The Back-Story (Part 1)

During your senior year, all students intending to apply to med schools have to meet with the pre-med advisor so he can write a recommendation for you and offer guidance on your quest. I arrived at my meeting slightly early, and just as I sat down the advisor came out and ushered me in to his office. He looked at my file for a second and then asked:

So, if you got a 35 on the MCAT, where would you go?

Me: (After pausing to see if he was joking) I did get a 35 on the MCAT.

Advisor: No, I’m just asking if you did, where would you go?

Me: Ummm, no. I already took the MCAT, and I did get a 35.

Advisor: … Oh. Okay. Well, everything else looks good, so you can go just about anywhere you want.

The advisor and I chatted for a little longer and then he sent me on my way. It was great, the world was my oyster. I would be accepted to med schools in no time. Applications were a mere formality at this point.

I applied to a slew of top ranked schools and sat back to watch the acceptances roll in. The secondaries came, I filled them out, and waited for my interviews. And I waited. And then I waited some more. And finally, as I was beginning to panic, I received a phone call inviting me to an interview. It didn’t come from my first choice of school, but I was on the board now. I was back in the game. I was still going to dominate this whole process. Surely the other schools would recognize my obvious greatness and clear aptitude for med school.

No other interview invitations came, and I was placed on the wait-list at the one school that did interview me.

You should know that I have long held a suspicion that I have some horrible learning disability rendering me functionally incapable which no one has had the heart to tell me about.

The profound lack of response to my application to medical schools exacerbated my fear immensely. As I searched for the reason behind the lack of interest, my mind ran wild.

My advisor said I would be competitive everywhere. What happened? Did they learn about my disability? I always knew I wasn’t actually smart. Oh God, what’s wrong with me? Am I going to end up on the streets because nobody wants the burden of taking care of me with my condition which has rendered me unable to function in society?

At some point I figured that, in order to keep such a huge secret from me, my life would have to be either 1) a Truman Show-like farce or 2) a hallucination I have been having while legitimately disabled. 1 seems highly unlikely, and, if it’s 2 (also probably very unlikely), I almost certainly don’t have that much control and nothing really matters anyway.

I still knew I wanted to be a doctor, so I gathered myself together and began to prepare to reapply.