Writing Strong College Essays for Pre-Med and BSMD Programs
Worrying about crafting the perfect college essay to stand out as a pre-med or BS/MD applicant? Join CollegeAdvisor.com for an exclusive webinar “Writing Strong College Essays for Pre-Med and BS/MD Programs.” The webinar features Katie Chiou, a current medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Katie started at Brown in their prestigious PLME program and knows a thing or two about what top-tier schools look for in an applicant. Here’s what you can look forward to in this exclusive webinar: — Understand the Anatomy of a Strong College Essay: Katie will break down the essential components of a compelling essay and how to weave your personal story with your career aspirations. — Articulate Your Passion for Medicine: Learn how to convincingly express your passion for medicine and your determination to excel in this demanding field. — Avoid Common Pitfalls: Katie will reveal common mistakes that applicants make and share tips on how to avoid them. — Q&A Session: A unique opportunity to interact with Katie and have your pressing queries answered.
Webinar Transcription
2024-07-17 – Writing Strong College Essays for Pre-Med and BS:MD Programs
Anesha: Hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator today. Today’s webinar is, “Writing Strong College Essays for Pre-Med and BSMD Programs.” Before we get started, just to orient everyone with the webinar timing, our presenter will share some tips, resources, and guidance, and then we will open up the floor to respond to your questions in a live Q& A.
On the sidebar, you can download tonight’s slides under the handouts tab, and you can start submitting your questions under the Q and A tab. Now let’s meet our presenter, Katie Chiou. Hey, Katie, how are you?
Katie: Hello, everyone. Um, hi, I’m Katie. I’m a fourth year medical student currently at Warren Upper Medical School.
I also went to Brown for undergrad as part of the PLEME program, which I’ll talk a little bit more about. Um, And so I’ve been here for eight years now, and my very last year, my eighth year, um, and I will be applying into child psychiatry.
Anesha: All right, before we let you get started, Katie, we’re going to do a quick little poll.
So for folks in the room, please let us know what grade level you are going into in the fall. If you are a parent or a teacher, we welcome you. You can go ahead and select other. As you’re waiting, I know today’s, um, topic is around essays for, for premed and BSMD. So I’m just wondering if you could, if you remember for 18 year old you, what was your like, why medicine in a sentence?
Katie: Yeah, um my why medicine gosh and and like looking back to it So it seems a little bit silly because I’m like I couldn’t possibly have known everything that goes into being a doctor at 18 But the one thing that’s great about me is that I stayed very consistent I really loved working in mental health as a high schooler and I’m going to psychiatry as I’m stated So I talked a little bit I think about physician as an educator and again, I’m a very consistent person I guess Great for me.
I’ve always loved teaching and will certainly go into like medical education. I want to work at an academic center and make sure that I am teaching residents, teaching medical students, teaching undergrads for like the rest of my career. That is like truly a lifelong goal and where I find joy. Um, so I’ve talked a lot about, yeah, the physician as an educator, um, bit in my, in my why medicine essay.
And I’ll also talk more about what that means, um,
Anesha: later. No, thanks. That’s so, that’s so amazing. You were very self aware, I think, probably early on. This is what your goals were and where your strengths were. Um, so that’s amazing. All right, we’ll go ahead and close our poll. We have a great number of folks in here today with us.
Uh, the majority of them, 49 percent are in the 12th grade, followed by 11th graders, 28%, uh, 15 percent are 10th graders. 4 percent are 9th graders, and then we have a couple of 8th graders in there, so welcome to the 8th graders getting a jump start, and welcome to the other folks, but it makes sense that the majority of folks joining us today are rising 12th graders.
I’ll stop talking, I’ll be back later for the Q& A, but I’ll hand it over to you, Katie.
Katie: Alright, there we go. So, um, today’s Presentation is about writing essays, but I want to start a little bit very quickly by defining pre med and BSMD programs I think it’s just an area of confusion that a lot of times Parents and students come to me. They’re like, what does it really mean to be pre med?
And I want to start by saying And especially because this is different from a lot of other countries. Um, being pre med in America is not a major in it of itself at the majority of schools. Um, typically students will major in something that’s like biology or human biology or public health or really anything you can, again, major in anything and become a doctor.
Um, but being pre med, merely just means that you basically have this intention, this mindset of wanting to go into medical school while you’re in college and you’re taking the prerequisites or the classes that medical schools require you to take. And so you might be able to imagine those classes include things like biology, physics, chemistry, um, but they also include like math, English classes, psychology classes, um, so that’s all that it means to be a pre-med.
And you can be, you can switch into pre med at any time, right? You can be a pre med from any major, um, you can switch into pre med after graduating from college. You do not have to decide that you want to become a doctor while you’re in college. There’s a lot of different paths into medical school and, um, That’s that’s all that pre med means sort of like this general delineation Um, and so when you’re applying to college and thinking about writing strong college essays This is a huge point that I want to make you do not and you should not make all of your essays about Going into medicine, right?
You might designate on the college application Hey, like when they ask about your future career goals, you might say hey, I want to be a physician I want to be a doctor does not mean that all of your essays about becoming a doctor right because you’re applying to college You’re not applying to medical school School and you want to communicate to the college what it is that you’re interested from getting, getting outta college right out of an undergrad degree.
And so what are the things that you’re gonna score in an undergrad? What are your passions, interests right now as a high schooler? Um, what are some ways that you have solidified your interest in medicine, but also what are some other interests that you have that you might be willing to. And granted and I always say the statistic not to scare people, but just to give like sort of honest truths, I think like 33 percent of students who enter into college as pre med actually stay pre med.
Um, and so I think that’s primarily because we have, um, In high school, we have a pretty poor job exploring all the different disciplines that are out there, including things like biology research and PhD programs and law school and all these other things that you could do with your life. And so I think a lot of people just figure out that’s not their passion.
And so colleges are aware of that. It’s kind of like a statistic in the back of my mind when I’m reading essays. And so part of me is also how is this, what is a student getting out of college? Not just like, Oh, they want to come here as a stepping stone to medical school, if that makes sense.
Sorry everyone, the presentation is lagging a little bit. So, and then I also wanted to find the second half of those words. What is a BSMD program? Historically, I get a lot of questions on this. Um, I am a graduate of a BSMD program. Um, I’m very like, But BS basically is the Bachelor of Science, right? That means that when you graduate from college, you have a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Doesn’t really matter. Basically an undergrad degree. And MD is the medical program. This is essentially a seven or eight year typically program. Um, and again in America, uh, College is four years. Medical school is four years. The medical school portion will always be four years. You cannot reduce that to any lower of a number.
And then in a seven year program, the undergrad side of it can be reduced from four years down to three sometimes. So I went to an eight year program, so it’s not accelerated by any means, but what it means is that typically you have a conditional acceptance into medical school. So what that means is you apply to college.
But once you’re in a program, in a BSMD program, you do not have to, like, you typically formally apply to medical schools again, do the whole application, like the MCAT and all that stuff. That’s all for medical school. You would not need to do all the steps that typically are required for someone who is pre med to enter into medical school.
Um, So again, I think the primary thing I want you guys to know in your minds is the Conditional Acceptance Program. The conditions can vary greatly depending on the program. And so some of those conditions involve you have to have a certain GPA in college, um, or you have to have a certain MCAT score, for example.
And other things to note, when you are applying to a BSMD program, typically these may have different deadlines for their essays. Typically it’s earlier, something like November 1st or December 1st. Um, and the other thing to note is that they might have certain required classes that you have to have taken, including things like certain math classes or certain physics classes.
Biology or chemistry classes now, and I get this question a lot. Can you explain to me what all the requirements are for different BSMD programs? I wish I could. Every BSMD program is vastly different. So I went to Brown’s program. Our program does not require an MCAT, and we do not have a GPA minimum.
That is incredibly different for a program at Northwestern, for example, or Wash U’s program, or any of the programs out there have very, very different levels of requirements and things that they want They want to see when you apply as far as college, um, or as far as high school classes that you’ve taken.
And then they also will have different requirements for their conditions on acceptance to medical school.
There we go. So why is writing a strong essay so important when you’re applying to pre med or BSMD programs? And I think the large portion of this, um, ultimately rests on the fact that if you are applying as a pre med student or to a BSMD, especially to the BSMD, you are saying, I want to be a doctor. Um, And with the BSMD, I’m committing to eight years of schooling, plus, you know, a thousand more years ahead of me of residency.
You’re essentially committing to a lot of years of education and training to become a doctor. Um, and, From from the perspective of right someone who’s in admissions. I’m thinking this is an 18 or 17 year old How could you possibly know that you want to be a doctor? Um, what are the traits that you like?
How have you thought this through as a decision for the next like 8 10 years of your life? What have you done to think this through and to kind of convince me essentially? This is actually something that you Um have thought about and actually want to commit to and so essays are one of the few ways where you could really Highlight And bring together different portions of your extracurriculars of your classes and really show your personality.
One is a huge part of it. Um, sort of a little bit about your background is a huge part of it, right? Humanize yourself. Um, admissions officers are human and they want to fight for you and advocate for you. And they only want to fight and advocate for you if they see you as a person and someone that they want to fight for.
Um, so that’s a huge part of it. It’s not just numbers on a paper. And the last bit is that you really want to convince them that you’ve Again, talk this through and really have at least some knowledge of what are some of the characteristics or what does it really mean to be a doctor? Is this something that you have gotten because you’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy and you’re like, Hey, I would love to be like the doctors in Grey’s Anatomy or is it something that you’ve really, right?
Like you, you kind of have a better sense of, that’s less dramatized and more of a realistic. What are the ups and downs of being a doctor? What does it really mean and how have I in my background and my interests, how do they align? Um, And so again, thinking about test scores and grades, everyone loves asking about those.
Those are really kind of a gateway I often demonstrate. So it’s very much like a threshold. Once you meet the threshold and beyond that threshold, right? The difference between a 15 15 1600 really just isn’t That much a couple questions, right? I’m fully aware of that admissions officers are fully aware of that And so at the end of the day what that really comes down to beyond once you pass the threshold is all of the other Qualitative stuff so the extracurriculars and the essays primarily are gonna be what stands out and so Right, admissions officers are typically assigned to your area, they know your area, they know your school, they sometimes even know your teachers at your high school, which is kind of cool, but more than that, they really want to know that you are, like, they really want to be able to envision who you are as a person, and sort of grouping together your interests, whether it be your extracurriculars, or different passions that you might have, grouping them together either like thematically or by like what communities you care about, what passions you have for different communities.
So for my example, I often give when I’m applying right now to residency is I do a lot of work in forensics and child abuse, right? So those are some great communities that I can highlight in my application that are memorable and stand out and are things that people remember about me. And so Versus me just kind of stepping back and be like, oh, yeah, I want to go into psychiatry and someone’s like, okay, why?
Like what’s the what’s the rationale there? Having those specifics is incredibly helpful and is really what essays should be used for. Okay. How should my essays be structured? Like I wrote here. This is a really tough question. because there are so, so many essays. For those of you who are seniors, um, I believe that the Common Application officially opens August 1st, um, and hopefully you get a chance to take a look at all the different things that are there.
And I’m here to let you know ahead of time so you’re not overwhelmed that there are, you’ll be writing many, many essays, um, starting with the primary, Personal statement that’s the one that most people will talk about which is typically around 650 words And it’s like the one that’s kind of like the crux or like the core like all your other essays kind of float around It could be like a mini map or a mind map It’s like this is your personal statement and the other essays kind of float around it.
Now those other essays are gonna be essays like Why do you want to come to Brown? Why do you want to major in XYZ? Um, what’s something difficult that you’ve overcome and tell us about how you overcome it and you know what you’ve learned? And then also the last one for all of you, um, medicine people out there That’s been incredibly important is why do you want to go into medicine?
That’s a huge question. Like for especially for these BSMD programs, that’s a 500 word essay That’s a very very important essay to convince someone of the fact that you are committing to this seven or eight year long program Um, and so between all these essays one thing I like to think about more Of it more in this mind map fashion rather than in like within the essay And so within the mind map fashion, I think of it as some of your essays should be a little bit more straightforward and um Traditional, I guess is the way to put it, right?
So like a why major essay, maybe you just want to straightforwardly tell someone why you want to major in neuroscience and I think that works totally, perfectly well. Um, and your personal statement, my personal statement, for example, was about an extracurricular activity that I did. And so that was kind of like a straightforward, structured essay, um, Insofar as the fact that it was about an extracurricular and so some of my other mini essays were a lot more Um risk taking if that makes sense Especially if you’re aiming for a lot of those like top tier really competitive admissions The essays are a great place and are probably one of the only places where you can stand out And so having a little bit of those risk taking essays, um, I wrote one of my essays Essays, for example, in the form of an autopsy report because the time I really liked watching like forensics and crime dramas things really continued through life I just really had just continued and so I wrote one of my essays in the form of an autopsy report.
Excuse these fruit flies And and so that’s kind of like thinking about it in a mind map and then when you zoom in on each essays I think one obvious one is that you want to have right a rising climax with a little bit of a Yeah, rising tension climax and then resolution, right? Classically. Um, and that’s a pretty typical essay and also a tried and true It’s okay It’s also Very you very much want to have some essays that are truly in that tried and true format and follow that and make sure You’re thinking about how you can add elements of surprise.
It’s my like to think like surprise or things that aren’t going to be super um I have people to say show not tell but I really hate that because I find show not tell to be really Non-descriptive not helpful as a writer, but thinking of it more as like this should not end in like I’m a compassionate person I am a loyal person.
I am calm under pressure But how does this essay with this climax have already illustrated that so by the time you get to that resolution? The sentences or the person like the traits characteristics that you want to get across have been gotten across um, and And then my other small tip just as changes is one way I like to think about college essays, and these are essays that likely you have never written anything like this in your life, and that’s okay.
Um, this is gonna be your first time learning how to do this, and it’s gonna be, take a lot of trial and error. I know like the lessons that I learned in a way that I’ve had about writing my college essays, I still use to this day. When I applied to a Fulbright, when I applied, um, because I’m applying now to residency and I’m literally like in my next tab over, you can, my personal statement is right there.
Um, I am applying the same skills that I learned eight years ago now, and, and really still going to the same direction. So I’m really going through the same pain as a lot of you out there, seniors especially. So what makes for a particularly great essay when it comes to college applications? Um, my personal Personal favorite slash like element that I love to suggest and this is for especially if you’re a stronger writer out there How do you stand out?
This is my answer a little bit of an element of surprise Um a lot of us like admissions officers advisors like me We’ve read a lot a lot of essays and me in particular as someone who works in the medicine field I read a lot a lot of pre med essays and a lot a lot of Bio-med engineering essays and and why I want to do engineering and why I want to do medicine essays Um, it’s really hard and almost i’ve never once come across an essay from one of my students Even the best of writers of my students i’ve never had a perfect essay from the get go um, and that’s just because you haven’t read hundreds of essays like I have and so um What we work on together really and what you want to focus on too is Making this essay a little more specific.
I think two things are specificity and surprise So if you can be more specific that makes it more unique, right? How can you be more specific to you? And then surprise, how can you add a little bit of a twist element? So I was I was talking about earlier my why medicine essay Um, and I was Talked about how I was talking about my interest in education But what I didn’t mention was how I started off the essay Which was I did a really a little bit of a bait and switch.
I did like a classic drop in structure So I dropped someone into a moment. Um where I was I think I was like operating on a, um, on a pig heart valve or something. And then, um, did a bait and switch, made a couple of jokes, right? If you, if you were naturally a funny person, that’s okay. If that shines through in your essay, right?
You should try to aim to have a good. like a writer’s voice, as they say. Um, and that can come through in your essays. And so I told a couple of jokes, made a little bait and switch about this, like, heart valve being a pig, actually, and something about lawsuits. Um, and then ultimately segued that into, like, an actually way more serious essay and way more, like, fair, honest, straightforward essay about why I wanted to go into medicine.
Um, but having just that little element of, like, Oh, like I like this is different from what I predicted or um, that can be a huge huge thing that I love to see in the essays that I read out of the hundreds. I always make note of it whenever I see a good bait and twitch. Um, And then the second thing is that every, every word matters.
Um, and by this, I don’t mean that when you’re writing an essay about running track, for example, I don’t want to see an essay that’s like, I woke up in the early dawn, the sunshine shined over the hills and. I got glimpses of the mist and fog in the air and the dew and the grass and like all like all of these words, what have you just communicated to me about yourself?
So far, nothing, right? And so with a very, 650 is a very limited work count. You don’t have time to spend a lot of time on all these sensorial details. Um, you’re not writing a novel, you’re writing a college essay. Um, and so what that means is if you can, and this is where I think I, as an advisor, sometimes come in with my students.
Every single sentence should be communicating something subtly about yourself. It could be something like, it could be humor, like I was talking about, but it could also be like, hey, I’m a reliable person. Hey, I am, um, like I’m good under pressure. Like these are all sentences or things that should be embedded below your sentences that should never have to be outright and said, um, just by virtue of you talking about the experiences that you’re describing.
Um, sorry that the. Next are going so slowly, but I think an example of that every word matters. I’ll kind of go into is Just kind of off the slide, but every word matters. I remember for again my personal statement I was talking about an extracurricular and I was talking about Responding I was working at this teen suicide hotline and that was my personal statement But one of the stories within the essay I was talking about Was talking to I was on the suicide hotline and this woman had called in who wasn’t supposed to call it She was not a teenager.
She was I think a 30 year or 40 something year old who had recently been diagnosed with cancer. And so in the story I was telling, I was able to communicate a couple of things, right? I was able to communicate, um, I was able to communicate right talking to someone who didn’t have anywhere like similar background life experience as me right me 17 year old 16 year old and this 35 year old who died of cancer and trying to make that connection and I was able to communicate a lot of things about myself just by talking about that story without having to come out right and say like, hey, look at me.
I have empathy. Yeah. Okay. So how can you demonstrate your interest for passion or interest in passion for medicine? Um, this is a big one. And again, I’ve read a lot of my medicine essays and I totally understand that it’s incredibly difficult to communicate this. Um, and I also understand that shadowing experience has become a little bit wonky, especially post COVID.
And it’s okay if you don’t have any clinical experience. Um, my secret that I’d love to tell my students is that I got into a BSMD program, clearly, and didn’t have a single hour of shadowing. I had never once shadowed a doctor. I did. I did volunteer to hospital, right? I did get exposure to healthcare other ways that I was able to speak about, but I never actually shattered any doctors.
And that was definitely a prominent thing that I was missing in my application, but also something that I was able to get around and still write good essays about why medicine. And so, um, one thing that I want to emphasize here is that I want you to get really specific. Medicine is an incredibly. broad like area.
And I think I want to help people, as I’m sure a lot of you already know, typically doesn’t Cut it right because you can help people through a variety of different ways Why don’t you want to become a researcher and research the next cancer drug and help people? I have a clear answer for that I really don’t enjoy research.
I also don’t have that level of and like I don’t have curiosity in that way It’s like I did so many different things about why I am NOT a PhD right now And even within medicine, right you can be a radiologist You could be like, which is completely different from what it means to be a family doc. Um, so what is it about medicine that you really enjoy and how can you really dig in deep?
So examples I love to give here, um, and I might have another slide about this. I can’t tell, but, um, Examples of this I like to think are like physicians as an advocate so for example, I was recently at a meeting with actually a really prominent doctor who um was talking about how He was um doing this new project to figure out how we could make Naloxone or narcan which is a drug rescue medication that saves lives instantly How can we make it cool for teenagers to carry and are cool for young adults to carry around?
How can we attach it to like even like their vapes or something to make it interesting for? You For for kids to have and also to save lives literally another example of advocacy might be you might go down to DC And you might advocate like in Rhode Island what we did advocating for the access or increasing the minimum age of Incarceration for teenagers, but something else that doctors are a part of isn’t that isn’t that wild?
Yeah, like or physicians as an educator. And when I think about that, I think about right my what I want to do is medical education, but also more specifically to being a doctor. Um, when I teach a patient about diabetes medications, or when I teach a patient about why maintaining your blood pressure matters, because in the moment, it doesn’t matter.
Like, why does it matter in the long term when I’m trying to tell someone why they should take the psychiatric medication. Those are all aspects of me being a teacher. And I am trying to educate someone on this like complex health issue and why it matters to them, why they should care. Um, and so those are all different, right?
Like little slivers of being a, of being a physician. That are incredibly different depending on what role you’re in. Um, a surgeon is not going to be explaining to their patient why their diabetes, they take the diabetes medications, right? So that’s a, that would be a separate role. So what is it about being a surgeon?
That’s what you want to do. What is, what is like the particular part of being a surgeon that you can write an essay about? Specifically, can you connect that back to your extracurriculars? If you’re going to be talking about education, like I did, do you have tutoring in your extracurriculars, for example, that you can relate that to?
Which is what I did. Um, and so, like, where can you make those connections and form those connections in a way that it can kind of become a cohesive story about who you are as a person and who you’re presenting yourself as? Okay. I
probably should have clicked this earlier. Okay. Um, so what did I do? And I’ve already talked a little bit about my essays along the way, um, but I want to emphasize just for, again, all those seniors out there, just for reference, Brown Queenie alone had five total essays. In a brief rundown of our essays, we had a personal statement, but we also had a why Brown, why major, why not.
When I applied, it was like, uh, what does home mean to you? It was one of our essays. I think it’s changed since then. And then pleading historically has a couple of questions about why medicine, why plea me? Um, and then why do you want to do a base MD program? And I think we added one about like, what does professionalism mean to you or something like that?
Um, so how did I stand out? Um, I’ve talked a little bit about it already. That’s suicide hotline essay, I think was a huge factor. It was partially the unique extracurricular, but I would like to add that you don’t need a unique extracurricular to write a good essay. Um, one of the Princeton admissions officer actually wrote in a note to me after I got in, she said, I really liked your science Olympiad essay.
Um, so for a lot of you that, especially if you’re pre med out there, I’m sure science Olympiad might ring a bell to you. Like you’ve probably heard of it or even are part of it. It’s not like a particularly unique extracurricular, right? Um, but the way I wrote about it, I wrote about how I was a captain of the team and how I felt I failed as the captain and sort of like the, in fairness, it was a huge struggle for me at the time.
Um, and right. So you can write a great essay out of an extracurricular, even if it’s like not the craziest thing you’ve got to do. What is your, what’s your friends do? Like, wow. Like, it’s like not fair. Like they have such a cool hobby. I don’t have a cool hobby. You can write a great essay out of anything.
I promise. Um, right. Um, and the kind of the going back to the like the why medicine essay, it’s okay to be straightforward, but it’s more important. It’s okay to feel like I don’t have anything particularly special or unique, or like I don’t have a big hardship to talk about. That’s okay. Um, what you really want to do is be specific to yourself, right?
What can you say that is, and how can you really spend time with that? Um, I think earlier, um, she, um, and he, she was saying self aware, that is probably the biggest thing that you can do for yourself. Any of you, like, no matter what grade you are in right now, if you can practice, like, this is gonna sound really psych of me, but, like, journaling doesn’t have to be, like, formal journaling, but I remember just jotting down whenever I have, like, a revelation about myself or about, um, right now, I, I, I have an ongoing notes right now.
It’s, like, every time I have a revelation about myself, about psychiatry or something, something particularly profound, or I’m reading a memoir book and I’m like, wow, that was good. Um, I will write it down so that I can continue reflecting on it and seeing how that relates to me. to myself and how that relates to my passions and how I can write that into an essay and present that moving forward.
Um, and, I think, um, the, what I, there’s a great adage out there. That’s like knowing thyself is probably the strongest thing that you could do for your, for your essays. Um, and for me specifically, I really united the story around my love of words. Um, so I talked about how I was at the time I applied cognitive science, the focus on linguistics.
Um, and I talked a lot about how I was interested in words and the meanings behind words and about writing and medical humanities and also like, Cultural, the different cultural aspects of, of, um, of store, like the stories we tell about our illnesses, I guess is a good way to put it. Um, I talked about a little bit about how I was interested in how child abuse impacts developmental language So all these different things that I had like these early inklings of um in high school and actually translated to who I am today Which is kind of cool.
I hope for some of you to witness. I don’t know um common mistakes the being vague bit, um Again, everyone can say they love helping people. How can you really show to the admissions officer that you really? You Really have thought about why you want to go into medicine This isn’t just something that you’ve chosen because of this procedure because your parents want you to be a doctor Although both those things can be totally true with that financial stability Um, like all those things can be totally true But how can you at least illustrate to someone on the other end?
By the way, the person on the other end in a BSMD essay sometimes is a doctor and sometimes they’re also not a doctor And so you want to be writing With that knowledge in mind, right? But this you don’t want to explain someone’s career, especially explain their career incorrectly to them But you want to like and so there’s like not much point in talking about oh I want to become a cardiologist because and tell them what a cardiology cardiologist is rather you’d want to relate it to yourself How can you illustrate principles of the fact that like?
Showing that you’re mature, for example, is a great one, because this is like a really long pathway, and they want to make sure that you are committed to it, and maturity is a part of that. Um, the commitment is definitely a part of it, um, showing that potentially you are good under pressure. Um, there’s a lot of hecticness and difficulties in going off to college and taking, like, those chemistry classes that are really, really difficult for the first time, and also at medical school, there’s a lot of overwhelming stuff.
Like, how can you sort of show that you’re That I think the need where they used to love in psychology was grit, but, um, that was like the thing when I was a high schooler, but really, it’s just like, how can you show this like stability and sort of like, ability to stay okay in, in, in difficult circumstances.
Um, and then really fighting that specific niche. I kind of talked about it here and I put a little bit of comments here. Um, for example, like maybe you’re really interested in CS and tech, like how can you think about like the ways in which AI has, um, implications for medicine? Um, or I just say AI because that’s the only thing I know, unfortunately in CS, but I’m sure there’s other things that are way cooler out there that you can imagine.
Um, that you could also write about. And part of that when I’m an advisor is working with students to help them figure out where we can find that sort of like nexus of interests, where we can find that crossing. And when you find that crossing, it really is more specific to who you are as a person. Okay, last bits of advice.
Consider not applying as a biology major. I know everyone’s like, well, if you’re pre med, you have to major in biology. You’re like human biology or something like that. Um, you do not have to. Um, and also I would argue, right, you don’t have to declare you’re a major until after, until the end of your sophomore year of college, which means whatever major you apply to, what you apply as rather, Doesn’t really make a difference as to what you end up doing.
It’s really all about presentation here Um, and so when you’re applying as a biology major You might have a really really great essay about why you want to be a biology major If so, I have not yet read a single one of your essays because I have i’ve i’ve always found that Especially the first second drafts of why someone wants to major in biology Those essays are really hard to write because, like, what can you possibly say that’s different from everyone else?
Like, we’ve all taken our, like, honors biology, AP biology, dissected a frog, right? Looked at a Punnett square, um, what, like, you know, like, what, what more is there to say about that? And so that can make it hard, which is why I often recommend, if you’re gonna do biology, have a great essay, but also consider Choosing is your second choice or your third choice major.
You’ll have a lot of those options on the common app. Choose something else. It’s a completely different field and think about where those again that nexus fit, right? Where does for example biology and for me I think I argued like sociology or my major was cognitive science So I was arguing about the nexus between like linguistics and english and neuroscience and I came up with Development of language is what i’m interested in right?
So finding that kind of nexus of two different fields field and figuring out how you can make that into a more intriguing essay, but also a more specific essay to you and your extracurriculars. Um, make sure your science courses are solid, um, especially AP biology and chemistry, especially the chemistry.
I would say that’s a really hard class for pre meds in general. We consider that like a leader for class, if you will. And so that’s, if you can have a strong background in chemistry, both for yourself and for your life, but also for applications, that will be a huge win. And the final thing is it’s. Always okay to switch career paths.
You should always be asking yourself Is medicine the right path for me and ask that i’d like to say you should ask that to yourself every single month Um while i’m in medical school I ask that to myself probably every single day and now i’m the other end of it Um, and also now that i’m operating as essentially like a first year doctor on my self internship um I’m very happy with where I ended up and I feel like because I reflected so frequently through the years, I was like this always, even if I had my doubts, I always kind of knew where I wanted to end up and what I wanted to get out of this and what my life wanted, what I wanted my life to look like and I will achieve it.
And so, um, yes, you’re catching me at the end of my journey.
Anesha: Thanks so much, Katie. Um, I think we are. Yeah, we’re gonna move into the question and answer portion of today’s webinar. So that is the end for the presentation component. I really loved you ending on a reflective note and just kind of checking in with yourself. Um, I think, especially in my pre med students, I think sometimes they’re very, um, just a lot of anxiety.
And so I think being able to say, stop. take a break, have a moment of reflection to remember why you wanted to do this. And if this is what you want to do, I think it’s really good to remind people along the journey. Um, all right. So sorry, that was just my, my two cents, but, um, as a heads up for folks, um, but with that, the Q and a will work.
You can go ahead and drop your Q and a under the Q and a tab. I’ll read the question aloud to give Katie an opportunity to respond. I’ll also paste it into the public chat so that others can see it as well. Um, if you’re not being allowed to submit questions, just know that you might have to log out and log back in through the link you received in your email and not through our webinar landing page.
All right, so the first question, um, is just more, as you were talking and as I was seeing some questions come up, um, if you could, give a quick overview of the different types of essays required. So like, what is the personal statement? And then, um, why, why this college, why this, what, what are those types of essays called?
So, yeah.
Katie: Yeah. Um, I like to think of them in sort of like sections of like the style of essay. So we have the personal statement, which is again, like the core, the crux for which everyone revolves around. This should primarily be a narrative essay. It should primarily be, it should not be an essay. Usually and I’ll say I’ll say usually because I know it can always it can differ from school to school and you know Whatever person a person but usually this should not be an essay about your interest in pre med.
Typically, there should be an essay about who you are as a person, um, trying to communicate something about you, or your passions and your interests, um, or about, like, the communities you come from, where you grew up, who you are as a person. That’s really what the personal statement should be about. Um, that’s the first category.
And I would say, okay, we’ll put that. Second category is the why essay. So I classify those as like, why school, why major. So these are the essays where you have to do some research for, um, is how I could think of it. Like you had to go up and do some googling, um, about like, let’s say you’re applying to Brown, right?
Do some googling about like what Brown courses are like, who the professors are here, um, what were our majors, what are our majors involved, what majors might you be interested in. Um, and this is typically a more straightforward essay that’s showing that, you know, You have done your research with this school, kind of convincing, um, us, for example, as Brown, or at Brown Admissions, you’re convincing Brown Admissions that you really want to come here, and that you really thought through why you want to study, for example, Cognitive Science, uh, with a focus on Linguistics.
Um, that’s kind of like the why essay. Straightforward structure you’re kind of giving you’re kind of like prove an argumentative point in some ways to them Uh third category, there’s like a why medicine essay this you will not be asked at every school And in fact, this is pretty much like a bsmd specific essay Um, but it should be like a basically it’s kind of like a middle ground between the first two categories It’s kind of a personal statement and also kind of a why medicine essay.
Um, so Or a why, a why essay, but it’s a little bit more straightforward. So you get the combination of the two where it’s personal and also a little bit, um, about like why you want to do something. Um, and then finally the last category is sort of all of these like reflective essays that colleges, uh, will ask you and so this can range from anywhere from like Super, super wild.
Like I remember my year UChicago or Dartmouth, one of those schools was like, why is Kermit the frog green or something like that, or like some quote from him, um, or like, what, what do you think zero divided by zero is, or something like that, where it’s like super duper wild and open ended and you can kind of make whatever you want from it.
And then there’s slightly more grounded essays that are based in some sort of affection, which is like, what does home mean to you? Or what is home for you? or, um, what is something difficult that you’ve had to overcome? And so those are kind of like the general layout. Hopefully that helps. Um,
Anesha: okay. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Um, I just wanted there to be clarity that the personal statement goes to everybody and that also one, one, some folks were asking about, well, I’ll get to it. I’ll ask that question a little bit later, but before I go into deeper essay questions, because we’ve talked about it a lot and you’re in a BSMD program.
Uh, so folks asked for clarity about what is a BSMD program. Um, I answered that question, but I’ll ask what is the difference between BSMD and medical school? And then someone also asked about how getting into a BSMD program impacts financial aid for college and for medical school. So those two kind of like overarching structural BSMD questions before we get to essay questions.
Katie: And I always feel bad because I feel like this is going to be a cause of the BSMD is very confusing and very overwhelming for Um for most people so I was like, I don’t know how to break it down a lot Uh, so how it’s different from medical school. So basically a BSMD program. Oh my frozen Okay, a BSMD program essentially is Is is a combination of you go to Brown for undergrad and then you go to Brown for medical school, right?
So a medic when you
Anesha: know, we lost Katie. Let’s give her a second to come back to us. Um, I know she was explaining that a program is essentially a combined undergraduate and graduate program. You will do. Two years of undergraduate, um, at Brown with PLEME, and then you’ll do four years technically of graduate school, um, with the Brown Medical School.
And so a lot of, uh, BSMD programs are combined, where you’re doing two to three years undergraduate, and then you are doing, um, four years in medical school. Medical school is the more traditional route. You do your traditional four years of undergraduate applied to medical school and then do whatever four years you need to do there.
The BSMD program condenses going from traditional college to medical school together into one program. And you might do it for six, seven, seven years, which is obviously shorter than doing full traditional eight
Katie: years. We
Anesha: lost you for a bit. Um, um, I’m sorry, I was trying to fill in, um, and defining a BSMD program and how it’s different from medical school, but you cut out for us right as you were starting that, um, explanation.
So if you could start over, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where you went.
Katie: It’s explaining BSMD versus med school.
Anesha: Yes. Okay.
Katie: Um, so the best way that I would put it is that to get like a medical school is just the latter half of the BSMD program. Um, so like as part of a BSMD program, you are going to medical school.
It just is like, like everyone else, you’re going to medical school after college. So now that I’m in medical school, I’m like any other medical student. It just so happens that I also went to Brown for undergrad and that the way that I got here, like my acceptance here was, um, yeah. I got my acceptance when I was 18 instead of when I was 21, essentially, it’s like the primary difference as far as the financial aid picture, um, the undergrad financial aid work exactly like any other undergrad financial aid FAFSA, right?
Like that, the stuff that you have heard of, um, it’s just whatever Brown or whatever undergrad you are applying to like offers. And then the medical school picture is again, It’s very much like it’s like medical school. It’s not great. I’ll be honest, medical school, though, financial aid is never great. Um, there’s a lot of loans and hefty interest rates and and some some schools have better scholarships than others.
I think the one big downside of the BSMD program financial aid wise is that because it’s a conditional acceptance, you can’t exactly choose, um, Like once because you are going I’m going to Brown medical school I don’t have like a bunch of offers on the table where I can choose who’s gonna give me the best financial aid It’s pretty much like whatever Brown gives me.
I got to take if that makes sense So like less offers on the table It’s one of the one downside. And then one upside financial wise is that if you go to a accelerated program, that’s like six or seven years, for example, that’s one less year of tuition and that’s, um, no small amount of money.
Anesha: All right.
Um, thank you. So, uh, getting back to, I guess, essay topics, um, earlier in the presentation, you had said risk taking essays and someone asked, what did you mean by that?
Katie: Yeah. And the example that I gave also was, um, you know, Like me writing my essay for an autopsy report. Um, other risk taking essays I’ll give examples of include, I wrote one essay I think about a flower shop, for example.
Am I frozen again?
Anesha: Nope, you’re good.
Katie: I don’t know why like it keeps like being weird. Um, so basically a risk taking essay is just an essay that’s not really like a stereotypical personal statement essay the way you would imagine it. Um, so for example, if you write your entire essay in like a detective murder mystery, that would be a risk.
Um, if you wrote your essay and like something like involves something super like, Super creative or like the formatting of it or like the way you wrote it. Maybe the style of writing that you choose is like, is like more out there. That’s all I mean by a risk taking essay. It’s not like you’re actually taking a huge risk with the essay, just the style of it is a little different and kind of, um, changes it up from the more classic, like, I want to go into biology because.
Sort of type essay, if that makes sense. Okay,
Anesha: the next is related to, uh, the question of like the personal statement in relation to supplemental essays. So this one particular student wanted to focus their essay on Harry Potter. And so they’re like, is that a bad thing to do if my supplemental essay technically have to support the personal statement?
So if you could talk about the separation. I guess like do all of the so do all of the supplemental essays revolve around the personal statement. And would it be a bad idea to have a highly specific subject in the personal statement?
Katie: Yeah. Um, so I think having like something about Harry Potter or having Harry Potter be, for example, one of like one of the structure occurring themes is your personal statement is totally fine.
Like you could replace Harry Potter with anything else or like I really love puzzles I really crosswords like whatever like you can play with that like kind of creativity of the recurring theme or something to kind of tie a backbone of your essay to and you can play around with it any way or shape or form and Your supplemental essays do not need to do this again, or you know, I don’t see.
Yeah, they do not need to do this again Rather what I would think about it is is more like your personal statement should be for example It should be about like who you are, what you care about. So for example, if my personal statement about my suicide hotline was about, I care about mental health and I care about like language and how it impacts mental health, for example, um, my simple mental essays might be completely separate.
Like I had one essay that was entirely just about, um, how, how much I enjoyed singing and how singing really. Um, help me gain confidence in myself, I think was essentially the purpose of the essay, right? Not related at all. It’s kind of just more about me as a person. Um, and then I had another essay, the autopsy report about like, um, yeah, something else about, like, I had an essay about how I really liked.
Um, the disease crew because it really illustrated a good relationship between biology and cultural anthropology, right? Again, not very related But these are all ultimately contributing to like this bigger picture of me as someone who likes biology, likes disease But also likes kind of what the implications of it in other spheres of life Different disciplines like whether that be like language or whether it be like cultural anthropology, right?
That’s really what it all comes down to. So again, the mind map I think really hopefully will help you conceptualize it as like it really should not be they should not be about the same topic I don’t want to read the same essay five times, right? If you can imagine it from our end Um, it should just be painting a bigger picture and kind of keep broadening my perspective of who you are as a person and still maintain who you are as like a person.
I think that’s a big blob, but that makes sense.
Anesha: Thank you. Um, all right. I’m going to take a quick second to do a quick PSA, um, regarding CollegeAdvisor, but I have an interesting question for you next. Um, but for any folks who are in the room and not currently working with us, CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process.
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Someone asked that in the chat or in the Q& A. Um, and much more. Okay. All right. I think we lost Katie again. No, right as we’re getting Back to the question. Okay, let me see.
So someone had asked earlier if you if it’s good to go in undecided, I would say no, you should not go in undecided. You still should sit. Oh, you came back. Sorry. I was answering the question of, um, uh, because I think you were talking about,
Katie: yeah. Um,
Anesha: so yeah, I guess. if you could speak to declaring undecided, if it’s good or bad.
And then a lot of folks have been asking what else should I declare if it’s not biology? I think, I think you bring some people out where you’re like an alternative to biology. Um, some of the questions. So, um, yeah. What should you go with undecided and what are some alternatives to biology?
Katie: Yeah. I don’t, um, I don’t think that undecided is in general, is usually not the right choice for most people.
Let me start there because It’s really hard to write an essay about why you want to major in undecided, right? It’s like it’s like you want to major in like how are you gonna run an essay, but that’s really hard Um what I mean by not biology, by the way And I don’t mean to freak anyone out is and I as you as you guys do your research I think you will You’ll find you understand what I’m talking about.
There’s so many biology adjacent majors So for example, I can name five majors that are just related to neuroscience at Brown alone. We got neuroscience We got cognitive neuroscience. We got cognitive science. We got neurobiology and we got something else that I don’t remember Same thing applies for biology.
There’s like applied mathematics biology. There’s like, um, human biology There’s normal biology and there’s public health and so like there’s so many different adjacent things that also sometimes are more specific and you might have a better time writing an essay for the other things that I encourage you guys to broaden your Perspectives there too because as you’re doing the research i’m sure Most of you are out there thinking what the heck is the difference between neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience?
And that is a great question and that is a question that you should answer for yourself as you do your research Because if you’re going to argue that you want to study that You should be able to make an argument for why cognitive neuroscience and not neuroscience For example, um, and then outside of that, also, I want to say that you should major in what you want to major in, and you should put down whatever makes the most sense for your application and your background and what you can make a great argument for.
Um, and so if that means that you want to do, for example. Biology major first and then like a public policy major second because you really care about or you have a good background and track record too of like doing advocacy in your community maybe like talking to Policymakers or or talking to people who like make those like big decisions or maybe you’re really good at like rallying people to different Like I don’t know like you’ve participated in volunteer for different political campaigns or something.
Um, Right, you can make a great argument for um Why do those two things matter to you? And also, what are they intersected with? Why is it important to care about both, like, biology and to care about public policy? Um, and so that’s what I mean. I don’t mean, like, I don’t mean to scare anyone off of biology.
What I’m trying to hopefully say is to, one, do your research broadly before you narrow it down. Um, and then also consider what you can write the best essay for.
Anesha: I might be projecting that you freak people out. As you said that, a bunch of questions popped up. So that, I always read the spiking questions as, as freak out.
But, um, but maybe it’s not. Some people might just be curious. Okay, so I don’t want to put feelings on folks. Oh, no. Um, one question was regarding kind of how to structure the essay, uh, the essay itself. And so, some folks are just asking, what are, what are there specific topics that are more favorable? Um, specifically on the personal statement or should I just focus on they said there?
Why and I think for this they mean just why going to college in general
Katie: there? Why? Okay. And I saw like a question I think they’re about like, is it good to talk about cancer? Is it going to talk about this? Um, and I would argue and this goes for medicine essays as well. Like there’s no, there’s no like good or bad about it.
topic to talk about per se. Like you can absolutely talk about your like personal experience of cancer. You can talk about a close relative’s experience of cancer. Again, I want you to be careful when you’re talking about like anyone else’s battle with something because it’s, it should always come back to talking about you and why you want to, you know, how that contributed to your goals moving forward.
Um, Same thing if you want to talk about like the hardships that like when I see that the world hardships that my parents went Through to get me to where I am That’s cool and great that tells me about what your parents went through. What did you go through? Like what are some of the things that you have to grapple with now?
Right as like someone who is a I guess first gen second gen immigrant. I always forget how the generations go and So as long as you can relate it back to yourself, that’s what matters. Um, there’s no topic that or there’s there’s really not a lot of topics that you absolutely shouldn’t read about and I can’t really prescribe To you what’s a good or bad thing to talk about within medicine, right?
You can talk about any variety of things one of my friends who uh was a like a brown student with me, my roommate, actually, she talked about learning to ride the bicycle. Um, and she met that into like this, this big thing about herself. And she was able to really learn to ride the bicycle to something, some part of her personality that clearly got her accepted.
Um, but like a lot of people have learned how to ride a bicycle, right? So it’s not about the topic that you choose itself, but it’s really about how you kind of connect to that topic. Yeah.
Anesha: No, I love the kind of like common topic that I think people are afraid to write about because you can still convey a lot of your personality.
I’ve had two students who’ve written about their signatures or just like handwriting. Oh yeah. It’s just been very interesting to kind of see how people think about themselves, think about writing, especially for a generation that doesn’t write as much anymore, like physically write. So yeah, I think there are a lot of very like basic things that are very basic that still allow you a lot of opportunity.
Yeah.
Katie: And that has that element of surprise I was talking about earlier too, right? Like sometimes you choose like the silliest topic, but it’s like, oh, I never would have imagined someone writing about that and writing about it so well. I think some of the best essays that I’ve heard about people talking about were like, they love Disney princesses, um, or, um, a conversation at their dinner table with their family is like a great, like could be a great essay topic potentially, because it reveals a lot about you, um, and where you come from.
So,
Anesha: yeah. Yeah. I see. I think sometimes people try to. pull and be very, very unique. And then that’s when the essay becomes less authentic. And so sometimes the simpler you keep the topic, the easier and the more authentic you can write about it. All right. I’ll stop talking and ask a question. Um, Oh, some folks were asking about timing, like when to start, um, and how much time should they really be giving to the essay?
Katie: Ooh, okay. That’s a good question. And, um, I, I said, I’m someone who does not procrastinate. Great. One of my best traits, one would say. Um, and so I would say I really started seriously like brainstorming and I would say you should spend most of your time brainstorming, thinking of ideas, like writing different things that you could potentially talk about, even like crowdsourcing, like, Hey, like asking your parents, your siblings, your friends, like, what are some like really random, like cool things about me?
Um, and, um, I started all of that I think like the senior Summer after my so for all of you upcoming seniors like this the summer after my junior year Is I was like taking the bus every day to like my summer program that I was I was um Working at and so I would just like sit on that little bus like with like, you know Having my moment with my headphones in and like jot down ever that came to mind like having little rants on my notes pad Um, and those ultimately ended up Forming into like different graphs of my essays.
Um, so I would say, and I look on like, really, the earlier the better. I think I wrote an essay for an essay competition in my sophomore year that ended up becoming a part of my Y minus an essay. Um, so earlier the better to start thinking and to start self reflecting. There’s no bad time for self reflection.
Oh, I think you’re muted. You’re right. I am muted. I was
Anesha: gonna say just I think that goes back to your comment about journaling. While you’re going through shadowing while you’re volunteering, I think those are great times to just stop and capture thoughts that could then be put towards essays, supplemental or the personal statement down the line.
Okay, this next question is about I guess someone’s trying to ask about moments to write through so they said, Is it fine if there wasn’t one specific moment that made me want to go into medicine, but it was a series of events from shadowing to internships because I don’t really have a eureka moment.
So I think they might be uncertain about where to start because there are a variety of things that have fueled their interest.
Katie: I think I’ve gotten that question before. I like that. Um, and that’s okay to not have a eureka moment. I definitely don’t think I ever had a eureka moment. Um, and I think having these series events is really meaningful, sitting down, maybe writing them out, thinking about what.
As part of those moments really led you to become a doctor and then seeing if there’s like one Compelling one that you can drop someone into can be a great way to start off your essay, I would say Um, so for example, and i’ll use i’m currently writing a personal statement about medicine, right? So like this is very applicable to me as I was going through my clinical time.
I was kind of like Journaling writing things down as I live through it like writing down stories that really impacted me or different you know if I saw a doctor doing that I really liked I would write that down or like the way they interacted the Patient was really like I was like, oh like interesting really thoughtful Look, I wrote that down and then Ultimately, you have a number of these experiences that lead you to why you want to do this thing because that is becoming a doctor I’m picking one that you feel like As a as a writer, right?
You’re kind of communicate like the story about yourself picking one like going through them Brainstorming from each one like what are the things that you feel like someone can take out of these different stories and then picking one to really drop us into and kind of have like as a framework to illustrate like Here’s a story that in mind, for example, it’s really about I want to illustrate like how much how important like the context of a Child’s family is to their health care So I put the story where that was really clearly Illustrated and they kind of connected that through as a through line right through like the rest of my like why I want to do This thing that I want to do It’s a good way to kind of Breakdown, brainstorming and think about it.
Anesha: I loved your idea earlier about the mind map. I think that’s also a good way to organize your thoughts as well. Um, uh, someone asked how specific should you be about your interests in medicine? Should you provide specifics about fields like pathology or gynecology?
Katie: Yeah. And this is, I think, where, uh, I use the word specific, but I think people often take it to mean like what specialty, um, and that’s not at all what I mean.
Um, most medical students don’t know what specialty they want to go into until like their third year of medical school. Most people, I would say, are the complete opposites of me. Um, in the sense that like they did not know what they wanted to do and thought they wanted to do surgery and then change their mind last minute.
And that is absolutely okay. And that’s how it should be. In my humble opinion, you should be, you should change your opinion because that means you’re thinking about it. Um, and so. If you have a really, really great story about why you really care about OB GYN, like, maybe you know the gynecologist that birthed you and you had a really, um, like, I don’t know, like, treacherous birth story and you really care about, like, racial inequalities, maternal mortality or something.
Like, if there’s something, like, really good that you can say, like, go for it. But in general, like, no one’s expecting that out of a high schooler. In fact, I would say, like, unless you have a really good story, most of the time I’m just like, okay, like, this adds, like, I’m like, okay, like, Maybe you like cardiology.
Sure. But like, what could you possibly know about cardiology? I hate to put it that way, but it sort of is at the end of this 10 year long path. Um, and so I’d rather you be more specific about like kind of the role again, like that going back to like the role that a physician plays in society, whether it’s like as a leader, as an advocate, as a teacher, right?
These kind of different like general. Like way that a physician kind of exists in society. I think about it that way. I think that’s a better way to be specific. Hopefully that answers the question.
Anesha: No, I think, and I appreciate it because I’ve had some students who I think have written. Like they’re applying to medical school and so they, they’re not leaving open the willingness to explore like what college is going to give them because they’re like, no, no, no college is just a stepping stone to me actually doing this thing and the college wants to know what you’re going to do at the college.
So I think to be open or have a lot of interest and say that college is an opportunity actually to. to do some exploring,
Katie: um, in
Anesha: order to figure out your interests.
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, I, like, even in residence, like, if you see, if you hear about someone who’s like, oh, I’ve wanted to do orthopedic surgery since I was five, I’m like, okay, sure.
And you gave me a great story. Sure. But like, how have you explored other things and really decided that this is right for you? Like, I will, that is the often refrain of like, you know, everything in life, but medical school for sure. So those, I’m like, well, why made you decide on this?
Anesha: Some folks are asking about availability.
So the slides are available right now under the handouts tab if you want to download them, and there will be a recording on the CollegeAdvisor website by tomorrow just to double answer those questions. Um, someone so we asked about when you should start and someone asked, when should you be done with the essays?
When should you be prepared to turn them in?
Katie: Yes, most applications for regular decision. Um, Like regular decision pre med are going to be due January 1st ish And I always say do not leave it to the last minute because that website will crash and I guarantee you it will crash So therefore try to submit like a couple days ahead of time.
I think I was finish finished on December 27th. Um, personally, um depending on how you are you might be Procrastinating a little bit more and you might be running later But again, just go with the idea that the website will crash and just you know Dial back a couple of a day. Ideally before then.
Anesha: All right, we will have to leave it there with getting into not right on the deadline, but slightly before.
Um, thanks so much Katie for a great presentation as always. And also we hope that y’all will join us for the remainder of our sessions or upcoming sessions in July. Um, so July 22nd, we’ll continue to talk about essays for folks who are interested in that. Um, with advice from admissions officer to how to make your essay shine on July 22nd on July 22nd.
We’ll have a special session for rising juniors and seniors on how to build your admissions timeline and getting ready. So for folks who are anxious about when to start things, come back and join us on the 23rd. And on July 24th, we’ll talk about building your common app activities list, which is also a great way to get organized, be able to structure and promote medicine or your activities that were in medicine and making sure you’re doing that thoughtfully on the common application.
But we will end it there. We hope to see you soon, but take care and have a great evening until then.