u/Glittering_Click2424

Hi all!

Making this post partly for my mom and partly for me. My dad is turning 50 in a month and we've been wracking our brains to no avail trying to come up with gifts.

Context, avoid if you want:

Now the title is a little misleading in that my dad isn't "high maintenance" but he is about his birthday and about gifts. He's quite particular and will hold his bday not being appropriately celebrated over you down the line even if he is like "oh I don't feel like celebrating"

That said, I love the man to bits and I do want to get him something nice, especially because I will be missing his birthday this year. My partner's has elderly family that live abroad who aren't doing so well that he wants me to have a chance to meet while they are around and I a) want to meet them too and b) have been working myself to the bone without stop for years trying to be a doctor. I haven't taken a vacation or real break in years and this short period of 2 weeks is the only time that works for the both of us since he's ending a job just before the trip and starting at a new one just after. It does mean though that I'm missing his bday, and my mom planned a trip with him, partly because he loves to travel and partly to save me lol. All that to say I really need to make this up to him. But idk wtf to get and neither does my mom

Budgets/constraints:

My budget is probably around 100-150 dollar. My mom's is 1K.

They'll be traveling and I won't be with them for the day so either needs to be purchasable in scandinavia, small enough to bring, or I guess a picture of it / "coupon" being like this is waiting for you works.

He has a wallet he loves, probably too many colognes, a skin care routine, a handmade italian leather belt.

I'll be getting his favorite cake delivered to their hotel if possible too.

Interests:

Woodworking (I think he has all the things though)

Photography (same here lol)

Electronics

Sci-Fi (man loves his sci fi books and like star trek and such)

A nice scotch/whiskey

Loves food but is low carb

Other details:

My dad does value well made things - me and my mom have gotten him things like really high end perfume from a niche fragrance house, handmade italian leather belt, etc. He has almost a European fashion taste.

He's also a higher up in an organization and needs to look professional a lot.

Thank you all for your help!

Hi so this is probably neurotic of me so just a warning there, I do know I'm being crazy but secondaries are in and now there's nothing to do but worry and prep for hopefully IIs

I always hear about upward trends being important. I am wondering what happens if you have a lil bit of a downward one. I did really well in my first couple years of undergrad but in around the last year I think I just bit off more than I could chew and have a bit of a dip. The reason I say this is neurotic is because I mostly have As and A- grades my freshman and sophomore year (one B during then)but my last quarter of sophomore year I got a B in ochem, followed by a B first and B+ second quarter junior year in biochem (and a B- third quarter but thankfully amcas submitted by then). The overall dip isn't atrocious but my sci GPA went from like 3.9s 3.8s to 3.4 my junior year.

I'm not saying anything about this stuff in my secondaries but basically all my ECs kind of put me in greater roles of responsibility at the same time and I was barely handling those things as is but the lack of sleep and rest kinda killed my immune system and I kept getting sick (as in like flu and covid almost back to back and bookended that with food poisoning/stomach flu type of situation and this kinda thing of just repeatedly falling ill).

I think my longest streak going sans getting sick was 2 months (thankfully right around my MCAT). I am not usually so neurotic abt it because I recognize that its just some Bs. I got a B cuz I didn't perform well on my exams. I know I know the content (519 mcat 130 B/B literally while taking Biochem so I know I know the stuff yk - that was the B+ quarter) and am not gonna beat myself up about what happened when life happened. But it does show a clear decrease in my most recent grades so idk, I'm worried.

Anyway, thoughts would be appreciated. And not to worry I am reducing my load a bit this coming year (a good bit lighter on coursework for example) so I am hoping I feel better moving forward but yeah. Help 😭

Hi guys, basically the title. I've been working on secondaries and idk the scary submission statements got me curious and I wanted to see if AI checkers would flag my writing, particularly for short responses. I'm really stressed because while the larger pieces are not flagging, when I shorten them to 1000 characters, the lowest I'm getting is 73% ai generated on grammarly.

I'm stressing 😭😭😭😭

This may be the worlds dummest rant but I am a research heavy applicant (some like 2k hours) and most of my hours are research hours but i stg i am being pushed and shoved by scientists (cuz yk most profs are academics) towards a PhD. The docs that i know have for the most part agreed with me that I shouldn't do it unless I'm absolutely convinced, and I'm not! All my labs are doing long standing projects so I have no clue when I might have pubs (don't have any rn) though I have been guaranteed them, I strongly doubt I will get them until 1st year med school just given writing and processing time plus the average applicant has 3k hours. So to begin with idk that I am even competitive let alone that I can successfully convince ppl I want to do it, BECAUSE I DON'T!

Like y'all I KNOW it's paid and ofc that takes away the loan fears bc I'm self financed but lots of people have looked into it and many people say that it's not actually clear if MD PhD necessarily saves you money because of the lost income years.

And frankly the thing I have most learned about research is that while I enjoy research and thinking in that way, I HATE the culture of research. So many of my research mentors have left the field and I really get why. I don't know, I may pursue a masters or something later or get a PhD down the line, but putting off the career I have been fighting tooth and nail for for something I'm not sure about is whack to me.

Also the unspoken thing about being a woman. People don't want to talk about this because it would be admitting an issue, but family planning considerations are a thing! I don't really want kids til what would be late residency or early attending age but it would fal at horrific timing if I were to do an MD PhD. I don't want to rush kids before I am ready or put off having kids even longer than I planned to (particularly because I want multiple) because female physicians already tend to have infertility issues, and ik people do it but I cannot imagine having kids while potentially forced states away from my partner due to residency. Not to mention my parents were dirt poor for a period of time (earliest I remember is 3 or 4 years old) and while that has changed a lot and fairly quickly all things considered, it did really leave an impact on me. I don't want my kids to have to bear the cost of me on the stipends they pay for that long either if I choose to have kids when I was initially planning to anyway. Plus, I want my kids to remember me being present their whole lives - that's only happening if I'm done with residency and such when they're really young.

Anyway. AHHH. Do they really think I'd have decided against something that would have prevented loans if I wasn't damn sure that this is a later issue for me?

Who knows, maybe when I have the opportunity to explore a career without research I will realize I want one and work towards getting a masters or PhD when my kids are in school. Maybe I'll do a research year. IDK. AHHH.

Edit: I know I'm being neurotic y'all, maybe we should be considering what an insane process this is that it makes literally everyone doubt if they're gonna get in anywhere.

I am a rising senior in college. I'm trying to go straight through without a gap year if I am able to.

MCAT: 519 (128/131/130/130)

AMCAS GPA: 3.83, sGPA: 3.72

Taken casper and preview, results not back yet

~1600 research hours at one lab in a premier cancer institution working on basic science technically using longitudinal mouse research on side effects of cancer preventative immune modulation by disrupting tgfb signaling to dendritic cells, no publications yet but won a competitive school research scholarship for it (100 awardees for research in a 45k pool of undergraduates), presented my research in an oral talk at the symposium. Will be doing a thesis on it and the lab has stated that I will be an author (but likely 4th or 5th at best, given the size of the project and our lab)

400 research hours in an NIDDK funded internship currently, also some basic sciences but also a translational project utilizing pig model to increase kidney transplant viability, will be presenting a first author poster at a national symposium

Gonna be joining a different research lab in evolutionary ecology research looking at plasmid evolution in bacteria next year and doing a second honors thesis there.

Have also been a part of what is essentially a research program where you're paired with a mentor in a field of interest and you read papers with them and learn about an area you are interested in. Gave two talks as part of this reviewing literature I had covered through this program at symposiums at the end of the quarters. Was probs about 170 hours.

400ish volunteer hours in radiation oncology department of a premier cancer institution

180 hours volunteering as a lecture assistant (peer facilitator)

60 ish hours volunteering in a tutoring program with refugee/housing insecure populations. Plan to continue this

80ish hours spread out into a few other volunteering efforts - making kits for kids with cancer, some science advocacy for women by setting up tabling at some events, etc.

60 hours shadowing an internist

1800 hours of fundraising/volunteering + raised 85k for a national blood cancer fundraiser since HS through til now

400 hours as founding vp and co-pres (promoted mid year) and president now of the blood cancer club I am running

LORS:

A stem prof I have had as a prof and been a lecture assistant for totalling 2/3rds of my time at uni

a stem prof who has technically only had me for a quarter but who I am lecture assisting for next year and joining his lab,

a religions prof who has also known me for a quarter,

my PI who I have worked with for 2 years from the cancer place,

the physician I shadowed wrote a strong letter,

my radiation oncology head therapist and volunteer coordinator.

I also have a joint letter written by the campaign managers at the fundraising/volunteering thing.

Anticipated:

400 more hours + solo president of the club I'm running

Dual Departmental Honors in my two majors + theses for both of them that i will be working on starting this autumn

Projected to raise 50k more next year to my fundraising total + 500 more hours to that.

200 more hours at radiation oncology

200 more hours at the new research lab (plus can join a rare group of double awardees for the scholarship + a second symposium, I know he's put several undergrads through for it)

240 more peer facilitator hours

Tutoring will be closer to 100 hours, making it longitudinal rather than what seems like something i randomly started (I got the idea because of a teaching biology class, wish I had started sooner).

I don't know ANY juniors applying straight through, and I am first gen in the US + first gen med-aspirant so I am having to figure all of this out myself. I'm so stressed waiting for verification (submitted 6/11 because I had some issues come up with LORs where I wasn't sure I would even have enough stem recs for a second).

I'm also in a weird spot with my mcat being high and my gpa being kinda meh for the level of schools that are looking for a 519 mcat (my uni is notorious for grade deflation - like I got a 2.9 that thankfully amcas will never see in biochem but literally got a 130 in B/B on the mcat WHILE TAKING THE BIOCHEM SERIES)

Help please 😭

Gonna start this off with me being extremely lucky that my parents are super supportive. They are immigrants who worked hard and hustled their whole lives, never pressured me, and just always have done their best to ensure my success. They fundamentally believe in the value of education and were able to get in a good enough place to fund my college education and help me with my application fees.

But I am genuinely so stressed out. I have worked part time, small jobs since I was 14, but it's just so hard to balance a premed work load and find jobs in research that actually pay, let alone part time clinical positions (my state has really difficult certification requirements for many of the typical premed jobs, so its pretty rare for people to get them in college / be able to work as one before graduation), so I have only really made some money off of a scholarship and internship during college.

With grad PLUS loans being capped, I genuinely have no idea how I am going to afford this. Medical school has gotten so much more expensive even in the last year or two since I last looked. My in-state school's in state tuition is 60,000.... I just have no idea how I am going to do this and I obviously don't expect or even want my family to help out.

They've worked so hard and that's not a great position to put them in (or frankly myself - I am grateful for my family's help but as with many immigrant families, there can be a little bit of an odd dynamic, and I don't want to be financially reliant on them for much longer than need be).

But seriously guys, how tf do we do this???

I'll be done with my actual major requirements by winter of next year but I need the extra time to finish up my thesis for honors

Please help I am stressed.

So I am a junior in college. I'm trying to go straight through without a gap year if I am able to, and have been planning with that in mind.

Issue: two of my main recommendations have fallen through (one on sabbatical the other maternity leave; first hasn't been responding to emails for months and the latter has essentially said she really wants me to get in and doesn't think that she has the bandwidth to write a solid one for this cycle given the upcoming new baby. One has had me for 2 years worth of classes, the other for just under a year worth. These rec losses are devastating especially because the one that has known me a year wrote me a strong enough rec for 3 yesses for internships).

Here's what other things are looking like if I apply this year:

MCAT score not back yet (releases May 12th) I am expecting something in the low-mid 510s (conservatively). I would be shocked if I scored over a 517.

AMCAS GPA: 3.83, sGPA: 3.72

If I decide to apply, I'll be taking Casper and PREview later this month.

\~1600 research hours at one lab in a premier cancer institution, no publications yet but won a competitive school research scholarship for it (100 awardees for research in a 45k pool of undergraduates) and will be presenting my research in an oral talk at the symposium.

Have also been a part of what is essentially a research program where you're paired with a mentor in a field of interest and you read papers with them and learn about an area you are interested in. Gave two talks as part of this reviewing literature I had covered through this program at symposiums at the end of the quarters. Was probs about 170 hours.

360ish volunteer hours in radiation oncology department of a premier cancer institution

180 hours volunteering as a lecture assistant (peer facilitator)

Maybe 40 ish hours volunteering in a tutoring program with refugee/housing insecure populations. Plan to continue this

40ish hours spread out into a few other volunteering efforts - making kits for kids with cancer, some science advocacy for women by setting up tabling at some events, etc.

60 hours shadowing an internist

1300 hours of fundraising/volunteering + raised 60k for a national blood cancer fundraiser since HS through til now

200 hours as vp and co-pres (promoted midyear)

Fairly weak letters (if I can even get enough). One back up stem prof who has technically only had me for a quarter, a religions prof who has also known me for a quarter, my PI, the physician I shadowed, my rad onc coordinator. No idea who to even ask for another stem rec letter.

Now when we take next year into account it suddenly gets a lot better

I can count on those two recommendations as one of those professors has had me as student + PF for 6 quarters, the second already wrote one for internships, and my back up letter suddenly becomes super strong because I will PF for that professor and am likely to be joining his lab as well. Plus may get one from my mentor for the summer, and all three volunteer coords, on top of the physician that is writing this year, and my current PI. I could either take another course with the relig prof, or try and get another class with my med anthro prof who was super sweet.

Plus, doing an NIH funded summer internship w/ the director of medicine at the school I will be at as my mentor (so potentially a rec letter from there as well as my current mentor) at about 400 hours total + a second symposium

400 more hours + solo president of the club I'm running

Dual Departmental Honors in my two majors + theses for both of them

Will be able to add about 20k from this year and whatever amount we're at next year to my fundraising total + 500 more hours to that

More shadowing over the summer (know of a few docs who may be willing).

200 more hours at radiation oncology

200 more hours at a new research lab (plus can join a rare group of double awardees for the scholarship + a second symposium, I know he's put several undergrads through for it)

180 more peer facilitator hours

Tutoring will be closer to 100 hours, making it longitudinal rather than what seems like something i randomly started (I got the idea because of a teaching biology class, wish I had started sooner).

Plus, can complete a certification this summer and look for jobs for my gap year and show anticipated clinical hours there.

\^ that's something super weak for me, I don't really have a lot of pure patient interaction stories.

The lack of letter of recs (I have a random religions prof I had for one quarter MAYBE writing one, plus the prof I'd be joining for research only had me in his class 1 quarter) and not knowing my MCAT score is really sending me. I don't want to apply to schools I don't wanna go to just to protect myself from reapplicant bias in case I don't get in this cycle.

I also don't know ANY juniors applying straight through, and I am first gen in the US + first gen med-aspirant so I am having to figure all of this out myself. I'm so stressed with the deadlines getting closer and closer. Help please 😭

It's been three years here and I am starting to get kind of annoyed about how unreliable many professors are. I understand that they are busy and their jobs have many components. But their students depend on them.

I don't know if they don't realize the extent to which this is true or what but I am starting to get really frustrated at how infrequently many professors respond to their emails, if at all.

I have emailed multiple professors recently about different things and sent follow ups (for one, I have been trying to follow up and even tried to hunt them down physically since JANUARY) to no response. Time sensitive matters? No response. Promised to write an LOR, told you to talk to them when it is only a month out but now that it's time to reach out to them? No response. Problem happened with taking exam? No response!

To the point that due to bad communication from my professors, I may not have enough LORs for my applications for grad school due to some not responding despite verbal agreements, and others last minute bailing after agreeing without giving me time to find back ups.

I had a friend who had to drop a course because the professor didn't get back to her about her not being able to make it to the final for the ENTIRE QUARTER and she ended up with a 0 on it!

It's really exhausting and frankly really demoralizing. I know that there's a lot of talk out there about how our generation never grew up and things like that. But I feel like this is a lack of conferring basic respect to an adult regarding their time, career, and life.

Just ugh. The more and more I deal with this crap, the more I'm turned off from the entirety of academia. I've heard of PIs not submitting important things until minutes before for no good reason, leaving people on tenterhooks about publications too. What is it with academic culture that lets these things happen????

Edit: I just feel like these things have consequences in almost every other field. I just don't understand why its so pervasive in academia and why people can get away with this kind of thing.