3 Deans of Admissions Explain How to Get into Med School

Summary

In this enlightening and detailed session, three Deans of Medical School Admissions dive into the intricacies of what it takes to earn a coveted spot in medical school. Dr. Katherine Robinette, Mr. Doug Taylor, and Dr. Kristen Goodell share insider tips, review processes, and essential advice for future doctors. They emphasize the importance of sincerity, diverse experiences, and genuine motivation. The deans discuss critical aspects such as personal statements, interviews, and letters of recommendation, providing a comprehensive guide for applicants determined to succeed in their medical career endeavors.

Highlights

• Dr. Goodell's unique approach to understanding real personality through unexpected interview questions. 😲
• The importance of applying early, as emphasized by Dr. Robinette. ⏰
• Doug Taylor's advice on leadership: Knowing when to lead and when to follow. 🥇
• Dr. Robinette's insights on not needing to be a 'Founder' to prove leadership qualities. 🚀
• The deans' collective advice on writing a personal statement that connects all parts of the application. 🧩

Key Takeaways

• Be genuine and sincere in your application to stand out. Authenticity wins! 🎭
• Apply to medical schools early for better chances. Don't wait for the last minute rush! 🏃‍♂️
• Choose experiences that excite you, not just to check boxes. Passion shows! 🔥
• Prepare for interviews by knowing your application thoroughly and displaying enthusiasm. Bring the energy! ⚡
• Seek letters of recommendation from those who know you well. Quality over formality! ✍️

Overview

The session kicks off with introductions from three esteemed deans of admissions, each bringing a wealth of experience and personal anecdotes that set the tone for an engaging discussion. Dr. Katherine Robinette from the University of Maryland shares her journey from medical student to admissions dean, emphasizing the importance of selecting applicants based on passion and potential rather than just academics.

Doug Taylor from East Tennessee State University discusses his long tenure in admissions, highlighting his focus on finding applicants with resilience and real-world experiences. His perspective on valuing both academic metrics and personal growth underscores the panel's multifaceted approach to admission evaluations.

Dr. Kristen Goodell of Boston University delves into the specifics of the application process, emphasizing the importance of being authentic, preparing thoroughly for interviews, and choosing experiences that resonate personally. Her advice on maintaining sincerity throughout the application process is a common thread that ties together each aspect of the admissions journey.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview The introduction chapter starts with a tactic often used to test applicants' self-awareness and honesty in interviews. The author shares an anecdote about asking medical school applicants to reveal their 'Achilles heel.' This question is strategically posed to see how they handle discussing their weaknesses. However, many savvy applicants respond with superficial 'non-weaknesses,' such as overworking or being perfectionists, which can be seen as desirable traits. This highlights the difficulty in obtaining genuine self-reflection and honesty in interviews.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Panelist Introductions The chapter begins with the host rejecting a proposed answer, describing it as boring and generic. The focus then shifts to introducing three guests who are admissions experts. The experts include Mr. Doug Taylor from East Tennessee State University's medical school, Dr. Katherine Robinett from the University of Maryland's school of medicine, and a Dean from Boston University who is expected to join shortly. The purpose of the gathering is to engage in an enriching discussion with these specialists.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Understanding Medical School Applications The chapter 'Understanding Medical School Applications' provides an overview of a live session where attendees can ask questions directly in the Q&A section. The focus is on addressing as many questions as possible, with unanswered queries being followed up via email by physicians. Participants are assured that they don't need to take notes, as the session is pre-recorded and will be made available afterwards.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Review Process and Criteria The chapter begins with introductions of the two Deans participating in the discussion. Dr. Katherine Robinette from the University of Maryland School of Medicine introduces herself and shares her story about how she came into medical admissions. The introduction sets the stage for a Q&A session that will follow.
• 08:00 - 13:00: Interview Process and Evaluation The chapter "Interview Process and Evaluation" discusses the journey of an interviewer who started as a medical student in 2002 and later became an alumnus in 2004. The interviewer expresses a passion for identifying great providers who will not only work well as colleagues but also serve families and loved ones effectively. The focus is on qualities beyond numerical scores, emphasizing the importance of a holistic evaluation process in selecting future providers.
• 13:00 - 18:00: Experience and Background Evaluation The speaker, Dr. Robinette, discusses their educational and professional background. They began their journey with four years of medical school at the University of Maryland, followed by a three-year Internal Medicine Residency at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and then another four years of fellowship back at the University of Maryland. Dr. Robinette has been a faculty member since 2011 and has held their current role since 2019, expressing enjoyment in their position.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Importance of Major and Educational Background The chapter begins with an introduction by Mr. Doug Taylor from East Tennessee State University. He humorously mentions his fluency in English and Southern Appalachian dialects, acknowledging potential communication issues. Mr. Taylor reflects on his experience and role as the associate for admissions at the medical school, sharing insights related to medical admissions processes. The discussion likely revolves around the significance of a candidate's major and educational background in the context of medical school admissions.
• 21:00 - 26:00: Clinical Experiences and Shadowing The narrator reflects on their 46-year career, emphasizing the joy of helping young people achieve their dreams. Unlike their colleague, Dr. Robinette, they have remained in East Tennessee and intend to stay, valuing the region. The speaker expresses a desire to offer the audience advice to help them reach their professional aspirations.
• 26:00 - 31:00: Working with Non-Traditional Students In this chapter titled 'Working with Non-Traditional Students,' a panel discussion is held with deans from various universities, including Dr. Goodell from Boston University School of Medicine. The format is interactive, encouraging participants to ask questions in real-time through a Q&A interface. While one dean addresses the audience, other deans respond to questions by typing their answers directly in the Q&A. The session aims to provide direct responses and foster engagement with the audience on topics relevant to non-traditional students.
• 31:00 - 37:00: Importance of Extracurriculars and Research The chapter discusses the process of reviewing student applications, particularly for medical school. It begins with a question posed to Mr. Taylor about what he looks for in an application. Mr. Taylor emphasizes the importance of predictively indicative numbers, likely referring to grades or standardized test scores, as the initial focal point in evaluating the likelihood of a student's success in medical school.
• 37:00 - 40:00: Leadership and Teamwork This chapter discusses the qualities and criteria that are prioritized when assessing individuals for leadership and teamwork roles. It emphasizes the importance of looking beyond numerical metrics or scores. Instead, the focus is on assessing a person's service orientation, their ability to collaborate effectively with others, and their communication skills. These attributes are considered crucial for success in a team environment, particularly after graduation.
• 40:00 - 52:00: Crafting a Strong Application The chapter covers the importance of applying early when crafting a strong application. Admissions professionals express the significance of showcasing oneself effectively and applying early in the school application process. They also discuss the criteria they look for in candidates, emphasizing the importance of trustworthiness, as if they were selecting someone to care for their own family members.
• 52:00 - 56:00: Letters of Recommendation The chapter discusses the importance of applying early under a rolling admissions system. It highlights a real-life example from the University of Maryland, where deadlines for primary applications are in November and for secondary applications in December, yet the university tends to receive a significant influx of applications, reaching up to 4,000 by September. The key takeaway is to apply early due to limited interview spots. The narrative emphasizes a crucial point where Mr. Taylor voices a shared perspective on the selective interview process.
• 56:00 - 62:00: Choosing the Right Medical Schools This chapter focuses on the criteria for selecting medical schools, particularly from an applicant's perspective. It discusses the admissions flexibility of some medical schools regarding academic evaluations, particularly emphasizing MCAT scores ranging from 500 to 526 and a science GPA over 3.2. The chapter also highlights opportunities for candidates to showcase improved academic performance through post-baccalaureate programs or advanced degrees, especially for those who struggled during their undergraduate studies.
• 62:00 - 69:00: Personal Statement Tips The chapter discusses the rigor of medical school and the importance of being prepared for its challenges. Medical schools focus on graduate-level grades rather than undergraduate grades when assessing candidates. The analogy of drinking from an open fire hydrant is used to describe the intensity of medical school compared to college. The schools are cautious about admitting students who may struggle with the USMLE steps or the curriculum, as they want to avoid placing students in debt or time investment without success. There are no explicit cutoffs mentioned, but academic performance and readiness are key considerations.
• 69:00 - 77:00: Common Application Mistakes This chapter discusses common application mistakes in the context of screenings and interviews for academic programs. It emphasizes that once academic capability is determined, other factors like service and shadowing become crucial. During the interview, neither the MCAT score nor GPA is emphasized, as the Committee Member presents a holistic view of the candidate to the committee. The focus shifts away from numerical scores after initial academic assessment.
• 77:00 - 81:30: Final Advice from the Panelists The panelists emphasize the importance of understanding one's motivation to pursue a career in medicine, noting that those who struggle often lose motivation. They highlight that while they don't admit students at academic risk, the challenging and lengthy path (such as 11 additional years of training after undergrad) requires thorough consideration and commitment.

3 Deans of Admissions Explain How to Get into Med School Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 little bit okay so here's an example I sometimes ask the this is going to ruin it now I can never ask this question because all these thousand people are going to know anyway I sometimes ask the question what's your Achilles heel and a lot of pretty sophisticated medical school applicants will quick do some thinking in their subconscious and be like ah this is the time for me to talk about my weakness I have prepared this and then they give me some super annoying non weakness weakness like well I tend to take on too much responsibility or like oh sometimes I'm kind of a perfectionist is sometimes to
• 00:30 - 01:00 say no I'm sorry I reject that answer it's it's too boring and it sounds like what everyone says and so for the next hour we're going to be joined by three incredible incredible admissions experts we're going to introduce themselves they're going to log on right around now there's Mr Doug Taylor from East Tennessee State University as medical school there's Dr Katherine robinet from the University of Maryland school of medicine and we're going to be having one additional Dean joined from Boston University who just
• 01:00 - 01:30 may be a few minutes late um remember please ask your questions in the Q&A directly and we're going to try to get through as many as many questions as possible for you all um this is all live and remember any questions in the Q&A that we don't get to today you'll get emails sent to you afterwards with answers directly from Physicians um and again you don't have to worry about taking notes or recording anything this will all be pre-recorded for you um but then why don't we go go ahead and get
• 01:30 - 02:00 started with introductions for two of our incredible incredible Deans who are taking the time out of their Saturday to join so let's get started with Dr Katherine Robinette from the University of Maryland Dr robinet can you introduce yourself there's no way that I could do as good of a job as you can about telling your story where you're from and how you got into medical admissions and then we're going to move on to Dr Taylor and then we'll get to the Q&A hi yes I'm kathern Robinette I'm the assistant Dean for admissions at University of Maryland School of Medicine
• 02:00 - 02:30 um I'm actually an' 04 Alum and I got involved when I was a medical student way back in ' o02 I can't say that I predicted this is where I would end up but it's something that I'm really passionate about I think it is very hard to pick who I want to be who not just me personally but who will be great providers who you know will be good colleagues good providers for my family and my loved ones and that certainly doesn't just depend on numbers so I was kind of like grabbed with that from the begin when I was a medical student and
• 02:30 - 03:00 got involved as a faculty member as well I am a pulmonary critical care physician so I did four years of medical school at Maryland and then another three years of Internal Medicine Residency at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill then back for another four years of fellowship at University of Maryland so um now now I've been on faculty since 2011 and in this role since 2019 I'm just very much enjoying it thank you so much again for joining us Dr Robinette and I'm sure that you
• 03:00 - 03:30 have so much valuable wisdom to share and our next Dean to introduce is Mr Doug Taylor from East Tennessee State University Mr Taylor please greetings one and all uh my name is Doug Taylor I'm fluent in two languages I speak a little English and mostly Southern Appalachian uh if you have any trouble understanding we'll be glad to clarify uh I've had the great pleasure of U coming into the medical admissions business I'm currently the associate name for admissions at our medical school in East Tennessee uh I
• 03:30 - 04:00 came into this business about 46 years ago and have had the great pleasure of uh working with young people and helping them achieve their G dreams over over all these years and that's uh one of the greatest things you can do unlike Dr Robinette uh I've been right here in East Tennessee and I don't tend to go anywhere else I don't see any need to this is a great place and um it's a pleasure to be here with you and hope we can offer you some advice that might help you uh get PR you want to be in
• 04:00 - 04:30 your life also thank you so much both for joining us and again um Dr Goodell from Boston University School of Medicine will be joining she's actually on another panel finishing up as we speak um so this is going to be over the next hour questions directly answered um on sort of live from your questions in the Q&A so we'll be monitoring those and while one Dean is speaking the other Deans may be answering questions directly in the Q&A via typing so please continue asking
• 04:30 - 05:00 them and we're going to try to get to as many as possible the first question though that I want to get started with overall to both of you and and we could start with Mr Taylor first then is when you're looking at an application and you see you know a students application comes in how do you go about reviewing it is there something that you look to first and then how do you go down the process of overall looking at a student's application when you receive it I think uh reasonably answering that I think the first thing we've got to look at is find numbers that are predict Ive of success in medical school if
• 05:00 - 05:30 those numbers are not there uh it's very difficult to overcome anything in the future once uh once those numbers are are determined we put them at our school we put them pretty much out of sight uh and start looking at the person try to look at the person's service orientation their ability to to work with others the ability to express themself uh clearly we look for teamwork what we're really looking for someone is after graduation
• 05:30 - 06:00 someone that uh I would let take care of my wife or my daughter uh that's what we're looking for here absolutely and Dr Robinette I'm GNA ask you actually the same question because I think it's a really important one to think about you know when you're receiving an application and students put so much effort into really showcasing themselves how do you go about looking through it yes so the first thing I will say if you take nothing else away from me and I love being here and helping people understand this process if you are nothing else apply early almost all schools work on
• 06:00 - 06:30 rolling admissions I know we do at Maryland our deadline is technically November for the primary and December 1st for the secondary but we have received these days applications are numbers are just going up by September we usually have close to 4,000 applications so apply early we only have but so many interview spots so I know that's not the exact question you asked me but that is the one thing I really want people to walk away with um like Mr Taylor we don't want to bring anyone on
• 06:30 - 07:00 who we don't think is going to be academically successful so we accept a wide range or wide range of mcats I think our range is usually between 500 and 526 when you look at our matriculating class um and typically we want people to have over 32 in their science GPA if you had a terrible undergrad record and things were hard for you then and have change you can certainly do a postback and we'll just look at those grades um or a graduate degree that has significant in science
• 07:00 - 07:30 classes and we'll focus on those grades and not your undergrad grades but medical school's hard I'm sure you have all heard some sort of analogy to if drinking if colleges like trying to drink from a garden hose medical schools like trying to drink from an open fire hydrant and we don't want to bring people onto campus to potentially take on debt and spend time if they aren't able to pass the USMLE steps and work their way through our curriculum and so for us we've we don't have any direct C offs but that's certainly what we look at also like Mr Taylor said once you're
• 07:30 - 08:00 screened by someone who is an interviewer and also a trained screener we look at everything including the numbers and once we've determined that you are not an academic risk we look at service we look at shadowing which is absolutely essential and really don't look at your numbers anymore the interviewers don't have the MCAT score or GPA um the Committee Member who presents to to the committee sees the whole picture again but really we determine academic capability and then
• 08:00 - 08:30 we're much more interested in what or how you portray your motivation to be a doctor because what we have found is the people who often struggle since we're not bringing in people who are at academic risk are people who lose motivation maybe didn't understand what it meant and you it it is a long haul I think if anyone was adding up numbers after undergrad I did another 11 years of training like that is a long haul so just kind of people who have really thought about this have done the work to
• 08:30 - 09:00 figure out that they want to be a physician um those are the things we're looking for in an application well fair enough right it's a very very intensive process about getting things done on time and making sure that students can stand out and showcase their experiences but like you said there are a lot of people who are applying so when you're evaluating students what are the types of things that you look for Dr robinet that you feel like really helps showcase that somebody is truly passionate about medicine that they're standing out amongst the thousands of applications
• 09:00 - 09:30 that you're receiving yeah I heard the question right at the end while I was trying to get my sound and everything to work about the number of hours and I think her answer I think is Dr Martinelli's answer was very right and some the other person said that the numbers the ranges she gave her about right but it doesn't matter as much as how you explain things so what we're looking for is not just someone who has shadowed 100 or 150 hours but we want to hear what your takeaways for I will be
• 09:30 - 10:00 very honest like the I didn't consider being a doctor till I was in college that was kind of the first time none of my family's medical and and actually old babysitter of mine is like oh you like science I love being a doctor she's a pediatric resident I went and I shouted her and I hated it I was like absolutely not this is terrible I do not want to do this and I want that kind of refle obviously I shadowed much more after that I got into research then I started shadowing people in other clinical settings that I loved but I want you to
• 10:00 - 10:30 take that kind of true curiosity when you shadow um and when you're doing clinical things not just oh I need to get my hours to Shadow but actually reflect on like this is what I saw this is what I witnessed and this is what I loved about that experience I did not share in my application that I hated the Pediatric emergency room which I still stand by but I want you to go in with that personal curiosity is this really for me or not and then talk about those
• 10:30 - 11:00 reasons it really is for you and it doesn't have to be creative writing but just kind of truly what you witness what it is about the patient physician relationship that is that you're so passionate about that you want that to be part of your career and your profession that's a fantastic uh fantastic answer and a great point and Mr tayor we're gonna move on to a question directly for you then that I'm seeing several people ask in the chat and it and it has to do with something similar to what Dr robinett just said about you know you might not know that you want to be a physic until later on
• 11:00 - 11:30 in life it could be during college it could be beyond that it could be after having a whole separate career outside of medicine so when you're evaluating a candidate who may not be a traditional student may not have gone directly from you know schooling to college directly to applying to medical school how do you evaluate someone's background and the experiences that they've gone through when you're looking at their application Mr Taylor we we look at people we we like to see that you've got some valuable miles in your rearview mirror uh that you've experienced uh life and
• 11:30 - 12:00 and something that uh uh it's a good thing if you experienced failure somewhere along the line or maybe more than one shows resilience uh because as you go through medical school you're likely to hit a couple of bumps uh you need to know how to get through them uh and you need to know how to ask for help um we look at people who have had these lived experiences um as as somebody that's um really a little more resilient down the
• 12:00 - 12:30 line uh and and more capable of success with less trouble in their life um getting through school we look at people who perhaps like Doug Taylor started out slowly in college majored in campus Aly for a while then finally figured things out uh we look at we look at what you can do now show show what you're capable of now uh the past is behind you you can't change it uh if you can show your confidences now I I think most medical
• 12:30 - 13:00 schools will will look at that in a in a favorable light to to piggy back off that for you Mr Taylor then what are some of those experiences that you like to see are there certain types of individual backgrounds that you feel provide value to show that somebody has those miles that you were saying what are some of those kind of life experiences that people might have that you might seem to find favorable and I know that this answer might vary depending on who we ask so for you what do you feel like is something that shows somebody has truly
• 13:00 - 13:30 gone through certain experience uh we we very much like people who have uh served in the military uh we like people who have been uh active and accomplished in team sports uh we like people uh who have uh engaged in things like Teach for America or uh Peace Corp thing things of that nature people who have come out of their original culture to some extent gone experienc different cultures uh and have
• 13:30 - 14:00 been able to accomplish and achieve in those areas also I love it and now we are joined by Dr Goodell um from Boston University School of Medicine Dr Goodell could you please just introduce yourself and then we'll get On th um are there specifications for what I'm supposed to say since I missed the introduction instructions anything you'd like about your background how you got into you know the medical school admission space where you are right now and things like that just a brief introduction okay sure so uh right so my name is uh Kristen
• 14:00 - 14:30 Goodell I am a family doctor and I am the associate Dee of admissions at Boston University chanian and evidian School of Medicine my primary job qualification being that I can say chanan evidian School of Medicine really fast um I have the uh unique distinction of having been faculty at all the three medical schools in Boston um but I am have been in Boston for my whole career um at be in addition to uh seeing
• 14:30 - 15:00 patients and doing admissions I am also um what's called an academy medical educator which means that I teach clinical skills for our students and um serve as an adviser for students that goes through all four years okay awesome and thank you all three of you again for being here and we're asking individual questions to individual doctors on the panel uh and admissions experts and we also have the Q&A at the bottom that you could all be answering questions to as we speak as well but a quick question directly then
• 15:00 - 15:30 to get started with you Dr Goodell I asked um you know our other two panelists already but when you're looking at an applicant who has sent you an application who's worked hard to have a lot of different experiences and put together an application what is your process of going through and sort of seeing if they'd be a great fit at your medical school and if you're going to Grant the person an interview Ah that's a great question so um we have a I mean you know this all the medical schools are a little different what we do um we get about well last year we got
• 15:30 - 16:00 10,700 amcast applications um so that's a lot um we have an initial review process where um we have a team of reviewers which I'm I'm trying to increase the size of it so we have more people but um so we have about a dozen 15 reviewers we use a rubric um and we evaluate each application according to the rubrics there are specific things that we look at using our rubric that include things like academic promise uh
• 16:00 - 16:30 clinical in experience um resilience kind of as demonstrated by having overcome obstacles your uh potential to bring a new and different perspective to the class so we look at a set of things and every each of the reviewers basically gets a giant stack of applications and they apply the rubric to the applications they give it a score they give it comments um and then from that we take the the top batch of those from each reviewer and um and those are the
• 16:30 - 17:00 people that we invite for an interview wow yeah so that's quite the process right there's so many there are so many steps and individuals who go into the process of accepting somebody into medical school and so when a student is interested in becoming a Premed and then eventually applying to medical school they might think okay well what major should I do in college what type of background should I do and and Dr robinet I'm going to ask you about majors and sort of are there certain U backgrounds in terms of educational backgrounds that you look
• 17:00 - 17:30 for for individuals for example is a science related degree important or is any degree valuable where would you go for for that yeah it's so interesting I feel like it's evolved over the year I was told back in the 90s if I went to go into medical school I should be an art history major it's like I'm not going to do well in art history so I just did chemistry because that's what I can do um so I would say choose something that you enjoy college is definitely a time to explore and get all kinds of fascinating classes um and we don't care
• 17:30 - 18:00 what you major and you need to do the prxs we have some basic prxs that you can see on our website we also recommend strongly biochemistry and Immunology so certainly you're going to have some medical uh or I'm sorry some science prere for those courses but it really doesn't make any difference to us what you major and and as far as educational background I think at least at Marland we really don't look at um what is maybe negatively called a pedigree of any sort
• 18:00 - 18:30 we probably 10% of our class did two years at community colleges we um we recognize the finances of undergraduate degrees are incredibly difficult these days so um you know we we take people from all different backgrounds um again really just emphasizing or trying to see it as a binary will this person be at an academic risk or not um and as long as you have a solid science GPA and solid MCAT then that kind of checks that box and it doesn't matter where you on
• 18:30 - 19:00 tender grad or what your degree was in perfect and thank you again to the Deans for answering the questions in the Q&A guys keep asking your questions away we'll try to get through as many as possible and the next question is going to be for Mr Taylor because I've seen it a lot in the chat and it's about uh sort of clinical experiences or ways to get yourself exposed to the world of medicine and you know what type of experiences have you seen students apply to in terms of seeing what a doctor does on a daily basis and really kind of knowing hey like I've talked to patients
• 19:00 - 19:30 in the past I sort of know what this whole field is that I'm getting myself into what types of experiences have you seen from people and how was the importance of it to you I I would have to say we we've seen just about anything that's out there one way or another at one time or another uh we we think the most valuable experiences are those that are valuable to the applicant um there are these things we call them box Checkers and and for God's sakes don't be a box Checker
• 19:30 - 20:00 don't do it just because you think you've got to do it uh do it because it's it's it's Fanning Your Flames it's building your fire it's showing you that this is the right career for you this is what you've got to do in your life because it's hard um the the second question we always ask of ourselves when we're evaluating application is will this person do it and that's every bit as U as important a question as as can this person do it from the academic side you've got to have that um you've got to
• 20:00 - 20:30 have that push that background it's got to be internal uh I can pretty well assure you that Grandma's motivation won't get you through it uh it's just too hard uh but you any of these things we like to see people that have maybe seen a little of the downside of medicine it's good to know that uh not everyone gets well and goes home H happy uh from the hospital U so the same doctor that brings really good news to one family has to bring really bad news
• 20:30 - 21:00 to the next one can you do that is that is that something you could do in your life uh because you will have likely have to do both at some time or another so what we look for uh is is a person it's not the quantity of the experiences you get it's the quality and the quality is totally what it did for you how how did it how did it inspire you how does it send you on down this trail of of a career in medicine definitely thank you so much for that answer Mr cheller and I'm going
• 21:00 - 21:30 to piggyback off it for you Dr Goodell because you know those types of experiences that a physician has can be very difficult delivering good news bad news and really having seen a lot of different ups and downs in the medical field so when you're looking at an a candidate whether it's during the evaluation process or even during the interview and trying to really connect and understand the individual how can you get a good sense of somebody's sort of maturity level or understanding of those ups and downs and how gone through the
• 21:30 - 22:00 process oh well that's probably the hardest part of our job actually because honestly most of the people that make it to the interview stage are um I don't know like competent and pretty polished and I think people know what to I think a lot of people have a sense of like what the good what the right thing is that they're supposed to say and so um I am always trying to in the interview ask questions that
• 22:00 - 22:30 really um get at who the person is and so I mean one thing that we do sometimes is I will um I have been known to uh give push back on people's answers a little bit okay so here's an example I sometimes ask the this is gonna ruin it now I can never ask this question because all these thousand people are going to know anyway I sometimes ask the question what's your Achilles heel and a lot of pretty sophisticated medical school applicants will quick do some thinking in their subconscious and
• 22:30 - 23:00 be like ah this is the time for me to talk about my weakness I have prepared this and then they give me some super annoying non weakness weakness like well I tend to take on too much responsibility or like oh sometimes I'm kind of a perfectionist anyway so my response to that is sometimes to say no I'm sorry I reject that answer it's it's too boring and it sounds like what everyone says and it's too good what I really want to know is what is something that might not even really be a weakness but just keeps coming up and causing you
• 23:00 - 23:30 to stumble like over and over again that's what I want to know something that actually is cause you a problem you know weakness or not um and what I am really looking for there is not I'm not I don't really care what the person says their weaknesses it would have to be egregious for me to like really think it was a problem what I really am looking for is how do they respond to my feedback like when I say nah not good enough do they like freak out get nervous do they get mad at me do they
• 23:30 - 24:00 get defensive or are they able to say okay I see what you mean all right let me think about this and then they tell me like okay well honestly uh you know I had somebody asked this question the other day and I had somebody said it's asking questions I really need to get better at asking questions in class I'm kind of afraid to do it I'm always afraid I'm going to look dumb and honestly right now I'm in trouble because of this because I didn't actually ask about the requirements for this project and now it's due and I have to ask a friend and hope they're
• 24:00 - 24:30 right and I was like okay that was legit but really what I was looking for is I just wanted to know that somebody would like respond in to me that's a marker of maturity and it's a marker of kind of being able to take a little you know it's it's like a communication skill so I guess a lot of that a lot of that comes out in the interview um you know we also look for that sort of thing in in the letters of recommendation um although that's tough because letters of recommendation just emphasize the good things and they don't tell us the good thing
• 24:30 - 25:00 so fair enough fair enough and that's such a good point I remember honestly when I was interviewing for medical school uh uh that happened to me as well I think my interviewer asked what was a challenge that you went through and I gave some answer about some class and and I think he said you know that is a notoriously bad answer and he gave me a chance to give another answer so it's definitely something that happens but you could overcome a bad answer so um so Dr Robinette then you know we we were talking a lot about the interview process right and so when somebody gets an interview from your medical school
• 25:00 - 25:30 and you're saying okay you know we're going to interview this person now you have to decide whether or not to accept that person so what is it about the interview you know that really can make or break a student's application what really can push somebody over the edge of being somebody who just interviews to somebody who you say we have to have that person in our incoming class yeah so first of all I'm sealing your question Dr Goodell I think that's great I love it um I will say that our statistics ICS if you interview are very good so we get about 6,000 applications
• 25:30 - 26:00 we interview about 600 and we accept about 300 so if you actually interview with us I think you know that's a 5050 accept and then we might take more off the wait list um so the stats go up significantly as far as getting in I think the difference what we're looking for in an interview is applications can be so polished like Dr goodal said like not only do applicants are very competent and they know what to say on an interview but even more so I think some applications are heavily edited by
• 26:00 - 26:30 people's pre Health um maybe chat GPT although you're not supposed to on your amcast like there's plenty of ways you can we know you can pay to get a personal statement written for you um so I what we want and what we ask we don't do MMI or anything like that are those questions like Dr Goodell said I frequently ask people um about first of all know everything on your application and that can be hard that seems silly but you do your application May and some s you're interviewing in January so make
• 26:30 - 27:00 sure you read through your whole thing and you can answer questions about each of the activities then I always because I think motivation is what I see as the biggest predictor of success ask about like in your shadowing experience what is a patient physician interaction that you really want to make sure you model when you're a physician um and if it's exactly sometimes I will get almost word for word what they wrote on our secondary when we asked about the most CL important clinical experience I'm like okay yep I I read about that one like how about another one and I just
• 27:00 - 27:30 want to hear that spontaneously from them they can convey the same level of motivation and same passion same interest and I know Mr Taylor said this I feel like it also came up in the last time this is why you should do activities you love I want to see enthusiasm like you can talk to me about like women's Sanitary products for menstration or you know work with people for clean water or like it doesn't have to be Medical but I just want to see people who have spent time doing things that they're excited about like playing
• 27:30 - 28:00 sports like that is you know being part of a team talk to me about what that was like what was like in the locker room when things are hard um kind of getting at that resilience so we're really just asking you about your application and making sure you know doing our best to make sure that you um are as motivated and as engaged as your application seemed that's awesome yeah great great answer as well and Mr tillor I'm going to ask you a similar thing but before I do remember we have 440 questions so far
• 28:00 - 28:30 in that Q&A and we're going to try to get through as many as possible but I think that this is so valuable to ask because again we're not asking you to share that all of the questions that you ask in an interview of a student typically but what are some of those types of things that really help distinguish somebody when you're talking to them that you can get a sense that you know this person is really going to be a excellent physician there's somebody we want in our medical school class yeah we're we're really very laid back in in our interviewing process uh we do uh one one uh little standardized interview of about five different
• 28:30 - 29:00 questions uh that we do actually score on a rubric and we tell our committee start in the middle this person is average but their answer is either move you up or down from average and that and the second one is totally an unstructured interview where we just talk about the person and you you know you can you can pretty much tell a lot of the time when when there's real passion and real what we call fire in the belly uh to to do the uh to do to do medicine but but basically and I think
• 29:00 - 29:30 both my colleagues here have very well hit this uh these people are polished they they know what this is about they they know what they're supposed to be doing they know what they're supposed to look like on this and really the most I guess I think really probably the most important thing about the interview is that on occasion let you pick out the person with the third eye the the person that that just really doesn't fit that doesn't work for for you uh that really
• 29:30 - 30:00 you know you wouldn't want wouldn't want to let them work on you with a vaccinated crowbar uh you just uh want to want to stay away from that person the rest of the people are going to be pretty well but every once in a while uh you get that person whose enthusiasm and and not over the top but but well rooted well well experience this is what they've got to do in their life they know that's what they got to do in their life they're really passionate about going into the
• 30:00 - 30:30 profession I love it I love it and so um a question that I keep seeing in the Q&A is about research Dr robinet I want to ask you a little bit about the importance of that is research in some form in some capacity a must is it how important is it how much do you value research experience and somebody who's applying to medical school because maybe that person isn't fully re interested in research or in a career that involves that so when it comes to research and
• 30:30 - 31:00 you're evaluating in evaluating an application you know what emphasis do you place on it what would you tell somebody who's sort of a Premed and and thinking do I need to do research do I need to check this box what do I do yeah anyone who's a Premed I recommend do research this was a question that I saw to that I recommend you do research outside of your classes that like not just your organic chemistry lab but actually go and volunteer and work in a lab um it can be for one of your professors or somewhere else the summer we do not require research so we accept
• 31:00 - 31:30 people every year who have no research at all for our MD only program we do have a robust MD PhD and MD masters programs which of course do require research but you know I've been on enough of these panels to know that Ohio State and Hopkins and there are plenty of great medical schools out there do require research so whenever I am giving advice I say just make sure you get some research experience the we like seeing it so that's like one of the activities that we see that I'm interested in so uh
• 31:30 - 32:00 you know to we don't compare one applicant to another but we want to hear what was your experience like I mean I have laughed out loud when some people are like I tried to do research and none of it worked so the lessons I took away were persistence or that this is not what I want to do for a career like so I mean there's certainly lessons to be taken away I think it can fit into the whole picture of what you want your career to look like and it just shows that you are serious about maybe having considered basic science and decided it wasn't for you or wanting research to be an integral part of your career as a
• 32:00 - 32:30 physician so make it part of your story we certainly want you know like reading about it like to see what people's Impressions were what their takeaways were um but it is not required for our MD only program and we accept people every year that have sereral research awesome yeah understood and some people too like research doesn't just have to be basic science research at the bench it could be a lot of different types of things it could be clinical research it could be talking to people and getting information out there Dr Goodell do you have any thoughts about research or how you view it on an application as well yeah so um I it
• 32:30 - 33:00 research is great because it does a bunch of good things or can do a bunch of good things for your application even if you decide you don't want to do it for your career um and I too have talked to people the thing that they learned from their research project was like uh so I always thought that science was sort of you know certain and that's why I liked and it turns out no you can plan everything perfectly and it still doesn't work um yeah so research one of the great things
• 33:00 - 33:30 that research uh tells us is something about your intellectual curiosity so that's why I say like loads of different types of research are are possible and will give us that message and allow you to kind of develop one of your interests so you don't have to be interested in you know neurobiology or biochemistry and you don't that's fine but maybe maybe your research is more in the realm of Public Health you know and so you get involved in some research projects that
• 33:30 - 34:00 are like oh we are actually going to look at the impact of this new food program uh that was located in this community health center to see if it actually improved people's diabetes uh whatever outcomes like that would be an amazing research project and it's not the type of bench research that I think people think of if they're like I don't like it I don't want to do it um by the same token I have talked with some people who are um have described fascinating projects one person who um did an independent research project for
• 34:00 - 34:30 credit during her was like a senior thesis that was all about the use of narrative in addiction recovery um throughout history it was fascinating and she knew everything about it we had such a good conversation so and and you know um she talked about how that impacted her and was she planning to be an addiction researcher no not necessarily but what I got from that is like here is somebody who is really curious who wants to go find out more who can work independently you know what I mean all these other things so I I
• 34:30 - 35:00 also encourage people to do research but just expand your definition of research and know that like we're sort of taking from that research whatever it is you give it like we don't want you to do research because we're trying to see how likely you are to become a Nobel Prize winner like that's not the thing we're just trying to see other things like again are you curious are you persistent can you work in a team can you you know it's more like that yeah so speaking of teamwork too is is there's that aspect of working well on a team and also not
• 35:00 - 35:30 only being a member of the team but maybe helping to push a team forward and being a leader in some capacity so Mr Taylor I want to direct this type of question to you because it's a theme that I've been seeing too because we hear that leadership is important but what does leadership really mean in the context of a premedical applicant and also how can they how can students who may have some form of leadership really convey what they've done as a leader you know we we we'd really like to see leadership we think that that's
• 35:30 - 36:00 very important and I think Dr goodel spoke to that just a moment ago when she was speaking about uh participating in research and for us the real value of research is is the applicant knowing that research is happening and actually knowing how to apply what's coming out of the research um medicine moves on research and they've got to really know how to use it and however they find out how to use it is up to them leadership on the other hand every team's got to
• 36:00 - 36:30 have leaders but a good leader has got to know when to lead and when to follow when to let somebody else uh lead also we we run into um students all the time who uh get out and try to do their first real intubation and they have to move out out of the way in just a minute let a respiratory therapist come in and say let me do this before you hurt this guy uh you but you've got to learn and you've got to know um there got to every team's got to have leadership uh to be successful so we like to see that this
• 36:30 - 37:00 demonstrated there's a bazillion ways it could be demonstrated in in the military in sports in the community in their school uh organizational things uh there's a lot of ways that that this can be uh demonstrated and you don't have to be a really high process Le uh leader but you've got to know the difference and how to be out front when it's your turn to be out front absolutely and so Dr Robinette on that topic of leadership what are what
• 37:00 - 37:30 are some of the ways that you've seen students convey their leadership experiences or demonstrate that they have leadership experience and kind of make it clear what they did as Leaders whether or not it was a formal position or not yeah I think that um I've had questions about whether or not you should bullet point your amcast respondes and the answer is like that's what we read just tell us what you did as a leader tell us what your experience is you can tell tell us how you messed
• 37:30 - 38:00 up and pulled it together in the end like all of that adds texture and authenticity to your application um I've seen more and more like I founded this club you do not need to found a club or or be the founder of a club that's found as not not the verb going for but you do not need to be the founder of a club in order to demonstrate leadership we just want to see that you're participating in your Campus Community or outside of that it can be with paid employment so if you were chosen if you work in a fast food restaurant you're chosen to be a shift leader or to be someone who trains new
• 38:00 - 38:30 people on the um register like that's great just talk to us about kind of what you've done what it felt like to be a teacher a leader things that went well things that didn't absolutely thank you so much for that answer and um Dr Goodell I I want to ask you a question too because I saw it a few times in the chat and it's about sort of creating a list of medical schools to apply to I know you know there's some medical schools that uh May value more people in the local vicinity
• 38:30 - 39:00 that that kind of community so when you're you know talking to a Premed student who may be applying just and and and just start getting started and being interested in you know applying broadly and wanting to really become a doctor how would you advise them to create a list of medical schools to apply to would you say that they should be you know only apply to schools in their area apply broadly how would you go about making a list yeah so um first of all the where the uh variety of experiences
• 39:00 - 39:30 one can have for undergraduate education is massive right big school tiny school Urban School rural school like specific engineering school versus like liberal arts whatever huge Variety in medical schools the variety is like this okay if we're talking about alpath medical schools there I think 156 of them and they're very close in size so this should be reassuring to you and this is like a preface of what I'm going to say because any medical school in the United
• 39:30 - 40:00 States that you get into is going to get you to your goal which should be be a doctor and and while there are some differences they're just not that big so okay that being said you still have to figure out like all right that's great but what how am I going to decide out of these 156 how am I going to decide which you know 25 to apply to so um one important point is to figure out who you are and what you are excited about what you are passionate about and then find the schools that fit you and also when
• 40:00 - 40:30 you're finding the schools as opposed to trying to make yourself the perfect applicant that can optimize your chances of getting into every medical school like just don't just figure out what who you are and what you need and what you're excited about and find the schools that say you now part of it is what you're excited about also part of it is like other things like You're you know your academic metrics right and also geography maybe you're like I don't I I need to be be kind and you're my family I don't think I can move blah blah blah so when those are all
• 40:30 - 41:00 considerations to think about when building your school list um when it comes to things like so and I one thing that I would point you in the direction of is the msar which is the medical school admissions requirements that's the publication by the double AMC like they get the data from the medical schools and it includes things like what's the average MCAT score and the range what is the average GPA and the range what are the I mean what are the deadlines it tells you where it is it tells you if it has certain programs and happily there is this new section that's
• 41:00 - 41:30 an expanded Mission section where some schools um H I'm excited including ours have taken the opportunity to really tell you like look this is what we're all about now not all medical schools have an obvious Niche but when there is one you should think about whether that's a good fit for you if you're like all right you know say say you're practically a genius with your like 4.0 and your MCAT of 5 2 and you basically could do whatever you want and you're
• 41:30 - 42:00 like I don't know I feel like I should go to wasu in St Louis or Hopkins or something but like I don't know I'm really more of a primary care gal than like please please go to a primary care school you know what I mean like do the thing that is good for you not just whatever so pay attention to things like metrics and what's possible yes but then also look at the schools that are the best fit for you in other ways as well yeah that's a great point and and I want to piggyback off that a little bit to Mr
• 42:00 - 42:30 Taylor because you know you mentioned things like having you know obviously having a good GPA and a good MCAT score is helpful but some students may have had experiences where early on in college they may not have had the highest GPA and you know they're working on additional things to help boost that up over the years Mr Taylor do you look at trajectory do you look at the experiences someone's had after maybe some bad grades early on in an experience and how can somebody overcome you a lower GPA at some point or you
• 42:30 - 43:00 know somebody who's applying with that being their weakness but the way you overcome a lower GPA on the front end show a higher GPA on their back end uh difficult and demanding course loads I mean schools know the difference between and every school out there has these less difficult courses uh where you can probably Ace them uh very easily um you you've got to show you know you've got to show that you can function under a load uh our first semester has
• 43:00 - 43:30 pretty much twice what anybody will take as an undergraduate load uh in a semester so you've got to be able to show us that you can overcome that but I tell you another great value in in doing that getting it together it shows a person that matures it show it gives demonstration of something you're really looking for and sometimes you're just having to guess whether it's there or not but when you see somebody that's really pulled it put together and overcome um a difficult slow start uh
• 43:30 - 44:00 that that's an important thing to see it also demonstrates a person who can change uh and change is is such a critical thing because when you you know what gets you to the front door of medical school will not get you through will not get you through you have to change and adjust it's a different world and you've got to be ready to change in the world and you know what we tell our students you know on the first day of medical schools up until today 90% of
• 44:00 - 44:30 you are used to being in the top 10% of your class as of today 90% of you are not in the top 10% of your class and the look that goes across the room when you when you tell people that that's reality that's exactly the way it is so they've got to be able to change and adjust and adapt to the everchanging situation which is medical Skool and medicine and that resilience right that ability and res is so important and Dr Goodell
• 44:30 - 45:00 then one way that students can show that resilience and that ability to adapt and change is through the personal statement so when you're reviewing a personal statement you know how would you advise somebody to write in such a way that really conveys why they want to become a physician what challenges they've overcome and what really stands out when you're reviewing somebody's personal statement then um so I think the most important thing in the personal statement m is to be clear and
• 45:00 - 45:30 sincere and it does not need to be unique frankly like I read more than a th personally read more than a thousand applications every cycle so it is really hard to make a personal statement that I remember and if I remember it it probably has more to do with very unusual circumstances that you have no control over like I'll just remember like wow that's really dramatic but it's like wasn't really something that you did necessarily so so don't don't worry about standing out or having a unique uh
• 45:30 - 46:00 reason for going to medical school or having like a life-changing experience so suddenly I realized I had to be a doctor like not the case for most people what we really want to know is why are you going to medical school and why do you think you'll be great at it and just tell us that as clearly as you possibly can um that actually is what stands out I often find myself when I'm writing my notes on the application I often find myself writing um you know I'll I'll
• 46:00 - 46:30 note the fact that uh seems motivation seems very sincere and I don't know how else to put it it's just that like the combination of the words they use to describe why they want to do this backed up by their personal experiences um all kind of hangs together and makes sense and I find myself looking at the whole application being like yeah I totally get it makes perfect sense to me you know um and I the other thing I would say about the personal statement is of course you should have somebody proofread it for
• 46:30 - 47:00 you but but actually and and it should be written it's kind of funny like formal but not too sanitized if that makes sense so when I'm really trying to understand why somebody is going to medical school I us should just asked them I had an entire day of advising yesterday and the first thing I did when people sat down is it said like so so so first of all just tell me like why is it that you want to go to medical school and literally all of these people were then showing me their personal statements and I was like okay so you
• 47:00 - 47:30 know the thing you said about your dad and his physical therapy practice and how it felt so like homey and like family there and he was so he cared about the whole person I was like that story should go in there because that sounds like a big motivator to you and it's fine to just go ahead and tell us like my dad is a role model for the kind of caretaker that I want to be some or whatever you know so anyway just being clear and not worrying that you need to like in some impressive like brand generalizations about the state of
• 47:30 - 48:00 medicine because you think that's what like just be and sincere that makes a lot of sense and and you make a great point about the dots connecting because people have a lot of different experiences and when looking back and and kind of prepping an application it's it it's helpful to make those dots connect in some way that really conveys a story or an idea of okay how did this person decide that they want to become a physician and then how did they get to this point today to where they're applying and I think connecting those dots is a very very helpful thing um but in that process I'm going to ask you Dr
• 48:00 - 48:30 rinette some people may make some mistakes some people may kind of have some hiccups along the way or or not put together their application maybe in a way that truly conveys who they they are so what are some of the mistakes the big mistakes the kind of glaring errors that people make and how would you address them how would you tell you know the group of of over 700 people watching right now you know what they should avoid doing or some of the things that you've seen people do that kind of maybe hurt their chances a little bit Yeah so
• 48:30 - 49:00 the one most notable thing for us that does it's like a lead balloon in our committee when people write this incredibly graphic um description of a severe trauma or the smell of the burning skin in the O we're like oh like what are you doing like you do not need to prove to us that you're not going to pass out during third year so you know I think that sometimes creative writing like do not I said this Dr goodal said this you are not getting any grades for creative writing we just literally want to hear why you want to be a doctor so we've had
• 49:00 - 49:30 applications usually the ones I remember are terrible like we had someone who applied decades ago this is when I was a medical student but I still remember it's like single white female in search of a medical school and it was written like a wanted add in the Penny Saver which probably none of you know what that means but you know just like not super creative out of the box is not good we just want to hear why you want to be a doctor like that is what we want to hear the other thing I will say say is when you talk about shadowing hero worshipping doctors like oh the doctor
• 49:30 - 50:00 saved everyone it was all perfect and come across is a little bit of credulous or naive like what we want to hear about is that patient physician relationship why you see yourself in that Doctor's shoes one day with a you can't know what it's like to be a doctor until you actually are one but just like with a little bit of of humility like doctors aren't saving the world like even if you saw one ER doctor pull someone through a code like recognizing that as a physician you're not going to go and code 100 people and save them all so
• 50:00 - 50:30 just kind of having a little bit of um true insight into the medical profession rather than than um platitudes I I would say like someone asked about and I know this is stepping on the personal statement answer but just like tell a story like that you were moved by I saw this patient who is newly diagnosed with breast cancer and the way the physici handled it and it was really difficult um and hopefully in the future I'd like to do this type of thing like just tell a story of something that you witnessed um yeah I think that answers it the
• 50:30 - 51:00 other so those that would probably be the biggest mistake and the other thing is just like the the Box Checkers I know Mr Taylor mentioned often it's just like I did this and I did that and I did the other it's like I don't care I can see that what I want to know is like what did you learn from that like it's great that you did that but what did you learn from it like what about that experience overseas or in a local shelter for people are experiencing home homelessness like what about that experience made you want to be a
• 51:00 - 51:30 doctor yeah I I want go for it please absolutely just just just a couple brief thoughts on that um make sure you're adding information there that's not found elsewhere in the application I know at least at my school there's a very good probability that my committee members are going to read your experiences before they read your uh personal statement so don't repeat yourself there and when it comes down to writing your personal statement write what you've got to say be succinct send
• 51:30 - 52:00 the extra information you want them to have and then stop writing you don't have to fill up that whole Space you run a real risk in doing that if you just fill up the whole Space because there's a possibility there's something really important at the end and but time by the time any of us or any of our committee members have read a couple of thousand applications uh chance of you reading every word in that thing is not very good and you might miss something uh if there's something very important that
• 52:00 - 52:30 comes at the end so write what you've got to say and stop yeah no that's a great point but then on that same topic of of making sure that people are kind of doing things that make sense what are some of the mistakes you've seen people make or you know what are some some of the red flags that have really kind of hurt applicants in the past because you know you mentioned you've been doing this for decades and decades so what are some of those serious mistakes that people should avoid making oh I I think I I think my colleagues here have gone over most of those over and over just you know don't
• 52:30 - 53:00 bore the reader uh give them something that excites them make them want to know more about you uh we we had an applicant once who was telling us about their altruism about how many times they had stopped and saved Turtles out of the middle of the road uh okay that's a little that's a little different but uh coming from where we come from maybe it's not so different but in in any case uh the things in there most people you see
• 53:00 - 53:30 the same things how many times have y'all seen tick tick tick the clock on the emergency room while tell us what's different about you where where did you get your motivation What's faned Your Flames what's brought you uh to this point in your life and that that's what you put in there and it's a mistake to do otherwise and it's a mistake to say the same thing over and over and over through throughout the lot of us are conditioned to do that you got to fill up the whole Space please don't
• 53:30 - 54:00 definitely definitely um Dr Goodell I want to ask you a question that I saw a few times in the chat as well I want to make sure we get to it and it's it's on the topic of letters of recommendation so obviously students need to ask for letters of recommendation and submit them any sort of criteria that you look for or would recommend for students to ask for letters of recommendation does it have to be science professors does it have to be certain teachers does it have to be from experiences how would you how would you sort of guide someone who's saying hey I don't have any letters of recommendation I want to apply in the next year or two how should I go about
• 54:00 - 54:30 collecting those letters of of recommendation and who should I be asking yeah so um different medical schools have different rules about this so there are so some medical schools have a rule that like they need to see two letters from a science Professor or something like that we actually got rid of those requirements because um we found that so often they weren't helpful you know and it actually really came up during covid we had all these people that were taking you know biology and chemistry um remotely and they hadn't
• 54:30 - 55:00 had a chance to get to know professors very well and it was it was just ended up being sort of useless so for us the most important thing and the reason we got rid of that requirement is because we really want letters from people that know you and the best bet is to get people that know you that to get your different letter writers to be from different settings so we like to have somebody that can speak to your academic work in a classroom or lab setting so like sure it could be a science Professor but better off if you've got Advanced a smaller U more high level
• 55:00 - 55:30 course with a lab where the person could really talk about you know what what stood out about you in the classroom um another it would it's also great to get letters from people that know you in a different setting like a work setting um people might not think about it but like sports coaches uh musical people have coached you in a musical instrument and um you know people who have seen you work in a team any kind of a team all of the volunteer experiences all of those
• 55:30 - 56:00 things are great they're going to tell us different things about you and what we want is for those letters to really add to the information that we have in the application right so like it's one thing for us to say wow this person's done a lot of service activities they must really care about people and it's another thing for uh to get a letter and this was one I got this year a letter from um a person who had supervised an applicant at his paid job where he worked in a group home for people with
• 56:00 - 56:30 um I think it was autism and this supervisor who is not a physician was just the guy running the home said this young man is our best staff member and here's why it's because he was somehow able to connect with um people that nobody else had been able to connect with and it's because he handled lots of very difficult situations with people throwing things at him or people being very upset and he managed to maintain like calm and respect towards everyone
• 56:30 - 57:00 even though and um talked about how he went out of his way to like celebrate people's birthdays showed up with a cake one time for somebody who was a like a less well-liked resident of this group home and he was afraid that something bad would happen on his birthday and so so even though he wasn't working that day he showed up with a cake and I was like that's beautiful like this is a great person so so somebody that knows knows you and can speak to some special things about you I think it was Doug
• 57:00 - 57:30 that was talking about um Sports before I can remember a couple of letters I've had from coaches that said frankly like yeah this was not this person was not the best player on the team but she sat there and supported everybody sat there on the bench and supported everybody for three years and that's why she got to be captain in the fourth year you know what I mean it was just like like those are those are great so yeah letters from people who know you in different settings I love it and so I wish that we could do the session for hours and hours and hours because there's so much valuable information here and we could
• 57:30 - 58:00 see it by all those questions that are popping up in the Q&A but obviously we can get through everything and so we have just a few minutes left so in one minute or less I'm going to ask each one of you for your biggest piece of advice the the thing that you want to make sure everyone takes away from this panel because you know honestly this is this is the one chance that people have to really hear directly from the people who are reviewing applications so I'm going to start with you Mr Taylor in one minute what's your biggest piece of advice to premat quoting a old fell that used to
• 58:00 - 58:30 walk around this area here by the name of David Crockett who said make sure you're right then go ahead make sure this is what you want to do as you're pursuing your schools as you want to pick the schools you want to go to go visit the schools put your feet on the ground get a feeling for the school the students the the community everything about it and that's how you'll pick where you think you'll go to school tool that's my biggest piece of advice I love it I love it thanks so much Dr Robinette
• 58:30 - 59:00 your your answer say I don't have a quote um a just apply like many people are hung up on the Gap ear at just looking at this like a make sure you want to be a doctor there's so many warm fuzzies oops I talk with my hands make sure you want to be a doctor there's so many warm fuzzies growing up when you say oh I want to be a doctor when I grow up everyone's excited I think Mr Taylor mentioned grandma can't motivation can't get you along just make sure it's really what you want to do with your life um and then apply early with your best
• 59:00 - 59:30 application we don't care at all about gers like they're great or if you're ready straight through that's terrific too but make sure you have taken time to really discern that you want to be a physician get the experience community service research whatever it is you want to kind of best um put yourself the best self forward and then apply to medical school perfect thanks so much and Dr Goodell you're answer um mine is you know it's like a little bit um similar to my colleagues
• 59:30 - 60:00 but I guess I would say like do what you love that should actually be do what you love and what is right for you so like what you do should you have all the votes in deciding what you should do right Mom and Dad love you a lot but they don't get to decide what you do for your whole entire future they're paying your tuition maybe right now so like maybe let them do that but you know generally you have all of the votes so that is true at about the timing of when you
• 60:00 - 60:30 apply to medical school that's true about the the different activities that you choose when you're doing that choose the things that you are the most excited about um as opposed to like what you think somebody else told you you should do or what you think looks the best or whatever do the thing that you're excited about you are going to be the best at it if you're excited about something you're G to put more of yourself into it you're going to um be more proud of it when you talk about it it'll be more sincere get more out of it all of those make a much much better position honestly than um than anything
• 60:30 - 61:00 else and it's it's sort of what uh what Doug said before like this is it's this actually too hard to do if you don't really really really want to do it so go ahead and do the things that you are psyched about and if they line up with medicine great you know and then and then make your career around that I love it the three of you have been fantastic you've answered so many questions directly to students and and this was so valuable to hear from the three of you thank you so much for taking the time out on your Saturday to answer questions
• 61:00 - 61:30 for students and to really make a difference