21 August 2006

Cue Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)

If you know the song, then you know the feeling. I present you, my lord, with my puny medical school application and beg you not to crush my throat from across the room. (Yes, I'm entirely comfortable with being a nerd.)

I submitted my central application (AMCAS) today, along with the $250 fee for applications to 4 medical schools reasonably near my house and officially ended hours of agonizing debate over what to include, where, and how. I was expecting more of a feeling of relief, but instead it was more like the knot in my chest got a little bigger and tighter. Now I'm official. People know that I want to go to medical school and are going to judge everything I've said and done to decide whether to let me in or crush me like a bug. But first, they have to send secondary applications where I have to write more essays, get letters of reference and send them additional money. Always with the money - I'd think that schools getting in excess of $34k a year in tuition wouldn't need so many application fees, but apparently I'd be wrong.

I don't know how long the rest of the process takes, but most of the schools do interviews from October to January with the earliest admission decisions in January and the wait list decisions running until March or April. Apparently cooking a med school app takes about as long as creating a new life - but I'm really trying to create a whole new life for myself so maybe that's appropriate. At any rate, GULP! I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me...I hope.

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