How To Get Into Medical School (Part 2): Surviving Secondaries and Staying Genuine

Holly: So don’t sell yourself short in saying like, oh, well, I’m only of this. That could be huge. You don’t know that. So like that’s where it starts. It’s like there’s a lot of bravery and courage that has to come in writing these because you’re really putting yourself out there, but knowing yourself and knowing what those qualities mean to you is huge.

Pooja: Yeah, I think one of my favorite, one of my favorite discoveries as going through medical school was realizing that people inherently are profoundly interesting and profoundly unique. And I think the sooner people discover that, the better, because then they’ll realize that they are part of that people who are profoundly interesting and realize that they do in fact have something to bring to the table. So, thank you for clarifying that.

Pooja: The path to becoming a doctor is a whole range of things: exciting, confusing, anxiety-inducing, and gratifying, probably all at the same time. And the truth is that no matter how isolating it may feel, you’re not in it alone. Welcome to Pursuit of Practice, your go-to space for expert advice, real stories, and the kind of support that shows you what trusting the process actually looks like.

Welcome back to part 2 of our deep dive into the medical school application process. In part 1, we covered primaries, MCAT results, personal statements, and letters of recommendation. If you want to learn more about those aspects of the application process, go back and listen to our first episode. But now, it’s time to tackle the next crucial steps in the process, secondaries and the torturous waiting period.

Holly Proffitt is back for part 2. Holly is one of Blueprint’s admissions advisors, and she has been working with medical students to assist them in their path to residency for the last 7 years. Holly has been described by her students as their med school mom and not only understands the hustle of balancing schoolwork and play, but is also known for giving advice to students that uplifts and motivates them while maintaining necessary honesty and tough love. It’s great to have you back, Holly.

Holly: Hey, yeah, thanks for having me.

Pooja: So as well as secondary applications, we will also discuss how to handle the stress of the waiting game and keeping yourself grounded during the silence. So if you’re in the thick of secondary applications or you’re waiting for good news, you are in the right place. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the next steps of your med school journey.

Holly, for applicants who just submitted their primary, what should they expect when secondaries start rolling in?

Holly: Yeah, you should expect a couple different things. One, that they will not come immediately. So, it’s full of waiting games. So, from the time you submit your primary to your secondary can be any time of 2 to 6 weeks or longer. It really just depends on the school. But the application services verify things for admissions committees. So, they verify your transcripts, they verify your test scores, they verify things like that. And depending on where we are in the process, that verification can take up to 6 weeks. So, just because you submitted your application does not mean you’re going to get secondaries like tomorrow. There is a waiting game there. And like I said, sometimes longer than others.

The biggest things with secondaries and what to expect is a quick turnaround. So, the kind of the standard is that you have 2 weeks. Some give you 10 days to get that secondary done and turned back in. Some will be a little bit more broad of like, take as long as you want. It’s due in December. But you have to remember that the secondary is what’s waiting to get you the interview. So, it’s better to be efficient and get them done in a timely manner so that you can move forward.

From there, it’s really a crapshoot, but I could give you some trends on what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve seen consistently over the last couple years, but those are the major things to take away.

Pooja: Yeah, so before we dive into those trends, I just want to clarify something that you said. So, if you’re getting secondaries from a school that’s saying, oh, take as much time as you need. They’re due in December, but you kind of know that you have to give it in a timely manner. What is the globally accepted definition of a timely manner in this circumstance?

Holly: I would say two business weeks. So, like, okay, you know, if you get it on Monday, the next Friday is a good standard. And just remember, the longer you wait, the longer it’s going to take for you to get an interview. So, I don’t want you to hastily submit it and not do a good job, but 2 weeks is usually a good, like, I can take my time, I can have folks review it, I can go from there. But I wouldn’t go any further than 2, maybe 3 weeks at the most.

Pooja: Okay, got it. So before we go into the trends that you’ve noticed over the last couple of years, I want to talk about just kind of big picture for our listeners, especially those who don’t necessarily know, how are secondary essays different from primaries? And what is the, I guess, difference in how schools are using primary applications versus secondary ones?

Holly: Right. So, your primary application is really just like an appetizer of who you are. It’s a, hey, here’s all my basic information. Here’s where I went to college. Here’s a personal statement. And maybe you get a couple other questions in there, like if you’re applying to an MD PhD or something like that.

Secondaries really delve deeper into the who you are and why you are more of a fit to this institution. So sometimes, and this is without getting too deep into the trends I’ve seen, but a lot of times the themes are like, why did you pick this campus, if there’s multiple campuses? Or why did you pick this institution? Or the mission of our school is XYZ, primary care or urban primary care or whatever. And so, they’re really trying to get you to understand and align yourself and what you want with their mission.

And so, we talked about that in the first episode of like, does it make sense? Like, are you the same person from thing to thing to thing, and do you align with the mission of the institution? This is going to be even deeper into that, where they’ll often take pieces of their curriculum, or they’ll take certain aspects of what they do, and it’s really a challenge to say like, are you going to go to our website and look it up? Like, are you just going to talk about whatever you think it is, or are you going to take the effort to go learn about it and do what you need to do?

Pooja: Right. Right. And I think it’s something that we talked about a lot in our last episode about fit to mission. And I think that theme kind of comes again here, too, because it sounds like from what you’re saying, when you’re looking up stuff about a school and talking about what you like about it specifically, it kind of allows both you and the school to evaluate, all right, how good of a fit to our school’s mission are you?

Holly: Correct. Yep. And different aspects of it. And honestly, it’s really an effort statement, just like it is in the primary of like, how much time are you going to put in here? Are you going to go look at the websites? Are you going to get to know the institutions? Are you going to look over things and have them edited properly? Because it’s just as easy to make a mistake in any of these places and it looks sloppy and that you didn’t take your time. And so, a lot of the same practices that we say for primaries, but a deeper focus for sure.

Pooja: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So, I think you’ve kind of talked about the trends that you’ve been noticing over the last couple of years. I kind of want to open the floor to you and just let you share whatever you think is appropriate for us to hear.

Holly: Yeah, so something I’ve seen a ton, I’ve got one client right now with Blueprint who’s in the thick of these that she and I are working on together. And I think we’ve done, I don’t know, probably 6 or 7 already, and we keep seeing the same thing. Tell me about your background. And it’s super broad. So, it’s like, well, what do you mean? Where I was born, who my parents are, like how it’s very, very open ended.

And then another thing that all my students have really been challenged with over the last couple years that I’ve been with Blueprint is the tell me what you bring to this class. And so, students have a hard time with that. They want to say about, oh, I’m diverse or I’m this or that. And I’m not trying to minimize those things, but then they can’t unpack them. I’m like, well, why does that matter? Why does it matter that you consider yourself diverse? Okay, so I would say I’m not inherently diverse. I’m a white cisgender female. So that’s not, you know, at the top of underrepresented in medicine. But so then I would have to dig a little bit deeper and I’d say, okay, well, how did I grow up? Well, I’m a first-generation college student. That’s a little bit different than some folks. I’m a first-generation physician, pursuing physician. I grew up in the South, which a lot of people grew up in the South, but maybe not if you’re applying to Columbia. I don’t know.

You’ll hear these things. And so, those questions really make you dig a little deeper than just like the face value of who you are or like, I’m hardworking. Everybody’s hardworking. That’s applying to medical school. So, I think that those are the biggest ones I keep seeing is like, what’s your background? And sometimes they’re linked together. What’s your background and what are you bringing to the table that’s going to make you different and enhance those around you at the medical school?

So that’s a big one. And they love, like I said, the curriculum ones. So tell me about this specific part of the curriculum and why you’re interested in our school and align it with your career goals. So again, it’s like you got to know about yourself. You got to know why do you want to be a doctor, what kind of doctor do you want to be, how does this align, and how to put it all together.

So I think the, I haven’t seen a lot of politics, I haven’t seen a lot of, you know, really specific ethical questions or anything like that. It’s really been about the self reflection about like what do you bring to the table and how are you going to enhance those in the learning environment around you?

Pooja: Right. No, absolutely. And I think one, I guess, word of caution that I’ll add to the what kind of doctor you want to be question is only, and I only mentioned this because I think it’s something that I didn’t realize until I did a like a review of my own application and I got into medical school and talked to other people about like what they’re looking at in applications because obviously, like I’m very involved in my school and I talk to the missions committee a lot. And I found that for me, when I was applying, there were some schools that only asked me about career aspirations and didn’t ask me about anything else, like in terms of my interests. And I found that those schools didn’t really offer me interviews. And the schools that offered me interviews were the ones that asked me about my additional interests. And I realized that it was because when I was describing my own career aspirations, I was very specific on what I wanted to do and it was a very specific niche. And so, Holly, I wonder, I see that you’re nodding now. I wonder what your thoughts are on that and if you kind of agree with my analysis about what happened.

Holly: Absolutely. I absolutely do. And remember, like my background is being a career advisor. It is worrisome in some ways if people are hyper focused and hyper specific because what it says to us is like if you told me you wanted to be a pediatric neurosurgeon and I’d be like, uh-huh, yeah, like 1% of the 1% that go to medical school become pediatric neurosurgeons. Like that is a very tough road. And that if that is the only thing that you’re focused on, I have a lot of concerns on how you’ll do if that doesn’t work out.

And so, it’s totally okay to have an idea of like what kind of patient population you want to have, what your overall goals are. But when someone tells me for a fact that they want to be XYZ physician at this place, I’m like, “Oh, jeez.” Like, I don’t know if this is the place for you. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to deliver on that. I don’t know if you understand all the steps that have to go into become that thing. You know, if you told me you wanted to be a full spectrum family medicine doctor in a rural area, I’d say great, because that’s broad enough. But when you’re saying a very specific environment, patient population specialty, it gives us a whole lot of, I’ll speak for myself. It gives me pause in that maybe you don’t understand the entire process that has to happen to get you to that point.

There’s also literature that suggests that people who are hyper career focused actually struggle more when they hit failure. When something doesn’t work out, when something is, you know, you fail a test or you don’t get the board score that you want or something like that, that they are not as resilient to move on, to grow, to take new opportunities, because that’s the only thing you’ve ever seen. Or the only thing you’ve ever wanted. So it does give us a little bit of pause on the emotional maturity part, not to say that you were emotionally immature, but there is stuff to suggest that it’s like, wow, we need to talk about like, let’s talk about the foundation of being a doctor first before we go to the super specialty.

Pooja: Right. Right. No, I completely agree. I think that there were parts of me that were really grown and parts of me that weren’t. And I think that’s that’s the case.

Holly: You’re 22 if you apply right out of school. You’re 22 years old. There is, we can’t expect the world out of a 22 year old.

Pooja: Right. Like I and I know for me, I was applying, submitting my application right like during my senior year of college. And then I grew a lot during my gap year, which by the time I got to medical school, I had like fully been like, “Oh, I’m very undecided now, but I have ideas of what kind of doctor I want to be.” But a lot of what I wanted out of my career in the moment where I graduated college changed drastically over the course of that year. And so I think sort of similar to your point, I think becoming less fixated allowed me to be resilient throughout medical school. And so I’m glad I’m glad that we were able to talk about that because I think it’s a, it’s a misconception that I think people have. Like I think when people say, oh, have an answer of what you want to be, I think that it’s okay to say something like, I don’t know exactly what that, you know, field might look like, but I do have interest in these specific things, or I’m interested in advocacy, I’m interested in research, I’m interested in education, I’m interested in things that most doctors do regardless of the specific field they’re in.

Holly: Yes, that would be a perfectly acceptable answer. It’s the same thing when people say, where do you want to be in 5 years? You don’t have to know. Like I don’t know. I, you know, I hope that I’m doing things that are meaningful to me. XYZ, that is sufficient. And you have hit the nail on the head of the challenge with these applications is that don’t write what you think we want to read. Write what’s true because that’s what we want is what’s true.

And even this client that I’m working with right now, she’s so exceptional, but sometimes I have to bring her back and say, hey, you didn’t answer the question that was asked because now she’s done enough of them that the questions are similar enough that she’s getting the hang of it, but she also just wants to copy and paste. And I’m like, nope, read the question stem. And so I have to go back and I highlight like, you didn’t answer this. And she’s great. And she’s like, yep, you’re right. I didn’t do it. And then we work through it. But that is a common pitfall of what when these secondary start coming in, you just start busting them out because the pressure of like they’re all coming in at the same time and they’re all due at the same time and I know I need an interview from this and blah. It’s like you got to focus in. You got to take the time that you need to make sure you’re answering the question. And that’s why it’s so important, whether it’s one of us at Blueprint or a pre-med advisor or someone that you trust, to look over these for you, because if you’re just smashing them out and you’re not having anybody look over it, you may be missing something vital in the question stem or doing your research appropriately or things like that. And that can really hurt you and how it comes across.

Pooja: I completely agree. And I want to follow up a little bit on what you’re mentioning right now is that there are many prompts that are kind of seen similarly across schools and you mentioned your client who wanted to copy paste because the themes seemed similar. I wonder why do you think schools often ask the same kind of questions?

Holly: Oh, that’s a good question. I think because we’re all kind of looking for the same thing. I mean, we’re all looking for someone who can be thoughtful. We’re all looking for someone who knows how to reflect and how to see what their value is and to understand their value. And it doesn’t have to be that you completely understand every aspect of yourself because like developmentally from a young adult perspective, there’s so much that happens from that 18 to 22 and honestly till you’re 30, if not longer, I hope it’s forever, of like realization of your goals and to acknowledge what you said about when you were 22 and you’re applying to medical school versus what happened in your gap year, we want that lived experience. We want that understanding of like why what I’ve been through or who I am is going to be helpful to my peers.

My 22-year-old self, I don’t know that I could have said what I brought to the table at 22, to be honest with you. I would really have had to think about that. But now at 38, I could tell you this is what I’ve been through. This is what I’ve experienced. This is what I advocate for. And so I think we ask a lot of the same questions just to see where people are because we all kind of want to just see, are you there yet? Are you capable of looking around you and seeing what you bring to the table? Because you can attribute to like, you can totally affirm this for me. What I’ve seen in medical school is that there are going to be times that it tries you, that it really tests you. And these little questions can really give us an idea of like, do you have the, just the seeds. You don’t even have to have the full-blown ability, but the seeds to plant the tree to be able to do that kind of reflection that’s necessary of you in medical school and to be an excellent physician.

Pooja: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I also think that what I really like about the what applicants bring to the table question. It’s actually really funny at the time of, you know, us recording this, I’m just coming back from a panel that I served on, just, it was a panel of 2. I don’t know why I’m calling it a panel. My advisory dean had asked me and a peer of mine to talk to some like second year students about the clerkship year and talk about like just to quell some of their anxieties about the year and, you know, how to survive and thrive during clinical rotations. And I remember it was funny because I had told them that one of the things that I prioritized was like figuring out what my superpowers as a clinician were going to be, or figuring out what I’m really good at and like not only, you know, finding my weaknesses and being able to turn them into strengths, but also to figure out what I’m good at and make them even better. Like make that the thing that I’m really good at and develop a skill set that is unique to me that I can use in the future to kind of distinguish myself like for the rest of my career.

And I found that this question, I think, is the beginning of that process. Because I think the best doctors are the ones who know what they’re good at, they know what they’re not as good at, and what they need help from their other peers to do because medicine is a team sport. And so knowing what you’re good at, having something you can lean on other people for support for, and then being able to get that help, I think is really valuable. So I appreciate you answering that question.

Holly: Absolutely. You’re exactly right and you’re going to thrive in your residency interviews because you understand that and you get that because that’s really all we want is to be able to that you can demonstrate just the start of that understanding and the belief in yourself and the belief in your abilities and how you recover from that.

Pooja: Yeah. No, absolutely. So I guess just to recap for students who are not sure how to approach that question, it sounds like from what you were saying earlier that the best way for someone to approach the question of what they bring to the table, especially if they feel like they don’t necessarily bring a diverse perspective, is to think about anything in their life that has made them unique outside of their demographics and outside of the things that on paper may not be distinguishable among other applicants.

Holly: Totally. And here’s the thing that medical students or pre-meds love to do is don’t qualify it compared to somebody else, okay? What if like if you play, say you played college softball at the division 3 level. That’s more than I did. I mean, that’s more than a lot of people do. Like, what is being an athlete mean? What does being an oldest sibling mean? What does, like, I mean, honestly, it can be as simple as like talk to your best friend, talk to a partner, talk to whoever, and write down the qualities of how you would describe yourself and see how does that perspective change? Like what does that perspective bring to the table?

Like I was just talking to my oldest the other day. He watches this little show on Netflix where it’s one brother with ten sisters. And they talk about having a big family. And I said to him, I said, buddy, because we have four kids. I said, do you like being in a big family? He was like, oh, yeah, it’s super fun. And he doesn’t realize that one day that he could use that as a quality of like, I’m the oldest of four. I’m the oldest to twin brothers. I’m the oldest to brothers who have Down syndrome. I’m the oldest of, you know, whatever. Like that quality of being the oldest has so many facets that he could talk about one day when he wanted to. So, and that’s a 6-year-old. So just think of the potential of a wonderful young adult who’s applying to medical school and what they could do. So don’t sell yourself short in saying like, oh, well, I’m only of this. That could be huge. You don’t know that. So like that’s where it starts. It’s like there’s a lot of bravery and courage that has to come in writing these because you’re really putting yourself out there, but knowing yourself and knowing what those qualities mean to you is huge.

Pooja: Yeah, I think one of my favorite, one of my favorite discoveries as going through medical school was realizing that people inherently are profoundly interesting and profoundly unique. And I think the sooner people discover that, the better, because then they’ll realize that they are part of that people who are profoundly interesting and realize that they do in fact have something to bring to the table. So, thank you for clarifying that.

Holly: Let me tell you this too. We’re a bunch of nerds that work in higher Ed and we’re like, tell me all the things. Tell me all about you. I want to know all those things. So it’s like, you’re in the best audience ever to show to share those things because like, I would rather hear things like that. They’re like nerdy or whatever of what, you know, that wasn’t even nerdy, but like I want that different perspective. This is the best people ever to tell it to. So just remember it’s not.

Pooja: That’s true. People like us on the other side are like, yes, tell me all the things about you. Yeah, that’s very true. I feel like everyone who I know who are involved in my school who are also serving as like admissions interviewers are literally the nicest people I’ve ever met and all they want to do is hear about you. That’s true. That’s very true.

Okay, so I guess there’s a couple of things that I wanted to talk to you about. Some involving pitfalls, some involving recommendations that kind of circulate that I wanted to see what your thoughts were on. So the first is that some advisors suggest pre-writing essays after submitting the primary. Do you agree with that approach?

Holly: I may be the dissenter on that. I do not. It’s not my favorite because for exactly what I just said of that you may not be fully answering the question because each question has its own nuance. I also think that pre-writing is, it can cause a brain, like a cramp, a writer’s cramp. Yeah. Because if you pre-write and then it’s different than what you prepared for, which it likely is, then you’re like, ah, like I already wrote this. Like what was I doing?

Honestly, I think, and this is really hard for pre-meds, for medical students, because I work with students who do residency applications too, is like just take a break. Just enjoy your break for a second because the work is not going anywhere. So honestly, I prefer that you like take a second and you reflect on the work that it took to go into your primary. You sleep, you eat properly. Like the basic human things that we should be doing, and I’m not being facetious about that. I mean, like I’ve already got students who are like, can we start practicing for interviews? I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, take a half a beat. You just did like an endurance race, basically, to get this application done, like go sit in the sun for a little while and just take some vitamin D in and relax. And then we can talk about it.

So I’m against pre-writing for a couple reasons. One, I don’t know it’s super fruitful. And two, I think you need to take a break before you jump into the next thing because then after secondaries, it’s interviews. And after interviews, it’s waiting for acceptances. And then after that, it’s going to medical school and it’s like you’re never going to get that time back. So like please, just take it. And I’m not I’m really not being condescending. I’m like take a breath, like just enjoy the quiet for a second. That’s my, and like I said, I may be a dissenter in that way, but that’s my personal philosophy. We need to wait.

Pooja: No, I wish I wish I’d gotten that advice truthfully because I do feel like there were some applications where I felt like I was in a little bit of a writer’s block because I ended up pre-writing some stuff and I think, I think an in between for the person who is worried about, you know, not doing anything, but also giving them time to relax is maybe just having a couple of bullet points of topics that they would want to hit and just like a literal bullet point, like a couple of words or phrases to remind you of what you could write about to answer specific types of questions. But I think that could be helpful. Like I know for residency applications, when I was in my sub-I, I knew that like there would be patient stories that would kind of show up or things that people would want to ask about. And so I remember like thinking about, okay, like if there was a moment where I felt like, oh, I could talk about this on the interview trail, then I just like wrote down a couple of sentences to remind myself of what happened so that the details could be fresh, but that’s it. There’s nothing else that I think is really necessary.

Holly: Yeah, I would agree too that if you really want to do something, start getting to know your schools a little bit better. Look at where they do their clerkships. Look at what kind of clerkship environment they have. Like do they have longitudinal integrated clerkships where you’re doing everything over the course of a year in one space, or are they block specialty clerkships? When do they start clerkships? Lots of schools are starting at like a year and a half. Duke does theirs after a year. You do 1 year of pre-med, like foundational curriculum and then you’re in clerkships. And so that’s wild to me. And so like get to know your schools better. Get to know the populations that they serve. Get to know what’s their mission. Are they really research focused? Are they really primary care focused? Or they really like if they have multiple branches, you know, University of Indiana has 7 campuses. So like get to know there’s a huge difference between Indianapolis and Southern Indiana. So if you’re going to have to choose between one of those, you need to know why. And you don’t and you don’t want to say, oh, I want Indianapolis because it’s more urban.

Well, you don’t know. Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know Indiana well enough to know tell you whether, you know, Indianapolis is the only urban area. There’s parts of Chicago, South Chicago that touch Indiana. So you could be looking silly by saying like, oh, I want only want the urban one and there’s other ones that are urban. So if you were going to if you feel like you need to do something that’s busy, I would be getting to know your schools better so that you can be better prepared to answer those ones that are more specific about the curriculum, about the whatever. That I would feel more confident if you needed to do something or you felt like you wanted to do something and you’re doing that so that you could be more aligned when the questions actually come.

Pooja: That makes so much sense. I completely agree with that. And I actually, I might steal that for myself because I’m kind of in the waiting for interviews season right now. So yeah, I might steal that one. Amazing.

So, I guess kind of similar to what you said about, you know, people looking into schools and understanding, you know, why that school for themselves. How do you think applicants can make their why this school essay, if they’re asked about it, feel authentic and specific rather than generic? Because the truth is, Holly, I’m sure, I’m sure you’ve seen so many different schools’ missions. A lot of them kind of sound similar and sometimes it can be hard to tease apart the differences on a website alone.

Holly: Yeah, for sure. I think it goes back to your career goals. So when you talk about like a suburban or rural or primary care, first of all, you got to be authentic and true to yourself if that’s what you want to do. If you don’t want to do primary care, then don’t lie about it because that’s going to come off as is not true. But really thinking about what will that school help you achieve. So you went to, you’re at Columbia. When we hear the name Columbia, we think Ivy, we think urban, we think research, we think these things. So as you’re a pre-med and you’re applying to Columbia, it’s like, okay, well, what is Columbia going to help me achieve? What is the name Columbia? What is urban New York City rotations? What is access to research? What is, and all of those things, and how does that align with what I want to do?

And so that may be different now as you’re a senior medical student versus when you were a pre-med, but there clearly was something there at Columbia that was like, ah, that is going to help me get to the goal that I want to do. And so I think looking at what, you know, I’m a list maker. If I had to make my top five things that I wanted from my career, if I wanted to be in academic medicine, I knew I wanted to teach. If I knew I wanted to see patients at a really high level, like a really high acuity, I know that I’m going to need to go someplace that provides that. I know that I want to have access to a certain population because I want to serve a community that’s near and dear to my heart or like me or whatever.

And so those are very broad things that you could very easily tie into that mission or that question that’s unique to you. Because you and I could both be looking and have those exact same things, but have very different perspectives because of our lived experience of how we grew up and what that experience looks like. So like I could say I want high acuity and high like really challenging cases because I want to go back to a rural area and be able to do everything for my patients. You may say, I want to stay in an urban area and I know that this is the majority of what I’m going to see. Very different experiences, but same like different answers to the same question.

Pooja: No, absolutely. And I’m so glad you mentioned that too, because I think that there’s a lot of different ways to make your answers like one of the questions that I had for you about this was how to show genuine interest in a school rather than copying facts from a website. And it sounds like from what you’re describing that the answer really just comes from being able to actually take what a school is about and relate that to yourself and kind of demonstrate your personal investment by saying, hey, you guys offer these things. This is why that is specifically valuable to me because of something that I told you about myself already.

Holly: Yep, absolutely. And just unpack it. So like just like I said, the appetizer, the or like your aperitif, if you will, of like getting yourself to the next thing of, you know, I told you that I grew up in the south. Well, let me tell you more about what growing up in the south is like. It’s lack of access to primary care. It’s lack of education. It’s lack of insurance. It’s lack of all these things. I want you to teach me, XYZ medical school through your master’s of public health program or your public health curriculum, how I can do better with these things in my home state.

So it’s literally just like puzzle pieces. Like here’s what I want, here’s the piece that fits together, but you got to tell me because I can’t infer that. As an admissions person, I cannot infer. I could guess, but I cannot infer why it’s important to you.

Pooja: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So another question I had for you about common pitfalls that I think happens is about mistakes that you’ve seen, because I’m sure you’ve seen so many secondary essays at this point. And so I just want to open the floor and ask you, what are the most common mistakes you see in secondary essays?

Holly: Yeah, not answering the question that’s asked because you’re just like, oh, this looks similar. Like I said, I have to go back to a lot of my clients and say, hey, you didn’t answer this part and you’re out of characters. So we got to we got to run it back and we got to go from there. I think because so many essays have character counts, limiting yourself because you’re afraid of the character count, you got to write it out first and then you got to have someone who can go in there and help you cut weight because it’s not getting your, being too afraid of character counts and then not getting your ideas across.

The other thing is just being sloppy. You know, like I see misspelled words, I see, you know, I see all kinds of stuff where I’m like, man, punctuation, y’all, basic punctuation or what have you. And if you don’t have anybody who’s looking over your shoulder for that, that’s going to look bad. I mean, it’s as simple as, I don’t know have any clients that have done this lately, but they’re their and there. Like the appropriate use of they are, there as in possessive and there as in the place. Like that is a common or your and you’re. Those are like, y’all, that’s elementary grammar. But I see it. I see all kinds of things that have to be corrected. And I’m telling you, if you stick a blemish like that in a secondary application and we read it, it’s like, oh, that’s rough. So just taking your time, like don’t rush through it if you can, like give yourself appropriate time.

I think the other thing is the pitfall is not pacing yourself because if you get a bunch of them in at the same time and you just want to turn and burn them, that’s you’re asking yourself to make mistakes. And so giving yourself goals of like the client I’m working with right now, she and I set up, she’s like, I want this one done by this time. Great. So I hold her accountable to it. She lets me know when she needs me to review it, and we go from there. So if you have, like seriously, like get a piece of paper out and write due dates for each one and only look at one at a time. Don’t be trying to, I have people who write, read two books at a time. People that tell me they read two books at a time. There’s no way you can do that and enjoy that book. You got to do each one on its own. So doing each one at a time and being consistent with your deadlines for yourself to help avoid mistakes. So not giving the time that’s due, rushing through and making mistakes and not paying attention to all the things that matter.

Pooja: Yes, and not answering the question also. I will agree with everything you said. I will fight you on the reading two books at a time.

Holly: Okay, maybe you are capable of it. I am not.

Pooja: I think I will say my caveat is that I will never read two fiction at the same time.

Holly: Oh, okay. That’s fair.

Pooja: So I’ll read like a non-fiction, one that’s like a self-help or like learning something. And then the other one will be like fiction. So like sometimes I like to start my morning with a non-fiction book and then my nighttime with a fiction book. So that’s that’s what I…

Holly: I can come off that one. I just have people who are like, oh yeah, I’m reading two books at a time. I’m like, please. There is no way you’re keeping those characters straight. But that is fair because I really only read non-fiction. Or I really only read fiction. And so I am not capable of it, but I appreciate that you can be.

Pooja: So Holly, I want to divert the conversation a little bit to talking about reflection because we’ve talked about reflections a good bit, but it seems like there’s opportunity and necessity to reflect, right? Because people need to think critically about whether medicine or specific medical schools the right fit for them. And we’ve kind of talked about it already about like why it’s important for applicants to know who they are before entering medical school. But I think something we haven’t really talked about yet is how much do schools pick up on either authenticity or a lack of self-awareness in these essays, like specifically the secondaries?

Holly: Oh, so much. I mean, I can tell so quickly if it is an authentic, legitimate, thoughtful, like through the personal statement, through the secondary. And a lot of it’s how we’re trained to look at applications. And I will say too, you know, I think about one of my favorite personal statements of all time that I’ve ever read. And I read this like 10 years ago. So the fact that this still sticks with me… was about a woman who she was of a certain faith that was very conservative and she was in a marriage where her partner was abusing her. And she wanted a divorce, but that was not allowed in her culture, religion. And it was her doctor who listened to her, who was also of that same religion, and said, you got to get out. You got to like, I’m here for you. I’ll support you.

And she talked about how that person, that woman, showed her strength, showed her care, showed her like all of these things so that she could get out of this and have the strength to get out of it and pursue her dream to go to medical school because of getting out of this relationship. And the level of vulnerability it took to put that on paper, I was like, you can do anything. I want you here because you were thoughtful enough to realize the importance of a physician who did that for you. And I know that’s like an extreme example. Like not everyone has a lived experience like that. But I use that as an example to say, you watching someone break their leg, I’ve seen that a million times. But tell me why it was meaningful to you. Like what reflection came from that of that you felt helpless and why did you feel helpless? And like you got to unpack it.

And what she did in telling that story was not just the cultural aspects of it or that it was really powerful. It was that she understood the characteristics of an excellent physician to make you feel safe, to make you feel empowered, to help you walk across the line and that she wanted to be those things. And so that reflection, the difference in like telling a story of watching someone have a heart attack at the Sam’s Club, just watching something doesn’t mean that you gained anything from it. Like you got to tell me the reflection and how that’s going to make you a better doctor. And that’s the difference. Is it’s not the story you tell, it’s how you tell it and what reflection you bring out of it. And I can tell very easily if that’s a low level or a high level of reflection just in the way the story is told.

Pooja: I guess getting into a little bit of the nitty gritty here, it seems like how the story is told tells you a lot about the person’s reflection. How do you pick up on if a person’s being authentic?

Holly: I think just the way they describe it. So like if you’ve the vulnerability of if you’re willing to tell me things and they don’t have to be super deep things, but like the vulnerability of like if I saw something tragic happen to somebody, if I can be vulnerable to you on why it mattered to me and why it influenced me. Or, you know, I have a client who was talking about, they were getting ready for residency interviews or residency and they talked about being a non-traditional student in medicine and going back to college, like didn’t go to college at first and went to college to be able to go to medical school. There’s a lot of vulnerability in that. Like it’s not a huge, you know, like it’s not a big deal for a lack of a better term. Like it’s not the first story I told, but the vulnerability of saying like, I didn’t grow up with much. Like I know how valuable education is. Like that level of vulnerability showed me sincerity. Like that you were willing to give me a part of your story in that way is, and she wants to do emergency medicine. So she understood what it took to make the sacrifice to do emergency medicine.

I’ve got another one who came from a small town and she’s like, well, it’s not like my life wasn’t that hard. And I’m like, okay, but you beat the odds in coming from a small town because statistically, if you grow up in a rural area, you may not go to college, a small town of the South is specific, especially, you may not go to college, you may not have people who have college educations that are going to push you. And she wrote hers about it taking a village in a small town to go to medical school and to be a good doctor and the qualities she learned from that because of the vulnerability. So it’s, it doesn’t have to be anything huge. It’s just that understanding and that reflection and the vulnerability of being willing to show yourself. That’s how I can tell if it’s deep or not.

Pooja: Yeah. I appreciate that because I know, I think for me, I didn’t write about anything that was super unique. I wrote about my grandparents and like I remember it was it was funny because in my secondary applications, I wrote a little bit more about some of the activities I did, but I didn’t do anything especially unique. Like I was a peer mentor on a women’s floor and I think a lot of people are RAs, a lot of people do women in science clubs. And I think you’re right. I think it’s the way that you talk about it and the way that you relate it to your own self that kind of reveals the authenticity. That makes a lot of sense. And is there anything that you think people should know about in terms of things that reveal a lack of self-awareness? Is there anything that people should avoid in order to, I guess, prevent a lack of self-awareness from coming through?

Holly: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Making something a tragedy that’s not, or a hardship that’s not. Like, if you got a 510 on the MCAT and you say your MCAT scores low, read the room. That ain’t a low score. Read the room. There’s so much inequity in applying to medical school of like, I’ve got people who have 495s that are scratching at the door to get in and would be the most phenomenal doctors. But because of schooling or lack of resources to take a heavy prep course or things like that, read the room if you’re saying a 510 is a low score, or oh my GPA is low and I have a 3.75. No, I’ve had you look very out of touch and very unreflective if that’s what you’re saying.

If you try to make something, like sometimes you’ll get questions about like, tell me a hardship or an obstacle you’ve overcome. Maybe you haven’t had a lot of hardships or obstacles and that’s okay. Don’t make one up. Acknowledge the fact that like, no, I’ve been pretty privileged. I haven’t had a lot of obstacles or hardships, but here’s something that I did have to overcome. And so I think you beat inauthenticity with authenticity of saying like, I haven’t had a lot. It has not been a hard road for me because of my parents were doctors or my parents gave me everything or, you know, whatever. The biggest way to look bad is to not realize the privilege that you already have and acknowledge it by making something up or trying to make something bigger than it’s not in the scheme of what the reality of the world is. So that would be my biggest pitfall to avoid in that realm.

Pooja: Yeah. No, that makes a ton of sense. And before this episode is done, I do want to do a little bit of a rapid fire like topics that you remember being asked about in secondaries. But before we do that, I kind of want to talk a little bit about unique and abstract prompts. What are some of the more, again, we’ll talk about common ones soon, but what are the more unusual or abstract secondary prompts you’ve seen? Because I feel like sometimes I kind of noticed that some schools or at least when I was applying, I noticed that some schools had like one or two questions that were like a little out there. Like they had the basic ones that everybody asked, and then they had a couple ones that they were like, ooh, no one’s going to ask this. Like let’s ask this one. And so I wonder if there’s any that you recall that you think people should know about.

Holly: Yeah, I’m actually kind of like going through right now because I’ve got a couple in my inbox. I would say, so things that are different that are going to catch you off guard.

Pooja: Yeah.

Holly: Yeah. I mean, one that’s really difficult for students and this is one that I have open from one school is like an autobiographical statement. I saw that last year and this year. So it’s like your family, your childhood, your secondary and undergraduate years, and what you’ve done. And you’re like, you want from birth? Like what do you want from me? And so that one’s difficult for folks because you’re like, how deeply do you want me to go? I was born on a cold January afternoon. I mean, like, it’s that was tough of like, how do I and, you know, and especially if it doesn’t have a character limit to it, you’re like, uh.

So that can be tough. Other ones that can be difficult, I would say like, you know, what is professionalism? Because that’s so broad. So some folks will be really rigid about that of like professionalism is showing up on time, professionalism is this, professionalism is that. People get really stuck on that one because it is so broad. So I would say those are two for sure, but if questions that are very, very open-ended, I think are the ones that give people the most pause. And that could be anything along those lines of, tell me your life story to define professionalism for me. People like, like tell me a time when you saw something unprofessional, not what is professionalism mean to you. So those are ones where I’m seeing people struggle this year and last year for sure.

Pooja: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I want to kind of just circle back a little bit on logistics that we kind of talked about. So I know we talked about 2 weeks as like a typical timeline. Some schools will give you a you need to do it by this day or you have this many days and some schools will say give it to us in December, in which case we’re defaulting to 2 weeks. But I wanted to ask, some people recommend different deadlines. Is there an advantage to submitting secondaries early? Or should there be more of an emphasis on quality over speed? Because I feel like some people say 1 week as opposed to 2. And so I wonder what your thoughts are on that.

Holly: I think it’s negligible on 1 to 2 weeks to be honest with you because it still has to be reviewed and like when we’re reviewing applications, we don’t invite people to interviews typically one at a time. So even if you get it in, you may end up waiting another couple weeks anyway because we have to have enough people to send interview invites for it to be worth it to fill an interview day. So there’s not really a magic formula there as long as you’re doing it within the given time frame. Really, like I said, the only hold up is yourself and keeping yourself from an interview when you give yourself more time. But I would not lose sleep over a week versus 2 weeks because like I said, we’ve just kind of like got to put you in the hopper until we’re ready to send out interview invites for the next interview day to make sure it fills because it’s not it’s too much work to get interviewers together and plan these days to have one person come. So you kind of at the mercy of whenever the next interview invite list goes out.

Pooja: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense.

Holly: So don’t try to read too much into it. Don’t try to read too much into it, y’all. Like I’ve like, oh, they haven’t sent anything yet. It’s like there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, okay? Like, someone’s on vacation, someone had a baby, someone, you know, like just had a bunch of other stuff to do. Like, yes, we are whole humans that have lives and while we usually do not take vacations during the busiest times of our work schedules, you know, sometimes we do because who knows what happened. And so or, you know, babies come when they want or, you know, what have you. Parents get sick and whatever. But so don’t then I used to tell my students and I did mean this kind of facetiously like, please don’t flatter yourself. Please don’t flatter yourself that you think that you are the only person in my life that like that it all revolves around. Like there are thousands of other applicants or thousands of other things that literally thousands that have to be reviewed before it gets to you. So please do not, no news is not bad news in some ways. Like if it’s been a reasonable amount of time, and a reasonable amount of time in the admissions world is 2 to 4 weeks. Legitimately.

Pooja: Yeah. No, I’m I’m actually glad that you mentioned that because I was going to ask you like, it sounds like some schools automatically send secondaries and some schools do not. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.

Holly: Yeah, it’s just up to the school. Some folks will give everybody a secondary application and some folks will not do it until the application is verified. And so, and just because you get a secondary does not mean you’re going to get an interview. So one of those things do not equal the other. So you just kind of got to go with it. We’ll go back to the MSAR, the Medical School Admissions Resource that we talked about in the last episode through the AMC. That’s a really good guide to see when the secondary is due, when interviews usually typically come out. I would use that if you’re questioning it. I actually just met with a blueprint client the other day who was like, I haven’t heard anything. And I was like, yeah, I mean, you submitted on the first day. Like that’s actually not to your benefit because they’ve got all summer to lift your applications. So we went through them together. I was like, look, they haven’t they just started sending out interview invites. So, you know, you got to give it time. So it really, I would check on the school’s website and in the MSAR kind of just like see where you’re hanging out.

Pooja: So before we talk about the waiting period a little bit because I do want to talk about managing the silence before we wrap up today’s episode, but I do wonder if someone doesn’t receive a secondary application, like let’s say they apply to a school where they don’t send it out to everybody, what does it mean anything for the student? Like should they feel bad about it? Like what reaction do you expect or do you want people to have if they don’t get a secondary after applying to a school?

Holly: Well, you’re allowed to be disappointed because I think anytime we don’t get something like that, it’s disappointing because you had obviously you were applying there because you wanted to be. But if you want to take action about it, I would just ask for feedback. I don’t know that you’ll get feedback immediately because it’s within the admission cycle. And like I said, but in the spring, if, you know, just if you want to know or if you’re reapplying, it is absolutely appropriate to email the admissions folks and say, “Hey, I didn’t get a secondary from y’all. Can we have a conversation about why?” And most places will set up a 30 minute Zoom meeting with you and say, hey, yeah, let’s talk about it. This was our average GPA. Your GPA was here or your application had errors or your application like you didn’t have enough of this. And they will tell you point by point the things that kept you from getting it. And so it’s up to you. I always tell people don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer. So if you don’t want the answer, then don’t ask. But if you’re trying to grow and you’re trying to learn from it, then I think it’s super helpful to ask for that feedback. But don’t be surprised if you don’t get it if you ask right now because like this is like we’re in the thick of it. Don’t ask now. You’re not going to get an answer.

Pooja: Yeah. I think we’ve talked about this before, but it kind of sounds like the best time to ask from what I remember is like, I think like May?

Holly: Yeah, that’s when the application cycle is reloading. So I would say really anytime from March to June is excellent because typically the class is pretty set. There’s still wait lists, there’s still movement, but it’s minimal comparatively. And so I would say anytime from March through the summer before the next application cycle opens. Because if you’re going to make changes to your application, you want to have enough time to be able to do that. And so I would say late spring is a good time to do that because the AMCAS and the come back in TD and, you know, every other application service we’re using these days, they all open at the end of May.

Pooja: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, good to know. And I guess just to recap for people, schools policies on who gets secondaries, is that on MSAR or no?

Holly: No, I don’t think so. It’s about timing. So you may have to go to the school’s website and just see how they do their secondaries. And it’s okay to ask like, how do you do your secondaries? If you’ve submitted one and you haven’t heard from somebody. And they may just say like, you didn’t qualify or they may say, oh, I mean, shoot your shot. You never know. What’s the worst thing I’m going to say no if you weren’t going to get one anyway? Whatever. I’m always, like, to let them tell you no situation. So, but typically it’s on their website, I think on how they decide to do secondaries. Sometimes it’ll say like on the website or on MSAR, like for example, some state schools will say, we won’t even interview students or give a secondary if you’re an out of state applicant that doesn’t have this GPA or this MCAT. So sometimes it’s as simple as that.

Pooja: Yeah. No, I was going to say, I’ll be honest, I think if someone isn’t offering you a secondary after the primary, it’s probably because they realize that you’re not a fit to their mission, and so like you’re either, either you’re not a fit to their mission or they don’t think you’re going to go to their school for numerous reasons. Sometimes they will like shield from you, like if you were applying to a safety school and it’s too much of a safety school for you, some schools might be like, listen, we’re not going to waste time reading this person’s secondary, doing this interview, like they’re not even going to come here. I think sometimes that happens or sometimes I’ve seen that if your application is very clearly about like you living on the East Coast and you love it there and like you have family and they mean a lot to you and blah, some medical schools on the West Coast may not be convinced that you’re going to go all the way out there or that even if you do, that you’ll be able to thrive there because you don’t have a support system. So I think those are reasons that are just like outside of you as a person that are kind of out of your control and I think it’s okay to not get a secondary from a school for that reason.

Holly: For sure. And to your point then, that is where in your primary application, which is tough because it’s so broad that you have to really make it about a connection. So like if you’re applying to schools, if I was, I’m from Arkansas and I’m applying to schools in Chicago, like I said, my parents are from there, I would have to make an connection to Chicago or honestly, I would just email admissions and say, hey, it looks kind of crazy that you guys got this application for a girl from Arkansas, but here’s my connection. And I mean, you may or may not ever get a response, but you got to shoot your shot if it’s that important to you. So, but I don’t encourage a lot of communications with admissions if you can help it, to be honest with you, just because of the volume of what they get. And that’s not to say you can’t reach out to people, but if it is for something like that, for you to make that connection, for them to be aware, for them to do whatever, I think that’s a valid reason and they would want to know that and your genuine interest to be there. But just emailing every day, is my application in? Do you need anything for me? Don’t. I ain’t got time for that.

Pooja: Yeah. No, that’s so fair. I feel like I feel like for me, I learned that lesson too late. So now I’m just kind of doing it for med school. Like where I’m like not to listen about reaching out to people. I didn’t really bug admissions officers or anything, but I think for schools where it would look weird for them to be getting an application from me, like the East Coast, West Coast thing is something that I refer to a lot because I really wanted to go to California initially for medical school and I applied to 7 different California schools. And I didn’t get a single interview from any of them. And I think a lot of it is because like they did not think I was going to go there. They didn’t think I was going to thrive. I had family in California and I was planning on talking about it during an interview, but the opportunity never came. And I think eventually it ended up working out for the right reasons. Like I’m very happy that I’m on the East Coast, very happy that my family and friends have been nearby. But for residency, I’ve been a lot more strategic. Like I’ve decided, okay, I’m going to pick my regions and only really apply there because I’m not really I don’t think I want to be in the business of convincing people that I’m going to go there for its location because I don’t always know how it’s going to play out or how convincing I can be.

You know, that’s even aside from the point that at this point in my life, I don’t even know if I want to go too far away. I would like to be like I think I applied to 3 different regions and I chose those for a reason. I would only want to go there. So we’ll see. But yeah, that’s there’s just a point for our listeners that like even when you’re picking your school list, understanding that schools really care about you as a person and that’s why they ask these questions about you and realizing that you want to be able to demonstrate to them that even when things are hard, you have a support system to be there for you. And so geography can matter a lot of times.

Holly: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. It’s absolutely part of our selection criteria and like when we’re looking at applicants of if you’re from a certain area, connections to the area, and that has to do with like if it’s a state-serving institution and we have to serve the mission of the state. Well, I can’t take you if you’re not from here or you’re not first on our list to look at. So you’re exactly right.

Pooja: Right. I agree. So I want to now before we end, talk about the waiting period and what it can be like when you’re kind of waiting around once applications have been submitted, you’re waiting for an interview. So once secondaries are submitted, how long is that waiting period? Because I know we talked about like 2 to 6 weeks for submitting primary to receiving a secondary. What is this new waiting period now between secondaries and receiving interview invitations?

Holly: Yeah, that one’s tough. It really just depends on where we are on the in the cycle, to be honest with you. But I think it’s still the same amount of time, like 2 to 4 to 6 weeks depending on where they are and how quickly they’re reviewing. If they do rolling admissions versus if they do, you know, like a standard admit day. So I think we talked about this before, but rolling admissions is when you start admitting people on a rolling basis rather than like everyone gets their admission acceptance on October 15th. And I’m just using that because that’s usually what early admit programs are.

And so for example, if you apply to a program that’s an early admit where they’re admitting people early on October 15th, you may not get an interview invite until after that day because they’ve got to know how many people are in their early admit to see like if they have a class of 150 and they admit 100, they only have 50 more interview invites. And there’s rules that say you can’t invite this many more people than you have spots for, at least are in residency. And so we kind of follow that best practice in medical schools as well. So it’s like this it’s a numbers game of like, we’re trying to build our wailist appropriately, but we’re also trying to get enough people who are qualified to be able to interview and to work through that process. And then you have your normal amount of melt or people who, you know, get in off a waitlist somewhere else and then you have to pull from your waitlist and things like that.

And so it really is a numbers game and where you are in the admissions process. So this time of year, I would say it’d be a little bit shorter because if you’re going to get an interview, interviews are actively happening right now. And so if you apply in June, you’re going to be waiting for a long time because the secondary, we got to wait for that pool. So I would say during this time of the year, 2 to 4 weeks is the normal amount of time. I would say typically, if you’re a qualified applicant and you get a secondary, you’re usually going to get an interview. I mean, in my experience, I don’t have the stats in front of me from my clients, but most of the time, if it’s a place that’s not sending secondaries to everybody, I don’t know, that’s not fair because I had an MD PhD, but he was an MD PhD, so that’s different. I can’t give you stats on that, but I would say 2 to 4 weeks is my final answer.

Pooja: That’s so fair. Okay, that is good to know. 2 to 4 weeks. Okay, perfect. And then I guess during that waiting time, we talked a little bit about what happens during the behind the scenes, but I was wondering if you could unveil the curtain really quickly about what happens once the secondary is submitted.

Holly: Yeah, yeah. So once your secondary is submitted, typically we’re looking at your application in all places. So if we decided to send you a secondary and it was based on other things, we would look and we would say, okay, they’ve already met all of our criterion for MCAT, GPA, letter of recommendation. Review the secondary and say, okay, good. Yep. Review, send for interview.

Maybe it’s someone else where like we send secondaries to everybody and we’re like, you’re kind of on the edge, like your MCAT or GPA, like it meets our minimum standards, but like, I like you, but I’m not quite sure. So then you would go maybe into like a hold status. And then there’s folks who it’s like, no, you did not answer the questions properly, riddled with errors, we’re not doing this and that just goes into a no. Whether you get a declination of like, no thanks or not is up to the school at that point. Most schools will eventually let you know if you’re not going to get anything, but sometimes they wait until like the day classes start because technically you can admit people until the day that classes start or orientation week. And so sometimes you just won’t hear anything and you can ask them and then they’ll be like, yeah, no thanks. But for the most part, that’s what happens.

So if you are going to get an interview, you’ll typically know within that 2 to 4 weeks. But if you are maybe on the fence, no news is good news at that point. Like if you haven’t heard anything that’s like, no, we’re good, then you’re just kind of hanging out. And what I recommend every once in a while is like really like maybe monthly, not like every, not all the time, but monthly like if you’ve had anything going on, like if you finished a class or you’ve done a research project or you have something that’s happened in your application, you started an internship or whatever, you can email the admissions office and say, if they allow for updates. Hey, I have this update to my application and blah. And sometimes that will jog their memories be like, oh, who’s Pooja? Let me go look. Oh, yeah, we were if about her, but she’s done this, so let’s go ahead and send her an interview invite. So it really just depends. That’s where the stats play in a little bit more, but it really just depends on where you fit in those other metrics with all of the things together on whether we pull the trigger on an interview immediately or if you’re going to get one maybe a little bit later.

Pooja: No, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I appreciate you breaking that down because I think it’s helpful for people to understand that there’s a lot that kind of goes into the behind the scenes. And so if things are taking a long time, it may not be because of you, it may be because of something else that’s kind of out of your control. With that in mind, I wonder if there are any healthy ways that you recommend applicants kind of stay grounded and I guess productive, but not necessarily productive, depending on what they’re doing in their lives at the time during that period.

I know for me, I was in like I felt like I was undergoing psychological torture truthfully, because I was waiting for interviews, but I was also waiting for my gap year job to start because my gap year job was supposed to start months before, but then because of delays because I was working for the US government, it was just taking a long time. And so I was just like, why am I waiting for literally anything to start? And so I wonder what advice you have for people to stay grounded.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, living life, enjoying your life as much as you can, because guess what? Even if you don’t get into medical school, life goes on right now, you know? Like, and if you’re worried about it, because you don’t feel like you’re a super strong applicant, maybe you do those things that I was talking about. Like if you’re worried about your GPA, do you take another course, if you can financially afford it, or do you get more volunteer hours? Like looking at those things that make you a little iffy in your application, the best action, the best remedy for anxiety is action. So like take some action or don’t do anything. I mean, some people are just like, I have side out of mind, I’m going to go surfing because that’s what I do, or I’m going to go on vacation or I’m going to work and I’m just going to enjoy my life.

And so this is the pot calling the kettle black, to be honest with you, because I’m very tightly wound. And I remember applying to PhD school and like checking my email obsessively on whether I was going to get an interview or not after I submitted my application. So I totally understand, but I still had to go to work. I still had to do the things that mattered for me. And so in your situation where you’re waiting to start a job, what do you like to do? We talked about reading books, like you read some books, like you just set goals for yourself to keep yourself engaged.

But if you want to be actionable to things that you feel like maybe need some help on your application, I would be seeking those out. And then you feel like you’re doing something to push you. What I would not say to do is like I was helping an applicant this year and she was like, I didn’t get what I wanted on my MCAT. Should I think about PA school? And I’m like, no, we’re not changing the route right now. No, we’re going to wait to see what happens this year before we like go do something completely different. So don’t throw the baby out with the bath water as I like to say of like just because you’re not hearing anything, we’re just like going to completely upend our plans and we’re not going to because then maybe medical school wasn’t it for you anyway if you could just that easily decide you’re not going to do it anymore.

So what I would say is to live your life and start working on things that you think would make you a better applicant and better medical student and what I don’t do is go for a completely different career path unless that’s what you needed to do anyway.

Pooja: Right, right, right. I love there was a phrase that you said that I definitely want to steal, which is the remedy for anxiety is action because I feel like the way I used to think about it was the remedy to anxiety is knowledge, but I think both of them kind of have the same end goal, which is just if you are anxious about something, doing something either about it or about other things can be really valuable and just like preparing yourself for what’s coming ahead. So I think that is really good to know. I know some other recommendations that I’ve heard that I think are valuable to share as well are staying really grounded with like your daily routine, like having a period of time where, okay, like this is the time where I’m going to check my email and freak out about this, but I am going to have times where I’m not looking at it. I think for interviews and stuff, you should kind of keep your eyes peeled, but you don’t have to necessarily like dedicatedly check and just only stare at your phone all day. You should have times where you’re like doing other things. Like an hour, like if you are not going to workout classes, you’re not going to the gym because you’re worried that you’re going to miss an email. Like that’s a bit much because 1 hour isn’t going to make a difference, you know?

Holly: Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. You’re exactly right. Yes. You got to live your life still.

Pooja: Yeah. Absolutely. So let’s run down our favorite takeaways from today’s conversation. I feel like for me, the big takeaway is similar to our last conversation, but I guess I’m just going to repeat it again because it’s so important is that it is very, very important to be intentional about not only yourself and the reflection that you put in, but also what you’re going to say about yourself. So it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it and the amount of thought that you put into how you present yourself in the secondary application. And it seems like from what we described that the secondary application is much more about like who you are and the nitty gritty details that kind of provide more substance than the appetizer that is the primary application. And so I think bringing that perspective in is really valuable.

Holly: Absolutely. Yep. Sorry, I already blanked out. Say that again. I blanked out on what you were asking me. We’re just giving our takeaways. Sorry.

Pooja: Yes. What is your takeaway, Holly?

Holly: Okay, sorry. Life. Waking up at 3:15. My takeaway for secondaries is that like just authenticity. Like just you got to take one step at a time and really think about what are you doing here? And what do I want to come across? And I think when we talked about pre-writing, the best way to pre-write is just what do I want them to see about me? And that’s where I always take it back to with my clients is like, okay, you got a lot going on here. What is the one thing you want them to see? That I really care about people. Perfect. Then let’s focus in on that because I’m not seeing that right now between all this other stuff. So I would say just really doing that thought exercise of what do I want them to see about me in this application is the most important thing because that will guide you through all the other things.

Pooja: Yeah, absolutely. Next episode, we are talking all about gap years. Whether you’re thinking about taking a gap year, either after college or during med school, or maybe you’re in the middle of a gap year and you’re freaking out about what going back will be like. This episode is covering it all. And so please, please stay tuned for that. Thank you guys for listening to Pursuit of Practice brought to you by Blueprint and we will see you next time.