ACCEPTANCES!

Over the past few months, I have spent my time travelling across the US to various medical schools. This journey has been exhausting, but I finally made it! I have been accepted to 9 MD/PhD programs and wait-listed at 4 others. I made a decision and will be starting school in the fall :)

Increasing my MCAT score by 18 Points

During my senior of college, March 2017, I took the MCAT. I was devastated when I received my first score. I didn't even break 500. I am interested in MD/PhD programs, which have much higher MCAT averages. To make up for my mediocre first score, I knew I had to work my behind off. I took time off from studying, about 4 months. I started lightly studying again in August and picked it up around November for a January 2018 test date. I increased my score by 18 points and obtained a score that was over the national average for applicants. Here are a few tips I used to increase my score:

• PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. I took 9 practice tests from different companies. Each company had its own strengths and weaknesses and helped me learn different strategies for the test. Also, I used the AAMC material. I did not use it much for my first test, which contributed to my low score. 
• Review everything that you get wrong with a fine tooth comb. If it was content that you do not understand, thoroughly review the material. For example, I had issues with the cardiovascular system. I constantly got answers wrong. I did not have a strong foundation when I started studying, so I paid extra attention to this section. If it was a mistake, do more practice problems in that area. 
• Use Anki or some other form of recall/repetition while studying. To quote Lil Wayne, "Repetition is the father of learning." I used Anki to recall facts that I got wrong, as well as basic content information. This helped me retain information a great deal. I definitely would not have gotten my score without it. 
• Realize that you do not truly know something until you are getting every question in that area right. I thought I knew chemistry because biochemistry was my major. I ended up getting the lowest score in that section because I overestimated my abilities. 
• Study your weak areas. I literally studied CARS the week of my MCAT and Pysch/Soc about a month before. I was a philosophy minor so reading critically has never been an issue for me. I scored the highest on those two sections. Most of my prep was in biology. I did not have a good background in biology. The biochemistry was not particularly difficult but learning all of the systems of the body and basic cellular mechanisms took up most of my practice. I went from scoring 123/124 to scoring a 128 on the actual exam. This may not sound like a big improvement, but most pre-meds are biology. Therefore, they tend to skew the percentiles, so it was a huge accomplishment for me personally. 
• You will make stupid mistakes. I certainly did after every practice test. Mistakes are opportunities for learning. However, a mistake should only be made once. 

I hope this helps and good luck studying!

Reflections

I have not written in what seems like forever. School has really gotten to me, but I do want to make sure I blog a lot about my medical school journey. As I have been in school, I have realized a lot of things about myself and my community. The most glaring thing that I have realized is the small amount of representation of African Americans in medicine. And I believe I know why.

Of course, I go to a Historically Black College, Spelman College. The people around me are brilliant, ambitious, and creative. They are the next world leaders and game changers. Looking at my peers, I have witnessed and learned many things about myself. I realized how little I had compared to them. I realized that I did not have and still do not have the resources to succeed in the medical field. I don't want to pity myself at all. That is not what this is post is about. I just had to do some self reflection over the last few years and I realized that I have to work twice as hard for half of what everyone else around me has. And that is one of the main reasons why us African Americans are not well represented in the medical community. We were not always given the resources or told what to do in order to succeed in this field. I do hope by blogging more about my journey, more people of color will be able to successfully enter the medical field.