Rejected from medical school. What now?

Before I was admitted at RVUCOM and later, ATSU-SOMA, I experienced the deep sting of rejection from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine. Later in the cycle, I received rejections from Touro-New York and Touro-Nevada. Before my RVUCOM acceptance, the only ‘success’ that I’d had in the cycle was an acceptance to Ross University in Barbados and a waitlist for interview from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Like most pre-meds and non-traditional students, I’ve long dreamed about a career in medicine. After getting that first rejection from AZCOM, I was speaking to a friend of mine and he asked me if I’d thought about other career paths or continuing to try to work towards a tenured faculty role given my rejection from one of my favorite schools. While I know that he was only helping, I dreaded having this conversation because I’ve always known what I wanted to do. My vision has been very clear in this and a career in medicine is the only thing that I could see myself doing that would bring me the maximal amount of career joy.

I remember thinking, in response to my friend, “Is it time to start thinking about other careers? Should I spend another semester in SMP? Did I use a good strategy when I applied? What about my MCAT, do I start studying for it again?” At times, I was overwhelmed as I tried to process what this all meant to me and my future. What I learned is that I was not the only one to feel the sting of rejection and I have also learned that being rejected from medical school does NOT say anything about you as a person or as a student. Odds are, most US and Canadian medical school applicants will be rejected from at least one program and maybe even more. How you handle this rejection will, in part, determine what the future holds for you.

So, how did I recover and move forward?

1. Give yourself time to feel what you need to feel. You are going to be disappointed when you see that rejection email. Guaranteed. Your ego is bruised, you are out of money, and you can’t regain the time spent working on the primary and secondary application. Allow yourself a few days to mope, but don’t start feeling sorry for yourself.
2. As much as I hate to say this, you do have to reevaluate your career options. Sometimes, a lack of desire and motivation manifests itself in your MCAT performance, the quality of your applications, or in your interviews. It is then important to take a step back and consider if your heart is truly all in. The journey to and through medical school is long, arduous, time-consuming, and expensive. There is no shame if you find out that your passion really isn’t really to become a physician. There are many careers in healthcare (or other areas outside of healthcare) that can give you a great living and the ability to make a difference in your community.
3. If you find that you still want to be a physician, you then have to process why you failed. I believe that failures are opportunities for success if you choose to have the courage to confront failure. You should critically review your applications, letters of recommendation, personal statement, grades, secondaries, etc. Call the schools that you were rejected from and ask them how you might improve your application for the next cycle. You don’t want to make the same mistakes in the new cycle so doing a critical appraisal/after action review will be useful to help you put together a winning application in the next cycle.
4. Try not to compare yourself to your peers. We all have our own path to walk and you don’t know the struggles of your peers in their own application process. I’ve also found that at times, people, when things aren’t going as well as they would like, tend to exaggerate their successes and minimize their failures. Thus, my rule has always been to only talk about issues with my applications, grades, etc. with trusted people in my inner circle.
5. Make smart decisions when reapplying. You want to give yourself the best odds of gaining admissions to a school so make sure that you are researching the schools that you wish to apply to. If you previously applied to a program that does not have a strong history of taking out-of-state applicants or older, non-traditional applicants, why would you apply to that school again?
6. Control your destiny. If you need to do a post-bacc, DIY or formal, attend an SMP, take a gap year to obtain more clinical shadowing or volunteer experience, do what you need to do. You aren’t a victim, don’t allow yourself to be a victim to your circumstances. If medicine is what you want, do what you need to do to get there.

I promise you, and there is no easy way to put it, when you see that first rejection email, you are going to be disheartened. It is going to sting. Earning an acceptance to medical school is incredibly hard, even for the stellar students. However, if you know that your destiny is to be a physician, then do not give up. Confront failure and do what you must to bring your dreams to fruition.