Do You See L.A. Brewing in My Tea Leaves?

Yes, I am capable of worse puns...like: have you ever seen a bear bruin tea?

From Newspaper to Med School buddies!

My usual morning. Snoozed my PTX song alarm a few too many times. Forgot the important letter I needed to send today on the kitchen counter, dashed back to get it, but then missed the 9:20am Metro train. Of course, Metro trains start taking their leisurely time after 9:30am, so I tried to sneak into lab from the backdoor. Got caught by the post-doc sitting next to me anyways.

Who, by the way, asked me something that I am itching to tell him to never say to his daughter during her teenage years in the future. Though he honestly meant well. He was just trying to point out how tired I looked.

True, the past few weeks, months, and probably entire year, have been a strenuous ride. That will go without saying for anyone applying to medical school. The whole process is like the college Common App on steroids. You need a lot more grit and some lofty numbers to hold your ground. In the primary application, you hack away at a personal statement and then pick the schools you want to apply to, no problemo. When each school sends its secondary application, which includes an outstretched palm often asking for >$100 and a flood of mini-essays (especially for MD/PhD programs), you might feel like you're drowning. Once I am brave enough to reread them, I actually do want to drown myself in the Potomac river that I renamed the "Pontomac," and for issuing a new government program called "Medicard."

Then there's dreaded silence. I often couldn't focus on my work because of the fear that I would hear silence forever. One by one, precious interview emails start trickling in like rain in a desert.

First interview. I have to dress like I'm going to a funeral but smile until my cheeks hurt. Walk from office to office until my flats or heels drag like sodden clogs, and fervently nod my head because of how fascinating a professor's research sounds, when really it's putting me to sleep. My body is sore and stiff from constantly feeling evaluated by eyes I can or cannot see. Repeat several times over the span of 4-5 months.

The silence returns. I have nightmares about the MCAT. I wonder if silence is better than rejection. I wonder if silence is rejection. And for several schools, it is. They just don't get back to you... or maybe I just forgot to submit my secondary properly?

With so many outstanding applicants, medical schools are bound to reject students who were plenty qualified. But it still hurts. And is really confounding sometimes. I'm frustrated by the number of crosses on my list of applied/interviewed schools. No circles yet, and I'm already down to 3 schools out of a dozen...

Rejections from dream schools, safety schools, random schools... they make me question my worth, my intelligence, my conversation skills. I begin to doubt the amount of sweat, tears, and mouse blood I have shed for the sake of my passion to slave away at medicine and research for 15+ years.

While reflecting, I realized that the uncertainty I felt was something new to me as a premed, who has followed a clear curriculum and specific goals for 5 years, but was familiar to my peers looking for a post-grad job. I had been looking at medical school as an end-goal, as if once I got in everything in my life would be set. When really, this process was preparing me for the sort of challenges I would experience after graduating from graduate school in another 8 years from now.

The moment I stopped looking at my life as a check-list, something wonderful fell into my lap. Two acceptances to two schools where I felt most at home, and wait-listed at my dream medical school. I felt a burden being lifted from my shoulders, it was amazing.

And that's when a new dilemma arose. By April 30th, I could only have one of those beautiful, glittering schools on my plate, but I sincerely wished I could go to all three. Two schools invited me to return. They wined and dined me from daybreak to twilight. I have never felt so important in my life. I have never met so many inspiring professors and fun and intelligent peers as I have in the past two weeks.

I passed up Stanford, my dream medical school, for the security of the MD/PhD program, but now I was left with the very same two schools I had battled between for undergraduate school: The University of Chicago (the school I fell in love with at first sight and continue to love dearly) and UCLA (which is over an hour away from where my family lives). I knew I would be happy and sharpen a successful career at either. Agonized, I tore up my hair (literally) while trying to choose one.

The letter I forgot, dashed back for, and finally mailed out this morning, was sent to UChicago. It was the more difficult letter to send. In the afternoon, I quickly wrote a much more joyful letter to UCLA. Of course, I managed to spill chamomile tea all over it as I rushed to the mailbox right before the mailman arrived... All I can say is, I have decided where I will be the happiest and that decision better not change for another 8 years!

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be." — Abraham Lincoln