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Admissions Straight Talk

109 Episodes

37 minutes | 3 days ago
Making the LSAT Learnable with Blueprint Prep
How Blueprint Prep can help YOU crush the LSAT [Show summary] Blueprint Prep’s Sena Maruflu, who aced the LSAT and now coaches aspiring law students, shares why and how the LSAT can be a learnable test for dedicated students of any background. A stellar LSAT score can mean the difference between acceptance and rejection at top law schools. Learn how YOU can achieve the score of your dreams! [Show notes] Are you prepping for the LSAT? Planning to apply to law school? Blueprint’s Sena Maruflu, who aced the LSAT and now teaches the LSAT, shares her top LSAT tips. Sena has a very unusual background. She speaks eight languages and is truly a citizen of the world. She moved to New York City to pursue a career in the arts, but somewhere along the way, she launched a career in international business as a sustainable coffee entrepreneur. She also considered law school, got bit by the LSAT bug (she earned a 178), and began to teach LSAT prep. She considers the LSAT like another language: completely teachable and completely learnable.  How do you get involved with LSAT prep? [1:33] I come from a career in the arts, primarily in dance. I moved to New York City at 17 to pursue that career, and I ended up getting injured and being unable to dance. I was looking to do pretty much anything else, and I explored quite a lot of things. The LSAT was that “anything else” and I ended up falling in love with it. What do you think is the most important thing for prospective law school applicants to keep in mind when prepping for the LSAT? [2:07] People frequently ask me this question because I don’t really have the most robust academic experience. I never really went to elite, impressive institutions or anything. People always ask me how I earned such a high score, and I really think it’s because I had such a positive and excited attitude throughout the whole thing. I think I always kept the end goal in mind. For me, the end goal wasn’t earning a perfect score. It was because I genuinely wanted to go to law school, and I really wanted to take that next step in my academic career. For some people, it’s being a certain kind of lawyer or solving a specific kind of issue that they really want to go to law school to solve. Keep that at the forefront of your mind as you’re studying, not really worrying much about the little mishaps along the way, just acknowledging that they’re going to happen. Lucky for me, I failed many times in my life, so it was nothing that was a shock to me. It never really brought me down too much. I always kept the end goal in mind. What if an applicant knows that the schools they are applying to are accepting both the GRE and the LSAT? When should applicants take the LSAT, and when should they take the GRE? [4:36] That’s a really great question because accepting the GRE is a relatively new thing in law school admissions, and shockingly, there actually are cases where taking the GRE is an appropriate step. A couple of things on that: The first is acknowledging that if you want to apply to law school, you most likely are going to have to take the LSAT. This is different from business school or medical school, or most higher education programs, because people applying to law school have very diverse majors. People can be dance majors and apply to law school, or they could be science majors and apply to law school. The LSAT really is the one and only standardized thing that everyone has. It is very important, and schools view it as very, very important because of that reason. It’s the only standardized thing. However, I think when the first batch of schools set the precedent of accepting the GRE, and Harvard was one them, there came the question of, when is it appropriate? To answer that, looking at past trends of applicants that got accepted to elite schools with the GRE shows that there’s one thing that most of these applicants have in common, and that’s having a really, really high GPA. If you have a very, very high GPA and a compelling story otherwise, taking the GRE is appropriate. If applicants are deciding between these, first make sure you have a high GPA, because that’s the only other number involved in this calculation. Second, take practice LSATs. There are 90 practice LSATs available. Getting a good idea of how you’re going to score on the LSAT, and at least trying to improve on it, I think is appropriate. But if you’ve taken a lot of LSATs and you just aren’t getting it (which is pretty rare because the LSATs are a very learnable test) and you already have a very, very elite GRE score, then I would say perhaps it’s appropriate. One other thing is that students that we see getting accepted with the GRE are typically students that major in the hard sciences. Students that major in engineering and hard science degrees, who maybe on a whim decided to take the LSAT when perhaps it was too late to study. Also, dual degree programs I’ve seen becoming more common. If I eventually go to law school, I hope to do an MBA program as well. I think in those cases that is appropriate, but again, with the high GPA in mind. If you’re an astronaut that’s been to the moon, all you need is, “I’ve been to the moon,” and they’ll say, “Okay, so you’d do well on the LSAT.” hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'f5545361-1ed4-49ea-b537-3ac1931c8064', {}); How has the switch first to digital LSAT and then to the Flex LSAT (which is remotely proctored and was created in response to COVID) changed test prep? [8:01] It’s changed a lot. Maybe the LSAT had some data that we don’t have and knew the pandemic was coming because they released the digital LSATs in the fall of 2019!  Blueprint actually has been the pioneer in the digital prep industry. We started offering classes about 15 years ago that were completely online with an online interface. Then, when the LSAT switched to being digital, people really, really freaked out. Primarily students that have been out of school for awhile that freaked out about it because the younger kids are like, “Of course, I’ve been on my iPad since I was 10.” The older and more experienced applicants were like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do?” It really revolutionized the LSAT because in addition to learning the content, you also had to learn strategies to be able to take it. It’s on a platform, and it’s really, really important to practice with that online platform so that you aren’t surprised on test day. For making the switch for test prep companies, a lot of prep companies had to think about how to integrate our classic LSAT classes, where you have an instructor teaching the content with students that are also navigating a new digital, ever-changing platform. What really happens is a more interactive experience where both the instructor and the students are doing a lot of back and forth talking. I know when I teach my classes, I’m a huge fan of utilizing chats and bringing students on mic to have a dialogue going, because especially with the digital LSAT, different things are confusing for different people, so you don’t know what the most challenging aspect is for a certain student. It revolutionized test prep because of the additional element of the learning curve of also being able to practice in a digital format as opposed to the super accessible paper format. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJYHqRIcxBQ&feature=emb_logo What are some of the strategies that you employ? What are some strategies that applicants should be using in a test prep? [10:26] I took the exam on paper. It’s strange because I’m now considered, I guess, a dinosaur in the LSAT world. When digital LSAT came out, I had to take a lot of practice LSATs online so that I felt confident giving my students the proper strategies. The one thing that I learned from taking a bunch of tests is that being able to navigate the platform truly is a personal experience. It’s my suggestion to everyone to look up resources. If you’ve Googled digital LSAT tips, so many things show up. Make sure that you’re practicing the LSAT online and that you’re trying out different things. But then, once you find a method that you think works, sticking with it and practicing enough. I can’t stress practicing enough. You don’t want to do anything new on test day. It’s strange because you have to get used to it, and there’s this whole other layer with the digital LSATs of how you can get disqualified during the digital LSAT. On the normal test, it was like, “Don’t cheat. Don’t bring a resource,” but on the digital LSAT, there are things that could be considered cheating, such as accidentally having somebody in your home walk past it. I live in New York City, and many people live in very small apartments, sometimes studios. That’s very impossible, and apparently, your pet can walk into the room, but another person can’t. So, if your dog is good at logic games, keep them around! hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'c5572014-0b54-4e12-acd9-91a66e31a013', {}); The LSAT has three sections: reading comprehension, analytical reasoning, and logical reasoning. What are your top tips for each of those sections? [12:43] Lucky for everyone, I started out terrible on most of these sections. I had over 30 point jumps, so I have tons of tips. Most students, when they take their first diagnostic LSAT, one of the first sections that they feel confident about is the reading comprehension. It’s very similar to reading comprehension on an SAT or an ACT format, where you’re being given a passage and asked questions about it. My number one tip for this is to read it differently than you read most passages, which is very difficult for people to learn. I’m an avid reader myself. I love reading, but the reading comprehension on the LSAT for some reason was the most difficult section for me to learn. And it’s because I had to relearn how I read. Most of the time, when you’re reading something for pleasure, you kind of try to focus in on the drama of it all or you try to focus in on what the big story is. With the reading comprehension on the LSAT, you have to care a little bit more about the logic. You have to start caring about words such as “and” or “or,” words such as “only,” really paying attention to how strongly or weakly worded it is. My number one tip is to read the passages for the logic rather than for the content, which is sometimes difficult because some of the passages are shockingly interesting. But read it more for the logic behind it rather than the content.  For the logical reasoning, you’re given a mini-paragraph and then asked to either infer something (like something that has to be true from that paragraph) or change the argument in some way: strengthen it, weaken it, resolve a paradox, or describe the argument in some way. You’re doing one of three things to an argument. My number one tip for all of those question types on logical reasoning is to be very argumentative. Be very skeptical. I think this was my best section to start because I love fighting with people. I think that that is my number one tip. Be very skeptical and look to tear apart arguments, even if you’re not trying to weaken it or something, because it really helps you notice gaps in arguments. The gaps in the logic and the gaps in the arguments end up being pretty much the most material part of the question and can help you find whatever answer you’re looking for most of the time. Then, for the analytical reasoning, this section is everybody’s least favorite. This really is a true new language. It’s a test section that makes you recognize patterns and build scenarios and build onto patterns. My number one tip for this section is practice, practice, practice. It is the most learnable section on the test. Like I said, there are 90 tests available. There are four games on every test, so there are 360 logic games out there. Set a goal to do them all. If you do them all, then you will not be surprised on test day, and you should get the section down perfect. How long have you been teaching the LSAT at this point? And could you give us an example of a student that you’re particularly proud of? [16:04] I’ve been teaching the LSAT for about a year and a half now. I’m going to choose one of my students who was in an in-person class of mine, and she later did tutoring with me. In the in-person class, I noticed that she was struggling in class and was really comparing herself to the people that were, I don’t want to say the stars of the class, but the people that were speaking the most in the class, and I could tell that she was struggling. She wasn’t finishing the sections on time. I think it was really a confidence issue, and she really beat herself down. And then she told me that she decided to not apply to law school. She didn’t think she was going to get the test, etc. She reached out to me a little bit later, maybe a few months later when the pandemic hit and we did a couple sessions of advising. We really talked through the test and she ended up improving so much. She went from the 130s in her school to a high 160 score. She went from not getting in places to getting in places with major scholarships. She’s a much more confident person. I’ve noticed when she speaks, she’s more sure of herself. And when she took the test, she just felt more sure. I noticed her attitude about the test was different. She’s probably the student I’m most proud of, and I’ve so far heard that she got into one of the top 15 schools so far. It’s a great success story. Test takers on their own, without pandemics, are stressed individuals. How do you advise test takers to manage nerves leading up to and during test day? [18:12] I, myself, get very anxious when things that are important are coming up. My number one tip is to really take time for yourself. Part of your study routine should include time that you set aside, and you tell yourself, “This is my time that I’m going to do something good for myself.” Whenever one of my classes ends, I send students “10 things you should do other than studying.” Really do things that you like. For me, I really love reading a new book. I’ll make it an effort to find a new book of a new genre or something and read a book. Some students love getting their nails done, or doing their own nails, because pandemic, or picking up a new hobby or something. That’s like my number one tip. The other thing is setting small goals along the way for the LSAT. Most people’s goal is the end score. And if they don’t reach that, they just beat themselves up, and it just adds to the nerves because you haven’t reached that. So, one thing that I always tell my students to do is set really small goals. For example, start with, “I’m just going to finish the first 10 questions in the section and I’m going to get those ones right.” Or, “I’m going to get nine out of 10 right.” Small goals along the way. “I’m not going to miss the word “only” if the word “only” appears.” Small goals like that. Then, rewarding yourself when you accomplish those things. You don’t have to go crazy with the rewards. But if it’s just even telling yourself like, “Wow, I did really, really well,” and keeping track of those goals that you accomplished I think is really, really great. Then, it’s not just that you didn’t reach that score. It’s that you had so many accomplishments along the way. And maybe the score you came close to at the end, but maybe you surpassed it. My original goal score was a 160 and I got a 178, so you never know. Do you see waivers in law schools applicants’ future, as there are increasingly for business schools and (to a limited extent) for medical schools? [20:43] This year with the pandemic, some law schools (not very many, but some of them) did waive the LSAT requirements. I personally do not see the LSAT going away anytime soon or getting a waiver similar to medical school or business school, just because of the thing that I mentioned before, which is that law school, unlike other grad schools, has students from such diverse backgrounds. The LSAT truly is the one and only standardized thing. I don’t see it really going away anytime soon. In fact, with the pandemic, the LSAT has been administered online remotely from people’s own computers, and the scores have actually been a little bit higher than scores normally are. I think that makes applicants and schools both really, really happy because schools see applicants with higher LSATs, applicants are happy that they got higher LSATs. So I do not believe that the LSAT is going away anytime soon, simply because there’ll be no way to compare applicants against each other. I do really sympathize with people who are just outstanding applicants and can’t seem to crack the LSAT. It’s strange: Applicants seem to be loving the LSAT more than even the schools do. In January of 2020, there were 16,000 people that registered for the LSAT. Now, for January, 2021, there are 41,000 currently registered. That’s huge. There are a lot of LSAT prep companies out there. What makes Blueprint different? [23:45] I think what makes Blueprint different is our philosophy core teaching. We really want the teaching experience to be fun so that you can set small goals along the way, and it isn’t this horrible thing that you associate terrible thoughts with and something that you need to do. We have instructors that really approach it as edutainment, a fun kind of education. And what’s great is that no one instructor is the same. Many prep companies have a standard script that the instructors have to follow. But for our classes, every single instructor can customize their classes in their own way. I teach classes very differently than some of my other colleagues. Our methods work, and we all teach our methods, but how we teach them and how we conduct our classes is very, very different. I think that makes it a more personal experience, and it really allows the instructors to customize their approach to fit each specific class. Classes can be very different, so it really, really helps. The other thing that really sets us apart is we understand that people learn very differently, so we have three different formats of classes. We have the online anytime course, which is really good for students that have a very, very busy schedule, so they can watch videos whenever they want. They have access to our online platforms, our review sessions, which are live, etc. The next kind of class we have is live online, where you still get access to videos at any time. However, you have an instructor teaching you live who’s able to answer your questions live, and you get that customized approach. The last one is private tutoring, where you have a tutor that customizes your schedule for you the entire way, and you’re able to contact that tutor more one-on-one and have a discussion of what’s working or not working for you personally, which I think really works. The other thing is that most people that take our classes, I think, can attest to the fact that our online platform is great. I remember when I was becoming an instructor, I was just blown away by how customized it is. We have an AI program that customizes the questions that you get according to the trends and how you’re studying, and it really doesn’t let you get away with things. If you’ve been neglecting a question type, they throw it in your face. When you accomplish things, you still get that positive feedback, and it really helps you identify your strengths and your areas for improvement. The next thing is the score increases. I’ve seen so far for my private tutoring students an increase of 17 points, and most classes increase 11, but everybody’s different. I improved over 30 points. I’ve had a couple of students improve over 30 points. I think the personalized approach and the fact that we can see what’s working for each student really does lead to these gigantic points score increases over a limited time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr4jsADeGRI&feature=emb_logo What is a typical amount of time that a student engages with Blueprint? [26:46] Our courses, currently, have a couple of different course models. We have an accelerated program, which is a month and a half. We have a standard program, which is two to three months. That’s a very typical time. And then we have an extended class, which is upwards of four or five months. This is brand new. I’m teaching the first one right now. Sometimes, I’ve had tutoring students for six months. I think it just depends. I personally studied for four months. If I’m a student of Blueprint using the first option (video-only) or even the second (some video, some independent study), and I’m struggling with a particular question or problem, is there a way to ask a question and get help? [27:22] For the second option, which is the live online, you’re assigned a specific instructor, which is your instructor, and students are able to email me whenever. I love getting student emails. My students that email me the most are the ones that I see end up improving the most. Funny how that works! In addition to that, both kinds of students, so both live online and online anytime students, can do one of three things to get a personalized approach. The first is to attend what’s known as a review session. We have review sessions six days a week, where an instructor is teaching you live. It’s like free LSAT prep, honestly. And they frequently do Q&A’s at the end, so you’re able to ask any questions that way. The second way is there’s a little chat box that you can chat into, and it’s actually real people. I remember when I was perusing the website before I became an instructor, and I saw the chat box, and then when I visited Blueprint for my instructor training, I saw that person’s desk. I was like, “You’re real!” I thought it was really funny. The third way is we have two email accounts. One of them is a study buddy, and one of them is a LSAT questions email address. You can get personalized answers to any LSAT question or any kind of conceptual concern. In addition to those things, on our website, we have an explanation for every single released LSAT question ever, if you just have a specific question. But for more general concerns, we have real people that will make sure that you get an answer, and there’ll be in your face about it and follow up to make sure that you got it. I’m required to get back to my students within 24 hours. I get back generally a little bit sooner. You alluded to the spike in law school application volume this year, in applicants as well as applications, according to LSAC. Do you think it makes any sense for law school applicants, especially younger law school applicants, to wait a year to apply in the hope that application volume declines? [29:33] The hard thing to face is that when there’s a bigger applicant pool, it’s going to be more competitive. Even if not every single applicant is competitive, there will be a more competitive applicant pool. What we’ve noticed from the LSAT Flex is that people are just scoring higher, whether that’s from being in your own home… As reference, I took my LSAT in the middle of Times Square when there was a model UN Conference going on and people were walking in and out of the room, which is not ideal. Now, people can take it at home, which is a much more pleasant experience, I imagine. And it’s offered more times, so people can study more and retake it more. The end of the day thing is that there’s a more competitive applicant pool and better applicants. If you have the means to take another year off, I always suggest doing it. In that year off, especially for younger students, if you can improve your LSAT score, even by two points, it just makes such a difference. More than that, especially for younger applicants, getting experience in anything is just going to make you a better candidate. I obviously chose not to go because I’m here right now. I had applied to law school straight out of college, and I was very young. I was 20, 21 at the time I applied. And I noticed that even though I had a high LSAT score, I genuinely believe I’m a stronger candidate now because I have so much work experience and so much more maturity, which are both qualities that law schools can tell from your resume, from your writing. They make you a better asset to their class. One thing for law applicants to remember and why taking time off is so important is that law schools generally aren’t picking a class of future lawyers. They’re not like, “This is going to be our next DA.” They’re picking a class of law students that are going to function together and work together. And in order to have the best graduating law school class, you want people that have experience working with other people or gaining new skills. So, especially if you think that you can improve your competitiveness as an applicant, and if you can improve what you’re going to get out of law school, which law schools can see, I always recommend taking some more time off. There’s absolutely nothing you can lose, because even if next year is also competitive, this year was too, and now you’re just more competitive. You’re adding to what a great applicant pool it is. What would you have liked me to ask you that I haven’t asked? [32:59] What kinds of students do I see improve the most? A lot of people, especially my students that attended more elite institutions, maybe they went to an Ivy or something for their undergrad, just expect to get a great score on the LSAT because they’ve been an achiever their whole lives. Moreso when I had my classroom courses, I’d have students from Columbia and students from the local community college, and sometimes the ones from the community college would improve more. The students that were from Columbia were like, “Why is this happening? I’ve been an achiever my whole life. Why can’t I take the LSAT?” And I think it just comes down to how focused they are on, not just the LSAT, but on improving themselves to be prepared for law school. It’s not that you can sit down and study for the LSAT for eight hours a day. Those aren’t the students that improve the most. It’s the students that set aside their time to study. They do study, but then focus on also bettering themselves, so they have this more positive attitude towards the test. The students that I see improve the most, again, aren’t the students that study the most. It’s not that they don’t study at all, but they’re the students with the best attitude towards it. The students that really utilize talking to their peers the most, the students that create study groups and make it a collaborative experience, much like law school and the career of law, right? No case has one attorney assigned to it. Treating it like a step that is exciting and that’s leading you to the next chapter, and they’ll talk to me, and they’ll be focused on other aspects of their application. Having a positive attitude and really knowing that you can do this, and then being proud of yourself along the way. The students that beat themselves up throughout the entire process, I don’t think end up reaching their potential. Where can Accepted listeners learn more about Blueprint’s LSAT test prep, and if they want to work specifically with you, where they can contact you? [35:06] If you want to reach Blueprint, you can go to BlueprintPrep.com, and you can check out all of our different class resources. And if you have a specific law school in mind and want to know what score you want us to help you achieve, you can check out what’s known as our Law School Compass on our website, where you can put in your grades and find what score you want us to help you reach. If you want to work with me directly, which would be super exciting, you can peruse our live courses and see if I happen to be teaching one, or you can request me as a tutor, or if you would like to email me directly, I always give out my email: sena.maruflu@blueprintprep.com. I would be delighted to answer your email. Related links: BlueprintPrep’s website Help! My LSAT is Low – Should I Still Apply to Law School? Applying to Law School During the Coronavirus Pandemic Accepted’s Law School Admission Consulting Services Related shows: What to Expect From the New LSAT-Flex The Test Prep Experts’ Guide to the LSAT Two Admissions Experts on the Latest in Law School Admissions What a Law Career Is Really Like Acing the LSAT  Law School Admissions: What You Need to Know Subscribe:       hbspt.cta.load(58291, '5443a258-0d74-4529-8836-cf9127e33d4d'); Podcast Feed
42 minutes | 10 days ago
All About BU School of Medicine, a Social Justice-Minded Med School
Looking to apply to a social justice-focused medical school? Find out if BUSM is a good fit for you. [Show summary] Dr. Kristen Goodell, Associate Dean of Admissions at Boston University School of Medicine, explores student life at BUSM and its social justice-focused approach to medical education, as well as her advice to applicants on navigating its competitive admissions process. Who gets accepted to BUSM? [Show notes] Do you have your eye on BU’s medical school? Would you love to attend that program but are a little nervous about the fact that it gets 80 applications for every available seat? Have no fear: BUSM’s Associate Dean of Admissions is today’s guest on Admissions Straight Talk. Dr. Kristen Goodell is Associate Dean of Admissions at Boston University School of Medicine. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Colby College and her MD at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She completed her residency in family medicine at Tufts and has been a practicing physician ever since 2007. In addition, from 2012 to 2017, Dr. Goodell served as a Director for Innovation in Medical Education at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care. In 2017, she was appointed Assistant Dean of Admissions at BUSM and became Associate Dean in 2018. Can you start by giving us an overview of the BU School of Medicine program, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:27] The most important take-home message to know about BU School of Medicine is that we are a social justice medical school. You see that come out in a number of different ways. You see it in the types of things that we focus on in our curriculum. You see it in the patients that we take care of in our primary academic hospital. And you even see it in the energy and the vibe that we bring to our work. A big place that you see that is in the extra things that our students do in addition to studying for their classes. I could say more specific things about that; I have about one million stories to illustrate the fact that we’re a social justice medical school. We’re not the only social justice medical school in the United States. There are a few schools that I know of that I would characterize as existing to take care of an underserved population, often a specific underserved population. We are one of those schools. It certainly differentiates us from the other schools in the northeast. A thing that is really interesting about our medical school is that this powerful social justice driver happens in the context of a major research university. We’re not a community school that’s focused on delivering care to one specific community, although we do take care of our patients in our neighborhood. But we are a big academic medical center along with a major research university. What that means is that you see a lot of our areas of expertise and some of our coolest innovations are all focused around the idea of social justice. One example is that we’re the primary investigative site for a large multicenter trial that is looking to see what happens if you screen every single patient for social determinants of health. Every patient in any of our primary care clinics is asked about their access to food, is asked about their housing situation, if they have transportation for appointments, if they need employment support, all kinds of stuff. We’re doing this big study to see, if we know about those things, would we be able to address them? And then later on, does that impact the patient’s health? It seems like it should be obvious, right? Of course, doctors should hopefully know if their patients don’t have food or a place to live. Except the thing is, in medicine, we often don’t know that because we don’t ask because in medicine we don’t screen for things we can’t treat. But at Boston Medical Center, which is BU School of Medicine’s primary teaching hospital, we’ve developed all of these supports and ways to try to address those issues for patients. We can do this rigorous research where we see, okay, does it really make a difference? We know we care, but can we show that it actually impacts people’s health? That’s an example of how you see that social justice mission in the context of this big research medical school. Early and consistent clinical exposure throughout the four years of medical school is a critical element in the BUSM curriculum. Are students still having that exposure despite COVID? [5:30] They are now. The students’ clinical experiences took a hit in the springtime of 2020. That was when COVID really just slammed into the United States, and medical schools all across the country felt that they had to help pull medical students out of their clinical rotations for their own safety. But what we were able to do was really not to stop most experiences, at least not the core curricular experiences. We rearranged them. For example, our first year students typically in their spring semester have what we call the longitudinal preceptorship, where they go with a physician and they see patients in their office. In that setting, they practice their interviewing and physical diagnosis skills. They practice it with patients that are there for their care. So they have to be efficient and be goal directed, and all that stuff. But that normally happens in March and April and May. What we had to do was move that from the first year of spring to the second year fall. Our first year students didn’t get to do it last spring, but by summertime, things had settled down, and by the fall, we said okay, we have to bring these students back. The school asked all the preceptors that normally do it in the spring, “Hey, can you take students? And furthermore, can you take extra students? Because we need to make sure that everybody is getting their experiences.” It required some flexibility on everyone’s part. First of all, the students had to wait longer, which is not what we want. I took extra students in my clinic. I’m happy to have them, but some of the time I see patients in the evening and Saturdays. So I’m happy to have students, but they’re going to have to come on evenings and Saturdays. So they did, and they were happy to do that. There was a little bit of rearranging. But we did pretty well without reducing the core curricular elements that happen in the clinical setting. And by August, everybody was back in clinic in the regular way. All the students were. Now, students are vaccinated along with health care workers. The vast majority of our students signed right up and said, “Yes, I’ll take it.” Can you describe BUSM’s extracurricular enrichment activities? [7:57] We have a series of structured courses that students can take. They’re entirely optional. A couple that I can think of that are very popular include the medical language courses. We offer medical Spanish at several different levels. Those are largely facilitated by students because about 80% of our students speak another language in addition to English. Many of our students come in speaking Spanish, so they’ll help their peers. We offer one for beginners, and then we offer another one for students maybe who have studied some Spanish but are not so sure about using it in the medical setting. We also have a course in Haitian Creole that’s taught by one of our faculty who herself is Haitian, so she leads that course. In addition, a really cool course is our advocacy curriculum. It also has a lot of student leadership. As a first-year student, you’re a participant in the course. It’s one evening a week. Each session, you have a speaker that comes in to talk about something. I was invited a couple of years ago, because I had testified before Congress in favor of some primary care funding. They wanted to know, “Can you come and tell us about what it’s like if you get to do that?” They’ll have a speaker come in, and then they spend some time on a skills training thing, like how to write a letter to the editor, or how to set up an appointment with your congressional representatives, something like that. Along with that, the students get into small groups, and they do some kind of a project, a year-long project. Sometimes, the project is a bite-sized one-year project. For example, the year that I was there, a group of students were working to bring dental services to one of our community health centers. Some of our community health centers have dentists and some don’t. They spent a year getting donations of equipment, finding people that would volunteer to staff the clinic, making sure they had all the appropriate permissions in place. And then there’s always a group of students working on some form of single payer healthcare. That one keeps going year after year, but they’ll set a goal for the year, like, “We want the Massachusetts Medical Society to address this particular amendment,” or something like that. That’s one of the examples of these kinds of extracurricular, really structured activities. We also have an enormous number of entirely student-run groups. The most popular thing that our students do with their time is to participate in some service learning activity. There are about 17 or 18 different student-led service groups, a huge spectrum of what you can do. One of the longest running ones is called the Outreach Van, which is an actual van that students take to different parts of the city. They bring clothes, and they bring food and try to identify people that need to get to medical care. There’s another one, this is one of my favorites: Our neonatologist, one of their innovations is that they have figured out a better way to treat neonatal abstinence syndrome, which is what babies have when they’re born to addicted mothers. Normally, those babies go to the NICU. In the NICU, they’re in a little plastic isolette, and they get a lot of medications to help ease them through the physical withdrawal. But what our neonatologist figured out is that you can dramatically reduce the amount of medications the babies get, but you can’t leave them in a little plastic isolette. You can decrease the medications, but you have to snuggle them. One of our service activities that students can sign up for is to get trained in the NICU, go into the NICU and snuggle the babies, which I’m just about to sign up for myself, because it sounds amazing to me. I’ll do it. There are a whole bunch of different projects they do. And because they’re student run, students can come in and start a new group. Sometimes, over time, the need for one will fade.  A lot of people ask, do you have a student-run free clinic that students can work in? And the answer to that is no, because we have a free academic medical center. Massachusetts passed a law five years before the Affordable Care Act that said everybody has to have insurance, and we hugely expanded Medicaid. So 98% of the population of Massachusetts is insured. But you’ve still got to take care of the other two percent, and they come to either our hospital system or there’s Baystate in Springfield, which is a couple hours away. We don’t need a free clinic because we are a free clinic. It doesn’t matter if they qualify for insurance. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have any money. Either we will get them signed up if they qualify, or if they don’t, we just take care of them. That includes all their medications, all their testing, all their visits, all their whatever. Given BU’s focus on serving the underserved, do you feel that the MCAT helps or hinders that mission? Any plans to go MCAT-optional? [13:07] I don’t have plans to go MCAT optional because I believe that more information about candidates is better. Hopefully the most important question that we’re trying to answer with any application is, who are you? And what do you bring to the table? That’s really the big picture question that we’re trying to figure out about every single applicant. But more specifically, one question is, the most important one of all is, are you going to be able to manage the curriculum? How the MCAT helps us is it allows us to understand students’ performance, particularly in institutions that we’re not as familiar with. For example, you’re in California, right? I had, before a couple of years ago, never heard of Cal State Fullerton, never heard of that place. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know what kind of education it offers. I don’t know if it has small 50-person classes or 500-person classes. I don’t know if anyone can go there. But what I do know is that a lot of people who are smart and ambitious will go to that college because that’s what’s available to them. It’s inexpensive. Maybe they can live at home; they may have home responsibilities, they need to take care of things at home, or they have to help the younger siblings, whatever. That doesn’t make them less smart or good doctors. It just means that’s what they did. If I have the MCAT, then I can help understand the answer to the question, are they going to be able to succeed in medical school? I don’t have any plans to get rid of that because I don’t particularly want to fall into the trap of relying on your school’s fanciness. The other thing that’s part of our social justice mission is to recruit as diverse of a class as possible. The important thing with the MCAT is really how you use it. The most important thing is not to have strict cut-offs. Because if you cut people off, then you’re definitely going to cut some people out. A test is not everything. That’s why we don’t have any cut-offs. We try to, as I said, understand everybody in context. If you use the MCAT as evidence of somebody’s academic ability or predictive ability in terms of success in medical school, that’s what it’s intended for. If you’re using it as a sign of medical school quality, or quality of the student body, or rankings factors, there’s a problem. Yes, there is a huge problem with that. The real problem is that people can just fudge it. Most medical schools have way more applicants than they can accept. If you’re trying to game the rankings system, then fine, just take the people with the highest MCAT scores and ignore the rest. But is that really what is going to make good doctors? No. Do you have any advice for premeds about to take the MCAT? [16:06] My overall advice would be to believe what the AAMC is telling people. It’s pretty easy to think that they’re trying to make it as hard as they can and they’re trying to weed people out. The AAMC is not; they’re trying to make a fair and valid test. They really, really do want to make it so that people have equal access. When they give you an outline for the test, for example, and say, “Here’s what’s on it,” that really is what’s on it. Some of the best resources are to be found on their website. In general, what people need to do is they need to plan about three to six months in advance of studying. People do better if they study consistently over three to six months. They do better than if they try to say, okay, I’m just going to take the month of July and study the whole thing. It doesn’t work as well to do that. When I say three to six months for most people, it should be about like a part-time job. People are usually spending between 10 and 20 hours a week on it. It’s a lot of work. It’s like a class. The best way to do it is take a practice test, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and study up on the weaknesses. It is more fun to study your strengths, but it will not help you that much. That’s the pattern that works out best: lots and lots of quizzing yourself. Testing yourself is what’s really good. Your ability to do well on that test, it shows mastery of the material, and it also shows your ability to set a big educational goal. Doing that consistent work like that, that’s what we’re looking for. The BUSM secondary application is a thorough secondary application with three to six essays. What do you learn from the secondary that you don’t get from the primary? [17:46] We ask specific questions on the secondary. We give everyone a secondary application. We don’t do an initial screening. The reason is because there’s information on that secondary that helps us understand who you are and what you bring to the table as an applicant. For example, several of our questions are not required. We have one question that basically says, tell us whatever you want about your educational history. If there’s something that didn’t come up in the rest of the application, use this space to tell us. Not everybody answers it; there are lots of people who’ve had a relatively typical pathway, and we get it. But on the other hand, people often use that space to tell us things that maybe they didn’t want to spend their whole personal statement talking about. Perhaps somebody had a difficult semester and it was because their parent became ill, and they had to go and take care of them. Or they themselves are struggling with depression and they needed to take some time to address it. Some people say, “I didn’t get a chance to explain this but my parents were in the Foreign Service, so I’ve actually lived in six different countries. This really informs my view of medicine because I have an understanding of the different way people view things.” People tell us all kinds of different things. One recent really memorable applicant talked about his journey from community college to an Ivy League school to finish out his education. We asked those questions because we, again, are really trying to be able to put all of the data about you into context. Then this year, we added another question which specifically relates to our mission. This is a question that we actually added at the suggestion of our students. Our students this summer said, “We really, really need to work on increasing the diversity of our incoming classes. We all say we’ve got the social justice mission, but we need to ask applicants about it directly.” We did; we added a question to our secondary that basically said, “This is what the hospital does. Why do you think you’ll be good at it? Why do you think you belong in this social justice community?” And we want to know that. I will tell you that I was actually a little bit skeptical because I thought, “Ah, applicants are just going to tell us what they think we want to hear. They’re going to read the website, and they’re going to figure it out.” But it turns out that there’s a big difference between somebody who has read the website and says, “Yes, that’s exactly what I believe too,” versus somebody who’s actually been living their lives like that the whole time. And you see that when you look at people’s experiences. It has to do with the way they write about it too. If they say, “Oh, this would be such a good experience for me to learn,” that’s a little bit different than, “I would so value the opportunity to give back to this community,” or, “My goal is to serve. The reason I want to be a doctor is because I grew up without these resources, or nobody spoke my language, and so I want to go back to my own community, and I think I can get well trained to do it.”  How about the CASPer? What does that add to BUSM’s evaluation process? What does it add to your insight into an applicant? [21:07] This is the first year that we’re actually using it in admissions decision making. We are in the process of analyzing how effectively CASPer helps us do our job. I don’t have hard data to share yet. The goal of CASPer is that it gives us information that otherwise is very difficult to get on the application but that almost everyone thinks is really important to be a good doctor. Most people believe that you need to have truly, truly exceptional communication skills, not just outstanding intelligence, but you also need to have outstanding communication skills. Most people believe that you need to have incredible empathy and that you need to be an excellent team player. But those things, it’s so hard to see them from the application. We look at the experiences to see if people have been inclined to work in teams before, but it’s hard to know if it’s really true or if it was just an accident that they were with a group of people. It’s hard to pull that out of the rest of the application, and that’s what CASPer seeks to do. We hope that it is helping us get more information about each candidate. And frankly, I think that’s actually the stuff that’s really important. As I said, we have academic information with the GPA and the MCAT. I feel like we’ve got that covered. We know about your academic abilities. Sometimes people’s grades dip because of depression or a mental health issue, but I know many applicants are reluctant to attribute a dip in grades to a mental health issue. How do you react to that? [22:40] I agree that that is a difficult issue, because what you want is to put your best foot forward. And I think most people don’t think of that as being part of their best foot forward. I really do understand that it is difficult. And to be completely frank, I’ve seen people write things on applications that I think were a little bit too much. I think the key thing is to think about your audience and think about, again, what is the thing that they’re trying to assess? They’re trying to make sure that you are going to do well in medical school. Somebody who has wrestled with some mental health problems, grown a lot from it, developed an enormous amount of empathy, and there’s evidence that it’s really in the rearview mirror and it’s not to be a problem, then great, we’re good. That’s fine. People that seem to be in the midst of an ongoing struggle, I think I honestly would advise them to wait a little bit longer. Medical school is hard. We really are trying to support our students as much as we can. We believe in wellness. But the fact of the matter is, this is not a job for people that are trying to clock in and out at 9:00 and 5:00. It’s hard. You really want to be in a good place and feel like, “I am ready to jump right in there and pour my heart and soul into this thing.” What is the interview day at BUSM like in the time of COVID? Is it a day, an experience, or an interview? [24:14] First of all, we set up a special web page that’s part of our application portal that has a whole bunch of specific resources for students who are interviewing, which includes things like contact information for our current students who are admissions ambassadors. There’s this living FAQ document where interviewees can go in and put in a question, and then one of our students will answer it. It’s entirely done without my supervision. I asked the students to do it, but I don’t read it. You don’t have to worry about people trying to feed you the institutional line or whatever. There’s some things on there that are really just for interviewees. Then, in addition, what we have in terms of the live stuff are three required things. You have one required faculty interview, you have one overview info session that I do, which is live, virtual, but it’s all real time and recorded. And then you also have a session with students. All of these are interactive. The session with me is interactive also, with lots of Q&A. With students, they start off with some introductory basic stuff, and then they go into breakout rooms, so then applicants have a chance to talk in just a small little group of students. Those activities are all required, but we didn’t make people schedule it all in one day. That was a decision that I made when we were trying to plan out the season. And it mostly was because in the late summer, I was feeling just about maxed out on the amount of Zoom that I was doing. When I end up spending three hours or four hours in a row on Zoom, I just find them to be really tiring. I had a headache at the end. I didn’t think that would be appealing to applicants, so I thought, nope, let’s not do that. Let’s make these three things required, and we’re going to tell applicants to try and do them within a week of each other, and we’ll see if it works. The risk is the students won’t really remember that much, that all the stuff about BU will be a little diffuse, and that they won’t be able to remember it as well. But that was the experiment of this year. Let’s say we get beyond COVID, and we can start traveling again. Will you return to in-person interviews? [26:37] That is to be determined. I’m not trying to hedge; I really don’t know the answer. I am a massive extrovert, and I really like meeting people in-person, so I would vastly prefer to go back to our interview days, even though they’re hard to schedule and very demanding. I would prefer that. However, it is really expensive for applicants, especially if people are flying across the country and they’ve got to stay in a hotel. I think the evaluative part, which is the interview, that part actually goes pretty well over Zoom. I don’t know that much is lost. I think what’s lost in having a virtual day is getting to hang out at the school and just see what people act like and see how people seem to be with each other, and overhear little snippets of conversation and look at how everyone looks. I think that is the stuff that we lose. The question is, is there a way to do that in another way that’s more efficient? This could end up being totally wrong, but it could be good if we have our interview days and schedule the interview requirements similar to the way we do now. But then what we might do is something like have a series of visit days for accepted students. It won’t be just one big open house like in the past. We’ve had this giant open house and a big party and we have workshops, and we have a reception at the end with a band, which is awesome, by the way. We have a BMC band, which is really excellent. But instead of that, what we might do is have a series of 8:00 or 10:00, Mondays or Fridays, when people are invited to come to campus, and then they can spend the day with us, get a tour, have lunch with students, chit chat with faculty, maybe sit down in the class. We arrange some things like that to allow them to make a decision.  I am really hoping that the AAMC surveys both schools and applicants to find out what they would like, because to some extent I want schools to play fair, and I want to be fair to applicants. I want it to be fair with schools too. We need to be aware of what everyone else is doing, and we really need to know what applicants think. Do applicants miss the in-person experience? [29:10] I think it’s both. We also need to be particularly attentive to some of the people we most care about recruiting, which is not necessarily people that have lots of money. When I was an applicant, I was living on my own, supporting myself, and I did not have a ton of family money or anything like that. I borrowed all the money for all of my school, but I still would have spent the money to travel to a school to go there. But I’m an extraordinary extrovert. I know I do much better in person, making an impression. So for me, it would have been worth it. But I don’t know that that’s the same for everybody, and I don’t want to disadvantage some people who are like, “I just can’t take time off from my two jobs and my family responsibilities.” It’s something that everybody’s going to be grappling with in multiple fields. I actually prefer to see people in person. So I’m only seeing people in person right now. But I think for many things, telemedicine is perfectly adequate and really much more convenient for patients. In 2019/20, BUSM received a total of 9,151 applications, yet it has 160 students who matriculated to its MD programs. Your site and this interview have both emphasized that every application is reviewed holistically. How do you winnow it down from 9,151 to 160? [30:28] A human reads every single application. We have a team of people that review them. We have a set of criteria that we look at for every application. For every single application, how strong are the academics? How is the CASPer score? How focused is this person on service? There are a bunch of different criteria that we look at. We have a structured way that we review every application. we can’t do the whole pool at once and then do the invitations, so we do a chunk and then say, “Alright, of that 50, I’m going to pick the top 20%.” You take the top 20% and say, “Okay, those are the people we’re going to interview.” Are you looking for anything differently today than you looked for two or five years ago when you first started at BU? Or maybe when you were at Harvard? [31:44] Not because of the impact of the pandemic. The things we looked at at Harvard were a little different from the things we look at at BU, just because of the different missions of the schools. I actually really think that the things we’re looking at and the criteria are the same. I would say that this year, we’re more focused on mission fit, a little bit. We’ve always been pretty focused on mission fit, but I think now we’re emphasizing that more, really wanting to get people who share our goal of solving the biggest problems for the neediest people. How do you view letters of intent or correspondence from waitlist applicants, or letters of intent? [32:30] This year, as you no doubt know, everything was slowed down by a couple of weeks. There’s probably a lot of people still hanging out there wondering what the heck is going on, and it really is just because it’s taken us longer. We had a 27% increase in applications. Before the interview, they don’t make any difference at all for us. I don’t know what other schools are doing. We just review the application. For other letters of intent or updates, the later in the process you get, the more they matter. I used to joke with people: When you’re in person, I do want to know if you really are interested in BU. But if you go outside and, while you’re waiting for your Uber, you’re like, “Dear Dr. Goodell, BUSM is my favorite,” I’m going to be like, “You’re full of baloney, you haven’t even seen all the places yet. I don’t believe you.” On the other hand, if people are more towards the end of the process, they have seen all their schools, and they feel really strongly about a school, then that becomes a little bit more important. But truly, the only time that makes a difference is if we’re your very first choice. Even then, the time when it makes the most difference of all is if you find yourself on the waitlist. If you’re on the waitlist, and you’re thinking, “Oh, I really wanted to go there. That is my number one school,” then sometimes that makes a difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxI-g_qKP4 You’re open to waitlist letters? You don’t throw them in the trash or anything like that? [34:06] No, we don’t. I read them all, actually. Really every year, there are people who write and say, “This is my absolute choice.” The more honest and clear people can be, the better it is. People will say, “I have another plan. I have been accepted to another school. But if you let me in, I’m coming.” Especially if you’re like, “I am accepted somewhere else and will matriculate there on August 1st, but if you let me in first, I’m coming down.” Then I’m like, “Okay, I believe you.” What advice would you give to med school applicants thinking ahead and planning to apply either in 2021 or 2022? [34:56] The biggest question that applicants have is, “How can I get in?” And part of that is, “How can I make myself stand out?” And then a subsidiary of that question is, “Is it better for me to do this or this activity?” or, “How should I spend my time?” The most important thing is that you do what you are excited about, not what you think is going to look good. There’s a whole set of applications where people have met all of the criteria. When we read those applications, what we often write in our notes is, “This application has a checkbox feel,” which means, “They told me I have to do some community service.” That doesn’t play all that well. But I also get it. I feel bad saying that because I understand, poor applicants, they’re just trying to follow the rules. I get it. It’s not that it’s a bad thing to do. But I think what is the most important is that you do the thing that is really exciting to you. Because most likely, there’s going to be some school that thinks that is amazing. Apply and go to one of those schools that thinks what you did is totally amazing. As I said, we are not the only social justice medical school in the United States. We’re looking for people that we think are going to genuinely share our passion and enthusiasm. I think that’s really important. That can be for whatever the thing is. If your thing is serving the underserved, great. But if your thing is the business of medicine, so you worked for Deloitte for a couple of years, that’s good. Do that. I’m not sure that BU would be the best place for you. Do the thing that you’re excited about. Some school is going to like it, probably. That’s my advice. Do what you love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CNI6Yj68mA One little subtlety: It’s okay to test something out and then decide it’s not really you. That’s fine. Then, if somebody asks you about it, you can say, “Oh, that wasn’t really me.” That actually happens. We see it happen with research sometimes. People will try to do some research, and their motivations were good, but then they found this bench work stuff is just not really where their heart is. There are multiple different ways to contribute. There are multiple different ways to do community service.  What would you have liked me to ask you? [40:16] I think it’s really important that people know that there is not one right path. The reason that we do this holistic review stuff, the reason that we have a human read every application, is because there are an infinite number of different pathways to have a successful career in medicine. We just don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all enterprise. I want people to know that it’s okay to make mistakes, that it’s okay to change your mind about stuff. You’re right, I finished my residency in family medicine, but I matched into general surgery and did that for three years and then switched. I totally changed. I don’t say I made a mistake. I regret it 0%; it just made me a better doctor. But on the other hand, that happened because the reasons I picked surgery were just wrong. “My mom will be extra proud if I’m a surgeon.” I was trying to make a decision in a way that I don’t make decisions. I was trying to check all the pros and not have any cons. That’s just not the way I actually do things. I want people to know that you can take all these different pathways and have it still be okay. There are really very few non-overcomeable mistakes. That, and maintain academic integrity. Don’t cheat. That’s one of the hardest things to overcome that I can think of. Where can listeners learn more about Boston University School of Medicine? [42:00] Go to bumc.bu.edu/admissions. Or, if you Google BUSM admissions, that’s what comes up, and you’ve got all the information. Related Links: Boston University School of Medicine website Med School Interviews During Covid-19, a Q&A with experts Get Accepted to Medical School in 2022, a free webinar Accepted’s Medical Admissions Consulting Related Shows: Applying to Med School During COVID-19 What Med School Applicants Must Know About Johns Hopkins Everything Applicants Need to Know About the Dell Medical School Experience What It’s Like to Apply to Washington University School of Medicine How Loyola Stritch Is Adapting to COVID-19 Apply at Your Best: Advice from a Med School Admissions Expert Subscribe:     hbspt.cta.load(58291, '42471f69-103d-4aef-95dd-ea4921b3cc65', {}); Podcast Feed
47 minutes | 17 days ago
What Post-MBA Life Is Like, During COVID and Beyond
Applying the lessons of MBA school to the reality of COVID-19 [Show summary] Al Dea, a tech product manager who earned his MBA from UNC, dives deep into what life is like after business school, including how the pandemic has impacted the post-MBA experience. What steps can businesses take to help employees thrive during COVID? How can MBA programs help students thrive during this time? [Show notes] Our guest today is a tech product manager, member of the UNC MBA class of 2015, host of the MBASchooled podcast, and author of the book MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience. Al Dea earned his bachelor’s in marketing and theology from Boston College in 2010. He then became a Deloitte analyst and consultant until starting his MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. He earned his MBA from Kenan-Flagler in 2015 and returned to Deloitte for a couple of years, then started in product management for a leading high tech firm in 2017, and today is a senior manager in product marketing at that company. On the side, he launched his website, MBASchooled, in 2015. A year ago, he published his first book, MBA Insider: How to Make The Most of Your MBA Experience, and started the MBASchooled podcast. It’s been about a year since he was last on Admissions Straight Talk, and we discussed in that interview his application experience and MBA experience at UNC. We’re not going to cover those topics again, but if you would like to hear Al’s perspective on the topics I typically discuss, check out the original interview, MBA Insider Shares His Secrets in New Book. How did you adjust to remote work both personally and as a manager working in tech? [2:46] I’m someone who works as a knowledge worker and for a tech company. Relatively speaking, we’ve all experienced challenges, but my experience making the transition was rather seamless. Many of the people on my team have worked remotely for varying degrees of time, and in some cases, many are only remote based off of where they are, geographically speaking. It wasn’t so much that we hadn’t done this before; we just all hadn’t done it permanently before. It was really about refining and getting used to this being an everyday thing. That said, even though we did have incredible resources to make the transition, even though we had some kind of norms for knowing how to collaborate over Google Hangouts and Google Meet and the like, it definitely was still challenging. Anytime you get a shock to the system, or you have to make an adjustment, it takes the body a little bit of time to adapt and evolve. For me, a couple of things stood out. Number one, the fundamentals in the ways of working. Fundamentals: these are the things that are critical to helping you be at your best and do your job effectively. If you think about a professional athlete, if I think about someone like LeBron James, LeBron James is amazing on the court because of all the things he does off the court in order for him to be at his best. That was something that I took to heart as I made the transition to working more remote and thought about for the folks on my team. What are those fundamentals that, in this new environment, we need to make sure we focus on so that we can do the best we possibly can each and every day? It was going to be different because the environment was different. The second thing was thinking about the ways of working. These are the kinds of the things that you sometimes take for granted when you’re working in an office every day, the ability to pop over to someone’s desk and say, “Hey, what about that thing in that meeting that we talked about? Can you follow up real quick?” Or being able to go to the coffee bar to catch up with someone and have that chat about what’s going on. We paid attention to those as well and thought about how we reenacted those. All of us as humans are social beings, and those are really critical and important. Those were the things that I paid attention to and that I asked my team to pay attention to, to try to do the best we could. Though we’re very fortunate, it still is hard to make a change like that no matter how many resources or how much you have at your disposal. hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'a7004604-d7d1-4d1f-98ef-a0ec53d7e590', {}); As a remote team, it’s challenging to have the kind of casual encounters that make for a good team experience. How did you encourage that? [5:35] We are fortunate in that we have a lot of technology resources at our disposal. (Maybe too many at times; you can make the argument for that.) But it can be little things such as having a channel or a thread on whatever collaboration tool of choice just to talk about what everyone’s watching right now. Or, what’s a book recommendation, or a Netflix recommendation? A couple times on our team, our leader reached out and said, “Hey, everyone, take care of yourself today. Go expense a delivery meal of some sort and tell everyone what you ordered.” It can be things like proactively scheduling time just to check in with someone, with no agenda, but just to ask, how are you doing? How are you feeling? I’m always someone who asks, “How are you doing?” but during the first couple months of the pandemic, I always made it very clear before I started any meetings to ask someone, “How are you doing?” Those are little things that may seem trivial, but, I found from my experience, people appreciate them. Also, they give you a little bit of boost. They give you a little bit of that feeling like you are on a team with other people who want to work hard but also care about you and are trying to help you do your best work. Certainly, we had our virtual happy hours. Our broader organization, at one point, had a virtual Olympics of sorts where we had virtual competitions and a virtual scavenger hunt and things like that. Part of it for me, at least, is just getting people to come together to do something that makes them feel like they’re a valued member of the team. And it could be just something small, like a thread or a chat, or it could be something like a virtual Olympics. Recreating that team environment is hard to do, but when you can do it, it’s better than nothing. When you’re in a meeting, sometimes there’s a persona that you have to put on to speak articulately, to make points, or to project confidence. But who you are at work and who you are as a person is going to show up in your work life. I’m fortunate that I was able to do that before. I’m on a team that is very inclusive, that is very accepting of others and really encourages people to be their full selves. But there really wasn’t any other way to not do that, given the fact that, as everyone has kind of documented, your work life and your personal life were wedged together. We’re literally working from home and have little ones wandering around, or little creatures running around, or other things happening. I hope that this gave everyone a little bit of a chance to recognize the humanity that exists in all of us, hopefully. I too appreciate the photos of the dogs and the grandkids and anything else. It always brightens up my day. Do you think your MBA education assisted you in adapting to this new environment? And if so, how? [9:36] Working in a large company like I do, and also working in a role like mine, which is incredibly cross-functional, means when I work on a project, I’m usually never doing it alone. I’m working with a lot of people. It is critical to have good communication and the ability to work well with others and drive towards an outcome. That’s critical when you’re in person. That becomes even more critical when you’re all virtual and all remote. The running joke is that business school is one big cross functional group project because you’re constantly having to do that, whether that’s in a study team, working on an initiative for a club or organization, engaging with other folks at your schools or community. All of those experiences in business school definitely were critical to how I showed up and did that before COVID, but they’re even more critical in COVID, because it was all virtual. Another thing that was really important was dealing with uncertainty. When you think about the MBA education, you think of something like the case method, or case studies in general. For those who aren’t familiar, Harvard Business School and Darden are generally the two schools that really rely solely on the case method. Most MBA programs use cases in their classes. Usually in the case, there’s a summary of the situation, and at the end of it, you’re given the task of making a decision of what should happen. In a lot of cases, you’re given some information, but it’s incomplete, and there’s some uncertainty. There isn’t always a clear answer. I think we’ve all had to deal with more uncertainty over the last six to nine months. In business school when you’re taking a stretch project, or when you’re doing something outside your comfort zone, all of those things matter to how you show up. In this COVID world, where we’ve all had to do a lot of things that we probably never thought we would ever have to do before, I think that was really key. The last thing is empathy. I’ve always had a keen sense of empathy, but you get a greater sense in an MBA environment, I think, when you’re exposed to people of different backgrounds, of diverse walks of life. If you do business school right, it really gets you to be much more thoughtful and curious about where people are coming from and who they are. That notion of empathy, I think, has been really critical and really important, particularly in these times when you can’t always be face to face with someone to see their body language or to know exactly what’s going on, or if you’re working cross-function with people you’ve never met before and you have to try to build relationships. I think those are the couple things that really stand out from my time at UNC and getting an MBA that have been valuable to navigating this past year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N007QKm1rZ8 How could your MBA education have better prepared you to deal with and adapt to a crisis, to the unexpected and unanticipated? Maybe a class, or a series of lectures on crisis management? [12:38] I’ll take this from the lens of curriculum, and I’ll take this from the lens of me personally. I’m going to start with the latter first because it’s top of mind. For me personally, I think something I could have done, something I’ve always said and I know other people feel this way too who have gone to business school, is that it is probably one of the safest places you can be to take risks and to put yourself out there and to do things that are either risky, antithetical to what you would normally do, or just completely outside of your comfort zone, which are all real feelings that many of us have felt over the past nine months. For me, something that could have prepared me a little bit more is really pushing myself to take on more of those experiences. I definitely took on some. I had a great experience. I don’t think I would trade it for the world, but if you had said to me, “Al, could you have made your experience 10 or 15% better?” I’d really force myself to be in those uncomfortable or difficult or uncertain kinds of experiences, like taking harder classes that are clearly outside of my comfort zone. I think that’s an easy, low-hanging fruit. It could be raising your hand to lead the project when you don’t necessarily feel empowered to do so, or fully empowered to do so. It could be, honestly, being in class and pushing back on someone else’s opinion in a respectful way, versus letting it slide. It could be pursuing an initiative or idea on your own. I think I did quite a few, so I don’t know what else I could have added just from a pure time perspective. But I do think I could have maybe pushed myself a little bit more. Now, I can certainly still do those things, but the cost is a little bit more than it is when you’re in an environment of higher education. From a curriculum perspective, I think about some of the challenges that my classmates or friends are having or have had to face and solve over the past couple months. I think about my friends who are working at ride-hailing platforms or delivery services who have had to think about, “How do we provide our employees or contractors with a safe and empowering employee experience during these kinds of times?” I think about my friends who have had to make decisions that have potential negative externalities to certain populations of people that they’ve never had to make before. I wonder how much better equipped they could have been had they gotten a curriculum that exposed them to businesses or industries or companies that are focused on solving these problems or challenges, or focused on serving these customer segments or populations. If you think of anything we’ve seen over the past year, unfortunately, the divide between the haves and the have nots is continuing to rise. Like I said, we’ve all been affected by COVID, but there’s been certain groups clearly that have been affected significantly more than others. I wonder what a better curriculum could be that is more inclusive, that is more representative of addressing issues and challenges that businesses should be thinking about if they’re not, so that if this were to come up again, they would be much more prepared to tackle it because of what they learned in business school. This is the time of year that I do goal-setting for the next year, but also, I’m doing my own performance evaluation at work. Speaking candidly, one of the pieces of feedback that I have gotten several times in my career that definitely came up this year was, “You don’t always speak with confidence, or you don’t always raise your hand when we know you know what to say or what to do, but you’re afraid to say it.” It’s something that I’m still working on and thinking about. But again, as I reflect back on the question that you asked and I think about business school and what is unique about it, it is the fact that you can try and you can fail, and it’s okay. If anything, it’s an incredibly supportive community to fail in because they’ll pick you back up, and they’ll also give you feedback on how you can do it better. It’s not that I don’t have that at work; I certainly do, and I’m very grateful for it. But I can’t think of a much better place where you can have that than in your MBA.  For your MBASchooled podcast, you interview many MBA grads. What are some of the common threads you see in those interviews, specifically relating to the overall value of their education? As they look back on the MBA experience, are they glad they earned the MBA? [18:02] I think they are. You could probably say that there might be a little bias in that. I acknowledge that there might be a little bias in that, considering they made a pretty significant investment and want to make sure they make good on it. But I believe when they talk to me that what they’re saying is real. I think one of the most commonly used words when I talk to students and alum is this word “transformative.” You can use that in so many different ways. But I do think it is transformative for many of them, particularly for where they are in their careers. If you’re thoughtful and hardworking and smart enough to get into a top MBA program, you’ve clearly had some level of success in your career today. But for many of them, what they got from the MBA enabled them to make a change, or to accelerate, or to zig or zag to a different path. And without that experience and the skills or experiences they gained from it, they would not have been able to do it. There’s also this acknowledgement that when they earn the MBA and they go off into the real world, yes, there’s the hope that you remember how to do a pro forma from your accounting class or you remember the four Ps of Marketing and whatnot, but what they also are glad for about and thankful for is the ability to be able to learn how to learn. When you’re in business school, particularly in that first semester, you’re constantly getting thrown into situations where you have to quickly absorb some content or material or some concepts and then apply them in a rapid manner. That really can be challenging. But if you can get through that, that can be a very valuable skill to have. Sure, the hope is that they remember the four Ps or how to do a pro forma or whatever other concept. But the other thing that comes up is just this thankfulness. If they get something that they don’t know how to do, they know how to size it up, how to think through it and break it down, and then how to go and figure it out. The last thing that I often hear is that they get a toolbox that goes with them for the rest of their career. Everyone always starts their career with a toolbox. But what an MBA does is sharpen some of the tools that you already have in that toolbox and expands the toolbox, giving you more tools that maybe you didn’t have before. That’s another thing that often goes with them for the rest of their career. And then the obvious one, too, is the network and the relationships. That’s well documented and kind of speaks for itself. What’s the most difficult part of the application process for most of them? [21:29] I’d be curious to know what you think because you live and breathe this each and every day, but the two that come up the most: one is tactical and one is strategic. The strategic one is “why.” Why an MBA? It’s kind of like the concept of “simple but not easy.” It’s a simple question. It’s not always easy to come up with the answer. Why Stanford, or why any other school? Because if it’s not coming up in the essay, it’s coming up in the interview with some variation. It’s hard to craft a good story and application without it because it is so critical to making the case to go to business school, but also to justify the cost of it. Right? Then there’s the tactical one. Maybe this is just a bias from myself, but even as there are more testing options out there now, if you were to ask me, “Hey, could you find me 10 people who say they love taking standardized tests?”, it would take me a while to find those people. And it’s not to say that they can’t do it. If you’re getting into a top business school, most people figure out a way to do it. But I have heard more people say to me, “The application or answering the essays was hard, but you know what? It was also a good reflection process.” I have heard far less people say to me, “You know what? I’m really glad that someone forced me to take a standardized test on top of working all these hours.”  Another thing I have witnessed is that there’s a little bit lost in translation and a little bit of mixed messaging around that question of short- and long-term goals, or, “What is your post-MBA goal?” Say you’re an applicant and you’re talking to students, or you’re going to a prospective students weekend and you go and talk to a student, and they say with the best of intentions, “Oh, you have time to explore. Use this time as a time of exploration.” I think many of those insights are real and well intentioned, but I think sometimes, candidates kind of get in their head. They say, “Oh, okay. Well, they didn’t have it figured out, so I don’t have to figure it out,” or, “Oh, they used it as a two-year chance to explore, and so I can do that too.” I’m not saying that’s not true, but say you were to ask any admissions officer, “Would you rather have a candidate who, for the sake of the application and where they are right now, knowing that the MBA is a transformative experience, has a confident sense in terms of where they are and where would they like to go, versus a candidate who is coming to your school, is really smart, who wants to explore?” It’s clear what the admissions director is going to want. That said, as you well know, once you get to school, the whole point of it being a transformative experience is that sometimes things can happen. And that’s okay, but that still doesn’t mean you can’t have that weather vane to at least get you going in a direction, giving you some kind of way to navigate without being entirely lost. But there’s nuance in that, or there’s mixed messaging that, sometimes, applicants lose sight of. Do any of the MBAs you interview tell you what they did to make the most of their experience? Is there any kind of common thread that you hear in your interviews? [28:07] I have not only examples of these, but I’ll also give a shout-out to a couple schools to make it more real. The first one is this idea of applied learning. One of the things that’s great about business school is that you’re in the classroom, but then you also have other avenues, whether it’s extracurricular activities, consulting projects, working with startups, doing research with a professor, or all these other things where you can take what you’re learning and be able to apply it in real time. One example that kind of comes to mind is the MBA Plus program at the University of Texas Austin McCombs MBA Program, which is a great program. A lot of these schools have these consulting projects for real companies that are out there, where you get to put on a team and you learn real world skills. It’s a chance to take what you’ve learned in the classroom and apply it to the real world. That makes it stick, and it gives you a real example of what this work could be like. But oftentimes, when I talk to students, and I ask them what helped them in their summer internship, a lot of them will talk about programs like the MBA Plus program and others because a lot of the skills you build there are very real. Another thing that is also kind of unique and special is that for programs like the MBA Plus or MAP at Ross, a lot of these projects they’re getting right now, these are real challenges that these companies are facing in this COVID world. They’re getting real experience trying to navigate some of these challenges that are literally just popping up. That ability to take what you’ve learned in the classroom and apply it to solving a real and relevant problem with a business, I think, is really valuable. Another one is the surroundings: the resources and experts. I’m going to give a little shout-out to my alma mater, UNC Kenan-Flagler. They have a program called the Adams Apprenticeship program. This is for folks who are either wanting to be entrepreneurs or wanting to be early stage investors. It’s a full program where, if you get accepted into it, not only is there a whole curriculum to work on projects that are related to the path that you want to go down, but then you get access to a network of experts who are already doing the thing that you want to do. Not only are you pairing real world experience with something, but you’re also getting access to people who are already doing that thing and can provide that expert guidance and coaching and network to help you grow in that way. The last one is the leadership opportunities that come with it. If you’re going to a top MBA program, I think the assumption is that you want to be a leader of some sorts, whether it’s within an organization, whether it’s your own organization and the like. There’s a lot of great schools out there that have both formal leadership opportunities as well as ones that just kind of emerge. One example comes from a student I just spoke to who’s a second year. Willie is the managing director of the John R. Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition, which just launched this year. Willie had this idea of, “Why can’t we create a case competition that addresses the intersection of racial justice in businesses?” He took it to his professors, took it to the administrators, and they said, “This looks like a great idea. Run with it, build it, and bring it to life.” And working with a team, that’s what he’s done. When I was talking to him, one of the things he talked about was this being an idea that he didn’t even realize would come to fruition. Through it, the biggest challenge for him has been stepping up to the plate and leading his peers. That experience is so incredibly valuable to what he’s probably going to have to do when he goes into the real world and goes back into the working world. So there’s applied learning, those resources and programs with experts, and then the leadership opportunities. I think those are the things that people value most. And then inherent to that are the relationships you build, the alums you meet, the classmates (in normal times) you get to travel with and all those other things. Those are the things that stand out. This may be a record year for MBA application volume. Do you think MBA applicants should refrain from applying because of the intense competition this year? [32:43] I treat this question how, I think, a lot of successful companies think about themselves in the market and the competition. Those successful companies, they pay attention to the market, and they pay attention to what their competition is doing. But what they’re mostly focused on is who they are as a company and, ultimately, their customer. It’s not that those other things don’t matter, but when you start dictating, or you start marching to the beat of what the market says or what your competitors say, you lose sight of your own north star, your own vision, your own strategy. It’s important to understand the implications of, as you’ve talked about, as we’ve talked about on my podcast, this banner year for applicants. It probably will be a little bit more competitive. But if you have a reason for getting an MBA, if an MBA right now aligns to what your career goals are, that’s the most important question that you need to answer and think about. Yes, pay attention to what the admission statistics report says. That’s a reality that you need to think about. But I really do think it starts with yourself and really focusing on yourself and your own goals. That would be the advice that I would give to others as well: Pay attention to what’s going on in the market, but think first and foremost about what’s going on internally with yourself, because that’s what matters the most. The other point, which is inherent to focusing on yourself, is that there’s going to be things in life that you can control and there’s going to be things in life that you can’t control. How many applicants that decide to apply to HBS is something that you cannot control. You can worry about it if you want, but it’s not going to do you any good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJDvJ3PKLcs Do you have any suggestions for how applicants can respond to or adapt to the increased competition concretely? [34:51] Drawing on the analogy of a successful company, the successful companies out there know themselves, but they also stay in touch with their customers. They’re very clear about who their customer is, what their challenges and pain points are, and how their service or product can solve them. An applicant can think about that in the same way: knowing themselves incredibly well, who you are, what you bring to the table, why you want to get an MBA, and how an MBA from that school is going to help in your career. But on the flip side of that, double down and know your customer. In this case, the customer is the school you’re applying to. Know what they look for in applicants. Be very specific about how that school or how that community, by you being there, is going to be better because that you’re there, what you really bring to the table and what you have to offer them, just as a good product or service would do the same for their customer. Concretely, and this will be digital given the environment we’re in, take the time to really get to know those schools and those programs. Do your research. Ask the right questions, the thoughtful questions that are going to yield insights and help you refine and hone in on, internally and externally, how you are a fit for that school. I think everyone knows, “Yes, I should read the Accepted blog or listen to podcasts and hear about what’s going on.” Or they know that they need to look at the rankings and all those things. They know they need to reach out to the admissions team or whatnot. But I think the gap is really making sure you’re asking the right questions that give you those insights that can help you tailor and refine how you position yourself in your application. If people can focus on that, and then take what they’ve learned from that to refine their overall package, that’s going to make them unique and differentiated, just like a good company will be unique and differentiated from their competitors by doing the exact same thing. Do you have any tips for MBA applicants looking ahead to apply in the 2021/22 cycle, or even later? What do some of your interviewees wish they would have done before they matriculated? What do you wish you would have done? [37:11] If you’re curious about an MBA, it’s never been easier to find something on the internet. Go to MBASchooled, or go to Accepted.com. It’s a great starting point, very tactical. But one of the things that I often hear from MBA students and even alumni is, “I didn’t know that was even a career,” or, “I didn’t even know that was a thing.” Certainly, that makes sense. You don’t know what you don’t know, particularly given where most folks are when they apply to business school for full time programs, right? You’ve done a couple things, but there’s a whole world out there that you don’t know yet. How do you discover the world that you don’t know? Well, it’s through research. It’s through exploration, going out and looking at the resources, talking to people when you can, and learning about some of these paths and fields.  If there’s something that is curious to you, find some folks who do that thing and learn more about what it is, why they show up to work and really enjoy doing that every day, and how they got to where they got to. Those are still things that really apply. If there’s even a kernel of thought, start now because it will take time. The tactical thing that I would urge people to do is (and I just learned this, so I’m still practicing it, but I’m going to share it in case it’s helpful) find a question and ask yourself that same question every single day for a period of time, and write down your answer. Perhaps if you are thinking about applying next year, every day for the next two weeks, write down the question, why do I want an MBA? And write down your answer. Do it every single day and see what happens. I think a lot of times, what happens is that you think, “Oh, I just need to ask it once.” But the first time you do it, it’s going to be kind of vague. The second time you do it, it’s going to be a little bit more specific. The third time you do it, the fourth time you do it, and so on and so on, you get closer to it. If you have a thought about applying next year, hopefully, this is part of the preparation plan. Or even if you’re earlier in the stage in the cycle, start with, “What does success look like in my career in five years?” Or, “What do I want to do next?” Pick the question, ask yourself the question and write down the answer, and see what comes of it. I think it could be a really valuable exercise to help you think about, “Okay, what’s next?” And then once you get a good answer (and assuming that you’re thinking about the application process), hopefully that feeds your “why an MBA?” Because if you are going to apply, you will definitely have to answer that at some point. There’s research, actually, that with writing notes versus typing notes, people remember more when they write. I would encourage folks to write it down. It makes it more real. What would you have liked me to ask you? [40:49] It would have been interesting if you’d asked, “What is business school like in 2020 or 2021?” Because of COVID and because business schools are located in different states or in different countries, a product that is usually somewhat consistent is different, because it has to be, right? There are some places that were hybrid; there are a lot of places that were mostly virtual; there are some places where you literally get tested once a week to be able to go to campus; there are some places where you can sort of still meet up with your classmates outside in the park, and other places where you can’t. What’s been interesting to me is that talking to folks from different programs, there are some components that are somewhat similar, and virtual is very much an element of pretty much every program, but to what degree is different. There are definitely some schools out there like Berkeley where, because they did have a robust digital education delivery mechanism, the classroom experience is a little bit more differentiated than simply just Zoom. That is not the same at every school, though. That is a difference that we probably would not have been talking about at all if COVID didn’t exist, right? Harvard also has that. Some more schools have done this other thing now (I think Stanford’s done it, and a couple others) where they’ve also invested in proctors or teacher support to help moderate the class. That was something that’s different and unique. The way in which schools are doing city tracks are different. It’s very common for a lot of folks in the fall or the spring to go and do a trek to the San Francisco Bay area to go meet all the tech companies and all the VC firms, and certainly that can’t happen. So there’s been some interesting ways in which schools have tried to do that digitally. Another thing that’s very different this year is conferences. Most schools put on conferences. On the downside, they can’t meet in person, but on the upside, they can drive up registration and attendance because anyone can go. At Kellogg, they did a really good job from what I’ve been able to understand of really involving students in the process for how they were going to deliver this experience for the year. That is another unique differentiator. I think it speaks to something that we talked about earlier: None of us really wanted this, but there’s things that you can control and there’s things that you can’t control. Once the cards are dealt, you have two choices: sulk or make the best of what you have. Despite all the challenges that this brought on, there were opportunities to be had. There are some really great stories of students, faculty members, and administrators really stepping up and finding unique and innovative ways and really embracing the constraints to innovate and to find ways to get the most out of the experience. It’s not ideal, and none of us wanted it, but there are still some positive outcomes that have come from it. Where can listeners find you online? [45:25] People can find me at mbaschooled.com. They can check out the blog there, or they can check me out on the MBA Insider podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Either of those two places are a great place to start. Related Links: MBA Schooled website MBA Insider podcast UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA Essay Tips and Deadlines 2020 – 2021 A Kenan-Flagler Student Discusses Industrial Engineering, Healthcare and Business, an interview with a UNC Kenan Flagler student Why MBA? a free guide to clarifying and discussing your MBA goals MBA Admissions Consulting Services Related Shows: Application Trends to Watch in 2021, and a Look Back at 2020 An Insider’s Look at MBA Admissions MBA Insider Shares His Secrets in New Book Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree? What These Seasoned Startup Founders Have Done Since Earning Their Stanford MBAs Subscribe:          hbspt.cta.load(58291, '468543e9-2fbf-46b9-abeb-b88daaf6ae14', {}); Podcast Feed
27 minutes | 24 days ago
Is a Postbac Program Right for You?
Understanding postbac programs, and how they can help YOU apply to medical school successfully [Show summary] Accepted consultant Dr. Barry Rothman offers an overview of postbac programs to help prospective med school applicants discern if the postbac experience is the next best step for them, along with tips for postbac applicants. How postbac programs help applicants apply at their best [Show notes] Are you applying to medical school but concerned about your undergraduate record? Or, did the medical bug bite you when it was too late to take the med school prerequisites? Then you either are or should be considering a postbac program. Our guest today is Dr. Barry Rothman, Accepted consultant. Dr. Rothman has been on the show several times. The first time was way back in 2013, before he joined Accepted. At the time, he was serving at San Francisco State University as a professor of biology, director of postbac programs, director of the SFSU health professionals advising committee, director of the pre-health professions certificate program, and director of the SFSU/University of Pacific Dental postbac program. He has since left SFSU and is now a much-loved consultant at Accepted. How and when did you get involved in postbac programs? [2:11] Around 2005. I was a professor at San Francisco State, and my Dean approached me and said, “We need a new health professions advisor.” I thought, “I like working with students and I’m interested in molecular medicine. This sounds good. I get three units of release time, and it should be easy.” Well, it was a lot more work, and I loved it. I really fell in love with the area and especially the students, working with them closely, helping them find their way into the health profession. At the time, there was an informal postbac program that all the CSU campuses had, but there were no services. You could just take classes with undergrads. What services did you feel were lacking? [3:03] Mostly advising, letter writing. There was no organization. It was just free-floating. The postbacs who came to SF State could take classes, but that was it. Nobody took care of them. A group of them approached me and said, “We would be willing to pay extra money if we could get some advising.” I said, “Okay, let’s put our heads together.” We wrote up a proposal, and my dean got on board. I had to take it to our Academic Senate, which was a learning experience in itself, having to learn how to navigate the political waters at San Francisco State, which are pretty calm, not turbulent, but still, I had to learn how to present my program to the Academic Senate and convince them that this was a good thing to do. It turned out great. Amazingly, it was in black ink from the very beginning. I’m not directing the program anymore, but now the program’s into its 14th or 15th cohort. It’s been quite successful. It was formulated on the idea of cooperation, although many health professions situations can have a competitive component to them. We really wanted to select people who wanted to be team players, and that has been very successful. A lot of folks don’t want to be in a heavy competitive situation and want to be in a situation where people pull together and support each other. Let’s dive into the different kinds of postbac programs that exist, focusing on MD and DO postbac programs. Can you give us an overview? [4:34] The two main divisions are career changer and academic enhancer. A career changer is somebody who hasn’t taken any, or perhaps one or two, of the prerequisites for medical school. They are, in essence, changing their career from whatever they were doing before to a medical track. An academic enhancer is somebody who has completed most or all of the medical school pre-reqs, and probably some electives, but hasn’t done as well as they wanted to do to be. They need to enhance their academic record by taking additional, usually upper-division biology electives. Those are the two different areas. There are many more academic enhancers than career changers, and not surprisingly, there are many more academic enhancer programs than career changer programs. Our program at San Francisco State actually catered to both. The career changers would be taking classes that the academic enhancers wouldn’t, but at the end of the career changers’ time, which was usually two years, they would take a few electives, and there they would overlap with some of the academic enhancers. The academic enhancers would take a diet of lots and lots of upper-division bio electives, such as neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology, etc. Are there also other differences? Some programs award a degree, and some programs don’t award a degree. There are informal and formal postbac programs as well. Can you explore some of those distinctions? [6:09] A formal program is structured. It has somebody running it and hopefully paying attention to what’s going on. Sometimes they have to hire their own faculty. Our program was a formal, structured program. I hired all of our faculty, and our classes were actually more separate from all the undergraduate classes. Some postbac programs will throw you in with the undergrads. Some will have separate classes. They can both be formal programs. An informal postbac program is the way things were before I started my program at San Francisco State. People take classes where they can get in with the undergraduates. If there’s room in a class and the school is prepared to do this, you can take a class with the undergraduates. The problem with that is there is no financial aid. You have to pay out of pocket for this. The good part is, compared to a formal program, it’s less expensive all around. The formal programs will either confer a certificate, which was the case in my program, or they can confer a degree. Many programs now confer master’s degrees because they actually have more robust financial aid. If you’re an undergraduate, there’s a limit that the feds will put on the amount of loans you can get (somewhere around $70,000, lifetime). When you become a graduate student, then it’s a whole new pot of money. So, a lot of postbac programs have gone on to become master’s programs that will then allow you to find a better source of loans. For somebody whose money is really tight, an informal postbac program (or what you might call a “do it yourself” or, DIY postbac program) is really a good way to go. I’ve had a lot of clients through Accepted whose hands I’ve held through the entire postbac process, and they’ve done very well. I would not suggest doing this all by yourself. It’s good to have an advisor somewhere who will guide you, and somebody to bounce ideas off of. It’s a big money-saver, and the good thing about advising is it goes a long way. What I can tell you in 20 minutes could be what you need to hear for the whole next semester. It’s very efficient financially. Is there anybody who, in your opinion, should consider a formal postbac program? [9:01] I think people who like structure and can afford it. It’s a really good way to go, especially a program where the directors are involved and it’s a good community, a robust community, where you can learn from fellow pre-meds. Most of the people in postbac programs are pre-meds so that would be preferred. But again, one can do quite well in an informal postbac program, as long as somebody’s guiding you and you do well in your classes. The amount of support is really important. In our program, we had a learning specialist and a psychotherapist available because our students brought their own stress in, and they found it very valuable to have those resources. Not everybody needed those resources, but having that showed them that we really cared about them and wanted to support them in ways that maybe they weren’t supported as undergraduates. If you’re going to shop around for a postbac program, see what kinds of extras they have. In our program, we had an MCAT colloquium where people could study together and pose MCAT questions to each other, but it wasn’t a standalone MCAT course. Those folks were taking a standalone MCAT course outside of the program and coming together to teach each other. I think that’s a really good way to get extra mileage out of a pricey MCAT program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EJ3MFNNTKU What advice do you have for academic enhancers, those considering a return to school and pursuing a career as a physician? Do they have to make up for low undergrad grades? How does that work? [11:00] It depends on your undergrad GPA. What I’ve noticed is that med schools do not like seeing undergrad GPAs below around 2.6, and you really have to work hard for years to overcome that. Med schools are very cautious about somebody who didn’t do that well in undergrad. But if you’re at 2.7 and above, med schools will take you into account, but then you have to show that you really have changed something. Many students didn’t have good study skills, they weren’t mature, or something was going on in their lives. You have to both explain what was going on and show that you can maintain a sustained high GPA, which means showing that you can do that for something like 40 semester units. It’s a lot, but it’s better to do that than to apply to med school prematurely and not get in. In fact, we have about an 80% success rate. The interesting part of it was that the 20%, the unsuccessful students, mostly were people who didn’t take our advice and applied prematurely. Med schools really like it if you think about what you’re doing and you take enough time to do it right the first time, rather than rushing prematurely, not getting in, and having to apply again some other time. What advice do you have for career changers, those considering a postbac program to facilitate their career change? [12:44] First of all, you need to have taken some science and math classes. We had an occasional applicant who had taken zero science and math classes. How are we going to judge your ability to prosper in science and math class if you haven’t taken any? You need to take some, and you need to have a track record of at least doing decently in that. If you haven’t, then go to a community college and take some intro or non-major biology, chemistry, and maybe math pre-calculus. Show that you have some aptitude for that, rather than wasting time applying and then not getting into a postbac program. Show them that you’re thinking about what you really need to convince them. Let’s turn to possible candidates for a postbac program, people who applied this last cycle [to medical school] and maybe haven’t gotten any interview invitations at this point (in late January). Do you recommend they wait until they know they don’t have a spot to start thinking about a postbac program? Should they start thinking about it now? Should they assess whether that’s really the right thing for them to do? What would you recommend? [13:36] I don’t think I would jump into starting to apply to postbac programs this early. This cycle is really strange, and I think things are moving a little more slowly. There will be something like 20% more applicants this year. I think the schools are having trouble processing all of them, and I think the interview calendar will be pushed back a little bit. I think it’s premature to get too far into a postbac program, but it isn’t a bad idea to start thinking about it. First of all, think about the weaknesses in your application. What do you think your weaknesses are? You can also hire one of us to do a review. It’s not very expensive, and we can do what’s called a rejection review, or you could call it a pre-rejection review or a maybe-rejection review. See what you need to shore up. Having this extra time, you could work on that. Maybe you don’t have enough clinical experience, which as you know is hard to get now that we’re in COVID. More experience, maybe. You need to show that you’re still academically active, and you need to take some courses, even if they’re online courses. It’s good to think strategically and think about what you could start to do now, rather than waiting till the end of the cycle when the time between then and the beginning of the next cycle is just a few months. If, let’s say, it doesn’t work out, and you don’t get in, the wise re-applicant thinks about maybe spending an extra year to get things together rather than just jumping right back into the application cycle. If you are coming in with essentially the same application, you’re going to get the same result. It’s really good to put some time into fixing your application. Once a student decides they want to go for a formal postbac program, what should they consider in choosing such a program? [16:08] They should think about how good of a community the postbac program creates. There are some that are quite competitive just in terms of the everyday process. If you like that kind of atmosphere, then fine, but if you don’t, you may not prosper in that. How competitive or non-competitive is the vibe, and how engaged are the directors? Is somebody going to be paying attention to you? Or is it sink or swim? Also, the quality of their committee letter. Some schools write cookie cutter committee letters. Others really go to some length to make it very personal and support you as an applicant.Those are some subtleties you may not think about. Of course, you can think about the success rate of the programs, but there’s no central compilation of the success rates of these programs, though you can ask and hope that they’re telling you what it really is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7QhMoaOxSw What does a typical postbac program application consist of? Is it as difficult as the MCATs plus secondaries, etc., or is it a little bit more simple? [17:39] In the old days, each school had their own postbac application, but now we have PostbacCAS (postbac Central Application Service). CAS has become an industry, so there are CASs for optometry school, pharmacy school, vet school, etc., and they all end in “CAS,” like VMCAS for vet schools and PharmCAS for pharmacy school. Now there’s PostbacCAS. CASPAer, their CAS is in the beginning and not the end. Those are standardized. It’s a good idea to centralize the application process because then you can apply to a number of programs using more or less the same application. They’ll have a personal statement that’s around 5,000 characters, they’ll have a place for experiences (very much like the medical school application process), and then each school will have its own supplemental questions. That’s maybe a little bit more like some of the other CASs. Those supplemental questions are starting to take over for the secondary applications, so that instead of getting a secondary, in some cases, it all goes in with the primary application. Not only do you apply through PostbacCAS, but then you look up the school that you’re applying to and find out what extra questions they have. When you submit to that school, you have to submit your answers to those supplemental questions. I think the supplementals serve as secondaries, but it just all comes in at once instead of in two separate batches. You can submit the PostbacCAS, and then you can add on schools as you complete their supplementals. You don’t have to complete every school all the same time. What should applicants emphasize in the personal statement for the postbac program? [19:48] This seems obvious, but, “Why are you applying to the postbac program?” Admit why you are applying. Let’s say your academic record is not perfect, and you think that that’s important for getting into medical school. Say it. It’s really confusing that I have read applications to my postbac program where it wasn’t clear why in the world the person was applying. They didn’t want to admit that they had a tarnished GPA, or they didn’t have enough of this or that. It’s really good to show that you understand your situation, that you’ve thought about it, and these are the things you need to improve your application, and the program is a good fit for you. That’s one thing that’s important. Another thing is adding personal information. Some personal statements can be laundry lists or repeats of resumes, and those don’t work very well because the personal part is missing. One of the things we like to see is, well, where is your heart? What really motivates you? Where are you coming from? Some personal information about your background, your values, why you’re doing this, that helps because that will make you different from the other applicants. What are other common mistakes applicants have made in their postbac applications? [21:18] There was the one about not having taken any science or math classes, so that’s a mistake. I think we covered the main mistakes. These postbac programs have interviews (now they’re online, but in the past, many of them are in person), and you need to be prepared for your interview. One of the things our program did was we had a waiting room where the students could hang out, and we encouraged them to talk to each other, and we were secretly watching them interact. One of the things that stood out was there were occasional applicants who would just sit in a corner and look at their cell phone. That move made us think, “I wonder how much of a team player that person is.” Think about your interview, take it seriously, and get some help with it because most of us don’t know how to interview. We’re not born with the interview gene. Think about your impression, even when you’re not in a formal interview. Even when you’re just schmoozing with somebody, you’re still, in a way, interviewing. You really need to treat people well and politely, which hopefully you would do anyhow. The interview is another important part, and that’s very disappointing if you get as far as an interview and you don’t interview well. That can be very disappointing. Two other things. One is: Many schools are asking, what did you do during COVID, or what are you doing during this pandemic? They want to know, what have you been doing: sitting around watching Netflix, or are you actively involved in some way to help your community? Which you can do online, you don’t have to do it in person. That’s definitely one thing. The other is, now every school is asking about diversity and how you relate to the diversity of their program. Most programs, including ours, want a diverse population. I think of medical schools and programs like postbac programs as organs of social change, and they’re making things change more than maybe other sectors of the population. They’re bringing people in who have not had a lot of opportunities. How do you relate to that? Whether you’re somebody from a disadvantaged or underrepresented background, or even if you’ve grown up with a lot of privilege, how have you dealt with that privilege, and how diverse of a population of people do you hang out with? Those are all really important, and that’s going to help you with med school applications as well. What would you have liked me to ask you? [24:32] You asked me the question I wanted you to ask me, which was, “What happens to the 20% who weren’t successful in the program?” I would like to expand on that a little bit. Families can be your support, and they can also be a pain. Sometimes families are well-intentioned and they pressure their adult children to apply prematurely, sometimes with tremendous guilt trips like, “Gee, cousin Charlie got into medical school. Why aren’t you in medical school now?” or, “You’re costing me a fortune.” You have to find ways to talk to your parents and calm them down a little bit. Maybe get some outside help in doing that, and don’t let that make you apply prematurely. If you apply prematurely, that’s one whole application cycle that’s gone. In the second cycle, many re-applicants get in, but the third cycle and the fourth cycle, no, those don’t work so well. The schools look at you much more cynically and much more carefully. You have two precious cycles to apply. Don’t waste one of them because you’re getting a lot of peer pressure or family pressure to do so. Related Links: Get in touch with Barry! How Can a Postbac Program Help You? 13 Postbac Program Recommendations The A-Z of Applying to Postbac Programs, a free guide Accepted’s Postbac Application Services Related Shows: Applying to Med School During COVID-19 Med School Admissions Veteran Shares Her Experience: How to Get In A Medical School Admissions Expert’s Guide to Postbacs and Med Schools Johns Hopkins Postbac Programs: An Interview with the Director Apply at Your Best: Advice from a Med School Admissions Expert Admissions Straight Talk: All Things Postbac Subscribe:     hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'f8587b08-7d50-4408-8c9a-34dfab0cc477'); Podcast Feed
37 minutes | a month ago
Why These GMAT Experts Approach Test-Taking With Empathy
How can you ace the GMAT, the EA or any test required at your dream school? [Show summary] Mike Diamond of Apex GMAT shares his advice for acing the GMAT, prepping for graduate program tests of all kinds, and why empathy is central to Apex’s approach to test-coaching. Mike Diamond, Director of Curriculum Development at Apex GMAT talks test prep [Show notes] How can you ace the GMAT, the EA, or any tests that may be required at the school you have your heart set on? Today’s guest has your answer. Mike Diamond is Director of Curriculum Development at Apex GMAT, and also its Co-Founder. Mike earned his bachelor’s at Brandeis in 2000 and has worked in finance, strategy advising, and political consulting. However, his passion is the GMAT. How did you get involved in the test prep business? [1:55] Entirely by accident. My passion is teaching and helping people, and I’ve always pursued that in all the various places that I’ve been in my career, and even going back to being a student. And like many, I was sort of the go-to guy for friends and family members, as a resource for people I knew, without paying attention to it as a potential career choice. I had spent some time working in a hedge fund, and then I was in the world of political consulting as you had mentioned. I loved it. I was helping people. I was doing really interesting work. But frankly, I was getting a little jaded, and this is well over a decade ago, and I know a lot more people are jaded these days. I was getting a little jaded, and I was having a burrito with my best friend’s cousin. We’re sitting in the Qdoba, and she’s brilliant. She’s actually an instructor at Manhattan Prep and she says to me, “Hey, I’m super passionate about Teach For America. I love teaching fourth grade science in North Philly, but I pay my mortgage teaching the GMAT.” I said, “Oh really?” At the time, I only thought there were the bigger shops, the Kaplans and Princeton Reviews. And frankly, as an educator, and I certainly consider myself an educator, those never held much appeal for me as a place of employment. I said, “Oh wow, that’s really fascinating.” I had always had a proclivity towards psychometric standardized testing. So about four days later, I went in, I did the GMAT, and then I began taking meetings with various GMAT firms. I was disappointed in what I saw, and there’s plenty of great firms and great tutors out there. But once a GMAT business gets beyond a small scale, personalized attention really isn’t a priority, and everything defaults to curriculum and having very bright instructors go through a prescriptive method for learning how to excel. There’s two problems with that. One is that it only gets a candidate so far, and the other is that it’s very one-size-fits-all, and yet one size does not fit all. Very quickly, everything else went into the rear view mirror. I began Apex with some like-minded instructors, and the rest, as they say, is history. hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'b6c9f876-0125-49b0-b2cf-3c5c8301554f', {}); What is Apex GMAT Prep? [4:54] Apex is dedicated to helping people become better thinkers and better learners. We really consider the GMAT and the results that you get from becoming a better thinker as a result of that deeper process, permit you to be a more creative problem-solver, a more critical thinker in your profession, in your MBA, EMBA, or other graduate school program, and in your life and your relationships. There are a core suite of thinking skills that are not taught academically, that come through experience, but also come through having a particularly great teacher or particularly great circumstances with respect to family or mentors on how to approach the attitudinal adjustments one needs to make the emotional and psychological adjustments that one has to make to even approach intractable problems. Most of this is what we focus on. It’s not tips, it’s not tricks, it’s not heuristics. It’s how you enhance your level of skill and become a better thinker all around, and the GMAT scores kind of comes along for the ride. How do you do that? What is the method of delivery? [6:25] Everything is online, but even prior to COVID, I’d say 90 to 95% of our clients worked with us online. We’ve traveled the entire world, but we have in place a great online learning system, not just a classroom, but an online platform with 6,000 questions and practice exams and all that stuff that you ought to expect with whomever you’re working with. We do customized one-on-one tutoring, helping each individual learner understand their mind and how it works. Different people operate differently, approach things differently. A core precept for us is that we don’t teach down. It’s not about, “Do it this way because that works for me,” or, “If you see this problem, then do it this way.” It’s about iterating with the client towards those solution paths that work best for them, their proclivities, their wiring, if you will. What does Apex bring to the test prep marketplace that it previously lacked? [7:49] Cognitive empathy. It’s a term we use here at Apex, and it’s the core filter for an instructor to come join us. All of our instructors have scored at least a 770, but even so, 90% of them don’t make the final cut because of this thing we call cognitive empathy: the ability to get inside others’ heads, understand how they think, how they’re approaching problems, what their preferred learning style is, their method of construal. Or, are they spatial thinkers, are they graphic thinkers? Are they narrative thinkers? The ability to both help others access their own thought process and mentor them to be mindful with their thought process, so they can go in and adjust it and use it to the best effect and sense the things that clients aren’t seeing. This really is the vital part of the process. It’s why you go to a tutor. It’s not for someone to run you through a bunch of problems. It’s for them to see the things that you can’t see, especially if you’re already performing well and you’re so focused on the task at hand that you can’t switch and have enough bandwidth to observe what it is you’re doing. https://youtu.be/AcJ3Y3Uftas Can you give us an example of this process in action? [9:21] By way of an example, I actually like to refer to athletics quite a bit. So a tennis coach or a golf coach, they’re there to watch the things that you can’t see while you’re swinging that club or racket. With respect to clients, there are so many, and we’re really proud of every client that comes through our doors, not just because they generally end up exceeding their expectations with respect to the exam. We have clients every cycle at all the top b-schools. There’s a very common thread that exists, and this even happens with our instructors. After the process they say, “Oh my God, I wish I had had this before” When it’s really because of the different approach. There’s this seat change with how one approaches the exam. We had a great client who came in already doing fairly well, mid 600s, upper 600s, and who really had been studying for a long time, a year or a year and a half and not getting anywhere. That’s very common. Not the length of time, but a lot of people really study hard and then plateau, and they burn themselves out, whether it’s going to classes or bouncing between tutors or just sitting there and locking themselves in a room for six hours a day on the weekend and three hours during the week, which by the way, is way too long to ever spend. If you’re putting in more than about 90 minutes, two hours a day, you’re doing it wrong. You want to focus on high yield prep.  He’s really running himself ragged, and the guy happens to be brilliant. But number one, he didn’t believe that, which is problematic. But also, he was looking at the exam in a way that was very transactional, instead of looking at it more like a chess game where there are many different things going on besides the problem in front of you. The timing decisions you make, the understanding of what the test writers are doing and why they’re doing it more importantly, and understanding the signals that the structure of the exam can present. So in very short order, we were able to sensitize him to those structural signals and also help him adjust his focus onto a more abstract level of construal on seeing the problems more holistically. Then, he was able to bring all this preparation to bear on the exam and ended up somewhere in the 750, 760 nature in a matter of just a few weeks. It’s one of the ironies: The better someone is doing before they come to us, generally the shorter the preparation, because once you get to about the 700 level, the game isn’t any longer an intellectual exercise. It’s much more a behavioral exercise and understanding how to change what it is you’re doing. I like to call it letting go of the side of the pool. When you’re a kid, you hold onto the side of the pool. Even if you know how to swim, when you let go, it feels less certain. And success on the GMAT and in tests more generally is about navigating uncertainty, and having the confidence to propel yourself forward. One thing that’s changed in the MBA landscape in the last 10 years is the ability to choose which tests you’re going to take: the GMAT, the EA, the GRE. What are some of the differences among these exams? [13:14] Before I go into the differences, and there are some very real differences, I do want to point out something very controversial. They’re all kind of the same. All of these exams are built upon the same underlying psychometric structure, which is: Give hundreds of thousands of people a problem, see how many people get it right, and that tells you roughly how difficult it is. In that sense, these exams are constructed similarly, but they also test the same skills. So if you’re thinking that the GRE is going to be easier than the GMAT or the GMAT’s going to be easier than the EA, you’re kind of fooling yourself. You might prefer one to the other, and that’s totally valid, but you’re going to have to put the same work in. And make no mistake, every MBA program knows the equivalence between one and the next. The differences are in which skills different exams highlight. To use the GMAT as our base of comparison, the executive assessment has all the same problems, all the same problem types. It doesn’t have geometry, but more importantly, it incorporates integrated reasoning, which is data processing and sorting and dealing with fireballs of information. It puts that section into the aggregate score, whereas on the GMAT, integrated reasoning is a separate thing. For more seasoned professionals, for those especially who are a little less comfortable quantitatively, but have been working a lot in Excel and in complex informational environments, this can give you a boost to your equity score. The GRE as an exam on the verbal side is structured a little differently, but also has a lot of vocabulary. That doesn’t mean that one needs to memorize lists and lists of vocabulary, although it’s helpful, or at least to know the popular roots, especially the Greek and Roman roots, but it’s still testing the same thinking: Can you pick out what’s intended from the other signals in the problem and then plug in the word that’s correct? It’s not about knowing the words. It’s still about understanding more deeply what the problems are going after. How are they intending to separate you from the rest of the people in your cohort? That is where they’re trying to cue an incorrect response. That’s where you’re more likely to get something incorrect because you’re missing that or not looking at it at the right level or from the right angle. With the GRE versus the GMAT, the quantitative comparison in data sufficiency are very similar problem types. They look different. But as you work with this stuff like we do year in year out, these are almost the exact same problem type, and the underlying skills that you need to address them both are exactly the same. Ultimately, we advise people to go with their comfort level and also get a sense from the programs that they’re looking at, and of course from their admissions consultants and advisors as to what test is going to suit them best. The EA is also significantly shorter than the other two exams, isn’t it? [17:04] It is. It’s an hour and a half versus close to three hours for the GMAT. So for those with stamina issues, the EA can be a better choice. That said, once again consult with Linda or whomever might be advising you, friends, family, admissions office, as to what they’re looking for because the executive assessment is (originally, at least) intended for the executive MBA. Make sure that you’re taking the exam that the program is expecting and that’s going to put you in the best light. There’s a few schools that have rolled out their own exams: INSEAD, IE in Spain. Many of these exams are great if that’s the one and only school you want to go to. Otherwise, you’re better served going with a more popular exam. What are your top three tips for GMAT prep? [18:38] Everyone comes at it with a different mix of strengths and weaknesses. I’d say the number one tip is: Don’t work hard, work smart. If you’re spending a lot of time and not seeing a lot of movement, that means you need to change something. We see this a lot where people have been spending hours and hours and a lot of resources doing the same thing over and over again, doing 10 problems in 20 minutes, and looking at the back of the book saying, “Oh, wow, I got that right. Great. I can move on. Oh, I got that wrong. What did I miss? Oh, I knew that. I’ll review my notes better so I’ll get that next time.” That feels good, because it feels like you’re doing something, but it’s incredibly low yield. It’s just like preparing for a race. You can just run that race again and again to prepare for a marathon. You just run 26 miles a day, but really other things come into play: good sleep, good diet, of course, but also going to the gym, working on your pacing, putting yourself in a mindset to succeed. These things are just as vital, and the same goes for test preparation. So look beyond what it is you think you ought to be doing.  https://youtu.be/eGvcOj5aqXk Number two: Zoom out. That’s a very generic thing to say, so it requires a little explanation. These exams, the GMAT and the others we’ve spoken about, they test logical reasoning, which means if you’re making it about the vocabulary word, if you’re making it about the formula, you’ve missed the larger point. The larger point is understanding there are multiple solution paths to every problem and that simply knowing how to do a problem correctly is not enough for success. You need to be able to do that problem efficiently, and you need to see the whole picture of the problem. Meaning that a lot of times it’s not getting to be answered, but in these multiple choice exams, it’s about selecting the correct answer choice. And many times that can be done at a characteristic level. You don’t have to arrive at 73.12 if the other answers are seven and 700. There’s only one answer that’s going to be in that 70-ish range. You don’t have to get the precise word to go to the GRE or the precise answer that’s in your head for a critical reasoning problem with the GMAT. All you have to do is say, “Well, it’s going to look something like this.” Once you start doing that, all of a sudden a lot of the DSMs (default solving mechanisms) and these time-wasting things that we’re doing, fall away. Finally, and this is a big one: Take fewer practice exams. We actually have a video about this on our YouTube, “The 6 Most Common Mistakes Preppers Make.” Practice exams are often misused, and most people use them as a way to rank where they are now, which really doesn’t matter when you’re preparing. It’s sort of like running a race as fast as you can and saying, “Well, I got this time. How much time did it take?” Well, it doesn’t matter. You want to run it faster. Focus on the skills that are going to help you to run it faster. People get psyched out. They get preoccupied with the score that they’re receiving, rather than using practice exams for what they are, which are calibration tools. Practice tests are for calibrating your timing decisions, for understanding how you’re operating under pressure, for identifying weaknesses and places where you’re not handling problems, even if you’re getting them correct in the way you want to be. And most importantly, they’re for experimentation. If you’re focused on performing on a practice exam, you’re not focused on using the new skills you’ve been developing during all your self-prep, whether with a tutor on your own or otherwise. If you are preoccupied with the score you end up DSM-ing, you end up going back and grabbing that side of the pool and not actually building confidence in the new ways. Practice exams are great for understanding everything that you’re doing wrong, but then you have to put in the work in between the practices exams. Doing a practice exam every week is too much. Doing a practice exam every day is frankly insane. If you’re not sure, and this isn’t a plug for Apex, but more generally, provide yourself with a teacher. Find a guide, find a friend, find a loved one, find a mentor at work, someone who’s been through it and who can advise you on what worked for them. And then question every single thing you hear from them and find two of them who just like it. Because what works for one does not work for another, but don’t do this in a vacuum. It’s a recipe for disaster. And that’s the case with all teachers and with all students; there’s no one size fits all, especially as you’re pushing for elite performance. It’s rare that we have anyone who doesn’t say, “I want a 700. I want to go to a top school,” which is very natural. But to get that elite performance, you need to get beyond the basics and find the ways to make your mind work at its highest capacity. This is worth noting that many people, when they’re preparing, are focused on the wrong skills. They’re focused on all the tools at their disposal, without focusing on growing their skills. Imagine going into a craftsman’s shop, to a woodworker. There are plenty of people out there who are preparing by saying, “Oh, there’s a picture. That’s a hammer, that’s a saw, that’s a screwdriver.” They go to the test and they say, “Well, oh, this is a hammer problem. That’s a saw problem. That’s a screwdriver problem.” But they never pick them up. They never build. And when they’re told to build a birdhouse, it doesn’t come out great because they’ve never used the tools. Many others use the tools, but they keep building that same birdhouse over and over and they’ve got a beautiful birdhouse. They get on the GMAT and the GMAT says, “Okay, we’ll build a chair.” The chair doesn’t come out well because they’ve been focused on the project, rather on how to use the tools better. A lot of times people get into these cycles where they keep focusing on repeating the things they already know, which is comfortable. It feels like you’re making progress, rather than working on the things that you don’t know and going into the places where you’re less comfortable. What about on test day itself? [26:36] Stop preparing 24 hours in advance of your exam. The common mistake is: They’re sitting there in the exam room with their notes, or in the waiting room. If you haven’t learned it by now, you’re not going to learn it. The last 24 hours, and really the last couple of days before the exam, it’s time to get yourself into a good head space. You should be eating well. You should be sleeping well. You should not be partaking in alcohol and other substances if that’s your custom. You really should be just focused on de-stressing, keep yourself out of stressful situations, away from people that stress you out. Another thing that’s really vital is: Expect something to go wrong, especially at the test center. There’s a bit of what they call lab coat or white coat syndrome in going to take a test. That syndrome is when you go to a doctor, your blood pressure tends to be higher because there’s something mildly unsettling for most people about being in the doctor’s office; something could be wrong. There’s this medical phenomenon, and it’s well documented, where people have higher blood pressures when their blood pressure is taken compared to other times. The same thing happens at the testing center. Expect something to go wrong. Expect the person checking you in to be rude. Expect someone to have the sniffles when you’re sitting next to them in the test. Once you’re mentally prepared for that, then you can sort of put that aside. One great thing for those with test anxiety, and this is one of our secrets: Go to the testing center a couple of times before your test. It’s not about making sure you know the traffic patterns or where the front door is, although that’s a side effect. If you’re going to be triggered, if you’re going to be unnerved by being there, simply the act of going there and desensitizing yourself to those stimuli a little bit can really get in front of test anxiety. Go ahead and read a book, and eventually you’re going to calm down about it a little bit. hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'a7004604-d7d1-4d1f-98ef-a0ec53d7e590', {}); You were kind enough to invite me and a few of the other Accepted consultants to a mini-session. Mike gave us some questions and had us solve them on the spot, and it was fascinating how easy it was to miss key elements in the question. A little humiliating and humbling, but still fascinating. It definitely increased my empathy for students taking these exams. [28:53] I have to say, Linda, it ought not to be. It’s very natural. These are things that our brain does that we’re wired to do. We see, okay, we’re going to talk about apples, bananas and cherries. It’s natural to start thinking about the apples first, because it was presented first or has the letter A and our mind associates that with number one, “start here.” Since we were two years old, A comes first, right? We’re wired to organize information in certain ways. A lot of people think these exams are about intelligence or knowing formulas and all that stuff, and really it’s about attentiveness. It’s about sensitivity. It’s about self-discipline and about really sharpening your process for dealing with information. This is something that’s incredibly hard to do. It takes habitual work to do. But it’s also something that we do very well in situations where we know we need it. You read a contract very differently than you really had a book. You solve a problem when it’s about the money in your pocket very differently than when it’s about Annie selling oranges at the seashore. A lot of times it’s about making it real to yourself, but also understanding that the focus ought to be on how you’re processing, organizing, and approaching information. Those underlying skills, while they take a little bit of work, are relatively easy to load. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 400 or a 700, those fundamentals and the mechanics can be learned in short order. Everything else is what you do with those tools. Any last advice for applicants about to take either the GMAT, the EA, or the GRE? [31:56] I’d refer back to something I’ve kind of been alluding to throughout the hour, but I’ve never come out and said it: Be kind to yourself. Take the pressure off yourself. You are not your GMAT score. It’s not the measure of your self-worth. And frankly, we don’t let any instructor in the door at Apex who is proud of their GMAT score. That’s not what it’s about. It’s one part, it’s necessary, but not sufficient. It’s one part of a much larger profile, and many candidates and applicants really build it up in their mind that it’s the be-all end-all and that it has to come first. Again, it’s necessary, but your applications are just as necessary. Your work is just as necessary. Being a good person is also necessary. Spending time with your family. These are much more important things. And when you look back on it, you’re not going to be thinking about your GMAT score. Take it in stride and give yourself a break. And oddly enough, when you do so, you give yourself a break at the emotional level. That tends to be the catharsis that allows for great performance. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about Apex? [34:18] They can find us at apexgmat.com. That has our GMAT and executive assessment materials, or apexgre.com if you’re interested in the GRE. Also, we’re rolling out a new tool, apexgmat.com/calculator. Right now it’s for the GMAT. You can go on and input a bunch of background information. I’ll warn you, it’s a bit of a longer form, but we’ve gotten pretty good at understanding both where someone is likely to be, even if you haven’t started the GMAT process yet, but also getting a sense from things of your background, where the range of potential is, both now and where you can likely be. It’s a really great way to get started in the process, to calibrate what the reasonableness is for achieving a certain score and the timeline that you’re looking at. It’s designed to give you a sense of what the process looks like. Of course, you can always speak with any one of us. We don’t have a sales force here. We just have instructors who do this full-time and care about you and your success. That’s why we’re all in this business. We all started elsewhere. We’re all dedicated educators. You can give us a call anytime and we’re happy to speak with you. Related links: Apex’s GMAT and EA website Apex’s GRE website The Impact of Your GMAT & GRE, an on-demand webinar The B-School Selectivity Index: Are You a Competitive Applicant to Your Dream School? MBA Admissions Consulting Services Related shows: E-GMAT: A New and Better Approach to GMAT Prep Application Trends to Watch in 2021, and a Look Back at 2020 An Insider’s Look at MBA Admissions Subscribe:                  hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'e47f6e09-76b2-4b02-bc17-62552b75dc6a', {}); Podcast Feed
38 minutes | a month ago
What a Law Career Is Really Like
Need help deciding if law school and a legal career are right for YOU? [Show summary] Christopher Melcher, a celebrity family lawyer and teacher of law, offers an unvarnished look at a lawyer’s day-to-day and what a career in law can look like. Considering law school? Read on to learn what a career as a lawyer can look like. [Show notes] What’s being a lawyer truly like? Our guest today, a divorce attorney to the stars, is going to tell us. Some of you may wonder, what does celebrity family law (which almost seems like an oxymoron) have to do with admissions? That’s a very good question. Listeners considering a JD may want to learn what lawyers really do, what the career is really like. Christopher Melcher got his JD in 1993 at Pepperdine Law, went initially into criminal law and personal injury litigation, and has been with the family law firm of Walzer & Melcher since 2002. He’s also an adjunct professor at Pepperdine Law. How did you decide that a career in law is for you? [1:55] That was easy for me because my dad was a lawyer. He was a deputy district attorney in the early 1970s, and when I was really young, he would come home and talk to me about his cases. These were serious cases. I might’ve been six or seven years old when he started talking to me about his cases. He would explain what he was working on, and then he would ask me, “What do you think?” That got my legal mind started because he was genuinely interested in my opinion. I don’t know what I had to share at that age, but we would have these conversations. As I got older, they, I’m sure, got better, but I remembered that he really wanted to know what I thought. I had the feeling like he would maybe use some of that input for his cases and arguments and trials that he was in. That helped form this legal, analytical mind. As I got older, I got into some trouble in grade school, and I remember being in the principal’s office and my buddy, Don, was there too for some unrelated offense. He would ask me like, “I got in trouble. What should I do?” I would give him advice. I was like a little jailhouse lawyer there as a kid, helping my buddies craft their stories for the principal. That’s how it started in getting those legal juices going in my brain. hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'c5572014-0b54-4e12-acd9-91a66e31a013', {}); Did you test that thesis as you got older? [3:38] I wanted to be a lawyer from that early age, but I really didn’t want to do the work. I wanted to grow up too fast, and that really was a mistake. I had a lot of fun, but I didn’t want to put the work in, and that held me back. I think back then it was easier to slack in school and still survive. I don’t know what I would do now. I feel the pressure on students now is so much greater than it was. I’m talking about in the 80s, for me, because I could get by as a C student without studying or reading or doing anything and somehow got into college and somehow got into law school. I had it easy because, I think, of the times. Things really clicked for me probably in the second or third year of college when I decided, “Okay. I have to actually do this and take it seriously.” Then I kicked it into high gear and finished off college and got into law school. You initially started out in criminal law and then switched to family law. Why the switch? [4:54] When I was in law school, I had my whole future mapped out. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a corporate securities lawyer because I had met somebody doing that, and they made a ton of money. I was like, “Wow, this is for me.” I like corporate law. I liked all this with the investing angle. Some of these lawyers were taking a piece of the action, basically, for these companies that they were helping to form and getting paid quite a bit of money if the company was successful. That was my goal, and I figured I was going to go out of law school, work at the Securities and Exchange Commission, learn the field, and then switch over to the private sector and get rich. I had it all planned. Then when I got out in ’93/’94, the economy was in the tank and no one was hiring. Not even the district attorney’s office was hiring, which was my fallback position. I went into private practice really not knowing what I was doing and just taking any case that I could get. Criminal was the easiest to go into because my dad had taught me some stuff on criminal and was able to help me get some experience there. Then it was really by happenstance that I went into family law. The point that I talk to my law students about is that it’s great to have a plan, but you’ve got to be flexible, and you’ve got to look for opportunities because things don’t turn out the way we expect them. The law school career is a long play: thinking about it during college, applying, and then going through law school. And what is the economy going to look like four years from now? Nobody knows that. It’s a long-term play. It’s nice to have an idea and a vision, but you have to be flexible. Had I not kept my eyes open and been willing to talk to this divorce lawyer that I met, I would have never gotten into this field. It would have been a huge mistake. What’s a typical day like for you now as a family law attorney? [7:34] I’m a litigator. There’s different kinds of lawyers, and generally, people think of lawyers as going to court, and that’s not always true. But that’s what I do. I’m a litigator. I go to court. There’s other types of lawyers who are what I call “transactional lawyers,” who will basically work on deals and form companies or negotiate contracts, work on applications. They never go to court. Then there could be lawyers who use their law degree in other ways like real estate development, investing, that kind of thing. As a litigator, you’re going deadline to deadline, and it’s a rough life because of the stress of having deadlines that you’re constantly meeting. If somebody is interested in law, talk to a practicing lawyer about the different types of lawyers out there, because some people want the action, like I do. I want to be in court. I want to argue, I love that adrenaline rush, but it’s not for everyone. Realize that in this field of litigation, you’re deadline-driven. I have a major deadline on Tuesday that I cannot move. It is Friday as we’re speaking, and I’ll be working the entire weekend on that. That’s just the way it is, unfortunately. I’m passionate about this because I think law is a great field, and it’s been so wonderful for me. I want to share that with people because it is such a big investment of time and money to get a law degree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ErfX1FEOfY To go through that process and be unhappy with it… maybe it’s because they didn’t get the right advice. What I’ve seen in teaching my law class at Pepperdine is that there are students there that have never met a practicing lawyer before. How do you really know what a lawyer does? My encouragement is to go out and talk to one. If you asked 10 lawyers for help, you’re going to get at least a few who are going to say, “Yeah, I’ll help you.” That’s the secret here. Ask for help. Talk to a lawyer, pick up the phone, or send an email, connect on LinkedIn, and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about going to law school, or I’m applying. Could you give me some tips?” There’s people, like myself, who would be very happy to put time aside to say, “Absolutely. What do you want to talk about? How can I help?” People don’t do it, but they should. In law school when I started, especially back then, I figured, “Well, everyone thinks the same as I do.” That fallacy. When I started talking to my fellow students, I realized that there were a lot of folks there who went to law school because it was expected of them, or they didn’t know what else to do. They had no real passion or interest in being a lawyer. I just couldn’t understand that because like I said, since I was in fifth grade, I decided I was going to be a lawyer. I figured that everyone else must think the same, and no, they don’t. It’s hard. I feel bad for those folks because how are you going to invest all that time? Going to law school is like a full-time job. It was intense. To put that much time into something and be in that much debt for something you’re not sure you want to do is not going to work out. That’s where I saw students dropping out. That’s just a terrible thing. What I would absolutely do, again, is start picking up the phone, or email. LinkedIn is really good. Get on LinkedIn and connect with practicing lawyers. If a lawyer is on there, you can check on LinkedIn for their posting activity. Check out somebody who has an active account that’s posting regularly. That person is highly engaged and using LinkedIn. If you message them, there’s a very good chance they’re going to respond. You can say, “Hey, I’m thinking about applying to law school. Can I have a few minutes of your time?” I guarantee you, if you send 10 of those messages, you’ll get three, four, or five of those back, that’ll say, “Yes.” Do that homework. Then find an area that makes you say, “Wow, okay. Yeah. This did spark my passion. I talked to this lawyer.” They’re an intellectual property lawyer, or they’re a prosecutor or defense lawyer, whatever it happened to be. Maybe you’ll say, “Wow, this is really for me and I want to do this.” Now you have a connection. Now you have a reason and you have a passion to pursue, rather than just going into it and then getting your law degree, then figuring out, “What does it mean to be a lawyer?” What, in your opinion, is good preparation for law school and legal practice if you’re still in college, or maybe out of college and thinking of going back to school for a law degree? [13:52] The good thing about a law degree is there’s no real prerequisite for it. It’s not like a medical degree where you’re going to have to take certain classes in college. For a law degree, it doesn’t matter. That’s the beauty of it. A lot of people do political science as a gateway undergraduate degree. I didn’t do that. I did psychology, which I think is better because most of what we do as lawyers is people skills. Like in my job, divorce, counseling people is the biggest part of my job and probably the most value that I bring. I’ve got a little bit of math and some law stuff that I have to do, but it’s mostly people skills. A psychology degree would be great preparation for an undergrad. Political science, obviously, also accounting, any of these things, finance. That’s all great. The LSAT has nothing to do with being a lawyer. You’ve got to take this test, but if you’re studying it and saying, “Wow, I don’t really like this,” don’t worry about it because it has absolutely nothing to do with being a lawyer. It’s just something you’ve got to do, so if you’re looking at those tests and saying, “Wow, I don’t want to be a lawyer because of these questions,” that has nothing to do with being a lawyer. It’s just a test. Don’t be scared off by that. I’ve also heard that taking classes that require a good deal of writing is good preparation for being a lawyer. [15:46] This is true. In law, we have a formula for writing which serves me well. If you asked me to write a poem, I could not do it. For the life of me, I could not do it. If you asked me to write a legal brief, well, I can do that in my sleep. The reason is because it’s mechanical. We have a formula. It’s called IRAC: issue, rule, application, conclusion. What’s the issue? What’s the rule of law? How do you apply that rule to the facts, and what is your conclusion? That’s a standard essay method. We use that in practice for brief writing. To me, it’s easy as pie to write that. Some people grapple with it. I think maybe it’s how you’re wired. To me, I find that very easy to do. I think if you have an English major, and you’re taking classes on literature or writing, that is definitely going to help because we’re communicating mostly in writing. We don’t have a lot of oral arguments. I think that the biggest mistake that lawyers make is when they speak like lawyers because nobody understands what they’re saying. It sounds smart, but it’s a terrible way to communicate. What I’ve learned is not to speak like a lawyer. The lawyers here that I train, I say, do it in English. If you wouldn’t say it, don’t write it. We don’t want to speak like a lawyer. If we can have language that is persuasive and clear, we’re going to win our cases. What do legal students or young interns do right, and what do they do wrong? [18:00] It’s hard to get into law firms, especially the smaller law firms, as an intern because the smaller firms don’t have training programs. They don’t have capacity. They’re all busy. It’s probably going to be more of the midsize firms that you target. I think that the wrong way of targeting is to try and oversell yourself. I see people coming in like, “Oh, I interned last year, so all of a sudden now I’ve got vast experience.” That’s a huge turnoff because we’re going to train you. We’re going to tell you what we hope you need to know. If somebody is coming in saying that they know it all, they’re not even going to get an interview. There’s some humility there. It’s hard. How do you sell yourself? How do you stand out from the crowd, from all the other law students? I would not be pushing on, “Oh, I’m so smart and experienced.” I would be looking at, “Well, these are my hobbies. This is my life story. This is my interest. This is what makes me special.” It has nothing to do with your GPA or what school you went to. What is interesting about you? Then we could say, “Wow, okay. I’d really like to get to know this person. This is somebody I would like to work with.” I would come in on that angle. I would be coming in through LinkedIn. Again, if you’re not on LinkedIn, you need to be on LinkedIn, and you need to start making connections with lawyers before you even go to law school in that way that I talked before. These are connections that are going to serve you for the rest of your career. Go on LinkedIn, look up the people’s profiles that are lawyers in your area, and see if they’re posting regularly, because some have a lot of just dormant accounts. If they’re posting regularly, you know that they’re engaged. Comment on their stuff, make a connection with them, and then hit them up and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about starting law school. I have summer break. Could I come in and do some work in your office?” They might say, “Sure.” That’s a great way to make that connection, a great way to see what a lawyer does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60K0AkVxmdA It’s also important for interns to realize that the standards in a professional office are a little bit different than, perhaps, on a college campus. [21:23] We have had the people come in with the flip-flops, and I have to say, “Hey, look at how everyone else is dressed here.” It’s important because if you haven’t worked in a professional office before, how would you know? This is the benefit of an internship: to talk about office decorum. You can learn all that you want to about law, but until you’re actually in a law office, you wouldn’t know these things. How do you dress? Then, also, there’s a hierarchy in the law firm. Certainly the lawyers know that. There’s associates and then mid-level partners and senior partners, managing partners. Do you just bust into the managing partner’s office and start asking questions? There’s a time and place. People working in the office know who to ask and when to ask and what not to do. That’s important, to be in there and learn that stuff. There’s no way to teach it other than to do it. If they’re going to come in with flip-flops, we’ll tell them. Then, if they change, great. If they don’t, well, this is not going to work out. I’ve also seen it in the other direction where somebody is too scared. They sit in the office, and they’re not going to ask any questions, and they don’t want to make a fuss. I get that, and I respect that, but then also they’re not learning. They’re not getting anything. There’s a balance there. You don’t want to be too precocious, but you have to assert yourself and say, “Hey, this is a learning opportunity.” Because when we bring in an intern, we’re not really expecting much productivity. These are all paid. We’re not saying, “Oh wow, we’re going to pay this person to come in and they’re going to do some work for us.” This is an opportunity to build a relationship with that person, for them to learn. Then, if it works out, when they graduate, we may have a great employee. That’s our bargain. We’re not expecting great work. How much do lawyers really make? [23:45] That ranges, obviously, by what area. There’s big differences, even in California, which I was surprised about. If you’re talking about Los Angeles,, that’s going to depend on where you work. If you’re working for government, it might be $60,000 or $80,000 to begin with. A private law firm, a tiny, tiny law firm, might be $75,000 to start with. A midsize firm might be a hundred. Then the big law firms are $180,000 or $200,000. Then from there, I would say mid-career lawyers are going to be making a few hundred thousand dollars to $300,000, and maybe get up to half a million dollars. Then super successful lawyers can make over a million dollars, or several million dollars a year, perhaps. Why these big variations? Why would somebody make $75,000 versus half a million? It really comes down to a couple of factors and, obviously, experience. Beyond that, it’s how many hours you’re putting in. There’s really no part-time lawyer job. That doesn’t exist. These jobs require a lot of hours. Then, if you’re willing to put in all these hours, why is somebody making three, four or five times as much as somebody else? It comes down to two things. One is a very specific skill set that you’ve honed. If you know one area of law as well as anyone does, and/or you can go to court and make the best arguments and get great results, well, you’re going to make more money. Then, it’s the origination of business that really is going to set people apart. If you’re good with people, you know how to talk, you know how to listen, and eventually you start bringing in work to the firm, the rainmaker concept is what’s really going to set people apart in their compensation. Obviously, that’s going to come later and that’s everybody’s goal. Not everybody gets there, but that’s really the main driver as to why somebody might make a hundred thousand versus half a million. We’ve got to bring in the work. Not everyone’s going to do that. We have a saying in law: there’s minders, finders, and grinders. The grinder would be the new associate coming in: “Here’s an assignment, here’s a deadline, write this brief.” They, what we call, grind. They’re just churning out this work product and billing hours. Then the mid-level lawyers are the minders. Those are the ones that supervise the work. Then the finder is the one who originates the client and gives it to the minder, and the minder then supervises the grinder. Everyone’s trying to work up that food chain. That’s a pretty good description of it. Do you recommend a prenup? Why or why not? [27:28] I recommend talking about one. It’s not for everyone. It’s very expensive because, at least in California, both sides need a lawyer. It’s the only contract that I know about that really mandates that both sides have legal representation because they have been abused, so the legislature has basically mandated counsel. Also, there’s certainly nothing romantic about bringing lawyers into a planned wedding. The good thing about it, and the healthy thing about it is that it forces people to talk about their finances. Most people, when they’re contemplating marriage, they’re saying, “Do you want to have kids?” or, “Where do you want to live?” They’re not talking about, “Well, gee, if we buy something during marriage, how’s that going to be titled? Who’s going to pay the bills? What if we break up?” These conversations around finances are usually never had before marriage. Then people find out during the marriage that one’s a spender and one’s a saver. That creates huge problems, or one was anticipating that they would share more of their premarital wealth than is happening. Having those conversations is very healthy, and a prenup forces people to do that.  That’s the only thing I like about a prenup. I do quite a few of them, but I really dislike them, honestly. They can be healthy, but many times it does allocate control to one party and can set the marriage off on a bad foot. Sometimes they’re necessary. When there’s children involved from a prior marriage and you’re getting remarried, you have two obligations. You have an obligation to your new spouse, but you also have an obligation to your kids. Those things could be in conflict. To protect everyone, a prenup could be good. This is the thing about family law. We’re dealing with some very personal stuff. Some people like that. Some people don’t want to have anything to do with that. Most people who do well in this job, not just family law, but any law, are service-minded. If you hate people and you’re antisocial and you don’t like helping, this is not the right job for you. We’re servants. Servants to wealthy people, but nevertheless, servants. People come to us with their problems, and they want our help with it. If you have a helping hand, if that’s your mindset, this is a great job because you do get to make a difference in people’s lives. There’s boundaries that you have to keep, certainly. If you’re questioning, “Do I want to be a lawyer? Should I go and apply?”, think about why you want to do this. If it’s just to make money, there’s better ways to make money than this. If you want to help people, you want to make a difference, and get paid really well, this is a great career. What’s the craziest prenup request that you’ve ever gotten? [30:56] There are some sick folks out there. Say these people are marrying and there are some really big age differences, or there’s big differences in finances. They’re getting married and they don’t really trust each other, so much so they’re going to do this prenup. Mostly, you would think it’s over money, but there have been provisions in there about, “How many times are we going to have sex?” About weight gain, drug usage, cheating. When I see stuff like that, I don’t want to be involved in it because they’re not marrying for the right reasons. This is just a way of controlling somebody else. At least in California, and probably most places, none of those provisions are valid. I won’t write an agreement with an invalid provision in there. Luckily where I’m at in my career, I don’t help people I don’t like. You should be doing that, honestly, even at the beginning of your career, too. If you don’t like them, and you don’t want to help them, don’t help them because it’s just going to go bad. What’s different about working with celebrities in family law than working with non-celebrities, other than potential for publicity? [32:33] I’ve had some great fortune working with folks who have been idols and heroes of mine. I said, “Wow, I can’t believe I’m meeting this person and helping them. They’re asking me for advice.” When it comes down to it, we’re all the same. We’re all people with the same type of problems. Maybe a celebrity has more zeros attached to their problems, but it really doesn’t matter. If somebody is fighting over their kids or going through a divorce, and there are some bitter allegations being made, it doesn’t matter who they are and where they came from. It hurts just the same. That’s one thing I’ve learned. The other thing is that these celebrities, the persona that someone has oftentimes doesn’t match who they really are. We’re seeing people under some significant stress. I’ve been surprised at the immaturity of some of these folks and lack of growth in their personal life. Maybe it’s because they were never challenged in this way and never held accountable for anything, and they have a lot of people surrounding them who agree with them. Now, their personal lives are exposed. They’re under pressure. They have to make decisions, and this is all super negative, and the bad side comes out. I almost take pity on some of these folks. You would think, “Wow, this person has everything. They’re rich and they’re famous.” Then when you look at some of them, they’re broken, and I wouldn’t trade places. Any last words of advice for pre-law students or law students who want to pursue a career in the law? [34:42] My advice is, ask for help. It sounds so simple, but people aren’t doing that. I wish I would have done that. I was lucky to have my dad. Ask for help. It’s amazing. You’ll get it. People will respond, so I wouldn’t be shy about that. You’re not wasting anybody’s time. The people who are engaged in this profession, who love it and want it to grow, they want people to come in. They want you to be interested in this. If we love our job, we want to share this with you, and we want to make sure it’s the right choice for you. Don’t be shy. Don’t hesitate. Reach out. Ask for help. You will get help. You’re going to make a connection. That may lead to a first job. That may lead to a totally different area of law that you never anticipated before. Ask and you shall receive. I see a lot of people thinking, “Well, I don’t want to be a bother. I’m going to go through law school, and then I’ll start meeting lawyers.” No. You should be meeting lawyers before you think about applying. Where can listeners and potential applicants learn more about your work? [36:22] You could Google me, Christopher Melcher. You will see lots of stuff come up. What I also encourage you to do is get on LinkedIn and connect up with me. If you haven’t used that before, it’s a great way. You can test it out with me. I’ll be your first connection. Get on LinkedIn, just search my name, Christopher Melcher, family lawyer in Los Angeles, and you will see me there. Send me a message and connection request, and I will respond. Tell me that you heard me on the show, and I would be really happy to be your first connection on LinkedIn. Related Links: Christopher Melcher’s LinkedIn profile Applying to Law School During the Coronavirus Pandemic Accepted’s Law School Application Series What is Law School Really Like? Accepted’s Law School Admission Consulting Services Related Shows: Two Admissions Experts on the Latest in Law School Admissions Acing the LSAT  What to Expect From the New LSAT-Flex Law School Admissions: What You Need to Know How to Address COVID-19 and the Events of 2020 in Your Application Wake Up to Your Amazing Career Possibilities Subscribe:       hbspt.cta.load(58291, '5443a258-0d74-4529-8836-cf9127e33d4d'); Podcast Feed
19 minutes | a month ago
Application Trends to Watch in 2021, and a Look Back at 2020
Can the lessons of 2020 help us forge a better 2021? [Show summary] For Admissions Straight Talk’s 400th episode, Linda Abraham reflects on a turbulent year and identifies the most important trends in higher ed admissions to watch in 2021. Applying to graduate school: A journey of self-improvement [Show notes] We’ve reached Episode 400! I feel it’s a milestone, and I’ve decided to do a little bit of a different kind of a show. I’m going to discuss two important developments of 2020 and their impact on applicants, their implications for you as you apply, and how you should deal with them.  I also want to speak at the very end on a more personal and, hopefully, thoughtful perspective, a little bit higher level, more strategically, and share some thoughts as we are starting to see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. This is a brand new year. The other perspective that I’m going to share will reflect a little of what I’ve learned from Rabbi Lord Dr. Jonathan Sacks, a favorite writer, thinker, and teacher of mine, who sadly passed away in November. His writings have relevance to many people and many situations, but specifically to grad school applicants, and I’m dedicating this podcast in his memory. The rising number of graduate program applicants [2:16] The first development that folks need to be aware of, and I’m sure you are aware of, is the surge. And no, I don’t mean the surge in COVID cases that we are tragically experiencing. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the surge in applicants to graduate programs across the board that is occurring this fall and winter. What do I mean by that? Let’s give some examples. In December, NPR reported that 18% more applicants applied via AAMC to medical school than did a year earlier. Some school-specific numbers: Stanford, which also went test-optional, reported a 50% increase in applications. Boston University reported a 27% increase in applications. And when I spoke with Paul White of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in October, for Admissions Straight Talk’s 392nd episode which you can find at accepted.com/392, he reported at that point an increase of 25% in applications to Johns Hopkins. Business schools are also experiencing a surge in applications. They were experiencing a decline in applications that seemed to end for most schools with round two of last year and the recession’s onset in March of 2020. They have also seen a surge in applications this cycle. The stats for last year revealed 67% of MBA programs reporting increased applications per GMAC. The stats for this year aren’t out yet, but news reports, whether from The Wall Street Journal, Poets&Quants, or my conversations with admissions directors, all indicate increased application volume. Law school applications have also soared. Through December 15th, LSAC reports a 38% increase in applicants (not applications, but applicants) year over year, a whopping 57.4% increase in applications year over year, and an almost 62% increase in applications over two years ago. Twelve out of 200 law schools reported a 100% increase in applications, and 106 out of 200 law schools reported an increase of between 50 and 99%, which means that well over half of law schools are reporting more than a 50% increase in applications. LSAC, conservatively, warns that it’s too early in the cycle to draw conclusions, since at this time last year, 34% of applications had been counted. However, I am concluding that with roughly a third of applications in, or presumed to be in at this point in time, the file numbers may not be this eye-popping, but there will be a marked increase in applications to the nation’s law schools.  Various graduate specialties are also up: for example, Master’s in Public Health. ABC News, citing data from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, which has over 100 MPH programs participating in its Common Application service, reports a 20% increase in applications this year. Data science programs are mushrooming. Strategies for standing out in a competitive applicant pool [5:29] That’s the news; what can you do about it? We try to be very practical here at Admissions Straight Talk. I don’t like to just raise problems; I also like to suggest to you ways to deal with them.  One thing I think you need to do, particularly this year, is be realistic. Apply mostly to programs where you are likely to get accepted. If your dream school is a stretch, I’m not saying you have to give up on your dreams. You can still apply to it, and you might get in because you really, really want to, and you can really demonstrate fit. But for the rest of the programs, make sure that you’re being realistic. Number two, submit outstanding applications that show that you both fit in at your target schools and are a standout in the applicant pool. Number three, apply to additional schools that support your educational and professional goals. So often, I see applicants write, “Oh, I want Top 10, or M7, or T14, or top 20.” That’s okay if you get in, and there can be reasons to want those schools, but beyond that, also think about your specific direction in your field and which schools are really good in that area, even if overall, they aren’t rated quite as high or rank quite as high. That way, you apply more thoughtfully, more strategically, and more successfully. Finally, demonstrate interest in the schools that you are applying to. Now, how can you do that? Isn’t submitting an application  a demonstration of interest? It is, but there’s more you can do. Obviously, every applicant is demonstrating interest in that way. First of all, make sure that your application shows fit with the program’s strengths, its values, and its mission. Also, attend online events for applicants. You can’t visit now, but attend those online events. Doing so is a demonstration of interest, and it also will means that you have better information that you can include in your application, or when you interview, or in updates. Try to interact and communicate with current students and recent alumni, so that your application can reflect insight, your efforts, and your genuine informed interest in that particular program. The increasing availability of test-optional programs and test waivers [7:55] Who should take advantage of test waivers, and who shouldn’t? There has been a trend to go test-optional in undergrad admissions for several years, but it really hadn’t influenced grad admissions until the COVID shutdown. Suddenly, applicants could not take the MCAT, the LSAT, the GMAT, or the GRE. Within a few weeks of the shutdown, the GRE, the GMAT, and a little later, the LSAT, were widely available online. The MCAT remained offline and became available only at the end of June in 2020. Some schools, at the time, decided that they were going to expand the number of tests they were accepting. Others decided to allow you to apply and then get the test score in. The schools were trying to adapt to the situation as much as we were trying to deal with it. Let’s look at what happened in a few different fields. With most medical schools, the overwhelming majority are continuing to require the MCAT, but some, notably Stanford and the University of Wisconsin, have gone MCAT-optional for this application cycle. In the law school world, I couldn’t find any LSAC law schools that are now test-optional. In business schools, it was a little bit different. The trend over the last 10 years has been for business schools to accept an increasing number of tests. The trend started first with the GRE. Again, that was about 10, 12 years ago, and last year, some schools started accepting the Executive Assessment for their full-time MBA programs, even though that test was originally designed for executive MBA programs. When the shutdown hit, schools started accepting a broader collection of exams: LSAT, MCAT, SAT, ACT, and I think one was accepting the Chinese University Entrance Exam, and some schools waived the GMAT for the end of last cycle. This year, more schools are going test-optional or allowing applicants to request test waivers. A few examples would be MIT Sloan, Ross, and UVA Darden. There’s a list on the Accepted website where you can see which MBA programs are test-optional or are offering waivers. Many other grad programs have gone test-optional or allow applicants to apply for waivers, including most MPH programs. But you have to make sure that you know what your target program’s requirements are. Obviously, if some require the test and some don’t, you’re going to have to take it, and you’re going to have to prepare for it. When to accept a test waiver, and when to take the test [10:22] What should you do if your target schools are test-optional, or you’re applying intentionally and exclusively to test-optional schools? What if you really have that choice? The test is either entirely optional or you have test waiver options.  What should you do? Should you jump up and down because you do not need to pay for, sit, or study for this exam? Maybe. If you have a great academic record, as well as all the other experiential must-haves and nice-to-haves that your program seeks, yes, jump up and down for joy. You probably are fine applying without the exam. Those are the people whom the schools would be happy to accept, and they won’t pay that much attention to your exam. If however, your undergraduate record reflects underachievement on your part, or is below average or lacking in some way for the programs that you’re applying to, you probably need the test score to present evidence you can handle the program. I’m sorry to say it, but you will probably enhance your chances of acceptance by studying, paying for, and taking the exam. That’s probably not what you want to hear, but I’m supposed to be a reality check sometimes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6puppED0ug&feature=emb_logo What if you are a bad-test taker and your undergraduate record reflects underachievement on your part or is not competitive at your target programs? Then you probably could better spend your time, money, and energy to show academic ability in other ways if the programs you want to apply to don’t require the test. Most medical schools are still requiring the MCAT, so this probably is not that germane to med school applicants, but you might consider a postbac program for medical school students. If you’re applying to MBA programs, you have more options. There’s HBS CORe for graduate management education. You could consider pursuing the CFA or, the Certified Financial Planner, if it’s relevant to your goal. Perhaps just go for relevant graded courses, especially if you don’t have the business course options that I just mentioned. We’ve seen that work very effectively with clients, where they take courses in a new field of interest, and they get A’s in them. It could be an online four-credit certificate program or another degree, or just coursework with A’s. The point here is that, with the application surge and with some schools going test-optional, you have to assess whether you need that test to reinforce the idea that you can do the work in the graduate program that you are applying to. Reflecting on 2020 [13:19] When we first started Admissions Straight Talk back in 2012, I can’t say we were regular. We didn’t necessarily do it every week. But since 2013, it’s been week in and week out, and that’s how we got to number 400, and I’m rather proud of that fact. I’m going to take advantage of my pride and use it as an excuse to share some thoughts on a higher plane than my usual tactical approach for some recognition about events this year, and also some recognition and admiration for you, my listeners and graduate applicants. I’m drawing here a lot on what I’ve learned by reading and following Rabbi Lord Dr. Jonathan Sacks, who I mentioned earlier. He’s a writer, thinker, and teacher whom I admire greatly, and I also mentioned earlier that he passed away in November. He was eulogized by people from a broad array of fields, and places, and geographies. I feel that I, along with the rest of the world, have lost a mentor, moral voice, and valued teacher. Here are a few lessons I gleaned from his work and teaching, which I think are relevant to applicants about to embark on a major self-improvement project. And that is what higher ed is, at this very tempestuous time in history, a very uncertain time in history. 2020 was a bad year. I don’t want to minimize that. But there were silver linings amidst the tragedy and the suffering, and yes, the many deaths. That means that people are grieving and hurting. I don’t want to minimize that, but I do think it’s really important to recognize some of the silver linings. It’s important to recognize those who showed up with heroism and courage every day, day in and day out: the essential workers in hospitals, and grocery stores, truckers, whatever their field, that just kept on going. Rabbi Sacks pointed out also that the pandemic is one of the few times in history when all of mankind, including those essential workers, was fighting the same enemy, despite the divisions and divisiveness in other areas in our time, and even despite the disagreement that existed and exists about how to fight COVID. We all had the same enemy, and this is possibly the first and only time in history where that was true. Let’s recognize and celebrate this fleeting, and yes, admittedly tenuous, unity. One result of the pandemic, I think, is a little humility on the part of mankind. A tiny, tiny microscopic microbe is throwing us for a loop, and with all our sophistication, and our technology, and our travel to the far corners of the universe, we had to pause and regroup. We had to realize that we are not always in control. Now, while a little humility is a good thing, paralysis is not, and one of Rabbi Sacks’ fundamental teachings, which I definitely share, is that we are empowered to change and improve. Our destiny is influenced by events and by our past, but not determined by them. We always have the choice of how to respond, and we should never give up hope, as we attempt to create a brighter and better future. Education is fundamentally about improvement, and your applying and pursuing an education shows your commitment to improve yourselves and society, and that too, needs to be recognized and celebrated. For those of you dealing with either prior academic issues or obstacles to the pursuit of your dreams, you may need to work a little longer, a little harder to get you where you want to go. But in most cases, you can get there, or you can get awfully close to it. You can change. Your past is not your future, and it doesn’t dictate your future. You can change. Finally, as his daughter eloquently stated at his funeral, Rabbi Sacks firmly believed that problems are there to be addressed and solved, not merely put up with. He firmly believed in the power of change and our ability to change, and I know that so do many of you, because I’ve had the privilege of reading and reviewing many personal statements, statements of purpose, and application essays. They frequently discuss how you want to use your graduate education to solve a problem, to improve yourselves and society, and to contribute. As we move deeper into 2021, please don’t lose that commitment to self-improvement, and as Admissions Straight Talk returns to its regular programs, with little or no pontification from me, I’d like you to give yourselves a pat on the back and celebrate both your ability to change and your commitment to self-improvement, as evidenced by your pursuit of additional education. Congratulations for not letting the turbulence of 2020 stop you from pursuing your dreams and improving the world in 2021 and beyond. Related Links: Test-Optional MBA Programs: Everything You Need to Know in 2021 How to Answer Med School Questions about COVID-19 and Other Major Events of 2020 [Video] Accepted Admissions Consulting Services MBA Application Timeline: How to Get Accepted in 2021 The 11th Grade College Planning Timeline That You Need to Get Accepted Related Shows: How to Address COVID-19 and the Events of 2020 in Your Application Applying to Med School During COVID-19 Expert Advice for Applicants and an Inside Look at UCLA Anderson from an Intl MBA Two Admissions Experts on the Latest in Law School Admissions Subscribe:          Podcast Feed hbspt.cta.load(58291, '24b524a1-98eb-4392-84e2-97f16a3f2fc1');
38 minutes | 2 months ago
What Life at Icahn Is Like as a Med Student, Parent, and More
How this non-traditional medical student transitioned into medicine as a second career [Show summary] Efrat Bruck is an M4 at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, as well as a parent and MCAT video creator for Khan Academy with a nontraditional path to medicine. She shares how the program has given her the flexibility and support to balance these responsibilities and thrive in medical school. Listen to the show >> A career-switcher’s journey from teacher to medical student [Show notes] What’s it like to attend Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine? And how does this M4 juggle the responsibilities of parenting, med school, serving on the Mount Sinai Student Admissions Committee, and being an MCAT video creator for Khan Academy?  Efrat Bruck is a non-traditional medical school student  who attended medical school as a mom and had a successful career as a teacher. Now, she’s an M4 at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Can you tell us a bit about your background outside of medicine? Where did you grow up? What do you like to do for fun? [1:45] I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the neighborhood of Borough Park. My parents immigrated to the US about one year before I was born to seek medical treatment for one of my older brothers who has congenital kidney failure, and much of our childhood revolved around his medical situation. I think, by the time I was in high school, he had had three kidney transplants. My dad is a rabbi and a teacher in the community. My mom was mostly a stay-at-home mom, but also taught intermittently, so I come from a family of teachers. I’m one of 10 children. I have seven brothers and two sisters, and I am seventh, part of the younger crew. After high school, the expectation was to get out there in the real world and become financially independent, so I went to a one-year program that trained me to be a teacher, and then I got a job as a high school teacher. At the age of 18, I started teaching high school and started what would be an almost decade-long career in education that I really, really enjoyed. In my last year of college, I started working at Columbia University Medical Center in a research lab in nephrology. I had a really personal connection to nephrology because of my brother. I think my work at the lab was the springboard that eventually led me to go to medical school. When did you go to Columbia? [3:20] To backtrack, I went to college a few years after high school. Maybe three years into teaching, I went to Touro College in Brooklyn, New York. And then in my last semester of college, as part of one of the honors projects, I started working at a lab at Columbia, a lab in nephrology. The principal investigator was Dr. Jonathan Barasch. That was, as I said, the springboard for applying to medical school. You mentioned that because of your brother’s situation, you were drawn to nephrology. When you went back to college, were you thinking of getting more of an education-oriented degree and staying in that field, and then you decided to make the switch? Is that how it worked? [3:49] I’ll backtrack a little. I really always wanted to be a doctor from a pretty young age. I love the sciences. I think all of us, when we sort of look back at our school years, there were some classes that felt like a burden and some classes that maybe felt a little more natural, or you looked forward to it. That’s how I felt about the sciences. I always looked forward to those classes, and I didn’t feel that burden of studying, at least when I was a kid. It gets burdensome later on! But as a kid, I really loved it, and I was just fascinated by this link between science and medicine. I knew science existed and that somehow this translated into medicine, which I knew kept my brother alive all those years. So I was really fascinated from a young age, but as I said, it wasn’t really on the radar for me right after high school to go to college. So when I did go to college, it wasn’t like I thought, “I’m going to go to medical school,” But it was in the back of my mind. I naturally slid into the premed track. I considered doing a degree in education briefly, but ultimately I chose to do my premed track. What was the hardest part of the med school application process for you? [5:06] I’m going to say the MCAT, as it probably is for many people. I think it’s the MCAT, but not just the MCAT. It’s also that I was doing so many things at the time. I had two jobs. I was teaching and then I started working. The lab started off as a volunteer thing, but then turned into a job. And at that time I had also gotten married and moved to, not a new city, but a new borough in New York City, which for people from New York is like moving to another planet. I had to take a car to the grocery store. There was a lot of adjusting, and then to throw it all in, I started opening up MCAT books and realized this is not a test you could just study for in a month or two. You really have to put in a lot of effort. And I was a year away from college already. So I think the MCAT was the hardest part in all the stuff I was juggling, and the solution was to take a good hard look at everything and make decisions. I did ultimately leave my job as a high school teacher. It was a really tough decision, but it was the only way to go onto my new path. Did you do self-study, or a course, or some combination? [6:15] I started off studying by myself to test the waters. I had some books and there were some topics that I was strong in. When I say strong, I mean, you can open up test questions and get, let’s say, half of them right. There were some subjects that I was really weak in for some reason. So I ramped up my studying. I gave myself maybe six months of part-time study and then did some practice tests. But I wasn’t happy with my scores, so I actually delayed my MCAT and did another round of studying, a full three months of dedicated studying. I actually used the Princeton Review. I took an actual course, and then my practice scores climbed up and I was happy in the end with the result, but it did push my application cycle off by an entire year, getting the MCAT out of the way. But I think, in retrospect, it was the right decision because it’s always better to take a little more time and become more competent. What do you see as the benefits of your background in teaching and education going into medicine? What is the relevance, as you see it? [7:18] I’m really glad you asked that question because I think this question is a springboard for a really rich discussion. I’m going to say this about many jobs, not just teaching, but having a job before medical school, there’s so much you can learn from so many of these jobs that are absolutely transferable to medicine. To speak about teaching a little bit, when you’re a teacher, you’re told to teach a certain subject, and you’re given this load of information to sift through and you have to decide, what am I going to teach? And what do you focus on when you review, and what do you ask on a test? You really learn to zoom in on the important information. This is so important for medical school. Every medical student, I’m sure, will agree with me. You’re flooded with information. In my opinion, this is a flaw in medical education, but that’s a discussion for another time. You don’t know what to do with it. You’re like, “What’s important? What do I need to know for the test? How do I process this information and memorize such a large volume of knowledge in such a short amount of time?” I think teaching really, really helped me with that. The other thing I would say is, definitely with teaching, but I’m sure this applies in other jobs as well, you have to learn to deal with lots of different types of people. In the school that I taught in, for example, there were lots of immigrants, people from all different countries. You’re dealing with students, in my case, adolescents in Brooklyn. Not always so easy. You’re dealing with coworkers, you’re dealing with principals, administrators, and then you’re dealing with parents, which is a whole other beast. You really hone your people skills, communication skills, things like that, which are extremely important for medicine. Because if you’re going to be a doctor, you’re going to deal with people from all walks of life, different from you, culturally, religion, politically, whatever it is. And you have to know how to see eye to eye with people who are different than you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfiQY9O42uo&feature=emb_logo One of the things I thought you would raise is that physicians are frequently teaching. [9:17] It was on my list! I was going to get to that. Medical education is built in this way: You have this pyramid with medical students at the bottom, first, second, third, fourth year interns, residents, attendings. And it’s really the responsibility of each tier to teach the level below them. Patients too. That’s a very important one. But even if you’re not interested in medical education in a formal sense, like I am, you have to teach if you’re a doctor. Medical training, teaching patients. On my medicine rotation, for example, in the third year, the person I learned the most from was the fourth year medical student right above me. Sometimes it’s easier to learn from people who are closer in their training to you. That is absolutely true. And I’ve definitely gotten feedback on rotations that I did a good job teaching, and I think it’s because of my background. What have you loved the most about Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine? [10:32] I could probably spend an hour talking to you about the amazing things at Sinai, but there are a couple of key points that I want to mention. The first and probably most obvious thing is it’s a world-renowned institution and they really, really live up to their reputation. When I look back at my undergraduate years and high school and I reflect, and I think all of us probably feel the same way, there are lots of things we do in school that had us like, “I don’t know if this is so necessary.” Homework and assignments. Sometimes you wonder, “Do I really need this? I mean, do I really need to know where every last electron goes in this reaction for organic chemistry?” We question these things, and to be honest, a lot of it is not perfectly relevant to what we do, but at Sinai the education we get is so carefully crafted. Every homework assignment, every writeup, every lecture is really another step for you to become a great doctor. I can honestly say that there wasn’t a single time in my education where I thought to myself, “Wow, what a waste of time,” even things that are not necessarily relevant to the field that I’m entering. As a doctor, you need to have a broad foundation for lots of areas. I feel like the education is just superb. It’s a little hard, sometimes, to see it when you’re amongst your classmates because they’re all getting the same education, but when you start to venture out to different sites and you’re among other students, I think that the Sinai students really stand out in their remarkable education that they get. Other than just training us to be great doctors, I think at Sinai they really try to support you in your unique journey, whatever that is. So for me that was that I wanted to raise a family while doing medical school. For my classmates, it’s other things. I have a classmate who is a playwright. There are people involved with startups. There are people involved in all sorts of things where your time is spent not just in medicine. At Sinai they really, really try to understand you and support you on your unique journey. That’s another fantastic thing about Sinai. The way they do this is they have, of course, expectations of us and what kind of students they want us to be, what kind of doctors, but it goes both ways in that we expect them to take our feedback very seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_37iRmdDc8&feature=emb_logo That’s something that’s also great at Sinai. They take student feedback extremely, extremely seriously. Like every other institution, we evaluate our classes, every lecture, every professor, and change is implemented very swiftly. The evaluations don’t just land up in some desk and stay there. “I don’t know what happened to it.” They’re taken very seriously. I’ve seen changes implemented definitely from one year to the next, even one semester, one month to the next, based on students’ feedback. I think that’s how they do it. They really take their students seriously. What could they improve? [13:31] I’ll give some background for those of you who are not yet in medical school, but when you’re a third year, which I think is the most intense year of medical school, you have clerkships, which means that you’re on a clinical site. You’re in the hospital setting. Sometimes at your own campus, but sometimes you’re sent out to other sister campuses. Sinai has its goals and objectives for their students and what they want us to accomplish. And sometimes at the various sites, the residents or attendings or people at that site aren’t necessarily that familiar or don’t understand the schools as well. Sometimes there’s a little bit of a mismatch between the goals of the school and the people at the site. I think some communication between the school and those various sites, so that everybody’s on the same page as far as what the goals are for medical students. You became an MCAT video creator for Khan Academy. Why, and do you have any MCAT tips that you’d like to share? [14:24] I fell in love with Khan Academy when I was an undergrad, and I discovered that if I had a hard time with a subject, I can just go to Khan Academy and watch videos for free. The videos were amazing. Sal Khan is an outstanding teacher. I found myself not using it just to learn for myself, but using it as a tool to improve my own teaching. I used it a lot in studying for the MCAT. This is before they even had the MCAT platform, or maybe it was very new. And after I took my MCAT, I had this free space. Remember I mentioned that I pushed my application off by a year, so I took the MCAT in January and then was sitting around until the summer, and I had already left teaching. I read about this competition that Khan Academy launched with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the AAMC where they wanted to build an MCAT platform, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Because as you all know, courses and MCAT prep are prohibitively expensive, and everything would be for free. I felt like this would be a great way to get involved and give back to Khan Academy because it helped me so much and would help level out the playing field for people who are at a more financial disadvantage, which at certain points in my life was definitely the case. I understand what that’s about. So I just entered this competition, and I was chosen as one of the winners. We got a paid trip to San Francisco, which was really nice. We were trained. The training was led by Rishi Desai, who was the Chief Medical Officer at Khan Academy. I think he is the chief medical officer at Osmosis right now, if I’m not mistaken. And then a couple of us were then hired by Khan Academy to make the videos. Like I said, I had the time. It was in between different things going on, so that’s how that happened. I still remember that the video I submitted was about the kidney. Honestly, I don’t think I could give you that lecture. I don’t remember anything, I just know that it was about the kidney because that’s what I knew at the time. I knew about the kidney because of my brother and my research. But it was really a synthesis of my career with launching my new path in medicine.  MCAT tips: I think if I could go back, I would start studying in undergrad after each course because there’s this link you have to make between your course material and the MCAT. MCAT really requires you to synthesize the knowledge and apply it to new scenarios. Don’t start on your first day of bio, but if you’ve finished a bio course, do some bio MCAT questions. You finished chemistry; do some chemistry MCAT questions. Do it in a modular way as you go, and I think that’ll make your studying later much, much easier. And I would say to use Anki. I wish I had discovered it earlier. If I had Anki in undergrad, boy, my life would’ve been so much easier. I’ll give a really short background to understand what Anki does. So there have been lots of studies done on how people memorize things and remember things. The basic bottom line is a concept called spaced repetition, which is that when you learn a certain fact, there comes a point in time where you know it really well, but then there comes a point in time where you start to forget it, and your memory drops. That point in time is where you should learn it again, and then learn it again. And that interval between your learning gets smaller and smaller and smaller as you go. What Anki does is it has an algorithm. It’s a flash card application, and it has this algorithm where it asks you a question, and you tell it if you knew the answer, if you didn’t know the answer, or you were in between. Based on your response, it will decide when to shoot that flashcard back at you for optimal memory. That way you’re not wasting time studying those things that you already know. You’re spending more time studying those things that you don’t know. But thrown in there, it has somehow built into this algorithm, research-backed, how much time should be spaced between learning facts. It’s not going to shoot you the same card every day. It took me two to three days to really get the hang of how to use it. It’s so powerful. I used it for one exam and didn’t do it the right way. I didn’t even keep up with my reviews, and I saw a dramatic improvement, even using it wrong. When I did it correctly, I saw an even better improvement. I would say, if you could learn how to use Anki now, do it. It’s really popular now in medical school. We have decks for everything. There’s a good chance you’ll be doing it in medical school anyway, so you may as well get familiar with it now. Does it have modules for undergrad sciences as well? [19:31] You either make your own cards, or there are people out there who will create a deck and share it with other people. There’s a deck I used to study for one of my board exams. That person is educating medical students all across America. I don’t know who this person is, but they should get like a Nobel prize or something. I just downloaded it from Reddit, and that’s how I studied for my board exam. So I’m sure on Reddit or SDN or these other platforms, I’m sure people have shared MCAT decks, or you could make your own cards. The process of making cards in itself is also really great for memory. Let’s go back to being the president of Mount Sinai Parents. How are you managing med school and parenting? What are the biggest challenges, and how are you dealing with them? [20:22] I have two kids. My older one is four. She was born between the first and second year of medical school. Then the second one was born in my year 3B. She’s two. She just turned two now. Before I answer your question, I just want to put a disclaimer out there that I always tell people, I don’t really recommend it. It’s really difficult. If the stars have aligned for you such that you don’t have to do both at the same time, I think it’ll be better for you. I’d just like to put that out there because I don’t want to sugar coat it and make it sound like it’s a piece of cake. It’s really difficult. Probably one of the hardest things I’ve done. Just putting that out there before I answer your question. The way I think about it, I feel like there are two components to this. I’ll tell you what they are and then I’ll address each one. I think the first component is the emotional or mental aspect. How do you develop the bandwidth to be able to handle these two full-time endeavors at the same time? Raising kids is a full-time job, and going to med school is a full-time job. So how do you manage it from a psychological standpoint? And then there’s the practical aspect. You can’t be at two places at once, so how do you manage both of these? I’ll talk about the first because I think it’s a little more important, the emotional or mental aspect. I think the first thing is you have to have a really good vision of what you want your life to look like in a couple of years down the line and really understand what your goals are because that’s really the only thing that’s going to get you through some of those really difficult times. The endless studying, the endless hours of the wards, the baby up at night crying and you’re thinking about what you have to do the next day at 6:00 a.m. But if you have a really clear vision of what your goals are and what your end point is, I think it’s a lot easier to pull through. That would be the first thing, I would say. The second thing is, it takes a village to raise kids. If you’re going to do it while you’re in medical training, you need an even larger village, and you really need a robust support system that’s going to give you that emotional support, and it’s going to be different for everyone. For me, it’s my husband, who’s been a rock throughout this entire medical training. My parents, my in-laws, and my siblings. For someone else, it might look a little different. Whatever it is, you need a really strong support network because you can’t do it by yourself. I think that addresses the first part, the mental or psychological aspect. Then the second part, practically, if people are looking for just, “Okay, how do you do the day-to-day?”, I would say, if you’re a parent in medical training, you need multiple layers of childcare. It’s not enough to just have one thing. I’m sure with some jobs, you send your kids to school and they come home and it’s all good, but in medicine you need a couple of layers. For me, for example, we have the daycare. We have a wonderful daycare that’s very close to the house that our kids are in during the day. Every season, we curate a small group of babysitters who are usually local students. I’m choosy with my babysitters, so I pick them out and these are people who I’m really comfortable having around my kids. They help out in the mornings, evenings, weekends, busy times. And then as a third layer, I have my family, which don’t help out on a day-to-day basis, but they do step up during big times. For example, during my step two exam, my mother took my kids for 10 days. My siblings helped out. They step up when you really need help. My family are a sort of village at this point. I would say that’s a practical tip. I will also throw in there that being a parent in medical school really forced me to learn what it is that I need in my personal gas tank. It’s very different for everyone. I can’t have everything. I’m not going to get eight hours of sleep every night and three cooked meals and get my exercise in. It’s not going to happen. But you can zoom in on those things that are really key for you, and that’s going to get you through. For me, it’s sleep. I have classmates and friends who can get their five hours of sleep and they’re good to go. I’m not a person like that. So I really prioritize sleep. I exercise a few times a week. And then right after that, if you give me 30 minutes a day where I’m not around people and I have time for myself, I’m good to go. A warm-cooked meal every night would be lovely, but it’s not one of those things that’s really essential for my well-being. For every person, you really need to choose. Say, “This is a rough time in my life. Things are busy. What are the key things I need to keep me going?” Icahn at Sinai touts its flexibility on its website, and it’s known for that. Has the Icahn School at Mount Sinai been helpful to students who are also parents? Was it supportive to you in this regard? [25:34] I’m glad you asked about that. In short, absolutely. I’ll address the flexibility part first, and then I’ll tie that into how it really worked out for me as a parent. To answer your question, Sinai absolutely lives up to its reputation as far as flexibility goes. I was not on the FlexMed program, so I don’t know if I have all the details 100% down pat, but the basic idea is that you can apply to medical school while you’re still in college. You can be any major. In fact, most FlexMeds are not science majors. You can get an earlyish answer, or an early answer if you’re accepted. The idea is that we want you to use that time doing other things because the premed grind can be really, in some ways, soul-crushing. We don’t necessarily think that that’s the only way to become a great doctor, so we want people to use that time for other endeavors. You don’t have to take MCAT. They do a summer boot camp where they bring you up to par with some of the sciences. Sinai has published studies comparing the FlexMeds to the traditional medical school applicants, and there are some slight discrepancies in certain areas of performance, but the bottom line is that they do just as well as the traditional students, and in some ways even surpass the traditional students. So it’s definitely a program that has tremendous success. I think, at this point, 50% of the students in the class are FlexMed, which is different than when I first came in. There’s a lot of success with this program. The other thing we have, over the third and fourth year, is 28 weeks of electives, which I only recently learned is a pretty large amount of time. I have friends in other schools who are lucky if they get 10 or 12 weeks. You have 28 weeks of time where you get to choose how you want to drive your education and then pick which courses you want to take, etc. I think that’s really great because it helps you take ownership over your education. Not just that, but during first, second, and I believe third year as well, we have protected time called flex time. It’s a weekly block of time, it can be an afternoon during third year, or if it’s busier, it’s maybe only once or twice a month. But that’s time that’s really blocked off for students to do things like shadow, get involved with research, or endeavors outside of medicine, where they’re telling us, “Be the person you are. You’re on this unique journey. Protect the time for you to do your own thing.” I have to say that when I was pregnant, I think I used some of that time to nap, but I think it demonstrates the priority that they give us as far as autonomy and flexibility goes. Another thing I would say is we take all of our exams on our own time, on the weekends, in our own space. The exam opens up on Friday, closes Sunday, and you can pick to take the exam whenever you want, wherever you want. It makes it really easy to go away for weekends and be with family. There are people who, at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, have the exam opened up, and they take the exam, and they’re done with it and have their weekend free. There are people like me who wait until Sunday night until the baby is sleeping at 9:00 p.m. to take the exam. Basically, they’re telling you, there are lots of different paths to becoming a great doctor. There are lots of different ways to do things. You can choose and take control of your education in the way that you want. To answer your question about how that ties in with parenting, when people say to me, “Oh, how did you do it?” I say the key was time. What Sinai has been doing recently, and this I think is more recent that they’re doing this, for people with families or even other endeavors that just require a lot of time out of medicine, is something called the decelerated year. The decelerated year is where you take your year of medical school, which for most people is third year, because it’s the hardest year, and you split it over two years. Everyone hears that and thinks, “Ah, so smart.” You’re doing it in a proactive manner. You’re not showing up and saying, “Oh, I can’t…” You’re planning everything a year in advance, and you’re setting up your clerkships in a way that you have breaks in the middle at times that you need them. For example, I took a decelerated third year, and then I also took a decelerated fourth year. So I was able to take a good two months off when my second daughter was born. At times where things were really crazy, there was always a little break at the end. When I was pregnant and really sick on my surgery rotation, those are really long days where you’re there at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. I would come home at 8:00 at night, throwing up half the time. On a clerkship like that, because I have that extra time at the end, I was able to push off my shelf exam and not take it exactly at the end of the clerkship because on top of all this clinical stuff, you have to study. It gives you some time to play around and really affords you that flexibility. That was really the key to me both being a parent and doing medical school. You’ve also served as a student on the Admissions Committee at Mount Sinai. What do you wish you’d known as an applicant that you now know after having been on the committee? What would have helped you deal with the application process? [30:50] Every school has its own mission statement, goals, and nuances. The schools are different. When you’re applying, it’s a lot of pressure, and it’s intense. All you’re thinking about is, “I just want to get into a school and become a doctor,” but schools are really different. I think it’s worth taking the time to investigate those differences and tailor your application to those differences. Some schools love research, and some schools love global health. For some schools, it’s community service. If you can learn what that school is into, that would really help you, and it’ll also help you on the interview, which is of course an integral part of your application. There are people, for example, who would tell me, “I really thrive in competitive environments that are really structured and I need that pressure.” I’m not sure Sinai would be the best place for you. It’s more about independence and autonomy. I think it’s the trust they put in you, that they really trust you to take ownership of your education, but at the same time, strive for excellence. How do you see your career evolving? [32:52] I’m actually applying into anesthesiology, to teach over there. I have a particular interest in medical education, and I don’t know if I know how that will flesh itself out exactly, but I know that I do want to be involved in medical education in some way. I’m a huge fan of a Khan Academy approach, making knowledge available for free and in a very digestible way that appeals to everyone. I think that’s going to be a big part of my career, in addition of course to becoming an excellent clinician. I’m a really hands-on person, which is one of the reasons I chose anesthesiology. Being able to master technical skills and being great at what you do is definitely one of my goals. What advice do you have for applicants aiming for a 2021 application? [33:50] Take a good look at your application and try to separate those things that you can change and those things that you can’t. Nobody’s perfect. Maybe you have a C in some science class, it doesn’t look good, but there’s nothing you can do about that. And try to not fret over those things and really work on those things that you can improve. If you’re not happy with your MCAT score, maybe you can take it again. If you feel like your extracurriculars are falling short, get involved in some research and some shadowing. Get some clinical things. Boost the things you have control over. The other thing I would say is, instead of trying to just check boxes (shadowing, check; volunteering, check; research, check), try to find things that you are really passionate about because you’ll be more authentic about it, and it’ll come across better on your application. We all have to check boxes off in life. It’s just part of life. But as much as you can, try to find things that you’re passionate and driven about, because that will help your application be a lot better. What would you have liked me to ask you? [35:01] If I think being a parent would make me a better doctor. I don’t know if, at every point in time, it made me a better student. Time becomes a thing when you’re a parent. I definitely did not have as much time to spend studying, so it was more about learning how to hone my studying skills so I can get the same amount done in a shorter amount of time. But as a doctor, I’m absolutely certain that being a parent will make me a better doctor. It’s amazing the amount of similarities between these two endeavors. There’s a lot of investment upfront, both with parenting and with medicine, where you don’t only see your results right away, and you have to believe in your investment. When that baby is keeping you up at night or acting fussy or not sleeping, or your toddler’s throwing tantrums and you just don’t know what to do with yourself, it’s hard to remember that one day, hopefully this will be a fully grown adult who’ll function by themselves. I feel like medicine, too, there’s a lot of investment upfront and time that you have to put in and energy. In that regard, it teaches you to stay in the fight, have that grit, and make it to the end. Related Links: Get Accepted to Medical School in 2022, an on-demand webinar Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Secondary Application Essay Tips [2020 – 2021] Life as a UCI Med School Student, Wife, and Mom, a student interview Accepted’s Medical Admissions Consulting Related Shows: A Physician’s Nontraditional Path from Law Enforcement to Medical School Accepted to Med School in Mid October: How Did He Do It? How This Premed Student Got Accepted to Medical School Early Facing Adversity as a Med School Applicant An International Student’s Experience at Harvard Medical School How This Dell Med Student Is Fighting Hunger Apply at Your Best: Advice from a Med School Admissions Expert Subscribe:     hbspt.cta.load(58291, '42471f69-103d-4aef-95dd-ea4921b3cc65', {}); Podcast Feed
29 minutes | 2 months ago
Encore: An Admissions Expert’s Top Tips for Business School Applicants
I am swamped at this time of year with clients facing early January deadlines so I decided to end 2020 with one of our most popular shows of the year, my interview with Accepted’s own Esmeralda Cardenal. For you MBA applicants applying during this very tough cycle or planning to apply in the next cycle- take advantage of Esmeralda’s experience, both as an MBA admission director and experienced MBA admission consultant for Accepted. Here are a few of the questions she addresses: What are your top tips for dealing with a low GPA? What do you wish applicants did before they come to you for assistance with their applications? What are some of the differences between applying to a typical MBA program and applying to a Master’s in analytics program? What can applicants do to learn about a school since they can’t visit now, and fairs or receptions are pretty much nonexistent? What advice do you have for MBA re-applicants, both as an admissions consultant and former admissions officer? The interview actually took place last March. It’s also interesting to hear what the concerns were less than a year ago. What’s the same, and what’s changed. As we put away or throw out our calendars from 2020 and turn to 2021, I also want to share a few thoughts. For most people it’s been a really tough year. Health challenges. Financial pain. Social isolation. Restrictions galore.  Social unrest. A divisive election in the U.S.  I think most of us will be glad to close the books on 2020. Even though it has shaken our world and maybe our confidence in the future, I hope that AST’s listeners will muster their courage and determination, their positivity and ability, to pick themselves up and plan to create a better year, a better future for themselves and the world. To paraphrase Stanford GSB’s motto “Improve lives. Improve organizations. Improve the world.”  Again, thank you for listening to the podcast. I wish you much success in this brand new, exciting year ahead.   Now the interview with Accepted Senior MBA Admissions Consultant, Esmeralda Cardenal. >> For the complete show notes, check out the original blog post. Related Links: Work with Esmeralda Cardenal Fitting in and Standing Out: the Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, a free guide How to Answer MBA Application and Interview Questions about COVID-19 and Other Major Events of 2020 [Video] School-Specific MBA Application Essay Tips Accepted’s MBA Admissions Consulting Services Related Shows: Is the MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree? How to Address COVID-19 and the Events of 2020 in Your Application An Insider’s Look at MBA Admissions How to Prepare for a Successful Round 1 MBA Application MBA Insider Shares His Secrets in New Book How to Get Accepted to a Top EMBA Program: The Experts Speak Subscribe:       hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'e7be6bd8-39d0-451b-8ad8-f0e42036db27', {}); Podcast Feed
38 minutes | 2 months ago
ENCORE Mary Mahoney Writing a Compelling Personal Statement
It’s a busy time of year now. We here at Accepted are busy helping applicants with the end-of-the-year application crunch and normally I would be enjoying the company of extended family at this joyous time of year. Thanks to COVID, however, our extended family is not gathering in person. I suspect that your celebrations are also somewhat muted this year.  However, depending on where you’re at in the application process, you may still have a move to plan after hearing of an acceptance, applications to complete, decisions to anticipate or make, interviews to prepare for, and next year’s application plans to start working on.  And you may even have some work to do.  Consequently, now is an excellent time for an encore show. Since it was one of the most popular med admissions interviews of 2020 and is really relevant to anyone having to draft a personal statement or narrative , I decided to replay the  interview with Accepted’s Dr. Mary Mahoney. An English professor, Dr. Mahoney’s specialty is narrative medicine. In simple terms she’s expert in helping you tell your story and that’s the topic for this show.  We’ll run that interview in just a second. Right now I want to take this opportunity to thank you for listening week in and week out, or whenever you find a show you like.  There are lots of different ways for you to spend your time, and it’s greatly appreciated that you choose to spend it with AST’s guests and me. So thank you so much! I also want to wish you a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year, a new year filled with the realization of your educational and professional dreams, and of course acceptances. A year in which COVID and the pandemic become history so that next year, my family and yours can celebrate in person.  Now the interview with Accepted’s Dr. Mary Mahoney. For the complete show notes, check out the original blog post. Related Links: Mary Mahoney’s Bio From Example to Exemplary, a free guide to writing outstanding admissions essays How to Answer Med School Questions about COVID-19 and Other Major Events of 2020, a short video 9 Secrets to Telling an Attention-Grabbing Story The Miraculous 15-Minute ROUGH, ROUGH Draft Why Should I Spend Money on an Accepted Med School Admissions Consultant? Accepted’s Medical Admissions Consulting Related Shows: Writing for Medical School: Personal Statements, Activities, and Secondaries How This Premed Student Got Accepted to Medical School Early How to Apply to the Best Med Schools for You Wake Up to Your Amazing Career Possibilities Subscribe:     hbspt.cta.load(58291, '1d2df5cf-1a21-4396-91eb-035040f8bc40', {}); Podcast Feed
40 minutes | 2 months ago
All About the Kellogg MBAi, for Students Passionate About Business and Technology
The Kellogg MBAi: Where business and technology intersect [Show summary] Kate Smith, Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Kellogg School of Management, breaks down the school’s brand-new MBAi joint degree and how it prepares students for careers at the intersection of business and technology. Interview with Kate Smith, Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Kellogg School of Management [Show notes] As if its impressive portfolio of MBA programs (not to mention the pandemic) wasn’t enough to keep Kellogg busy, it also launched a brand-new program at the beginning of this academic year. Let's catch up on what's new at Kellogg and learn about its new accelerated joint MBA at the intersection of business and technology management. Kate Smith is the Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Kellogg School of Management. Kate earned her own MBA from Kellogg in 1998, then worked in marketing for leading brands including General Mills, Quaker Oats, and Pepsi. She returned to Kellogg in 2012. Let's start with some basic information about the MBAi. First of all, what is it? Who's it for? What's the structure? And what degree do graduates actually receive? [2:05] Thank you for opening on what is an exciting innovation here at Kellogg. We have just introduced this new program in the Kellogg portfolio of MBA options. The MBAi is a new joint degree. It has been launched by the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. The vision for this degree is that it is at the nexus of business and technology management. The MBAi is building on a long legacy of innovation and collaboration between Kellogg and McCormick. The two schools launched, years ago, a dual degree called the triple M program, which provides rigorous business education integrated with a strong foundation in design innovation. The MBAi is a new specialized program that is meant for students with prior undergraduate STEM experience, and/or prior work experience in the tech sector. Examples could include having worked as a product manager, a data scientist, a software engineer, an R and D associate. We're going to be building what I'd say is a real nice diversity of backgrounds leveraging tech and STEM expertise so that they can contribute that on a journey to accelerating their knowledge and foundational expertise at this intersection of business and technology. It's going to be a fast-paced, five-quarter program, which is (I think) very appealing in terms of the speed at which you can pursue and complete your MBA degree experience and immediately jump into what is a rapidly evolving tech sector. The curriculum will include the entire Kellogg MBA core curriculum, as well as technical courses in topics such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, data wrangling, robotics, computational thinking for business. That will also be complemented with the entire Kellogg MBA core curriculum. Students will have the opportunity to round out their degree with just a few electives, choosing between both Kellogg and McCormick. This program is intensive, with a five-quarter format as opposed to our two-year program, which is a traditional six-quarter program format. There's a little less flexibility on electives and more of an intentional design into the curriculum, integrating the aspects of data analytics, AI, etc., and weaving that throughout the curricular offerings. The graduates will have one degree conferred by both Kellogg and McCormick. It's a joint degree, so it's different than a dual degree. Our current triple M is a dual degree, one degree conferred by McCormick, the MBA conferred by Kellogg. This is a joint MBA degree called the MBAi, conferred by us both together. You're going to be going five quarters straight through, so you're going to start in the fall, and you're going to take courses for five consecutive quarters and graduate the following December. ...
23 minutes | 3 months ago
What the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Can Do for MBA Applicants
Learn about The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, and how it can help YOU gain acceptance at a top business school. [Show summary] Danni Young, Director of Recruiting for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, breaks down how the Consortium helps hundreds of students from target populations get accepted to top MBA programs each year. Are you planning to apply to top MBA programs? Listen in to discover if applying through The Consortium is right for you. [Show notes] Danni Young, Director of Recruiting for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, earned her bachelor's degree from Lincoln University in Missouri and her MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. Let's hear from her how the Consortium can help you get your MBA. Let's start with the basics. What is the Consortium? [1:41] The Consortium is a nonprofit organization that's been around for over 50 years now. Our mission is to ultimately increase the representation of three target populations in our member schools, MBA programs, and in the ranks of management in corporate America. Our mission is focused on African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Our goal is to ultimately increase representation of those three target populations in our member schools. Over the last 54 years, we've offered $510,000,000 in fellowship support. What are the benefits of membership? [2:35] It starts with our common application process. If you're thinking about pursuing your MBA at one of our 20 member schools, we definitely encourage you to use our common application. With that common application, a prospective MBA has the ability to apply to up to six of our member schools with one common application. Obviously, the benefit of that is that you'll save time and money when you're applying to business schools, but you're also having an opportunity to apply for Consortium membership, which is very valuable in itself, and then also to be considered for the Consortium fellowship. The application process is very streamlined. You don't have to apply directly to our member schools. You can apply through us, and your common application will serve as your application to the business school. It will serve as your application for membership as well as your application for the fellowship consideration. It's a one-stop shop. Ultimately, the benefit of Consortium membership is that aside from the fellowship consideration, you'll have an opportunity to be a part of our exclusive network. Our network consists of our 20 member schools, roughly 1000 students across our 20 schools currently. We have 10,000 alumni in the US and abroad, and we also have roughly 90 corporate partners that are part of the Consortium as well. That's our network, and that's what membership entails: being a part of that network. Membership also means that you have access to our online career center. It's called CGSM Online, and it's a platform only for Consortium members. It's a great way to have connections with our corporate partners, upload your resume, look at a job, post job opportunities. That membership means that every new Consortium member has a chance to attend our annual orientation program and career forum. We call it OP. That's the highlight of the Consortium experience. It happens every year in early June. This past year, it was supposed to be in Seattle, Washington. With COVID, we had to transition the conference to virtual, but it worked out really well. But next year, our OP will be in New Orleans. Hopefully, we'll be able to be onsite for that. That's a four- to five-day conference in which new members have a chance to connect with other Consortium students across our schools. They have a chance to attend workshops and seminars on business-related topics. They get a chance to have direct access to our corporate partners and also attend our career forum. So even before they start their MBA program in the fall,
22 minutes | 3 months ago
How This Premed Student Got Accepted to Medical School Early
Med applicant Mary Thomas shares her path to medical school acceptance early in this year's application cycle [Show summary] Mary Thomas will begin her medical school studies next summer after receiving an exceptionally early acceptance in October. She shares how she achieved that early acceptance, along with insights into her application process and the personal passion driving her pursuit of a career in medicine. How this non-science major gained a spot in medical school [Show notes] Are you planning to apply to medical school next summer? Would you like to be accepted by November? Mary Thomas did just that. She is happily anticipating the start of medical school after being accepted in October. (Yes, you read that right!)  Mary graduated from Pitzer College in 2019, took a couple of gap years, and applied this cycle to medical school. Let's learn more specifically how Mary got her first acceptance to medical school in October of this most extraordinary year. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and where you grew up? [1:56] I grew up in Edmonds, a suburb outside of Seattle. I grew up with two older siblings. I grew up with my parents being really involved with their jobs, so I spent a lot of time alone growing up. I was a really avid reader, and that was something that led me to become really passionate about social justice in high school. That is how I ended up going to Pitzer College in Southern California, because I knew it was a school that really emphasized social justice in its curriculum. I ended up going down there for college, and it was a really good fit for me, and it was a big part of how I ended up pursuing a career in medicine. How did you decide to pursue a career in medicine? What were some of the formative experiences? [2:39] My older sister, we've always been really close. She's in medical school right now, and that was something that was always in my mind as something that I might be interested in. But I would say I didn't become really driven towards it until I was in college. I started working with a volunteer organization, a grassroots women's mental health group. I was working with these women that came from really challenging backgrounds and faced a lot of really difficult circumstances, and I was a really passionate volunteer for that organization. I was there for the entire three years, starting my sophomore year of college. I was totally devoted. I think I missed maybe three of our weekly meetings the entire time that I worked with them. As a volunteer, what did you do with these women? [3:29] We had our weekly meetings, totally community-led, where we would do a wide range of activities like meditation. Sometimes we did things like yoga. We did a unit on dance therapy. We would do art therapy. We would have a lot of discussions. We didn't really call it group therapy, but discussions where we were able to share a little bit about experiences that other people might not understand outside of that community. My volunteer work was helping plan these weekly meetings. Sometimes we'd have presentations about certain therapeutic techniques and things like that. That was my role with that organization, and I loved working with them. Though I was a super devoted volunteer, I felt like I didn't have that much to offer. That was what made me realize that medicine would be a really powerful career for me to pursue because the women in this group didn't have a lot of access to healthcare. I realized that maybe that's something that I would want to pursue to be able to give even more to this group. I felt as just a college student, I didn't have that much to give, even though I really wanted to help and it was such an awesome organization. Were the challenges that these women faced mostly financial? Emotional? Socioeconomic? It was a mental health group, but specifically a group for Latina immigrants.
27 minutes | 3 months ago
This London Business School MBA’s Startup Is Protecting Your Online Privacy
Can business school support an entrepreneurial venture? [Show summary] James Chance, a 2019 London Business School MBA graduate, reveals how his experience at LBS impacted his path as an entrepreneur, along with how he’s transforming online privacy protection through his startup, yourself.online. Learn how entrepreneur James Chance launched his start-up while at London Business School. [Show notes] James Chance graduated from the University of Bristol in 2011 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He then worked as a strategy consultant for Accenture UK, until he joined Google in 2016. He earned his MBA at London Business School in 2019, which is where he also launched yourself.online, his startup. We're going to learn more about James's MBA path and experience, as well as about the launching of yourself.online and how it can help you maintain your privacy. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, where you grew up, and what you like to do for fun? [2:03] I grew up in Central London, not too far from the City, the financial district, right in the center, quite close to St. Paul's. That was a real eye-opener in terms of this very fast-paced world, and growing up, I was fortunate enough to, from that experience, see a lot of things, arts, culture, different businesses, all sorts of different stuff as a kid and as a teenager. When I reached the end of secondary school, then I decided I wanted to get out of London and go to the University of Bristol, as a change of scenery. In terms of what I like to do for fun, I've always been really passionate about traveling. I was fortunate enough to have a few occasions where I've traveled for work and worked in different countries, the US, Australia. But then I’ve also done more adventurous travels as well. I was fortunate enough, with a friend of mine in 2011, after I graduated from college, to drive halfway around the world from London to Mongolia in a car we bought on eBay for just under a thousand dollars. It's an adventure called the Mongol Rally, which was great fun. And I've always been trying to find those sorts of, not quite as adventurous, but trips that are a little bit off the beaten track. But unfortunately that's all on hold this year, but big plans for next year, hopefully. Next year, post-pandemic, I'd really like to do more of South America, since it's not really somewhere I've explored much. I'd really like to do some of the Argentina, Brazil, bits of Peru as well. You worked as a strategy consultant for Accenture for almost four years, then for Google as an analytical consultant, and also in e-commerce for a family business in Norway. With all these different experiences, why did you decide you wanted or needed an MBA? [3:50] I first started to think about doing an MBA when I was in consulting. This is something throughout, really: I had come into business coming from an engineering background, so coming from a technical background, where my quantitative skills and analytical skills were good, but I didn't have that much grounding in terms of finance, management, stuff like that. And I was fine for probably, I would say, the first few years of my career. But I found when I was at Google, I was fortunate enough to be brought into some really high-profile meetings with some of our senior clients, the CMOs of some of the largest e-commerce companies in the world, and stuff like that. Fantastic experience, but I was sitting at some of these meetings and I thought, I don't know how you work out marketing ROI. There were things that I just didn't have the fundamental business knowledge around. I could do the maths and things like that, and solve problems, but there were broader things I'd like to expand my skill base at and expand my fundamental background knowledge. LISTEN: Encore: Is an MBA Worth It, or Is the Sky Falling Down on the MBA Degree? >> And then on top of that, I'd always had throughout my business days a kind of back-...
53 minutes | 3 months ago
What Med School Applicants Must Know About Johns Hopkins
Learn what the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine adcom looks for in applicants [Show summary] Paul White, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Student Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, dispels common misconceptions about the program and explains what applicants can expect from an admissions process altered by COVID-19. What makes Johns Hopkins School of Medicine unique, and how can YOU show your fit? [Show notes] Do you want to know how to get into Johns Hopkins School of Medicine? Are you wondering what its curriculum is really like, and how it has adapted to COVID? Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Assistant Dean for Admissions and Student Affairs is here with answers. Before arriving at Johns Hopkins, Paul White attended Yale for undergrad and Georgetown for his law degree. He has worked in admissions, both undergrad and med, since 1979. Since 2012, he has served the applicant community as the Assistant Dean for Admissions and Student Affairs at Johns Hopkins and made a previous appearance on Admissions Straight Talk in 2016. Can we start out with an overview of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine program, focusing on its distinctive elements? [1:50] Johns Hopkins has a wonderful educational program. Hopkins is one of the schools that really pioneered prerequisites for medical school, and the Flexner Report, which came out in 1910, said Hopkins was one of the schools that did it right, and we've never sat on our laurels. So we're always asking, are we keeping current? Are we teaching students what they need to know to work with patients? A few years ago, easily 12 years ago now, Hopkins completely revised its curriculum to focus more on the social determinants of disease. We incorporate that throughout the curriculum when our students come to Hopkins. You have a course that begins right after orientation that focuses on healthcare disparities. There are several intersession courses you'll have between major components, like anatomy and so forth. But the very first one focuses on healthcare disparities and brings in someone from the community who talks about their issues, and so forth. We also have our students do an ambulatory longitudinal clerkship later in their first year, which gets them out into the community and working alongside a physician who works with patients from underserved populations.  Continuing with that, we integrate, throughout the curriculum, the social sciences, ethics, public health, and interprofessional education. We give our students opportunities to do research. Many of them have already had research prior to coming to Hopkins. Although it's not required, I would say easily 95 or 96% have had research prior to their matriculation. But by the time they graduate from Hopkins, easily 99% will have research, and nearly 99% will have a publication by the time they graduate from Hopkins. So that has really strengthened the profile of our students, which was pretty strong to begin with, but it has really made students that much more attuned to what's going on in the world and ready to address it using scientific methodology. When you talk about a longitudinal ambulatory clerkship, what are they doing? [4:55] I think of it as advanced clinical shadowing, and actually in the community working with the physician. But rather than being a pre-medical student, they're actually medical students, and it is something which they are evaluated on as part of their curriculum as well. Who they see depends on who the physician is seeing as part of the clerkship. That's why it's several weeks rather than a two-time event. What’s a common misconception about Johns Hopkins that you would like to dispel? [5:36] That the only thing we're interested in is research. That is a misconception that can impact how someone is viewed in the admissions process. Even though I am not a physician, I'm a lawyer by training, I want to make sure that the students who come to Hopkin...
32 minutes | 4 months ago
MBA Life at UC Berkeley Haas, From Its New Executive Director of Admissions
Learn what's new at Berkeley Haas, as well as tips for crafting admissions-worthy applications. [Show summary] Eric Askins, the newly appointed Executive Director of Admissions at UC Berkeley Haas, explores the school’s full-time MBA program and its admissions policies, as well as how it’s adapting the MBA experience to COVID-19. Interested in applying to Berkeley Haas? Read on for info about special programs and application advice. [Show notes] UC Berkeley Haas has a new Executive Director of Admissions: Eric Askins, formerly Haas’s Senior Associate Director of Admissions. He’s here today to explore Haas’s full-time MBA program, as well as how the school is adapting to COVID-19. Can you give an overview of the Berkeley Haas full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren't that familiar with it and focus on its more distinctive elements? [2:37] The first place to start is our location. Based in the San Francisco Bay area, our program is incredibly close to the center of innovation that exists out here. I think some of that is probably evident if you look at our outcomes. Berkeley Haas has graduates in tech. About 15 to 20% of our students each year are going into startups. But if you were to ask us for the most defining feature of our program, it's likely our defining leadership principles (Question the status quo. Confidence without attitude. Students always. Beyond yourself.). It's a set of culture-forward initiatives that we have here, about 10 years old now, that really hold our core values up-front. You'll find, I think, very few programs that lead with values, and we're certainly one of them. What's new at Berkeley Haas (other than lockdown, the pandemic, and smoky air)? [4:08] Certainly, all of those things are new, and they are challenges. But there's a silver lining in there too. Let's talk about some of our academic programs first. Chief among the things that we launched in pilot mode last year that are truly new this year are a joint degree with our school of engineering, an MBA/MEng program. This program is two years, so no additional time. It is a cohort model that is part of the MBA cohort, so it doesn't operate separately, which is really a great opportunity to continue to stay connected with the broader community here at Haas. Additionally, the students select from among seven different engineering programs to really give you that niche opportunity that you might be seeking and give you the skills that you need to take advantage of some of the great opportunities that exist in the career world. You can go, let's say, into electrical engineering/MBA, artificial intelligence/MBA, all kinds of different engineering specialties, including nuclear engineering, if that's what you're looking for. Chemical engineering. We took a nuclear engineer this year. This program launched in pilot mode last year. We didn't recruit heavily for it. We simply listed it on our website. We are beginning to look at expanding it. We now have a cohort of about 30 students, 15 in each class here. There is a community. Although it's new, it's new with a community, which we think is really essential. Again, we're very community-focused here at Haas, and we want you to be learning alongside others and learning from others as well as from our faculty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxMWjFryl0g&feature=youtu.be How do you see the MBA/MEng program growing for the entering class of 2021? [6:00] I think 15 feels like a pretty healthy number for us. We may move it up to 20 if we see qualified candidates in and around that space. We probably won't move it beyond that. We have a successful joint degree already with our MBA/MPH, which is a master's in public health. That's been running for about 10 years and has an incredible community around it, and we typically don't go over about 20 students in that group either. The goal here is not to create little segments of the MBA,
35 minutes | 4 months ago
Facing Adversity as a Med School Applicant
M2 Sotonye Douglas shares how she never lost sight of her dream to become a doctor. [Show summary] Sotonye Douglas describes herself as an “imperfect” medical school applicant who nevertheless became a student at Quinnipiac Netter School of Medicine, overcoming tremendous barriers in the process. An "imperfect" applicant discusses her path to medical school. [Show notes] There's a myth out there that med students never fail, never drop a class, and all have high MCATs and GPAs. They're perfect. Or they don't get in.  Our guest today is determined and hardworking, but she has also overcome significant challenges on the way to medical school. She doesn't fit the myth of the perfect med student, but she is nevertheless a proud M2. Sotonye Douglas is a second year MD student at Quinnipiac Netter School of Medicine. She was born to immigrant parents from Jamaica and Nigeria and grew up in Brooklyn in New York City. From a young age, she wanted to be a doctor, but working her way through high school and college made it hard to get good grades, much less prep for the MCAT. Yet today, she is an M2. Let's hear her story of hard work, perseverance, and tremendous determination directly from her. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background outside of medicine? When did you start working? What do you like to do for fun? [1:59] To go back in time a little bit, I did start working when I was in high school. I was working, but I was also student body president. I was also a cheerleader. I was very, very busy even then. I think that's when I started learning how to multitask. That's what kicked it off in high school: me learning how to be professional and how to juggle and how to run from one thing to the next. But for fun, I like to spend time with family and loved ones when I can because I do have a lot of family internationally. I love visiting family and trying to get away and travel. That's my release. How did you figure out that you wanted to be a doctor? [2:56] From a very young age, I found this interest in science. It just seemed so interesting to me. I also speak about having a very deep and robust interest in art. As a kid, when people would ask me, I would say, "Oh, I want to be a doctor." But as I started to get older and as I got into junior high school, I had this opportunity: There's this program that is no longer in New York City called the Gifted Program. It was for students who were talented and gifted, basically students that were performing higher on exams and stuff. They had special classes and things worked into our schedule. I had the opportunity to be exposed to a Saturday program for anatomy, and there were models and stuff. They brought different organs. And I had never seen any of that before. I knew what organs were, I knew what a heart was, I knew what a brain was. I knew what these things were, but I had never seen models. I would have been around 11 or 12. And seeing the models, they reminded me of sculptures. The arteries are in red; the veins are in blue. It was seeing the vibrancy and real organs. Since being in anatomy lab, I know that that's not actually what it looks like, at least in anatomy lab, but just seeing it at that age, it caught my attention because it reminded me of a sculpture. And I think at that point, I started seeing the connections between art and science, and that anatomy class solidified medicine for me. That's when I was getting ready to go into high school, and I said, "I need to be in a high school that's going to help me continue this." My old guidance counselor and the high school secretary, they remind me every time they see me: "I remember your first day at school, you came in and you said that you wanted to be a doctor." They remind me all the time now when they see me. It was just something that I felt very strongly. And despite everything that happened, I’ve always remembered having this overwhelming feeling of,
38 minutes | 4 months ago
An Insider’s Look at MBA Admissions
How can MBA hopefuls- especially those who are members of special applicant groups- best position themselves for acceptance? [Show summary] A valued and recent addition to Accepted’s staff, Dr. Christie St-John reveals what her career as an admissions director taught her about applying to business school (particularly for veterans, international students, and those from underrepresented groups), plus what’s ahead for the future of MBA programs. MBA admissions advice from an admissions insider [Show notes] Previously, Dr. Christie St-John was a guest on our chats as Associate Director of Admissions for Tuck, and more recently on Admissions Straight Talk as director of Vanderbilt Owen’s MBA Recruiting and Admissions. Now, this MBA admissions veteran just joined Accepted as an MBA and Graduate Admissions Consultant. Today, I'm going to speak with her about MBA admissions and graduate admissions in general, as well as specific subgroups, including veterans, international students, and underrepresented groups. I'm also going to get her insight into the impact of COVID and business schools going test-optional. How did you get into Admissions? [2:10] It was one of those peculiar things about who you know and being at the right place at the right time. I was doing my PhD at Vanderbilt and a friend of mine in the Spanish department had been recruited to the business school to run their program that they were doing in Latin America. When she was promoted to do that, she called me and said, "They're looking for somebody to fill my former job with exchange programs, and they want somebody with international experience, and you'd be perfect." And I thought, the business school, really? I was on my way to becoming a university professor of languages. So I went over and talked with them. I convinced them that I knew the difference between Saks Fifth Avenue and Goldman Sachs. I had worked in the business world before I went back to school and in the U.S. and in Europe. It was not like business was a strange thing to me, but I'd never really known this kind of job was available. Had I known, I would've started it years ago because I had only been in the position at Vanderbilt about a week, and the Dean came down to me and said, "Okay, you're going to go to Miami with Lori on Friday, and then you're going to South America for a month." I said, "Okay, let me just dust off my passport and I'll be ready to go.” That was the start of it. It's been the most fun job I've ever had. It’s almost like not really working, although it is; it's tiring, going through all the time zones. There's a lot of work to do, but it's been great because I love getting to know all the students and seeing where they're from and being able to talk to them about, "Yes, I've been to Delhi." "Yes, I've been to Seoul" or wherever it might be. That helps, I think, create a rapport with them. You have a wealth of experience in MBA and grad admissions. How do you feel about moving to the other side of the admissions desk? [4:30] As you know, when I was at Tuck, I invited a lot of the MBA admissions counselors up to visit us, and I got a lot of flack from schools about that: "Oh, how can you invite those people? You can't do business with them." And I said, "You know what? They're providing a service. And if we want them to talk about our schools to people, they need to know about our schools. And that's why I invited them." And I think it was really good, not only for the consultants who came, but it was certainly good for me to understand more about what you were doing out there. It was all a bit vague. “Why do people need help getting their applications done? It's so simple.” But it really isn't.  It's a terribly competitive area, more so now than it used to be when I first was applying to graduate school. It is something I think that's necessary. People don't realize that you really have to stop and think about what you're doing and why you're...
34 minutes | 4 months ago
An International Student’s Experience at Harvard Medical School
Azan Virji discusses his path to Harvard Medical School, and challenges faced by international medical students [Show summary] Med student Azan Virji explores the unique challenges he faced as an international student applying to Harvard Medical School, as well as his mission to mentor students like himself through the organization he founded,  F-1 Doctors. F1-Doctors: A virtual community connecting international medical school applicants with mentors who are current international students [Show notes] Our guest today is Azan Virji. Azan grew up in Tanzania and came to the U.S. as a student at Yale University, where he studied molecular, cellular, and developmental biology and was a Yale Global Health Scholar. He earned his MPH in 2019, also from Yale, and then went on to begin his medical studies at Harvard in 2019. Knowing all too well the difficulties facing international applicants to U.S. medical schools, which were exacerbated by the corona pandemic and visa policy changes, Azan founded F-1 Doctors in May 2020. Its mission is to provide a network of international medical students, dental students, residents, and attendings to international applicants who are struggling to pursue their med school dreams. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? [2:21] I was born in Kenya, which is neighboring Tanzania, but then I grew up in Tanzania because my mom is from Kenya and my dad is from Tanzania. I think of myself as an East African baby, and I went to high school there as well. I spent 18 years of my life there and went to high school in Mwanza, Tanzania. It was a pretty small high school; my graduating class at the end was almost 24 students. In school, I was the person who would always volunteer to do things. I was always really interested in leadership activities and getting leadership experiences. I was what we called the Head Boy at the time. It's based on the British curriculum, where you're basically the link between the students and the faculty. And then I was also a really big theater nerd. I used to do plays regularly and used to sing a lot. On top of all of that, I was really hard working. I wanted to focus on academics and really wanted to do good in school.  Then, I applied to colleges, mostly here in the United States. The reason for that was twofold. I think it's pretty obvious that some of the best institutions of higher learning are here in the United States. Some of the world-class research happens here, and I really wanted to be a part of that environment. But on top of that, I also come from a very low-income background. I'm a first generation, low-income student, and I really needed financial support to attend a place of higher learning. It's something that I couldn't afford on my own. And in the United States, particularly, a lot of colleges here do have a lot of generous financial aid packages that they offer to attract international students from the rest of the world. I got a great financial aid package to attend Yale. That's how I finally found myself, after never having left East Africa, in the US for the very first time, almost six years ago now. It was definitely quite a cultural shock in the beginning, trying to get used to the different way of learning. I think that was really hard for me, particularly when it comes to writing essays in English. That's something I really struggled with when I first came here because the way I was taught to write essays was very different. I found myself struggling a lot when it came to English writing classes, when I got here. The way you phrase your arguments and the way you structure your paragraphs just really got to me.  And I also found myself underestimating the level of intensity of classes. When I came in, I'd already done organic chemistry before, so I thought I'd be fully well-equipped for sophomore organic chemistry. So I joined a sophomore level course, even though there was a freshman level course that was availab...
11 minutes | 4 months ago
How to Address COVID-19 and the Events of 2020 in Your Application
Wondering how to write about the tumultuous events of 2020 in your application essays? [Show summary] Accepted Founder Linda Abraham offers a framework for discussing COVID-19, the events of 2020, and their impact on your life in your undergraduate or graduate program applications. Your application should include information about your experience of and response to COVID-19 and the other events of 2020, whether or not you are explicitly asked for it. [Show Notes] I want to address something that I've been thinking a lot about. I think that my topic is not only of concern to me; I strongly suspect it's of concern to you, too, and something that's on everyone's mind: how to deal with COVID and the tumultuous year 2020. .It's a pretty big topic, isn't it? I'm going to narrow my topic a little bit. I have neither a cure nor a preventive vaccine for the disease. I also don't have cures for the other ills that have struck the world this year. I'm going to suggest how you should address these events in your application, regardless of whether you are applying to undergraduate or graduate programs, or if you're asked about COVID and year 2020 in an essay or in an interview (or in a video interview). How should you address COVID and the other events of 2020 in your application? There's two aspects to the question, to any COVID or 2020 kind of question, or any of the questions that we're dealing with right now. The first part of it is, how have you been affected? And the second one is, how have you responded? In other words, how have you acted to address or alleviate the pain, stress, and suffering of others? How to address COVID-19 in your application [2:37] Let's deal first with COVID, which I think is an overarching theme for this year. There are plenty of lemons with COVID. There're plenty of difficulties. There's plenty of pain. There's plenty of illness, and death. I hope it's not true, but it's quite possible that you or a loved one has had COVID, and maybe you didn't have a light case. Maybe you were sick for several weeks. Maybe you were unemployed or furloughed for all or part of the time since the first shutdown in March. Moving more specifically to admissions, many of you have experienced the inability to take tests when you planned to take them, especially if you were trying to take the MCAT in March, April, May, or most of June. Perhaps you've had planned volunteer activities canceled, or your internships postponed or moved online. Maybe you had classes that you wanted to take for grades to boost your GPA and suddenly, they're pass/fail because that's what happened to a lot of courses in the spring. Maybe you are taking classes online via Zoom when you really would do much better in an in-person, traditional classroom environment. That's certainly happening to tons and tons of people. So there are lemons there. Perhaps you're stagnating at work because of reduced opportunity for advancement and interesting projects. And I think everybody is dealing with loneliness and monotony and the sameness of not going out. I am above the age where I'm not supposed to go into stores and go into public places. But I know many young people, either out of an abundance of caution, concern for their relatives, or their own health conditions, are also limited in where they go. And everybody is more limited than they were a year ago. Is there any lemonade to be made from this? Yes, there actually is. It provides enormous opportunity for community involvement, even with social distancing. What are the opportunities? It can be contact tracing, suicide prevention, an outdoor activity with a youth group that you're very committed to, delivering food to the vulnerable, organizing organizations to reduce food insecurity in a time of high unemployment and homelessness. Any of these activities would show you taking initiative and assuming responsibility in your community or in society for cultural and societal problems...
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