Getting Into Med School Isn’t Easy…But This Applicant Did It! [Episode 583]

Show Summary

In this episode of Admissions Straight Talk, host Linda Abraham interviews Yael Bruk, a recent graduate from Binghamton University who was accepted to multiple medical schools. Yael shares her advice for pre-med students, including the importance of taking notes during clinical experiences and writing down meaningful stories to include in applications. She also discusses her own journey straight from college to medical school, including her exploration of different career paths within the healthcare field and her decision to major in biology and philosophy. Yael emphasizes the importance of staying organized during the application process. She also offers tips for preparing for medical school interviews, such as reviewing common interview questions and taking a moment to think before answering difficult questions.

Show Notes

Thanks for joining me for this, the 583rd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s med school admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/medquiz, complete the quiz and you’ll not only get an assessment but tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it’s all free.

Our guest today, Yael Bruk, recently graduated from Binghamton University earning the university’s highest award, the Chancellor Award for Student Excellence. At Binghamton she double majored in biological sciences and philosophy and was on the pre-medical track. Beyond this bare bones background, I’m going to let Yael tell her story.

Yael, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [1:57]

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

It’s a pleasure to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, where you grew up, et cetera? [2:02]

Sure. So I actually grew up in Postville, Iowa where we didn’t have such great access to medicine or education. So my family finally moved to the East Coast when I was in middle school. I was very far behind my peers and found myself really struggling in school, but wanting to learn more and wanting to do well in school. So I pushed myself really hard, and thankfully I was able to catch up to my peers, and by the time I was in high school, I was excelling in school, loved learning. And then in college I just decided that I really liked the sciences, and then I wanted to explore different career paths that are offered by the sciences. So I did a lot of research. I shadowed doctors and midwives and nurses, PAs until I found what really struck me as what I want to do, and I found that I loved the role that doctors play in the healthcare team. So that’s the path that I chose to follow.

What were some of the things you did as you were exploring? [3:05]

I worked in a lab doing cancer research. So we would actually do specialized research for each individual patient’s unique situation with cancer that they had. And I loved that experience. I thought it was so meaningful that we really paid attention to the unique story of each person, but I found myself more interested in the story of the person and in the personality, I guess, than the sample that we got. And I felt so far removed from the person that we were helping that I found that maybe a clinical setting would be better. So then during COVID is when I started doing COVID testing and getting more into clinical type of work.

It sounds like your exploration probably started either at the very beginning of college or even before college? [3:49]

Right.

As COVID moved off center stage and clinical opportunities opened up, it went beyond I assume, COVID vaccine clinics. How else did you explore PA? [3:58]

I did COVID testing for the healthcare clinic that I was in, I also did COVID testing on campus, and then once COVID died down a little bit, I was able to switch to do any department I wanted. And usually people just pick a department and stick there because it’s easier to do that than having to train all the time. But I found that I was there not just to work, I was there to find what I wanted to do with my life. So I started shadowing and working in all different departments from podiatry to cardiology, endocrinology, ENT, acute care. I did some specialties like maternal fetal medicine. I did rheumatology, and I found that there were some that I really enjoyed and some that I really did not like. And in each department I really tried to talk to all the nurses there, to talk to the different kinds of providers that were there to get their story and what they liked and disliked about their own careers.

It sounds like you went at it very purposefully and that was a great idea. Did you do any journaling? I’m just curious, as you were exploring, did you take notes? [5:12]

For sure, and I recommend this to every person I meet who’s a pre-med. When you’re doing your clinicals, whether it be through being an EMT or a medical assistant, however you do it, take notes of things that really stand out to you, good and bad. Write down the stories of things that you encounter that really change the way you think about the world or about healthcare, because not only will that be helpful for you as you continue in your studies, but it’s also really helpful for when you’re writing your application. Tou have good stories to share and you have a genuine, meaningful and unique story.

I’m applauding. That is so important, and it’ll so help the applicant when they actually get to the primary and secondary applications. You’ll have this treasure chest of stories that you can draw from with your initial reactions to it and then enthusiasm whether positive or negative towards however that experience changed you and affected you. [5:51]

For sure.

Why did you major in biology and philosophy? It’s not the typical combination. [6:20]

Originally I wanted to go into college just majoring in philosophy because while I really enjoyed the sciences, I found that I would probably do grad school, either a PhD or medical school or some other kind of healthcare job. So I knew eventually I’ll learn the sciences, but I knew I was never going to go to school for philosophy for a higher degree. So I really wanted to challenge myself to think critically and deeply about everything to become a better writer and to really think about medical ethics and research ethics. So I found that doing a philosophy degree really helped me with all of those things and more. And then as I was doing my pre-med requirements, I realized I only needed a few more to get a biology degree, so that’s just why I added that one.

I always thought maybe I’ll minor in biology because the minor was pretty much covered by the pre-med requirements, but then as I was doing it, I was like, “Okay, I should just add it.”

Do you have a specific direction that you think you’d like to pursue? Obviously, you’re going to be learning a lot before you have to focus, but any direction at this point? [7:36]

I guess when I was shadowing and working in different departments, one of the things that I wanted to figure out was which direction I wanted to go in. I found that I really, really loved OBGYN. I just love how I can help people in such a vulnerable position who are willing to be helped and who are willing to listen to you and are willing to help themselves also. That’s something that I didn’t find in other departments. But I also really liked pediatric cardiology, so we’ll see. I’m open to just trying everything, but having those two in the back of my mind as like, those are really fun and interesting, we should keep those there.

You’ve decided to go straight from undergrad to medical school. A, that’s difficult. B, it’s somewhat counter to the trend that I’ve seen in medical schools, not just me. I was talking to one medical admissions director and he said how, I think, in the last 10 years, the average age of medical students has gone up two years for matriculants. Is there any particular reason you’ve decided to do it this way? [8:24]

To be honest, I didn’t really think of it much as a decision. I thought, I’ll apply this cycle if, like many others, I don’t get accepted this cycle, I’ll take a gap year and I’ll learn from the past cycle, figure out what I need to fix so that if I have to take a gap year, it’s only one because I didn’t really want to take two gap years or more. So I figured I’ll leave it up to them. I feel ready, but if they feel that I’m not ready, I’ll take a gap year and that’s fine. I would find a job or some research to do. Taking a gap year really is an incredible opportunity, and if someone feels like they need the break, I think it’s very important to take it. But I felt like I didn’t need the break, and I also wanted the experience of applying and getting insight on my application before taking a gap year and redoing the application.

You mentioned that you did the COVID vaccine clinics. Were there other ways in which COVID affected your med school plans, especially since you started college in 2020, at the height of COVID. [9:54]

I didn’t do COVID vaccines because as an MA I wasn’t allowed to do vaccines, I just did COVID testing. I think it affected my plans for medicine by giving me the ability to have exposure to healthcare and clinical hours while everything was shut down. It also gave me the opportunity to give back to my community, to be able to help out the healthcare center that’s near my house when they were so understaffed because everyone was getting COVID. I was able to come in and say, “Hey, I’m on break right now for a few days,” or for winter break, “I can come in 12 hours a day, go home, and my mom will make me dinner. I have nothing on my plate. I’m happy to come and do as many hours as you need. If I get COVID, I’ll stay home for the next week,” or however long it was at that point in time.

It also affected things negatively, I think. Starting off my freshman year fully online was really hard. I was doing research, so I got to go in person for that. But my classes being online was really difficult because I just didn’t really have a good support system going into college. Being a first-generation American, my parents couldn’t really help me, so I had no idea what I was doing and no one to help me because I wasn’t meeting people in my classes by sitting next to them. I wasn’t meeting my professors. I didn’t even think my professors were approachable. So I think that really affected my confidence in myself in my freshman year. But then once I got to sophomore year, junior year and things were in person and I got to meet people and meet my professors and make good connections and find a support system, I found that my confidence grew a lot more and I felt much more able to tackle the medical school route.

Did your grades take a hit in your freshman year? [11:57]

Definitely, yeah.

Linda Abraham:

That’s very common.

Your LinkedIn profile shows that you were involved in advocacy, you volunteered in a food pantry, you did some graphic design work, and you also worked as a medical assistant when possible, which is probably what we were just discussing. And despite it all, you were very, very busy. You also managed to earn a GPA and MCAT score that somehow allowed you to get accepted to multiple programs. How did you manage the juggling? [12:02]

I really like that question because when I decided I wanted to do pre-med, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m not going to be able to juggle all these things. I need hundreds of hours and community service, research, leadership, volunteering, clinical hours.” It seems unapproachable. But I realized no one has more time than anyone else, everyone’s given the same 24 hours in a day, and you can choose what you want to do with them. For the weekends, I could choose to sleep and to rest, or I could choose to go work in a food pantry for just a few hours, really. And if you just do a few hours every weekend over let’s say two years, you’ll have hundreds of hours by the end. So it’s more of playing the long game and trying to get a few hours every break you have than trying to do hundreds of hours in a semester and burn yourself out.

I guess figured out that the semester, during the semester time, I have to focus on my GPA and research and I guess also leadership positions. And then during breaks would be when I focus on volunteering and community service, and clinical hours, of course, so that things were much more balanced, and I was able to tell myself, “Okay, during this break, I’m not getting any research done, but that’s okay because I’m getting clinical hours done, I’ll get research done during the semester.” So breaking things up like that also allows yourself to just be kinder to yourself about how you’re using your time and know that you’re covered. You got yourself covered.

What was the hardest part of the application process for you? [14:26]

I think trying to figure out how to tell my story was very hard. I have a lot of aspects of my life that I think are interesting or that I think are boring, but other people find interesting. So-

Your LinkedIn profile is very interesting. [14:43]

Thank you. But for me, it seems like, I’m sure to everyone, your life seems so normal to you. It seems so average. So it was hard to find, okay, which parts of my story are unique? How did they translate into my journey to healthcare and how do I put that down on paper in a way that’s interesting. So I found that to be really challenging.

How did you handle the challenge? [15:09]

Accepted really helped me out with that. Yeah, it was mostly you guys, but it was also just talking to friends and asking them, “Hey, if you were to describe my life in only the interesting events that you know about, how would you describe it?” And just seeing what their brains hold onto and stick to from the story of my life shows. Okay, these are the meaningful, interesting things that are unique that will stick with an admissions committee member who’s reading the essay.

What were some of the activities that your friends or your consultant at Accepted said you should focus on? Do you know how they determined that? What was the reasoning they gave? What were some of the things that you found consistently coming up? [15:47]

That’s a good question. It’s interesting because a lot of the things that consistently came up were things that I consistently thought were boring. So things like speaking a few languages or being the daughter of immigrants or coming from a low educational background, or even talking about Iowa to me is so boring compared to New York, but other people are interested in hearing about it. I think those aspects of my application were almost normal to me and boring, but other people helped me realize how meaningful they truly are.

How many schools did you end up applying to? [16:56]

I applied to 31 schools.

That’s not so unusual. How many secondaries did you end up submitting? [17:01]

All 31.

How did you stay on top of the secondaries? They usually come all at once. By the time the show airs, a lot of people are going to be drowning in secondaries. [17:09]

I actually kept a Google Sheet of all the dates. So I put in primary application submitted, application verified, and then date secondary received, and I put that for every single school, and then the next column was due by, so then I put down the date of two weeks from the day that my secondary was received, and then the next column and then the next column was the secondary status or submission date, meaning it’s in progress, it didn’t start yet, forming ideas, just writing notes to myself about what the secondary looks like, how bad we’re looking, how good it’s going.

And then the next column was actually very helpful. I wrote, “Questions to use later.” So questions that are going to come up again and again. For example, “Why medicine? Tell us about what you did during COVID. What’s your proudest accomplishment? Describe yourself. Why us? What support did you have?” All these questions come up again and again. So I had in a column, “Hey, this school asked this, I just wrote a good essay about COVID reuse this one, don’t write another COVID one.” And then I just sorted the sheet by the do by date so that I would go from the one that’s closest to being due to the one that I have more time for. And I would just go through and do the best that I can to answer the questions. And just note to yourself that the ad comms care a lot about secondaries, but they care even more about primaries. So of course your personal statement is going to be much better than your secondary essay, and that’s fine. That is how it’s going to be, you have two weeks to write the secondary.

I think you gave some great suggestions in terms of the secondary. Did you ever copy and paste essays from one school together or did you usually tweak them and adapt them? [19:14]

I think it’s kind of hard, unfortunately, to copy and paste because every school has different word counts or character counts, but there were some sentences that I think I used in every single school. I think what was really helpful with the questions to use later is even if the next school, let’s say, that asks about COVID, gives you significantly fewer characters, at least you have an idea to work off of. You have sentences you can borrow. So I would say, yeah, I recommend copy and pasting. It’s totally fine.

Well, I would say copy and pasting sentences is fine, I wouldn’t copy and paste the whole essay because as you say, the character counts are different. Sometimes the focus of a question can be a little bit different. [19:53]

That’s true, yeah.

How many schools did you interview at? [20:18]

I interviewed at four schools.

How did you prepare for your interviews? [20:25]

One of the biggest tips that I got for preparing was to go on the Student Doctor Network page for a school’s interviews and there you’ll find just lists and lists of the questions that the school asks, and 9 times out of 10, it was all picked from those lists. I was thankfully surprised in an interview by questions they ask me unless they were more personal questions, in which case it shouldn’t really be surprising anyway. But yeah, that was so, so helpful. And then just looking through those questions, being able to answer them but not have a robotic answer to them. Don’t write yourself a script, just have something in mind and say it straight out clearly. And then also while you’re on that student doctor network page, check how comfortable people felt during the interview because chances are they felt really comfortable. That’s what I experienced in looking at the SDN pages of all the schools I applied to, and knowing that I’m going to walk into it in a conversational manner and knowing that it’s going to be professional, but easy is a really nice thing to know going in.

Is there anything you would do differently in terms of your application process? [21:37]

Good question. I think I would, and I don’t know how to do this, so if I figure it out one day, I’ll do that. I think I would try to be a little bit less worried. I put out my story, and if they don’t like it, that’s fine, but if they do, they’ll reach out to me when it’s time for them to reach out to me, they’ll get to my application when they get to it. It doesn’t matter if they got to everyone else’s applications first because they’ll get to you when they get to you.

And I remember every time I got a notification on my phone, even if it was an email, I would jump because I was like, “Oh my gosh, what if it’s an interview invite? What if it’s another rejection?” And just to be able to tell myself, whatever will happen will happen, whether it’s today in an hour, tomorrow, it’s fine if you get an email and miss it for a day, nothing’s going to happen. So to just be a little bit more relaxed about the process and know that you put your best foot forward and it’s time to just show yourself off to the admissions committees.

How many schools were you accepted at and did you apply to both MD and DO or just MD? [23:08]

I applied MD and DO. I applied to six DO schools. I was accepted at three schools and waitlisted on one. I ended up withdrawing from that wait list. So who knows?

Do you mind saying where you’re accepted? [23:27]

I was first accepted at Buffalo, Upstate New York. I loved the school, it was gorgeous, but I didn’t really like the location. It was in the middle of nowhere, but a gorgeous school. It was so nice. And then I was accepted at TouroCOM in Harlem, which had a much better location, but I found that what I wanted from a school didn’t really align with Touro, and I didn’t know how safe I would feel being in Harlem. So I was kind of balancing those two. And then I was also accepted at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson, which I fell in love with automatically, and I think they could really see how intensely happy I was with what the school has to offer during my interviews and in my secondaries. So I think that’s what sold it. And then I was waitlisted at NYITCOM.

What are your plans for between now and the start of medical school? [24:24]

Mostly just relaxing, taking it easy, trying to take a deep breath and figure out what works best for me when I’m trying to do self-care or to take a break from studying, take a break from working. I haven’t really taken a break in four years, so it’s really good to take a break and to figure out for myself what I really enjoy doing when I’m taking a break, like cooking or crocheting or painting. So I want to do that. I’m also planning to travel a little bit, mostly just chill.

Any last bits of advice for pre-meds? We didn’t touch on the MCAT at all. Were you satisfied with your MCAT score? Was it a problem? You were juggling a lot. [25:05]

Actually for the MCAT, I was actually really unhappy with my score. I thought that I would have to take a gap year because of it. I was told that it was not a strong score, but I felt that I had a strong story to tell. I had a strong GPA. I have a good reason why my MCAT isn’t good, as many, many people fairly do. It’s a really hard exam, and if you don’t have all the free time and money in the world, it’s going to be very, very challenging.

So I found myself thinking about when I should start studying for the MCAT again, and if I were to retake it, when I would retake it so that I can reapply. And so I had that calendar always in the back of my mind, and I knew if I didn’t get accepted this cycle, that would be my calendar. And unfortunately, I really did have to start studying before I heard back from schools, because if I wanted to take it by the time the next cycle were to start, I’d have to take it early. Thankfully, I did hear back. I got accepted, as I said to Buffalo first. So once that came through, I was like, “Okay, I’m not taking the MCAT again.” It was nice to see from Buffalo, at least at first, that your MCAT score matters, but if you have a passion and a story that can come through and good grades and good clinical hours in research, you can really make up for it.

I worked with Barry. He was awesome. Really incredibly amazing. I don’t know how he did it, I would tell him my story and he would just make it sound interesting to me as if he was there more than I was.

When I was more actively involved in consulting, many times I’d be talking to clients and they would basically say, “That’s not so interesting.” And I’d say, “What are you talking about? “You have this thread running through your experiences, it ties them together. [27:14]

For sure. It was nice, even personally, to be able to tell my story in a new way that wasn’t even boring to me. Not even for the application cycle, just for myself, it was really nice to have that experience.

And I’m sure it also increased your confidence and reduced the nerves and all that good stuff. [28:14]

For sure. No question.

What do you wish I would’ve asked you or any last bits of wisdom for medical school applicants? [28:24]

I guess I could kind of combine both into one answer. I think a good question to ask people who were accepted at med school, if you’re applying right now, is asking them what interview questions threw you off? Even though you can read the student doctor network reviews and questions, sometimes you’ll just get a question that you’re like, “Wow, you made this up today to stump me.” And I think when that happens it’s important that you know that the person interviewing you knows that it’s a hard question. So if you just start babbling because you have nothing to say, they know. So take a moment, say, “Wow, that was a really good question,” and just take a moment to think about it, to show that even if you don’t have an answer that immediately pops into your mind, think about it for a moment. Give yourself a minute to say, “I’m stumped.” That’s okay, let’s think about it. Think about a good story to tell, a good experience that you have that relates to what you learned from it.

So I’ll give an example. One of the schools asked me what the most challenging paper I had to write in undergrad was. And I know if I’d only done my biology degree and not philosophy, I would’ve been stumped. I don’t know. Maybe I took a writing class in freshman year and had to write about something, there’s nothing interesting. But you can think about some unique thing about yourself or the process, so you could talk about a research paper that you did, or I talked about the philosophy paper that I wrote for my honors’ thesis, and they really liked that. They liked that I had an example of something that wasn’t just, “I had to be in a writing class and I had to write a paper about this. I didn’t write anything else in college.”

I think the key piece of advice is if you have a question, and this is by the way, I think in any situation and you’re not sure of the answer, you can just say, “Let me think about that for a second.” It’s one hundred percent okay. [30:18]

And it shows the interviewer a genuine interest of yours in answering their question and in thinking about it and contemplating it.

Wonderful advice. Where can listeners learn more about you if they want to reach out to you, if they want to contact you? [30:53]

They can reach me on my LinkedIn.

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