by the way, is like the SAT but for medical school. Um, for Brown, um, our only requirement is that we had to take a certain number of biology, chemistry and, and physics and math courses and, um, that in our biology courses we had to get a B or better.

Dr. Katie: So it was actually very, very lax in terms of the requirements. Um, but because of that, I knew in college that I had a s- had a spot waiting for me in medical school, and that I would matriculate and become a doctor, which was a really, really nice thing to have, I will not lie. Um, it means that I did not apply to medical school, um, tr- like the traditional way.

Dr. Katie: Like, I did not then reapply. I did not apply out to other medical schools. Um, and that I was able to just, like, go straight into Brown med-med-medical school. Um, so in, in some ways, like, it, it’s limiting in the fact that I couldn’t go to any other medical schools, obviously, because then I would lose my spot, but it was also freeing in the sense that I didn’t have to go through…

Dr. Katie: A lot of what you’re [00:27:00] going through now, you have to go through again when you’re in college to get into medical school. And so, um, I got to skip all, like, kind of all, a lot of the stress of that and also a lot of the fees and the application fees, the interview, and all of the, all of, like, that whole, um, all that jazz when it came to applying to medical school.

Dr. Katie: So that’s a BS/MD program. I hope that kind of answers the question. Um, my BS/MD program was an eight-year program. There are some programs that are seven years, meaning that you do three years of college and then four years of medical school. Um, and for those of you out there who maybe are like myself and your parents are not from the country, in other countries it’s done d- very differently.

Dr. Katie: And I wanna be clear that, um, for applicants that a pre-med is something that you declare when you’re in college. It doesn’t actually have any meaning of its own, meaning that Ame- in America, being pre-med just means that in your heart you wanna go to medical school, and you’re also taking the req- the class requirements that you have for medical school.

Dr. Katie: So let’s say medical school always wants you to have, like- X amount of biology [00:28:00] classes, physics classes, chemistry classes, some English classes here and there, some psychology classes, right? That’s a medical school. Like, all medical schools in general require something like that. But when you’re in college, you can major in whatever you want.

Dr. Katie: Case in point, myself, I actually majored in anthropology. Uh, or basically I majored in science, technology, and society. But I majored in essentially anthropology and made it to med school. I have classmates who majored in English and, like, history and, and all sorts of things, and you can very successfully…

Dr. Katie: It is not even, like, it’s not even considered, um, a weaker application. It’s actually considered a more interesting application in some ways because people will be like, “Ooh, like, what did you learn about history?” And it makes you an interesting addition, um, oftentimes to, uh, like, the, like, to students if you have a different background like that.

Dr. Katie: And so long story short to be like, in a lot of other countries, you have to declare pre-med, and then you do like college and medical school, and it’s all lumped together as one, like, six to eight-year program. In America, it’s clearly separated [00:29:00] out. It’s y- you have to do undergraduate first, and then you do medical school.

Dr. Katie: The reason why I talk about this, like, the reason why I say this at all, right, for those of you out there who are, like, rolling your eyes like, “Okay, whatever. Like, I wanna do biology. I know I wanna do biology,” the reason why I talk about this at all is because strategically, that might actually not always be in your best interest, especially when it comes to applying for college.

Dr. Katie: Um, so when you apply for college, you have to write down, like, what you’re interested in majoring in. I probably have a slide on this earlier. I’m, I’m almost certainly getting ahead of myself, but it’s fine. Um, it’s fine. Um, when you apply, you have to write down what major you’re interested in. Typically, you actually get multiple options.

Dr. Katie: And so I always say, at this time, most colleges, you don’t declare your major until the end of your sophomore year, which means that what you write on your application should be what puts you in the best light. Like, what can you most interestingly write a good essay about wanting to major in? And so oftentimes when I work with students one-on-one through CollegeAdvisor, what I’ll say is something like, “Okay.

Dr. Katie: So, um, hmm, like, [00:30:00] interesting. You have this background in, like, you’re interested in environmental science, but you’re also interested in, like, let’s say I’m dr- like, you’re also interested in, like-” Policy a little bit. What if we, like, put those two d- two different things as your, like, your one and two, like environmental science and policy, and then in your essay, we could talk about where those two things meet, like, kind of like the crossing point or the nexus of those two majors, and that can make for an interesting essay.

Dr. Katie: Or someone else will come to me like, “Oh, I’m interested in neuroscience, but I’m also, like, a big theater nerd,” like, “I’ve done a lot of theater in high school.” So then I might talk about, for example, at Brown, we had this class that was, um, in the theater department, and it was about using theater to help, I think it was, like, help people with dementia or with Alzheimer’s, um, act out day-to-day tasks so they could kind of continue to remember how to complete their day-to-day tasks, like cleaning the sink or doing the dishes, right?

Dr. Katie: And that’s like, it’s an acting class, but it’s also helping those with neurodegenerative disorders and thinking about that [00:31:00] from a neuroscience perspective. So it was a really, really cool, like, mul- like, interdisciplinary class, if that makes sense. And that’s where, right, you can write such an interesting essay about that and really indicate your interest in something interesting like that because of your personal interest.

Dr. Katie: Does that– I’m hopeful that that makes sense, what I’m communicating here of, like, why that can make for a stronger application than someone saying like, “Oh, I want to do biology or maybe human biology or maybe molecular biology,” right? And then some people actually can write a really, really good essay about their interest in biology, but a lot of people, including myself, could not.

Dr. Katie: And I, like, I couldn’t really say anything, like, unique or interesting about why I, why, why I wanted to do biology, and so that’s why, um, strategically it can help to do something else. Does that… Hopefully, that makes sense. That’s why I’m talking about all of this, like, what does being a pre-med even mean?

Dr. Katie: Because the point is, you want to apply and get into the school of your dreams, and then after that, you can be pre-med all you want. Like, right? Then you, then you apply to medical school. You are not applying to medical school now. You’re applying to college. And so the other big [00:32:00] mistake that I often see with my pre-med applicants, and this happens, like, ninety-nine point five percent of the time, um, a student will come to me with a beautifully well-written first draft of an essay for their personal statement, and I look through it and I’m like, “Okay, there are some ideas I really like in here, but I’ll be honest, I think that, assuming we have enough time, I think that it’s in your best interest if we actually go way back to the brainstorming phase and just do it all again.

Dr. Katie: Let’s do all the brainstorming again. Let’s reiterate this entire essay.” Because oftentimes what I’ll see is that students will talk in their essay about how much they wanna go into medicine, and you actually end up writing a lot of essays for college, for those of you who might not be aware. You’re writing, like- For Brown PLME, I think I had to write, like, eight essays for Brown PL- PLME alone.

Dr. Katie: And, um, I’ll often see pre-med students, like, every single essay is about their interest in medicine. And I’m like, “Great. That’s a very one-note application. I’m not really gonna remember you.” And again, point again is that you are applying for college. I want, as admissions officer, or if I was admissions officer, I wanna envision who you’re gonna be in college.

Dr. Katie: How [00:33:00] are you gonna act at the college campus? I’m not trying to envision you as a future doctor at this point, right? Um, that’s not what’s important to me. And so those are kind of the elements that I often see are big mistakes. Okay. So I’ve talked about big mistakes, let me now talk about good things. Um, so two big things that I’ll always say.

Dr. Katie: The first one is I also think of, I think of essays as like a risk portfolio, like a stock portfolio. For any of you guys who are, like, I don’t know, interested in finance out there, I’m not, so I’m gonna sound very stupid saying this. But basically, like, uh, you’re balancing your risk. Like, maybe some of the things you have are like a riskier stock, and some of the things you have in, like, a safer government bond.

Dr. Katie: I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Um, same thing with your essays. Because you’re writing, let’s say, eight essays, of varying lengths, by the way, you might take some calculated risk on some essays and play it safe for other essays. So I’ll give myself as an example, and I almost certainly talked about…

Dr. Katie: Nope, I didn’t. Okay. Well, I think later on I do. Um, for example, for my personal statement, the personal statement, by the way, is kind of like, I think of it as, like, the heart of your application. It’s, like, [00:34:00] the main essay that you write. I wrote mine about working at the suicide hotline. So in a lot of ways, it was a very, very safe essay because I talked about an extracurricular.

Dr. Katie: There was, like, nothing safer than talking about an extracurricular. Um, the format and the style I wrote it in was a little bit more risky, but I would, like, on a scale, on a, like, a scale of risk, I would, like, rate it pretty close to, like, a, a nice, like, target retirement fund. Like, it’s pretty safe. And then I had other essays where I played bigger risk with, like, form, for example.

Dr. Katie: So I wrote one essay in the form of an autopsy report of myself because I was really interested in forensics. That was an event that I did at Science Olympiad, and honestly, to this day, I, I like true crime. Like, I’ve, I, I enjoy true crime. I like Criminal Minds, it’s my favorite TV show. Um, and so I wrote an autopsy f- report in the form of myself, and it was, like, kind of like a, it was more, it was, like, definitely, it was like a joke, and it was very much like dissecting the way I thought, and that was, like, one riskier essay.

Dr. Katie: I had one friend who the a- the [00:35:00] question was like, “What’s, like, a major extracurricular that you w- like, that you did in your college? Like, talk about one extracurricular you did.” And she wrote about learning to bicycle, right? So most of you out there would be like, “That’s not an extracurricular.” And you’re like, uh, be like, “Yes.”

Dr. Katie: Um, but she did it in a way that it told a story about her life, so it was, like, choosing a riskier topic can also be an option. Um, I had talked about how I wrote about how I failed, I felt like I failed as a captain of Science Olympiad, right? Another kind of riskier topic, writing about failure. Um, and I had, I had an essay that was, like, talking about learning to sing for the first time, which was not, like, a major extracurricular of mine.

Dr. Katie: Like I’m not a competitive singer. I’m not really that good of a singer even. Um, so right, there are different ways that you can play with the format and the choice of your essays, such that you can vary the writing style, you can vary the writing topic, you can vary like the format of the essay to be a little riskier.

Dr. Katie: And not every essay should be risky. Like some of them should be really safe. My essay about why I wanted to go to Brown, really safe essay. Like it’s just like why I wanna go to Brown. And it was [00:36:00] like showing like I, I did my research into Brown, like here’s why I wanna go, and that was it. Um, so that’s the first big tip I have.

Dr. Katie: The second one is the element of surprise. Now, this one’s a little bit harder to describe. Um, and the reason why I say this is, again, I’ve read lots of essays at this point, like thousands of essays at this point, and, um Or yeah, I’ve read a, and a lot of them are pre-med essays, so I’m being totally honest.

Dr. Katie: Pre-med essays and personal statements primarily that I’m reading. And it comes to a point where personal statements s- kind of have certain beats to them. And the biggest ones that I always love, I’m always like, “Ooh, this is a good essay,” is if someone was in any way, shape, or form able to surprise me. Um, so maybe they kind of juked me and went a different way that I didn’t expect, or they had like a really like offbeat sense of humor, or, um, they were just like something thoughtful about their essay, or they [00:37:00] wrote it in a different format.

Dr. Katie: Or, you know, so there’s something that kind of goes with risk again, where they just kind of like went in a dir- like it doesn’t even have to be risky. Like they went in a direction that I didn’t expect. Um, and the way… the reason why I say that is because I, I read a lot of essays that are kind of in the beat of like, “I dissected a strawberry in biology class,” or, “I found that I really love biology and I really love physics, and that’s why I want to do biomedical engineering.”

Dr. Katie: Or, um, “Growing up, I always really enjoyed playing with LEGOs, and that’s why I want to do engineering.” There are certain beats that I’ve come to learn to expect and know when it comes to college essays, and this is why, for any of you out there who are writing essays right now, um, AI is a friend to help you brainstorm, but also shouldn’t be relied on.

Dr. Katie: Because the whole point of AI, right, is it’s a, it’s a language model. Like it goes off of what’s most commonly like said, and then it’s really hard to come up with something like unique because that’s, that’s kind of like the, an antithesis to how AI works. Anyways, um, the point is like there is some element of like you’re learning, k- you’re kinda figuring out how to [00:38:00] surprise the admissions officer, and they read lots of applications, and they spend about 15 minutes on every application going from beginning to end, right?

Dr. Katie: And so the biggest thing you can do is if you can be memorable and stick out, that’s what makes a really great essay. Okay, I’m gonna start moving a little faster ’cause I’m, I’m going over time a little bit. So in terms of securing strong letters of recommendation, um, my main tips are you need to have one humanities teacher and you need to have one STEM teacher.

Dr. Katie: It should be someone who knows you well and knows how you think, not just someone who you did well in class on. So someone who like kind of knows your personality is the ideal person who can comment on who you are. Um, in terms of selecting schools, right, there’s obviously y- you should always have, always, always, you should have reach schools, safety schools, and target schools.

Dr. Katie: Um, I would say one thing to look for when you’re thinking about a pre-med program, you wanna be looking at does this, does this school have… Is it close to a med school or a hospital? Maybe it’s a liberal arts school, so it’s a little bit smaller, so you actually get more like [00:39:00] individualized attention, which might actually make for a stronger application, for example.

Dr. Katie: Liberal arts schools are really popular, uh, for… Honestly, med school, medical schools actually really like liberal arts schools, um, I’ve, I’ve noticed. Um, you’ll also You’ll also think about, like, how, how big is the city? How big is the size of the school? The difference between, like, a UCLA-size school versus Brown versus, like, um, Caltech, this tiny school that I, that I, I, you know, visited, um, is pretty large, and it’ll actually make for a very different experience in terms of student learning experience, and also, like, how many clubs are being offered.

Dr. Katie: So you wanna balance kind of some of those things. Um, and then also, like, you know, ac- ac- accessibility to, like, food that you like. That’s not … Like, that’s something that I definitely wish I hadn’t discounted as much. Um, and then also you wanna hear from students how tough are the … is, is pre-med there?

Dr. Katie: ‘Cause typically, like, some schools are known for being tough pre-med schools, is what I will say. Um, where they’ll, they’ll famously [00:40:00] have, like, really harsh grade curving. Ideally, you want a school that you will … It’ll … It might be hard to get in, but once you get there, you should have an easier time getting grades.

Dr. Katie: That would be the ideal school because at the end of the day, your GPA does matter a lot for when you’re applying to medical school. Um, and so that’s something that you wanna be thoughtful of Okay. Common mistakes I’ve already talked about, so I’m not going to go over them again. I already talked about think ca- careful what major you’re applying to.

Dr. Katie: And yeah, make sure you take the STEM classes. Like I was saying, like, if you’re gonna be in STEM, make sure that you’re taking, um, your calculus courses, your chemistry, your biology, ’cause I think those are the things that oftentimes they’ll be looking for if you’re interested in medicine. Okay, finally I’ve reached Q&A.

Lonnie: No, this is, this is great. Thank you so much, Dr. Katie, for sharing all this really amazing insight with our audience. I’m gonna go ahead and jump right into the Q&A. [00:41:00] Thank you to all who have already started submitting your questions. Um, we hear this… You know, there’s just, there’s a, there’s a s- there’s a stereotype that’s out there about going into debt when you are thinking about going into pre-med or medical programs.

Lonnie: And so someone asked the question of is it worth going into debt as you think about getting- Mm … into a good college program for pre-med and even medical school?

Dr. Katie: Oof, that’s a really good question. Here’s what- how I’m gonna put it. So medical school, all four years, which you don’t, you don’t really get to graduate medical school any faster.

Dr. Katie: Like, you don’t want your doctor spee- uh, like, speeding through it. Um, so, so it’s usually like, it’s pretty much four years, like, by and all, and it’s gonna be about $200,000 approximately. And you… There are very few scholarships for medical school, and in fact very few, like, good loans, because the idea is when you’re going to medical school to become a doctor, they’re like, “Okay, well, you’re gonna make money at [00:42:00] the end of this,” so then no one’s, like, really willing to just give you money unfortunately.

Dr. Katie: So the reason why I say that is because, let’s say you know you wanna be a doctor. I want you to think of it as, okay, um, there’s gonna be four years at the end of this journey that are going to be very, very expensive and almost certainly are going to be, like, loans. Like, they’re going to be, it’s going to be debt.

Dr. Katie: Um, and so when you’re thinking about college, I want you to have that in mind because, you know, you can get into a really, really great college, um, and they have, like, a pretty decent pre-med… And you can become a doctor out of any of these colleges, and they’re offering you, like, a full ride or they’re ha- offering you, like- Have financial aid or, you know, something, something that’s like a pretty good package.

Dr. Katie: I would seriously take that into account with, with that, like, future debt in mind, because, you know, at the end of the day, you’re choosing between, like, $200,000 plus of debt, like, at some point. And so, like, you’re like, “Okay, like, how much more debt upon- like, on top of that can you really take?” And so that’s something that I want everyone to really be [00:43:00] cognizant of, of.

Dr. Katie: And, um, I think that’s also why it’s important to apply to, like, not just obviously it’s important to apply to scholarships, but apply to schools, like, apply to good target schools that have a good pre-med program. ‘Cause you might find that you might get a pretty decent scholarship at these programs where it’s like, oh, like, maybe this school isn’t an Ivy League school, but they have a really, really strong, like, they have really strong pre-meds.

Dr. Katie: Their students always go to really good medical schools. Take that into account. Also take state schools into account, right? Like, I would say, um, barring, like, I, you know, obviously I went to, I ended up going to the Brown PLME program, but, like, UCLA would’ve been a lot cheaper for me as a state school to go to.

Dr. Katie: Um, and that’s something that I, like, I would have done, um, outside of, like, PLME because it’s als- it’s a lot cheaper, and going to, like, a state school saves you a lot of money, and if it’s a good state school, it can also often feed into a really, really good medical school.

Lonnie: That is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing [00:44:00] that information.

Lonnie: Um, I wanna move to our next question, uh, which we hear pretty often as well, is, are there any specific majors that I have to complete in order to get into medical school? So any- Hmm … recommendations on, on majors.

Dr. Katie: Gotcha. That’s a good question. The answer is no. So to be very p- to be particularly, to be extremely clear, you can major in anything you want in college.

Dr. Katie: You, but you just have to take the classes that are required to go to medical school. So you need to take… I’m gonna make this off the top of my head, but let’s say you need to take, um, two biology classes, you need to take biochemistry, physics, and, like, statistics and calculus, and there’s a couple more, right?

Dr. Katie: Like, you have to take these classes. But on, like, what a major is, like, a major is essentially just a, a list of classes that you take, and then you graduate with that major at the end. So let’s say I majored in history, and, and meant that I needed to take, let’s say, 10 history classes in [00:45:00] college. Outside of the 10 classes, you can take whatever you want, right?

Dr. Katie: And so let’s say you take those 10 history classes, and then you also take the pre-med requirements, like the biology, the chemistry, the ba, da, da, da, da. Then you’ve essentially a- accomplished, you’ve, you’re now a history major, you’ve graduated with a history major, and also you have all the prerequisites needed to apply to medical school.

Dr. Katie: Um, hopefully that makes sense.

Lonnie: Yes. Thank you so much. So I’m gonna give Dr. Katie just a short break, um, because I would love to share, you know, as we think about our, our students who have worked with us, I wanna share two really great success stories. And so the first, uh, story that I want to share is from DJ, who grew up wanting to be a physician.

Lonnie: Um, he was active in relevant extracurriculars and sought out challenging coursework. As a scientist, writing narratively was challenging, so the college essay style didn’t come naturally to him He signed up [00:46:00] to work with CollegeAdvisor and was accepted to, accepted by five colleges, including John Hopkins, where he received an institutional scholarship of around $61,000.

Lonnie: Very, very impressive. Um, I wanna share about another student that has worked with us, and her name is Bailee. And Bailee was unsure, uh, what she wanted to major in, or actually, she actually knew she wanted to major in biomedical engineering, but was unsure on how to highlight her many extracurricular and academic achievements in a way that would catch the attention of admission officers.

Lonnie: She felt a lot of uncertainty when it came to the application process, and came to CollegeAdvisor looking for guidance and help creating a strong academic or strong applicant profile. Her advisor helped her build a [00:47:00] strong application, and she stayed on track to meet all of her deadlines. As a result, she was accepted into five different colleges, and ultimately selected Duke, where she received a full-ride scholarship to attend.

Lonnie: All right, so these are just two examples of out of 10,000 clients CollegeAdvisor has guided through the application process. Our team of over 300 former admission officers and admission experts is ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one-on-one advising sessions and essay editing.

Lonnie: In our most recent admission cycle, 62% of CollegeAdvisor stu- CollegeAdvisor students who applied to a BS/MD program were admitted to at [00:48:00] least one, and overall they had a 27% acceptance rate to BS/MD programs, and this is from the previous class, class of 2026. So very, very exciting data to share with you all.

Lonnie: 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 admission specialist on our team. During this meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out.

Lonnie: 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 much, much more. We’re here for the whole process. So we’re now gonna go back to our Q&A. I’m gonna, um, the QR code will [00:49:00] still remain on the screen for those who haven’t had a chance to scan it yet.

Lonnie: Dr. Katie, are you ready for our questions?

Dr. Katie: I am.

Lonnie: Okay. So the next question we have is, which is better to take, IBs or APs? I even, you know, saw someone ask, are dual enrollment classes better to take? Any thoughts?

Dr. Katie: So between IB and AP, it really is whatever your school offers. Now, I saw someone else who was, like asking about, how do I decide which IB I want to take?

Dr. Katie: Um, and I will say I did not take IB- IBs myself when I was in high school. Like I said, I didn’t have them as an option, but my understanding is that IBs are quite a bit more intense. Like, they’re two, like they’re two year-long processes. And so I think it is one of those things where it would probably be helpful for you, I hate to say it, who- I, wherever I saw this question, [00:50:00] for the IB chemistry, even though, you know, like after my own heart, like I much prefer psychology.

Dr. Katie: Um, and I think an IB chemistry course will, like, really enrich you all the more. Um, but between AP chemistry and IB chemistry, I think both are very solid options, whatever your school has to offer. And then with dual enrollment, I think the question becomes also complicated in the sense of like, does your…

Dr. Katie: What does your school offer? Is the dual enrollment meant to go beyond what your school offers? And then it might also be a conversation with your college counselor in terms of does, how does the dual enrollment look on my transcript, and what kind of GPA boost might it offer or not offer when it comes to your transcript?

Dr. Katie: I know for, at my high school, um, the dual enrollment did not offer a GPA boost, and so that ultimately helped me pick, like, okay, I’ll just take the AP chemistry in school then, and then also I get to be with my friends and take the class with my friends. And that, you know, that’s something to account for as well.

Dr. Katie: Um, so that was kind of like a little [00:51:00] bit of the logic that I, I went through.

Lonnie: All right. Thank you for that response. This next question is, um, it’s around handling the stress of junior year. Um, specifically wanted to know how do you handle, uh, junior year stress as, you know, for this student, they are a rising junior, they play sports year-round, extremely rigorous class schedule, and was just wondering, like how are you able to handle all that you did when you were a junior?

Lonnie: So any advice you can offer?

Dr. Katie: Yeah. I, I do remember that being a tough year. It was a long time ago for me now. It’s funny, every time I talk, I- it’s like it’s longer and longer. Um, but I remember taking… I took an obscene amount of APs, I think, at that time. Um, and I remember it was like a, a, it was a lot. Um, I, I think I was taking six AP classes that year, which was, was just quite a bit.

Dr. Katie: And one of the ways, like, that I s- like I said, that I survived was that I made sure that a good number of the [00:52:00] APs were in subjects that, to be honest, were like really easy for me. Uh, in the sense that like I– they weren’t classes that I need to study hard for. Um, so like AP English was one, AP Psychology.

Dr. Katie: Some of it’s also not just like what’s easy for me, but also like you kind of know if you listen to the upperclassmen, right, like which teachers are a little bit easier or easier graders, and that also factors into it too, if I’m being totally honest. Like maybe you know that this one AP English teacher, like pretty much like everyone gets As in their class, and you, you put that onto your junior schedule because you know that it’ll make your life easier, and I think that’s completely valid.

Dr. Katie: Um, it’s all about balancing, right? And even when you become a pre-med in college, like you’re doing the same thing. Like which teacher do you know is an easier grader for neuroscience? Take that one because your GPA matters. Um, okay. But also, I would say a lot of it came… I had to like use my time very efficiently.

Dr. Katie: Um, oftentimes I would like eat very quickly on my way home from Science Olympia, which is like the nerd thing. I’m, I’m sure a lot of other people have that same experience with [00:53:00] sports, for example. Um, and it also, like I whittled down things, things that I didn’t enjoy doing as much. So for example, um, I did debate in my first two years of high school, and when it came down to ch- like it was time to choose like leadership positions and what I would like end up, you know, doing more of, and I had to make a choice.

Dr. Katie: I couldn’t, I couldn’t… I knew I couldn’t balance being a captain of debate team and also a captain of Science Olympia, and so I ultimately ended up dropping debate because of that was something that, um, brought me a lot less joy. And honestly, I was like, “Yeah, I like it, but I would rather be captain of this team.”

Dr. Katie: It felt like it was a, you know, it was a bigger deal for me. And so that’s, you know, you end up kind of wheedling down from freshman year where you’re trying out everything and then you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know what I like.” And we try all these different things to kind of like narrow it down to what you can do.

Dr. Katie: Um, things like hospital volunteering, for example, that I did in my ninth grade, I could have kept continuing to do it, but I honestly just didn’t have the time, and I found other extracurriculars that I, I felt were more meaningful, like the suicide [00:54:00] hotline. So I ended up, you know, like same thing, cut- cutting it down and really just down to what I could do.

Dr. Katie: Um, but yeah, I remember it being a very tough time. So that I will not, I will not lie about. And I also, like, I would, I like, you know, would study ahead of time for things like that I, I could pre-study ahead for, like for APs, for example. And then things that I couldn’t, you know, I just, just us- did my best.

Dr. Katie: If I, if I knew I could, like, do fine, then I was like, “Well, I’ll just try. I’ll just try my best.”

Lonnie: Yes. Yes. That, the, the junior year, it… Definite a lot of memories and a lot of balancing different responsibilities, but also keeping your grades the best that they can be. Absolutely. So earning those high grades.

Lonnie: Um, okay, next question, and this is kinda similar to the junior question, but we did have a freshman who asked, any advice you can give to a high school freshman?

Dr. Katie: Yeah. I would say Try all the extracurriculars [00:55:00] that you can. Um, like keep, keep it, keep it wide open. Figure out what you like. Like try to like continue to grab on to different things.

Dr. Katie: And, and also balance like what you do inside of school and outside of school. Don’t only do clubs inside of school and don’t only do clubs outside of school either. Like do a little bit of a balance of both, and, um, start to kind of figure out what you like and what you don’t like. But also keep an eye like to the ground of like, ooh, like what’s gonna have leadership positions open up like by the time I’m a junior, for example, right?

Dr. Katie: Like you’re, you’re keeping an eye on your future. So it’s like, okay, like if I do well in this club, like by the time I’m a junior, like I probably will be able to be captain for example. Or, um, if you’re in a sport for example, maybe you’re like, “Okay, I, I’m, I’m good enough at this that I could become captain of this sports team, or I could become like…”

Dr. Katie: You know, I don’t, I don’t, I didn’t play sports. Like I could become the quarterback or some- whatever. Like I could become the quarterback of the team. I don’t know how it works. Um, uh, or also think about like what upperclassmen are doing. And that’s like the biggest thing that people don’t often think about enough.

Dr. Katie: It’s like, okay, maybe it [00:56:00] is awkward, or if you have like siblings even who are older than you, like, they know a lot. They know which teachers are easier. They know like approximately like, you know, how schedules are organized, right? They, they can kind of give you like the lowdown of like, okay, like this teacher is like very homework heavy, that teacher is very test heavy.

Dr. Katie: Um, here are some cool extracurriculars that I did, right? Like, keep your eye on the upperclassmen and what they’re doing. And also like don’t be afraid to ask them like what they do outside of school as well. ‘Cause oftentimes, like y’all are in the same like kind of area and neighborhood, that those are the best people to get advice from because they’re literally in your location.

Dr. Katie: They’re out there doing cool things. What can you, what can they pass down to you even, like projects? So those are all things to think about.

Lonnie: Yes, that is some really great advice for our high school freshmen. Okay, moving into our next question. How do you frame activities that are unrelated to medicine, but have, but you’ve been doing it for a long time and genuinely [00:57:00] enjoy, enjoy it, um, as you think about applying as a pre-med, um, applicant?

Dr. Katie: Hmm. Now that’s a very good question because I am going to not take issue with the question, but I’m gonna say I think you’re asking the wrong question, which the question should not be how do you frame, but rather you must have, you should have activities that are not related to medicine. Again, you are not applying– even if you were applying to medical school, I would find it odd to have someone whose entire resume was only medical-related extracurriculars.

Dr. Katie: Now, granted, for medical school it will be a little bit more, like you will have more. But for college, I’m hoping and expecting to see extracurriculars that are not related to medicine. Again, you’re applying for college, so I hope to know what you are, who you are as an undergrad student. I want to know if you’re an artsy-fartsy person, if you’re like really into like literary arts.

Dr. Katie: I, I, for me, for, like for myself, I didn’t talk as much about exactly what my application looked like, but the whole crux of my application was around the fact that was that, was that I was a humanities kid, [00:58:00] basically. I talked a lot about the importance of language, the importance of writing, and, um, connected that to the fact that I thought the brain was kind of interesting.

Dr. Katie: And so I ended up writing that I was gonna major in cognitive science with a focus in linguistics, which sounds oddly specific, right? Which is the point. It’s like very specific. I did not major in that, as you already have heard. Um, but the point was like I had extracurriculars that were in, like I was the c- I was the, um, editor-in-chief of our literary magazine.

Dr. Katie: Like, I had some like writing competitions and things that I had on my extracurriculars. I had some like random smattering of things too that didn’t fit anywhere. Like, I did some political advocacy here and there, and I like talked about how I took singing lessons randomly. Um, people will put like part-time jobs because this is all about how you spend your time.

Dr. Katie: Like, I wanna get to know who you are as a person outside of school as well. Um- And so while I did spend most of the talk today talking about my more, like, science-related extracurriculars, I would say the majority of my extracurriculars were not science related. It was, like, only, like, one kind of sliver of my [00:59:00] application.

Dr. Katie: And so what it comes down to is you should have a variety of extracurriculars, and think about how you can best unite that into a story. So, um, an example of that is, um, I did some tutoring, um, in high school, and I… It ended up, it was something called Tutoring. It was, like, school on wheels, and we would tutor kids who were unhoused, and I ended up tutoring, um, kids who were living in a domestic abuse shelter.

Dr. Katie: And so these were kids who had moved from place to, like, moved a lot from place to place, and so didn’t have, like, the stability to get a good education. Now, for me, like, at the time, I was always like, “I really enjoy teaching. I really enjoy teaching.” And so that was just a part of my application that didn’t really go anywhere.

Dr. Katie: Um, but now I’m looking back and I’m say- I’m saying, “Oh, I actually work with a lot of those kids now.” Like, I had exposure to that early on, and I wanna go into medical education. And so there are ways that which you can tie in extracurriculars that are completely unrelated to medicine into what it means to be a doctor, because at the end of the day, being a doctor does mean a lot of different things.

Dr. Katie: There are some [01:00:00] doctors I know who are, like, huge political advocates. They go and testify in Congress. Um, there are doctors who, like, you know, like you see in court, and they’re, like, doctors who just testify in court on things about insanity, for example. Um, and so there’s a lot of different ways that, like, all of your different interests…

Dr. Katie: Like, maybe you’re a mock trial person, right? Maybe you’re this person. Like, these are all extracurriculars that ultimately, as long as they are of your interest, they are relevant. Um, and they should go into your application because they, like, kind of paint a fuller picture of who you are outside of just the fact that you wanna be a doctor.

Lonnie: Amazing, amazing, amazing. All good things have to come to an end, and this was such a very informative, uh, presentation, Dr. Katie, that you provided to our attendees. And so we are at the end. Um, we didn’t get the chance to get to every question, and I know someone asked, “Is this being recorded?” Yes, it is being recorded, and you will [01:01:00] receive an email that will be able to guide you to how you can access this recording.

Lonnie: In just a few more seconds, if you haven’t downloaded the handouts, they are readily available to you. But thank you, Dr. Katie, for sharing your insight, uh, with our audience, and thank you, audience, for your participation. Just one last thing I wanna mention. As you all are exiting out of the webinar, there will be another pop-up screen that will appear, and it will give you the opportunity to sign up for a free call with an admission, admissions specialist on our team.

Lonnie: So please take advantage of that, and we look forward to seeing you at an upcoming webinar. Bye bye, everyone. This now concludes our webinar.