Summary: Episode 44: Learn how to write about bad grades, drop-outs, and other poor choices. What will admissions committees think of you? Podcast transcription provided by Rev.com: Success Story Format Doctor Dan: “In this episode, I want to discuss how to describe things in your personal statements or in your application materials when you have to talk about something that’s a bad thing from your past, whether that’s poor grades or maybe dropping out of a program, failing out of a program, or some other kind of life change like that where you realize on paper it kind of looks bad and you really do need to go ahead and address it on the personal statement or on some kind of paragraph box within the application itself. I mean, many times, people can have a B or a C or something like that here and there in your transcript, and it’s kind of understood that that kind of thing is going to happen once in a while to someone. In terms of an admissions committee and what they’re thinking, they’re looking for people to show a dedicated commitment to professionalism, education, life-long learning, and patient care over time, so as long as it’s not a pattern, don’t stress over one B here, one C there, or something like that. If something unusual happens and you have a failing semester or fail a class or something like that, you have to start putting it in context for yourself. Now, understand there are two things that are happening here. One is that you’re kind of coming to terms with what in the world happened to you, and the second thing is what do you put on the application. Okay? What I want to encourage you with today is this idea that there are many, many physicians out there that have failed a class in undergrad. The myth that if you can’t handle biochemistry the first time means you shouldn’t be a doctor is a bunch of bogus, negative hype and stereotype that’s perpetuated by non-physicians. Remember, way, way back in some of the earliest podcasts that I ever did, if you listened that far back, I definitely say from the beginning, you need to adopt a strategy whereby you don’t follow the advice or even really entertain or listen to it from people that are not physicians themselves. You need to get your information from people that have done it before. If you’re going to rebuild a car engine, would you go and talk to your plumber about how to do it? Thank you. No, so what happens at undergrad schools, unless you’re at one of the really big ones or something that has some kind of award-winning, grant-winning kind of pre-med advisor, most folks listening to me are not going to a place like that because they wouldn’t be searching for how to get an edge and extra help through a podcast or website or something like that. What I want to say is that this answer is a very personal answer for everybody. I mean, how in the world, on a public podcast, are you going to talk about how you answer your deepest, darkest problems in your application and in your past? Yes, we all have them. The question is did you get caught? Did it make it to the paper? Is it on paper? Are you going to have to explain it? In other words, did you have a DWI or something like that? I mean, in general, you can’t get a medical license with a felony conviction. Okay? Barring that, if you had failed out of a semester or even college altogether, how do you explain that and come back? Understand that I was not around a lot of really traditional pre-med students anyway. I was at a small school, and as soon as I got out of the Army and began to really take pre-med full time, fortunately, we had an active pre-med club. That first academic year I was there, probably even the first semester, I think, we went and toured five medical schools in four days. It was [...]
