u/jellyfishh520

Or a unique activity that you knew someone else did?

At a research conference I just went to, I met a med student who told me he interviews applicants and one of them was an Olympic swimmer! He also mentioned another who was a flight instructor😮

I thought those were so cool so now I’m curious to what yall have done or seen cause I’m boring lmfao

Edit: Also it definitely does not have to be that crazy like these examples

Edit2: Yall are so cool wtf I gotta step up my game

Today I ended up canceling my upcoming MCAT (my practice FLs were bad) and came to the realization that I will need to take a gap year. I know it’s August and should’ve realized sooner but I was in denial

Anyways it has been a rough day so I’d love to hear some positive gap year stories/experiences to make me feel better about my decision lol

Like what is something you couldn’t have done without taking a gap year? Or something about your gap year that exceeded you expectations? Pls share anything 🙏🙏

I applied this May and this question just came in my head as I write my out of state secondaries. What do people usually do for their living situation for their first year of school?

Like when I started undergrad, I moved into a dorm I shared with a random roommate. Then, my sophomore year until graduation I lived in an apartment with friends I made. But obviously I don’t want to live in some shared dorm again lol

So what do people usually end up doing? Or what do you recommend? If you didn’t know anyone from the school you decided to go to

I know this might seem like a dumb question but I’ve had really really bad random roommate experiences so I wanted to ask

Edit: Sorry if someone has asked this before. I tried searching but my search button is useless

(F24 btw) What should I wear for the concert if I have GA tickets? I was planning on wearing an oversized octane merch shirt with a mini skirt, but now I’m worried I might get too hot.

I know it might be a dumb question but I’ve never been on floor for a concert

What yall think? And for anyone who’s been, how hot did yall get?

(Also if you have any advice as a short girl in pit feel free to share lol)

Edit: Oh also unrelated but what time should I arrive??? Orlando show. I’m ok with not being barricade but I also wanna be able to see lmfao

Edit 2: Also is it fine if I bring a purse/bag?? I don’t want to lose it but idk where to put my keys and stuff

These are mine:

-The importance of content review is underrated
-The Kaplan books are useless
-CARS is the hardest to improve & takes the longest
-Most CARS “strategies” are overcomplicated and just waste time. (I am NOT writing a summary after each paragraph)
-The average of your last two AAMC FLs are more representative of your real score than your overall avg
-B/B’s difficulty is very underrated
-Skipping a passage you don’t understand (and coming back to it later) can be really helpful

Edit: I have another one
-Writing a whole formula sheet during tutorial time is useless and will just stress you out. You’ll probably never use 90% of them during that test

Yesterday my little sister asked me what it feels like to live with OCD and she wanted me to explain it in a way she would understand. So I came up with this analogy and she said she finally understood now so I wanted to share in case someone else finds it helpful too. Anyways:

——
Imagine you’re sitting at your desk trying to get work done. Your best friend is sitting next to you.

Out of nowhere she starts screaming:
“TAP THE DESK THREE TIMES RIGHT NOW OR YOUR SIBLINGS ARE GOING TO DIE.”

You’re like wtf that’s ridiculous…you know tapping your desk has no control of whether your siblings live or die.

So you ignore her and try to keep working. But she doesn’t stop. She keeps yelling “TAP THE DESK. DO IT NOW. GO.”

You try to ignore her again but now she gets more creative and says “Wow. You’re really not willing to spend one second tapping your desk if there’s even the tiniest chance it could save your siblings? That’s incredibly selfish.”

Now you start to get anxious. You don’t actually believe that tapping the desk will save them, but now you’re thinking “okay I know it’s stupid… but what if?”

And since you can’t focus because she keeps screaming in your ear and calling you a horrible person if you don’t listen, you decide to tap the desk. The screaming stops. You can focus.

But that only lasts for 5 minutes before she starts telling you to tap your water bottle three times. You know that won’t do anything either. But you also know that if you tap your water bottle, she’ll stop yelling.

That’s what compulsions feel like. It’s not really about believing your “friend” (aka the thoughts in your brain), it’s about doing whatever it is to make the thoughts go away.

——

What makes OCD so frustrating it’s so hard to argue with your own brain when it’s supposed to be the thing that tells you what’s real and what’s dangerous. Even when you know the thought is irrational, it still feels important because it’s coming from you.

So when people ask “why don’t you just ignore it?”, I wanna know: if your best friend was screaming in your ear all day telling you to do this simple thing for the smallest chance it saves someone you love, even if you don’t believe it, wouldn’t you eventually tap the desk?

Sorry that was long but hopefully this helps someone! I know everyone experiences it a little differently, but this is how I experience it. Lmk what you guys think :)

Edit: My analogy for intrusive thoughts would be telling someone “don’t think of a pink elephant”. Instantly you thought of a pink elephant right? Does that mean you wanted to think about it? No. Does that mean you love pink elephants? No.

Someone without OCD might think “haha okay” and move on.

Someone with OCD might think “wait why did I think of a pink elephant? Does this mean something? Does this say something about me?” OCD latches onto these thoughts and tries to convince you it’s important.

Edit2: Just wanted to clarify, the point of this analogy isn’t for reassurance seeking, it’s only meant to help someone understand the experience, not reassure that your siblings aren’t going to die. It’s to help
understand why “just ignore it” isn’t so simple

Just got GA tickets for the Orlando show with some of my friends (all are F24) but we are all short lmao. I'm 5'1, one of them is 5'4, but the rest of them are around my height.

But now one of my friends just told me she thinks it won't be safe after we already bought the tickets lmao. None of us have ever been in pit for other concerts, so can anyone lmk what you think? Like if it'll be safe or not. And also if any girls wanna share their experience with floor for Don Toliver please share!

I’ve taken many full lengths and I’ve gotten a 123 every single time. Never higher Never lower

Idk what to do, CARS by far is always my worst section and no matter how much AAMC practice I do, it has not gotten better

Please let me know if you have any advice. I’ve tried looking on this sub many times and still nothing has helped😰

Edit: For more context - I do feel like I’m pretty bad at understanding the main idea especially with history/literature/art passages. I also second guess myself a lot. And my timing is REALLY bad.

I know this sounds weird but this has really helped me so I thought I’d share in case it helps anyone else!

This "I don’t give a fuck" mindset is not in a reckless way, but more like: "Oh well."

Need to check my writing for the 20th time before submitting it? Nope. Oh well. If there's a mistake, there's a mistake. Not the end of the world.

Want to check if I locked my car door again? Oh well. If I somehow didn't and something happens, then it happens.

Checking my gym bag 10 times to make sure I packed everything? No thanks. If I forgot my AirPods, I'll survive. Maybe I'll have to come back. Oh well. Maybe it was meant to be.

For me it basically comes down to accepting uncertainty and refusing to treat every possible bad outcome like an emergency. Instead of trying to get 100% certainty, I just try to say, "Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, idgaf."

This doesn’t always work because I know it’s easier said than done, but I really try to adopting this thinking style for my checking OCD and “magical thinking” as well. Sometimes I’ll even say it out loud. Might sound crazy but I swear it helps!

Edit: Sometimes I’ll even laugh mid compulsion and be like “bro this shit is so stupid stop acting crazy” and it kinda makes me feel embarrassed but in a very helpful way haha

I always see everyone saying how important it is to do practice question sets on Uworld/AAMC, but what exactly does that entail? For example, on Uworld are you clicking on the Biology & Biochem to mimic B/B? Or only one topic like just biology? Or like a specific topic within bio? Or something else?

And then how do I go about incorporating it into my studying? Like are there certain things I should do each day? I've just been selecting random things to do but it doesn't feel right. IDK if I should dedicate each day for something or just make some set schedule. Not sure why but I'm so lost on how to actually use it

1. I coordinated many supply drives to donate various of health related things (with my premed club). I'm wondering if I should include the specific amount like 200+ personal hygiene, 100+ first aid, 100+ safe sex kits. I wasn't planning on including the numbers but I saw some examples online and some ppl did include it

2. If I served as more than one position in one club do I have to state how long in each one? Like how long I was just a member, then how long as chair, and then how long as president.

3. Diff thing here but if I'm talking about two different doctors I shadowed within one activity, should I include the hours that I shadowed each one? Something like- I shadowed Dr.*** (100hrs) and Dr.*** (50hrs). Or is the overall total fine?

I ended up emailing EVERY science professor I’ve ever had and they pretty much all said they had too many to write so they didnt have time (I even emailed the online profs but they didn’t reply)

The only science prof who said yes was my bio 2 prof from freshman year.. I got a B in the class and I didnt even know her super well but it seems that she remembered me at least🥲I haven’t seen the letter but I’m gonna assume it’s very average

The good news is that I have several other strong letters from ppl who know me well. Examples-

2 honors profs that I ended up doing posters/conferences/pub with (but the class wasn’t “science”) , research PI , physicians , advisor

A lot of them also have different roles in medicine like one was an Adcom, and also some are medical directors, med school profs, and one associate dean (of pharm school tho)

Some of the in state target schools I was planning on applying to say they require 2 science profs.. so is it not worth applying to those with only 1 science prof?

Ik it seems like a dumb question but my family keeps telling me to still apply even tho none of them are in healthcare so they’re just hopeful😭 Do you think those schools usually just throw out applications that only have 1 science LOR?

(Florida resident btw in case that matters)

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard they are changing up the way the psych section is from definition based to research interpretation type stuff but I was wondering how you guys felt on the real thing.

My p/s average was a 128/129, and I took my test 4/24 and got a 124😰 I’m retaking my exam end of July and idk how to study for psych since I was doing well before the test.

Psych has always come easy to me but then on FL6, my score dropped to 126 bc of the different style (at least I thought it was different). And I thought it was so much harder.

On my actual exam too I thought it was very difficult and was behind on time for the first time ever. So I’m trying to figure out if maybe it just happened to be my test version or if there has been this change overall across all tests recently ?? Pls lmk how you guys felt

I hope this made sense!!

Idk if that made sense but what I'm trying to say is if I have two different doctors I shadowed in one activity, when I write it out, should I explicitly state how many hours for each doctor? (Since I do have space to talk about them, I'm not going to just list them out like I know some people do).

I also have this for two hospitals I've volunteered at that I'm combining into one activity.

Like would I say: During my time volunteering at *blank* hospital (100 hrs) and *blank* hospital (50 hours) ...

I'm sure this question has been asked before in this sub but I have been searching for so long and couldn't find the post:(

Pls lmk if you are on the same boat as me🥲🙏

And I’m talking an ACTUAL bad score. Sorry but I do NOT wanna hear anyone here crying and complaining about their 515.

Where my <505 scorers at?😩 Cause I got a 497 and everyone in this sub with their 510+ makes me feel so alone lmao

Before anyone coming with some negativity, yes I already know my score is awful. Yes I understand that increasing 10-15 points in a month is unrealistic but idc. I’m gonna do my best to make it happen and worst case if it doesn’t then ok I will figure it out. But I’m going to try everything in my power to make it possible.

Anyways if anyone is in the same situation pls share any advice or what you are planning on handling this bc I’m so lost right now. Even if you’re not in the same situation, feel free to share anything positive/helpful for those of us struggling😔

Edit: Also I’m thinking about potentially testing on July 11 which idk might set me back on applications but at the same time earlier is completely unrealistic too ugh. What do u guys think

I’m sick and tired of CVS telling me my meds are ready and then I show up and it’s not ready. Then they’ll tell me “oh we’re out of stock come back in a few days” um WHAT.

I tell them idk what to do bc I have narcolepsy and then they say “ohhh ok well give me a few hours and it’ll be ready” .. pls explain how it magically became in stock when I mentioned my sleep disorder

And then I leave and go home and get a text 10 min later that it’s ready. Like I swear they have to be pranking me. And yes I’ve tried 4 different CVS and each one is disorganized af

Aside from the hassle the day of picking it up, I had already been waiting for 3 days bc they just never filled it??? So I had to split my pill in half for those days so that I could be awake enough not to fall asleep behind the wheel

Anyways I’m just so fucking tired of this hassel once a month I wish I could just get a 3 month prescription or something bc my sleep disorder ain’t going away… let me know if you have any advice for me😔🙏

Edit: My neurologist prescribes me these meds and I am eventually able to pick it up once a month but I’m just asking if anyone else has had to deal with their pharmacy being annoying. Like is Walgreens better? Or Publix (for those in the southeast US)?