One Down. Seven More to Go.

I don't even know where to start - I did not think I will make it this far. For the longest time it felt like med school was an unreachable goal. I had too many people telling me that medicine was not the path for me, too many rejections, so much that I started to believe it. But look at me now, starting my second semester of medical school.

I received a lot of messages asking how I made it into med school. I can tell you that it's not the ideal path, but the outcome will be the same.

I got into med school with 2.7 GPA and 495 MCAT. How? The only yes I received was from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara School of Medicine. You only need one yes.

At first I was embarrassed to admit that I didn't get into a US school. Everyone seems to look down on international medical graduates (IMGs) and talk poorly about students that go there. No, I'm not lazy. No, I'm not stupid.

Everyone has a unique path. This is mine.

Being first generation college student and being the first-born of immigrant parents was not easy. I was clueless when it came to career paths. I thought I could just say "I want to be in this career" and take classes and be done. I should also mention that I had no intention of going into med school until I was a junior in college. I think the first time that I've ever heard of "MCAT" was when my advisor brought it up during my course planning session at the end of my junior year.

"When are you planning on taking the MCAT?"

I had no idea what that was. Like, what do you mean I have to take another standardized test??? My advisor was pretty condescending and told me that I needed to have it done before I graduate if I wanted to get into med school right after undergrad.

Okay. Cool.

I've shared my MCAT journey, but I'll retell that story some other day.

I graduated with my BS in Biology December 2016. I had taken my MCAT August 2016 and did awful so I was going to retake January 2017.

I was absolutely clueless about the application cycle. I didn't know when I would be applying or how the cycle worked. It was stressful having to figure that out on my own while preparing to retake my MCAT. I don't want anyone else to go through that - that's what brought me to sharing my story.

After two failed MCAT attempts, I started looking into Postbaccalaureate Programs (post-baccs), Special Masters Programs (SMPs), and graduate schools.

I noticed that these post-baccs and SMPs were targeted towards pre-med students with low GPAs, which is perfect for me, right? WRONG. These programs don't consider students with GPAs lower than a 3.0. Some of them even had a minimum of 3.2??? How is that low??? So that did not work out. Another issue that I had with post-baccs is that since it is not a degree-granting program, so it did not qualify for Financial Aid (aka federal loans). I depend on the federal loans to pay for school and I had no way of paying 8k+ for classes out of pocket or with a private loan.

I switched my focus towards grad school. I found some pretty decent programs, but once again, my GPA or MCAT was an issue. I was starting to lose hope until I found a program at Northwestern University that accepted me!

Remember this post?

Yeah, I had to drop out after completing a quarter because I could not afford it. My federal loans did not cover the entire amount (like I originally thought it would), so I had to pay out of pocket. I was working full-time at the clinic, but even with that it wasn't enough. It was not an easy decision to take, but I knew I should save my line of credit for med school.

I was starting to feel hopeless. I wanted to improve. I wanted to prove that I was capable of excelling in med school.

In hopes of finding answers, I attended a conference and was able to talk to an admission's counselor (adcom) from my dream school.

BIG MISTAKE.

"Well there's nothing you can do. You should seriously consider a different career path outside of medicine."

Those words still echo in my head. I had a panic attack in the middle of the room, surrounded by adcoms, med students, and premeds from all of the US. I was told that there was no place in medicine for me. What made the wound hurt even more was that this adcom was a first-generation Mexican-American like myself. He knows that there's not many like us in medicine, especially women, and he turned me away. No wonder there's so few of us, we get turned away before we even get a chance.

I became more depressed. I was hopeless. I didn't have a future. I felt like there was no point in living since I had no purpose anymore.

I got scared by my own thoughts and got help.

So how did I end up here?

My patients. They may not technically be my patients, but to me they are. They were my reminder of why I put myself through all this torture. I feel the happiest and like my most genuine self when I'm with patients. Hearing them say, "I can't wait for you to be my doctor" and, "¿Cuanto falta para que seas doctora?" really helped push me because they believed in me.

I retook the MCAT for the third time (minimal improvement) and reapplied to med schools. Even though my stats were not "competitive," I was hoping that my story and my clinical experiences were enough for a school to believe in me. (Plus I did extremely well that one quarter in grad school, especially considering I was working full time)

Unfortunately that wasn't good enough.

I didn't want to retake the MCAT again, as I already noticed my pattern, and there was no point in reapplying to schools. So I applied to where I knew I would get in because, after all, you just need one yes.

That's how I ended up at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara School of Medicine. I know it's not going to be easy and I'm going to face challenges, but that has been the theme of my journey.

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As I mentioned before, my goal is to help others who may be in similar situations or just need help navigating college application process, anything undergrad, and/or med school application process. My Instagram DMs are always open, but I'm going to be honest and say that I don't always see them in a timely manner. This is why I created The Premed Sessions. We can talk by any method of your liking - Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Phone call, you decide. Click here to book a meeting!

Remember, you are worthy. You are smart. You are capable. You are deserving. No one can turn off the passion inside of you. Tu puedes con todo 💖