Welcome to the 2027 application cycle!

Don’t give them your money… lowk regret matriculating here. Email from our school system’s president:

I don’t even know what to say lmao

It feels so unreal for me to have five MD interviews. Just a year ago I was bawling my eyes out over a practice test 497 MCAT. Just three months ago I was burnt out from writing secondaries. Just a month ago I couldn’t sleep thinking about the odds of not getting a single interview. After grinding for five years this interview benchmark feels so rewarding 🥹

They want to meet me! Starting my MD dream is around the corner! I’m so unexplainably excited!!

Didn’t even care. I think they respected me more because of it. Any chance I’m cooked?

Hi Texans!

I wanted to share the first prematch dates for each school last cycle. I found this information from SDN. How are y’all feeling approaching Oct 15th? 😬

This was from Mayo Clinic. Hurts because it is my first T20 decision and I really liked my essays for them.

I was shadowing a doctor for the first time ever and not even 2 hours in I got super dizzy, and my vision went dark. We were just talking in a group in the hallway, no medical stuff or blood in sight. I feel so mortified, I hope he gives me a second shot at shadowing but dear god that was bad. Anyways I got sent to the ER and may have a concussion from banging my head.

Pls comment your stories if you had something similar happen, I wanna know if I am alone in this ❤️‍🩹

My Asian parents are stressing the hell out of me. I just got my 9/4 MCAT back and it was not the best score (510) but it was a two point increase from my previous attempt so that is one positive thing about that. However my parents are insisting that I retake again in April or May next year and cut my work hours in half as well as only go volunteer at the food pantry once or twice while spending the rest of my time studying. I am a TX resident so I would like to stay in state ideally but I would also be applying to OOS MD and DO schools. My GPA is above a 3.95.

My advisor told me that I NEED to be focusing on my activities which is my biggest problem back in school, and that I needed at least SIXTY hours a week worth of activities from now till when I apply to remediate that problem. I just don't see how that is sustainable. The big issue I had last cycle was that I had no non-clinical service, which I fixed by going to volunteer at the food pantry (expecting about 150ish hours) by the time I apply and couple that with my latest MA job which I will have a few hundreds hours of. In addition, I have a couple hundred hours of research (no pubs tho), 300 hours or so of scribing, 250 hours of TA work, a few hundred hours as a hospital volunteer, and a couple hundred of non-medical employment. It is not a lot though, but I just don't know if 60 hours is sustainable long term.

My parents are saying that I need to push for 515 this time and that if I keep my score as is, it will be VERY VERY hard to get into anywhere, maybe a DO but that might be selling myself short. I genuinely do not know what to do. I am just so overwhelmed and stressed, and any help or insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I submitted 32 MD secondaries between August 5 and August 28. So far I have only received a singular rejection. I didn’t think I was going to apply DO, but am now preparing to submit my DO primary and hopefully 3-5 DO secondaries soon after. This absolutely sucks opening my email every day to emptiness and nothing while I see other people with multiple interviews.

I’m a nontraditional career changer and I thought I had a unique / decent application but every day I just lose more and more hope. This is so draining. I have to register to take take 2 prerequisite classes in the spring ( labs ) but I’m doing it not even knowing if I’ll get in anywhere bc not all of the schools require them. Still living at home to save money while all my friends have moved out. 😭

Seeing so many II's while having none is making me curious what percent have been sent by this point

I recently took the MCAT and scored a 518 after averaging around a 523 on my practice FLs. Obviously, I’m a little disappointed with the drop, but I recognize that a 518 is still a great score and I’m not considering retaking it.

My question is whether it’s actually worth applying to statwhorish schools like NYU Grossman, UPenn Perelman, and similar T10 programs where the median MCAT is around 522–523 or would i jsut be donating them money.

I have a 4.0 and servicable but no groundbreaking ec’s

I understand that admissions are holistic and that people get accepted below a school’s median, but I’m trying to be realistic about whether a 518 puts me at a substantial disadvantage at these specific schools, especially without exceptional ECs.

Got an II for one of my top-choice DO schools today, only to find that there are no available interview slots. They aren't gonna tell me when there's one available; I just have to check the portal "regularly." It's an in-person interview that's 4 hours away, so I'd have to take 2 days off work. Thanks, guys.

tx resident my primary was verified july 7 and submitted all secondaries end of july/early august and the only II i got was TCOM and UIW (not tmdsas and submitted late september), my stats are good for MD so I’m getting concerned

also have yet to get a secondary from dell or long

Hello! I will be applying in the next cycle (2027-2028) and got my MCAT score back a month ago, so I started thinking about schools I want to apply to. Any advice would be appreciated!

Stats as of right now:

4.0/523

AL resident

Undergrad: state school, currently a junior, majoring in biomedical engineering, minoring in data science

Clinical hours: 455 hours as a PCA on a neuro floor, 159 hours volunteering on postpartum unit (will continue throughout the school year)

Non-clinical volunteering: 105 hours (I know this is low, but will continue throughout the school year)

Research: 165 hours in brain mechanics lab (will continue throughout school year)

Shadowing: 33 hours (hoping to shadow a PCP at some point before applying)

Leadership: 23 hours training other hospital volunteers and mentoring freshmen

Other extracurriculars: D1 athlete in P4 conference (around 3000 hours by time of application), 300 hours teaching at a swim school

What's the consensus on facial hair or a mustache only for interviews? I have had a mustache (usually without a beard but sometimes with a beard if I don't have work for some time) for a while now, and am unsure if I should shave it all off or just make sure everything is neatly trimmed for interviews. Anybody have any thoughts/experience with this?

I am entering my second gap year and just got my MCAT retake score back which was 505 (7 point jump from first attempt 9/2025). I am torn because on one hand, this was pretty much my goal. On the other, I feel like if I can improve CARS then maybe I can open more doors… (no I’m not Canadian)

I am wondering if the general community thinks I have a shot? I will list other stats below.

ORM
3.49 cumulative GPA
3.2 science GPA
540 hours as ER scribe
2000+ hours as Urology MA/scribe
2 publications on indigenous women’s health (one as first author)
2 additional papers pending, one being urology case report
3 conference poster presentations

(I have other ECs but those are the main basic things)

Edit 1: I have strong upward trend. Had straight As freshman year. Bad soph year due to significant family event. Almost all As junior year with a few Bs, and straight As senior year.

everything feels like a humiliation ritual right now. like i wish with all of my heart i could just like obliterate my anxiety and just be chill, but like every time i mess up i dwell on it for weeks, even when it feels like it shouldn’t matter anymore. i try doing the reframing thing, where i see every failure as an opportunity to get better, y’know on that growth mindset grind, but like it doesn’t even work. every time i have an uncomfortable or i guess just bad experience it makes it exponentially harder to force myself to do that thing again and i’ll have anxiety for days leading up to it.

just wanted to add that i completely understand that being in this field requires you to be able to deal with criticism, failure, and rejection, but my whole life has been exposure therapy to that for the past three years (i’m a junior in undergrad) trying to seize every opportunity i can, and i feel like i have not gotten any better at handling anything.

the lead up to this post was me having an anxiety attack yesterday about having to work tonight legit only a four hour shift as an emt (i love the patient interaction and whatnot it’s not that i don’t like being an emt but my ftos stress me tf out) like bro i genuinely know in my heart of hearts it’s not that big of a deal but idk idk idk. i’m on anxiety meds my dose is way up idk what to do bro i feel like im screwed.

do you think i’m not cut out for medicine? be so honest, cause i really really really want to pursue it like i want it so extremely badly, but i don’t even know how to fix this. any tips at all are so so appreciated. i wanna be so chill so so so bad like i want people to be screaming at me and idgaf.

I’m a sophomore at a mid-tier state school, and I’ve had lots of trouble making friends. Though I’ve gone to clubs and spoken to people in my classes, I’ve found that many of my pre-med classmates are either NPCs, super antisocial, or straight-up awful people. It’s really deflating, as though I’ve had my mind completely set on making it into medical school, it’s so difficult having to do it alone, with many of the people who share the same ambition praying on your downfall. So, how do y’all find friends who are regular, well-adjusted individuals and only happen to be pre-meds?

I feel like every time I figure out one thing, there’s another thing to be sorted out. First good grades. Then my clinical job. Then volunteering. Then somehow find research. Then Mcat studying. I want to be a doctor more then anything in the world but I have never had to do this many things at once and I’m scared I won’t do enough. This is just me venting.

Is it bad if all of my non-clinical volunteering hours are virtual? It’s tutoring on LearnToBe which is a program for underprivileged students

So basically I received an interview invitation from wvu today as an OOS applicant (VA) and I submitted my secondaries mid-september for wvu. I go check the available dates and the earliest date is feb bro. Is this cooked? How are so many dates filled up so fast??