Senior Year: If Only Every Year Could Be Like This....

Ah the last year of college. I went on four med school interviews before school began, and had more interspersed throughout the first semester. By this point I had pretty much finished all the core curriculum requirements for TCU, freeing up my schedule to take any classes I was interested in. Even though it was my last year of college, I didn’t want to get lazy. I decided to take a fairly loaded semester: Neuroscience, Immunology, Biochemistry, Psychopharmacology, Italian 3, and a seminar called The Practice of Medicine. Neuroscience and Immunology ended up becoming two of my favorite classes at TCU, taught by exceptional professors who really piqued my interest in these subjects. Italian seems like the odd one of the group, but I’d taken it both semesters of Junior year and really enjoyed the class, so I decided to stick with it through Senior year to really try and gain some conversational skill (being able to speak Spanish made Italian easier to learn).

The seminar called The Practice of Medicine was taught by a general surgeon from UNT-Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Each week he arranged for different speakers to come talk to the class and field any questions we had. Current medical students and residents came and offered advice about applying and getting accepted, and discussed what medical school and residency programs are really like. Practicing physicians of different specialties illustrated the pros and cons of private practice versus group practice. Pharmaceutical representatives addressed the employment and consulting opportunities available to physicians outside of a clinic or hospital. We even had a few politicians, including the former Secretary of State of Texas, speak to us about how the PPACA is projected to change healthcare in America, and why it’s crucial for us as future doctors to understand its implications. This was a superb course, really opening my eyes to certain issues that I hadn’t even considered before. I finished this semester with a 4.0 and sent these updated grades (which had now raised my overall GPA to a 3.81) to all the medical schools where I interviewed.

During winter break I took a trip to Dubai and Pakistan. I have family in Dubai, and it was great to spend time with my cousins while exploring the metropolitan masterpiece that Dubai has become. Massive skyscrapers, indoor ski slopes, man-made islands in the shape of palm trees...quite the luxurious city. Pakistan was a great experience as well, but far different than the Emirate. It's a country stuck in the continued downward spiral of political corruption and economic collapse, which is sad because it has an exceptional amount of natural beauty to offer: snow-topped mountains of the Himalayas, lush jungles, and rugged plains, all of which are seldom visited in light of the lack of security. But seeing my relatives and enjoying the authentic feel of the motherland was more than worth it (plus the food in Lahore is the best in the world). A fantastic trip before starting my last semester as an undergrad.

In regards to medical school applications, Texas public med schools participate in what is called the “Match” (similar to the Residency Match). Rather than individually informing you of acceptance or rejection and giving a deadline to respond like with college acceptances, the process is slightly more confusing. The Texas public schools numerically rank every student who interviewed based on how much they would like that student to attend their school. The applicants never know where they stand on these lists, and it’s honestly impossible to guess. The medical schools send their ranked lists to TMDSAS (remember that application service?) which actually does the “Matching”. From the applicants’ side, we also have to rank all the Texas public schools that we interviewed at. This rank list also goes to TMDSAS, usually by early January. TMDSAS then sorts through the rank lists of the medical schools and all applicants, “matching” applicants with the school highest on his/her list that also placed them relatively high on their list (for the nerds in the audience with an interest in Game Theory, this match system is based on the "Stable Marriage Problem").

If that seems confusing, let me give you an example: let’s say you interviewed at UT Southwestern, El Paso, and UT Houston. You will rank these from 1 – 3 based on personal preference and submit this to TMDSAS. You decide you liked UT Houston the best, so you put that as 1. You thought UT Southwestern was pretty cool too, so that goes at number 2. And you rank El Paso at number 3. After submitting your list, you wait until the first week of February for the Match results to find out where you Matched. For our little scenario, let’s say you matched into UT Southwestern, number 2 on your list. Now this is where it gets a little tricky. From this point on, you are AUTOMATICALLY WITHDRAWN from any school ranked below this on your list, in this case El Paso. You are also automatically placed on the WAITLIST of every school ranked higher, in this case UT Houston. And from this time in early February until May, the match list and waitlists at different schools keep moving, based on applicants deciding on one school over the other, taking acceptances at out-of-state schools, dropping out, etc. So again for our example, you will have a guaranteed spot at UT Southwestern, and can only move up on your list. If a waitlist spot becomes available, you’ll end up at UT Houston. If not, you’ll be going to UT Southwestern. It is important to realize that once the Match happens, you CANNOT change your list. If you decide later that you are happy with UT Southwestern and don’t want to go to UT Houston, you MUST inform UT Houston and TMDSAS in writing that you are withdrawing from UT Houston and will maintain your spot at UT Southwestern. If you do not inform them, you may be moved to UT Houston if a waitlist spot becomes available (the TMDSAS doesn’t ask you if you’d like to accept a newly opened spot, they just switch you automatically). So really make up your mind. Visit the schools a second time, talk to current students, do whatever you need to do to figure out where you want to go.

So that’s the Match in a nutshell. But for those applying to the Texas public medical schools, there’s also something called the “Pre-Match”. To draw a parallel with college admissions, it’s most similar to an “early acceptance” offer. It occurs sometime between October – November (depending on whether or not you are a Texas resident), and basically you may be offered a spot by one or more school. You can choose to accept or decline these offers, and can only hold one Pre-Match offer going into the Match.

If for instance you interview at all the Texas public schools and were offered a Pre-Match by UT San Antonio and Texas Tech, you'll have to pick one of those offers before going into the Match itself. Let’s say you liked Texas Tech better and picked that. And if UTMB (Galveston) happens to be your first choice, you’d rank that as number 1 in the Match, and if Texas Tech is your second choice, you’d put that as number 2. And since you already pre-matched into Texas Tech, it honestly doesn’t even matter now what rank you give the rest of the schools, because you cannot be accepted to a school lower on your list than the one you pre-matched into. Therefore, you know that you will either Match into Texas Tech or UTMB. That’s what the Pre-Match does: guarantee you a spot if you accept that offer. It is not binding, so you don’t have to go to a school just because you accepted their pre-match offer.  Now if you find yourself lucky enough to be offered a pre-match by your number 1 choice school, awesome! No need to worry at all, just rank that as number 1 in the Match and you’re set!

And just to dissuade anxiety, some people may get a lot of pre-match offers while others may get only 1 or none at all. Regardless of how many pre-match offers you get, you can still end up matching somewhere, so don’t feel discouraged.

I personally am not a big fan of the whole Match and Pre-Match process. It complicates things and basically assigns you into one school or the other based on a set of ranked lists. But alas this is the method you have to go through for Texas public medical schools, and in fact Residency programs have a similar Match process when you get to that stage. So it’s best to get used to it now. If you're not applying to the Texas public schools through TMDSAS, you can happily ignore everything about this pre-match/match stuff (until Residency time).

I pre-matched at UNT-Health Science Center (TCOM) and Texas Tech, and decided to decline TCOM’s offer and accept Texas Tech’s offer going into the Match. This was relieving because I at least knew that I was guaranteed a spot in med school. Of the nine medical schools in Texas at the time, I interviewed at 8 of them (all except Paul Foster in El Paso), and interestingly enough in early February I also Matched into Texas Tech. I really liked Texas Tech and was excited about the prospect of starting medical school soon; however, I must be perfectly honest and say that my heart was wholly set on Baylor College of Medicine ever since my interview day in Houston. Since BCM doesn't participate in the match, for the remainder of my last semester of college I waited in suspense of whether or not I would be accepted.

But suspense aside, that last semester was awesome. TCU had really become my home for four years, and I knew I would miss that beautiful campus in the heart of Fort Worth. I owe that place some of the best friends and memories I’ve ever had, and look back on my four undergraduate years with fond nostalgia. Even though college is so much more than just academia, we have to recognize that every university is first and foremost centered on education. And this is possible only because of the devotion of the professors, the men and women who provide us with the greatest gift of all: the gift of knowledge. A famous quote I’m sure we’ve all heard states that “knowledge is power”. But I feel it is more accurate to say that “knowledge is empowerment”, empowering us to use what we’ve learned, to take the sum of our education and really do something tangible, something meaningful with it. At least that’s what I found myself thinking for a few brief moments while sitting in my purple cap and gown amongst my peers, waiting for my name to be announced at my graduation from Texas Christian University on May 12, 2012.

Graduating is a truly remarkable feeling. Whether you’re the first in your family to receive your diploma, or you come from a long line of graduates amongst whom having a degree is simply expected, you can’t help but feel happy and proud of your accomplishment. You feel ready to journey into the world and take the next steps in life.  For me, these next steps were preparing to start medical school. The days leading up to and directly after graduation were absolutely crazy, with everyone laughing and partying and getting in that one last “hoorah!” And life really can be crazy sometimes, because three days after graduation while eating breakfast with my mom and brother, I received the long awaited phone call from Dr. Greenberg, welcoming me to the Baylor family.

So that’s my journey through college to medical school acceptance! As I’ve stated before, I want this to be of utmost use to anyone seeking help or guidance, and that’s why I’ve included pretty much everything from this period that may somehow be relevant to getting accepted. I wish you all the best of luck, and if you have any questions at all, let me know!

To continue reading about the next phase of my journey, through medical school leading to Orthopaedic Surgery Residency at the University of South Florida – Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, click here!

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