When you imagine yourself at your white coat ceremony, or as a physician helping patients, you probably didn’t realize that dream could be ruined by being rejected from medical school.
If you’re an optimist like me who is sure that charm will win over all, then those rejection letters may come as a surprise. If you’re already anxious, then rejection letters definitely don’t boost your confidence.
Whatever feelings you had about your medical school application don’t matter once you get rejected. I have been there, and it’s a hard place to be. However, it’s not rock bottom. Here are some things you can do once you’ve been rejected from medical school.
1. Feel your emotions
Getting rejected from medical school elicits a range of emotions. If you didn’t really want to go, then you’re probably relieved. If medical school is all you’ve ever dreamed of, and you didn’t have a plan B, then you may feel defeated. Whatever your emotions are about the situation, allow yourself to feel them.
When you tell people you were rejected from medical school, they will immediately try and make you feel something. Some may double down and tell you that you didn’t have a shot anyways. Some may tell you that it’s okay and keep your head up. Others may dive into an action plan right away and not allow you to feel negatively.
Either way, it’s your medical school application. You’ve got to feel whatever it is that you are feeling. Shame, guilt, embarrassment, anger, confusion, sadness are all understandable emotions.
In fact, when I was rejected from medical school, I felt guilty about not working harder and frustration that my timeline wasn’t going to be what I wanted it to be. But luckily, I was able to feel my emotions by myself and figure out my next steps.
And I encourage you to do the same. Take time to really think about your emotions, why you feel that way, and what you want to do about them. However, don’t wallow in them forever. It’s time to get to work.
2. Evaluate your medical school application
When I was rejected from medical school, my mom suggested that I call the medical schools and ask them what my application was missing. Of course you may have your guesses, but it’s reassuring to hear the people who reviewed your application explain why, and what you can improve.
I was missing the grades, clinical/shadowing experience, and a meaningful personal statement. Looking back, it’s almost laughable that I thought I was ready to go to medical school then. I had no concept of why I wanted to be a doctor. No experience, nothing. After gaining experiencing and really reframing why I wanted to be a doctor, I had a much stronger application the second time around.
After you are done feeling your emotions, and you have accepted that you’ve been rejected from medical school, evaluate your medical school application.
Compare it to the averages of the schools to which you applied. How do you fare? Are you above or below? If you’re pretty comparable, then I would suggest reaching out to the school for more information. They aren’t required to tell you, and some may not. But the worst they will tell you is no. If you’re below average, that will give you an idea of places for improvement. Reflection is always important as it clearly distinguishes where you can improve and what’s out of your control.
3. Revisit your “why”
Medical school is very hard. And I’m not saying that to be dramatic. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. When thinking about if I would do this again…I don’t know if I would. There are things I like about the idea of working with patients and learning about the human body. But, I also think of all the talents I have and how I could have implemented wellbeing in a different way with a different career path.
The thing that keeps me going everyday (besides the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt I’m in) is my “why”. There are ways I’ll be able to impact people’s lives as a doctor that I couldn’t have in any other capacity. Prescribing medicine, coming up with treatment plans, and even just having the title “Dr.” will put me in a position to do things that I otherwise could not have. That is what I focus on.
What is your why?
And you have to find a focus for yourself. Why do you want to be a doctor? Is it because your family told you to? Is it because you had a mentor that was a doctor that you wanted to be like? Were you sick as a little kid, or had a sick family member and just awed by what doctors were able to do? Does anatomy or public health interest you?
Really think about why you want to be a doctor. If nothing comes to mind, then maybe you choose a different path, something that really interests you. Or, perhaps, you get some more experience in healthcare to see if that triggers a why. If a why does come to mind, and it’s still very important to you, keep that at the forefront of your focus. That’s the end-goal that you keep in mind as you devise a plan to re-apply.
4. Devise a plan
This is the part of my journey that I remember very vividly. I had just been rejected by my 9th medical school and I marched to the office of the job I’d had throughout college and told them I was available to work after graduation. They told me they didn’t have a job for me. Point blank. I was lost. My back up plan and failed and I had nothing to fall back on. I remember going home, laying on my bed in my blazer and heels, crying. In that moment, I was graduating in a month, didn’t want to move back home, and had no idea what was in store for me.
After crying I told myself, do you want this or not? I did, so I came up with a plan, my “Year of Growth”. I wrote down everything I needed for a more successful medical school application:
- higher grades
- clinical experience
- shadowing
- higher MCAT score
That list was doable to me. I had a place to live and lined up a job, then enrolled in school. Later that summer, I invested in the Kaplan MCAT prep and created a study plan. I did everything I needed to do to beef up my application and ensure that I wouldn’t be rejected from medical school again.
Adversity is a strength
If you have been rejected from medical school, this is what you’ll need to do as well. If medical school is still the goal, then you need to find out what you need to do different, decide how you’re going to do that, and go do it. This plan can include a job, graduate school, bridge programs, etc. Just do something so when you reapply again, you can really show how you fell flat on your face and picked yourself back up. Resilience is a must for medical school and medicine in general. Demonstrating that you have that skill before walking in the door will serve you a long way.
5. Improve yourself
Making a plan is one thing, carrying it out is another. If you have been rejected from medical school and you really want to get that acceptance letter, you have to start by improving yourself. Look at all the things you’ve done since getting rejected from medical school. You felt your emotions. Then you revisited your application. Next you concentrated on your why. And finally, you created a plan. These steps alone increase your self-awareness.
The more work you do, the more you will learn. Medical school and the career of a physician is all about learning. You will be a lifelong learner. But the only way to challenge yourself to continue learning is to focus on improving yourself. When you focus on improvement, then you will be seeking out ways to learn new things.
These skills will serve you sell in the long term. Change won’t scare you. New technology won’t threaten you. You will embrace these new opportunities because you are eager to improve yourself.
But you can’t get too ahead of yourself. Improvement if you are rejected by medical school starts with improving your medical school application. Just focus on that process. Then, when it’s over, and you finally get accepted, you will be grateful for that challenge. It provided you an opportunity to prove to yourself that you can overcome any challenge. Getting rejected from medical school was just the beginning. You overcame it, and will overcome anything in the future.