Thank you for your kind words! And I’m sure it differs adcom to adcom, but I can tell you my story came up in nearly every single interview so far. They loved my major being non science and my interest in the arts. That’s all they talked about at most of these interviews, not even about “why medicine” or my clinical experiences at all.

Two of the t20s said my personal statement was a pleasure to read and made them want to invite me — despite my MCAT being median for them and GPA being sub-10th percentile. I’m a pretty traditional student (1 gap) so I really, really feel like I have a duty to tell everyone to go ham on these essays and focus on what makes them unique haha.

I’m sure my MCAT helped in showing I can handle the classes but I legit had Cs in prereqs and basically no upper levels — very diverse groups of schools didn’t care. It’s good to remember they’re human too, and they like to invite people to interview based on what essays interest them. There were way more qualified kids than me who wrote about a sick family member or liking research that probably blended together. I think you can do amazing if you put a lot into the writing!