Who Should Apply to BS/MD Programs?

Sumanth’s college application process was a little different in that he also focused on schools that offer BS/MD programs (Bachelor of Science, Doctor of Medicine). He will tell us about his application process for regular and BS/MD schools and educate us on what a BS/MD program is. 

Transcription

Kamila
Hey college kids. Thank you for tuning into this episode. Today’s interview is with Sumanth. Now what makes a month’s application process slightly different is that he was applying to colleges with Bs MD programs Bachelor of Science Doctor of Medicine, it was super interesting to learn what a BS MD program is, who should apply for a BS MD program, and how it differs from doing the traditional path and just applying to medical school after college. So I hope you enjoy

Hey, college kids, welcome back to my podcast, who cares about college? In today’s episode, I’ll be interviewing Sumanth. So today we’re gonna be talking about his high school application, and also the fact that he has applied to BS MD programs. So Sumanth, could you please introduce yourself?

Sumanth
Hi, my name is Sumanth. I’m from Florida. And so far, I’ve gotten into the University of Alabama, which is the BS MD program. But I’ve also gotten to schools like University of Florida, University of Michigan, and some places like universe Central Florida.

Kamila
Okay, so let’s start at the very beginning, this is going to be kind of a long question, but I have a lot to put in. So in terms of before coming into high school, what were the expectations for you education wise, this could be from your family, your community or the school you went to? And then how does this tie into BS MD programs? Where did you know from a young age? Yes, I definitely want to go into medicine. So did that kind of got How did I guide your high school experience your high school application process?

Sumanth
So I think I’ve always, I’ve always known that I was going to go to college. That’s kind of been an expectation and a constant. But I actually didn’t know that I wanted to be a doctor until probably soft end of sophomore year beginning of junior high school. So I had some interest in the healthcare fields. But I was also really interested in things like computer science or engineering. And, of course, I think it may have helped. I mean, yeah, may have helped if I had started earlier, just because I could have done more research and more shadowing. But I think that when I decided I wanted to be a physician, I think that was probably the perfect time, just because I was able to do a lot of medically related activities and join clubs. But I was also able to explore a lot of other interests, just that I wasn’t super focused. And I think that was a big benefit. And I think I did like everything the question. Yeah,

Kamila
that’s pretty good. That’s pretty good. And we’ll get into the specifics of BS MD applications. But we want to get through just standard high school stuff first. So tell me about your high school transcript. So first, let’s go through your GPA. What was your unweighted? Actually, first, give me the dynamics of your school. So were you did you go to a super competitive High School? And did they offer a lot of APS IB honors? Or was your school on the less competitive side.

Sumanth
So I think that my school is kind of in between those two. So we have we have an IB program at my school. So I’ve done the IB program. But we also have a lot of AP classes. So from what I’ve heard from other IB programs, RS is actually kind of unique, because we can take both AP and IB is so like, junior year, we took like IB US history, but we took the AP test and sending like physics and math. So I think that that the big benefit, but beyond that are the schools relatively small, we have about 1700 students, so like 450 or 420 in a class, and I am number one in the class. So my unweighted GPA was 4.0. And my weighted GPA, I think was 4.895.

Kamila
was on a scale of 5.0. Yeah, let’s

Sumanth
go 5.0 Great.

Kamila
So valedictorian, obviously top of the class. And then what about your LSAT and AC T? This is kind of another, I consider it part of the transcript because like, scores and stuff, yeah, so can you tell me about the preparations you did for LSAT? A CT? Which one did you end up choosing? And then what did you get in the end?

Sumanth
So I think the SHA and a CT is really just a test on how much you practice because it’s the questions themselves are not super difficult, most of them and it’s just like for the math section, it’s just based on do you make a dumb mistake or are you like paying attention completely. So I prepared for both. I like the LSAT more personally just because I felt like like when I was practicing for the AC T, I would finish with 1015 minutes left but then I go a little slower during the actual test so I actually didn’t finish the math. So I got started lower than I got my practices. So my score for the AC T was 34 and my LSAT super scored was 1560 with 100 math 760 reading, so I ended using the essay to for all of it. And then I also took the PSAT my sophomore and junior year, so I got a 1500 out of 1520 on that. Did that qualify you for

Sumanth
National Merit? Yes, it

Sumanth
did. So I got a qualify for a four right at the University of Florida and I think because there’s a bender Keystone scholarship for in state. I think it’s only for in state but I’m not 100% sure about that. But I get a full ride there but also the Alabama program is I really liked it because I get tuition paid to the national program.

Kamila
Oh, that’s great. And I have another question in terms of kind of high school expectations. Did you strive for? Or were you expected to get into a top school? Or were you fine with getting into like state schools? If so, like, how did you view was your goal in the end to like, get into one of these super, I guess you could say Top 20 Top tier schools, or were you kind of more spread out with like, oh, this, this, this, and if I get into a top 20 school, that’s great. But I’m still open to going to like state school.

Sumanth
So I think that my perspective really changed once I got national merit, because I knew that I’d secured because my score was to 24 to 28. So I knew I was going to get finalist, at least, which means I got that full ride. So before then I was looking at kind of like a really big spectrum of schools. But once I got that my fixed my, my school choice really became uef, or IV, or it’d be SMD. Because I didn’t see the benefit of paying $50,000 a year to go to a school that’s not that much better than the University of Florida. So like I applied to mostly like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, those types of places, and then obviously be SMDs. But I think that even over like the, those top 20 schools, I really ranked the BSN DS higher, just because a lot of people that I know have gone down the traditional path. They’ve gone to like Duke or Penn. And they’ve really said that they struggled a lot at schools like that, and that they would they wish they would have gone to a direct med program, something that really helped me like decide that. But I think when you said expectations I kind of expected to get in to is probably not the best mindset because I know how difficult it is, especially this year, because there’s so many more applications. But I kind of always had the idea that I would get in somewhere good. But like I never had any pressure from my parents or from this. I guess other students have always said, Oh, you’ll get into an Ivy League somewhere. But besides that, there was no internal pressure.

Kamila
So like, based on you were valedictorian, and you did qualify for National Merit. And you were, you did have a pretty good standardized test score. So is that why you thought like, Oh, I’ll like probably get into at least a top school of whatever kind.

Sumanth
Yeah, that’s kind of my reasoning, but also, um, just because I applied to be SMD. I ended up applying to a bunch of schools. So I was like, I’ve applied to so many that at some point, I have to get into one of them.

Kamila
That is true there. Okay, so we’ve gone through that. Oh, one more thing. You did say you were in IB program, but then you also had APS available to you. So can you explain again, how was it for you and I know I B’s have a diploma at the end. So the IB classes you took and what was your diploma score in the end?

Sumanth
So we haven’t taken any IB tests I don’t know my diploma score yet because that’s all this year.

Sumanth
So I your senior high school.

Sumanth
So I’ve taken I’ve taken all IB classes so I’m taking right now. Spanish be so so does my second language is Spanish standard level, history, contemporary history HLS higher level math analysis and approaches higher level, which I think is the highest hardest math that’s offered at my school. English literature, hl. Biology ah, oh, physics, so and six. Yeah, those are the IB classes I’m taking. And I’ve taken I think 13 APs. Right time. Yeah. So

Kamila
it’s a lot and do you mean you took like the AP test for those? Yeah, I’ll take Okay. Okay.

Sumanth
I took 14 classes, AP classes. I took microeconomics online last year, but I there was some issue with signing up because of COVID. So I didn’t actually take the test. So I took one AP freshman year, which was World History. I took six sophomore year and then five junior year

Sumanth
would you take sophomore year.

Sumanth
So um, the IB program I was doing pre IB. So they kind of had, we had to take two APS from through that. So I took European history and English literature, English language. So that was those two of them. And then I was in eighth grade. They are in sixth grade. They put me in algebra one. So I kind of was ahead. So I got to take AP Calculus AP sophomore year. So I did that. Then I also took government, AP government, US government, AP Human Geography and AP Computer Science, which I took online.

Kamila
Ah, okay. Okay. That makes sense. I was like how six AP is sophomore year. Okay, so now let’s get on to the more fun stuff. And I guess we’ll incorporate Bsmt with extracurriculars, because I’m sure you did have some extracurriculars relating to medicine. So you did say at the end of sophomore year, that’s when you decided, okay, I want to go into medicine. How did you find out about the BS MD program? And what kind of compelled you to say, Yes, I will do this because it is a huge commitment. You’re saying I’m going to go to the school for the seven eight years it takes for me to get my degree. So when did you like officially say yes, I want to do a BS MD program. And then how did that affect high school after sophomore year? Did you change the extracurriculars you did? Did you focus on like I’m using the word here like medicine related. Did you do any research and such?

Sumanth
So the way I really find out about BSM DS was that somebody I know who lives about half an hour away from me, he actually got it to Northwestern ins BS MD program, which they got rid of this year. And his brother got into UMKC his program. So that’s kind of like, really, really found out about them. And my interest actually started because we were on Northwestern campus, and his dad called my dad and said that he got in just kind of funny, just because we were there. And I that’s I don’t know if that was kind of just I felt like, really made me interested in because like, Oh, what is that program and I did a bunch of research. And then this was like spring break of sophomore year. So March. And I really got interested in just based on the research I’ve done there. And I think that that really, that made me interested in the things I did towards medicine was that I started a club called HOSA, I started the chapter. So that’s like a national organization that’s specifically related to health care professions like medicine, or physical therapy, nursing, just medical professions in general. So I started that. And then I also joined, I was already a part of the club, but I became vice president is called Medicare, where we pack medical supplies from like the hospital or little or local clinics, and then ship those to other countries. Like we shipped a lot to Venezuela and Haiti. And I did a lot in those clubs, which I think really helped. But then some of the other things I did is that I did some research. So I wasn’t able to do laboratory research, like a university because of COVID. But I was able to do clinical research, because we have some, like clinical research labs in my community. So I went there and shadowed and work there and had like a internship position that over the summer, and then I also shadowed a physician to physician, one physician and one was a surgeon, but he wasn’t a physician, he was a dental surgeon. So that was pretty unique. A lot of stuff like that.

Kamila
Completely forgot, we forgot to specify what a BS MD program was. So yeah, can you get into what a BS MD program is? And then another thing I’m curious about, don’t know if this is true or not, for a BS MD program? Are there certain requirements that you need, like maintain a certain GPA? Take a certain classes in high school, you know, AP, biology, AP, AP Biology, like just stem oriented classes? And do you need to take any certain tests to get into a BS MD program. So can you explain what it is and then what the requirements are.

Sumanth
So BS MD program is basically, when you apply to undergrad, you conditionally get into the medical school as well. So for instance, the University of Alabama, I have just accepted to the undergrad program, probably in November, because they have a rolling admission. But then they had a separate process for getting into their BSN the BS MD program. So basically, what that means is that as long as I maintain the GPA, which there’s I think, is 3.6, and then have to get a five or six in the MCAT, which is the, which is the admissions test for medical school,

Sumanth
they still need to take the MCAT I thought you didn’t need to tell them. Some of them

Sumanth
you don’t some of them, you do so Alabama, as you do. But the thing with Alabama that makes it nice is that I can apply out. So most BS MD programs, I think it must be used to be programs, you can’t apply to other medical schools without losing your guaranteed admission. But at Alabama I can so which is why it’s not necessarily a bad thing for taking the MCAT. Because like, let’s say is that a 528. So if I get like a 520, or something really high, I could, in theory, get into Harvard Medical School and decide to go there. So that but if I don’t get it, I still don’t lose my Alabama admission. So I think that’s the things I was really nice about that. And you said testing to get in some of the schools do require some testing. So most of them require sh t or AC T, but that’s iffy this year, like Pittsburgh was test optional, but if you don’t do it, and test, you have to take the MCAT. So I submitted my sh t. So if I get in there that I end up going I want to take the MCAT but a lot of schools required like I don’t I think Northwestern required the LSAT to for chemistry, which they think they just got rid of those in general. So that doesn’t exist anymore. But there’s stuff like that. And they all require most of them required to take STEM classes. I don’t think there was any requirements of AP or IB because not all schools offer those. But they want you to take like one year of chemistry when you’re physics a year of biology, math, English, stuff like that.

Kamila
Okay. And in the You did say that, like by the end of sophomore year, you were like, okay, medicine is the field that I want to go into. But why did you specifically choose BS md over going to some school for undergraduate taking the MCAT and then applying to some medical school? Like did you want to take away that pressure of applying to medical school?

Sumanth
Yeah, so the pressure I think is the biggest reason because so that that summer, I actually went to Pittsburgh, and I’m one of my my parents friends and their kids went to one of them went to the Pittsburgh Bsmt. And the other one went to Harvard and then ended up Pittsburgh and just talking to those two, the one went to Harvard was like it was telling me how she had a lot more stress, a lot more pressure to get into medical school because it’s so, so difficult. And the one in Pittsburgh was telling me how it is hard because it’s college. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s not. It wasn’t she didn’t feel the same pressure her sister did because she didn’t have that stress to get a high MCAT score or she didn’t need to keep her GPA 3.9 And it’s stuff like that. And then was I forgot the second part of your question? Sorry.

Kamila
No, that was kind of that’s kind of Yeah. Like, why would you choose a BS md over undergrad and then applying to medical school? So

Sumanth
yeah, there’s actually one more reason. So a lot of the reasons that one of the big reasons that I am, like BS MD is, besides the pressure was that I felt that the reduced, like the fact that I don’t need to have that 3.9 GPA would allow me to do more research and do more like shadowing, because I could spend more time in the medical field then spending time. I mean, I will obviously have to spend time in class, but I don’t have to spend as much time and I don’t have to spend much time studying for the MCAT. So I think that was really one of the big reasons.

Kamila
So like, experience over going to class and trying to study and stuff. Okay. Yeah. And this is what we were discussing a little bit last night, but a partnership program. Can you explain that a little bit and how that ties into BS MD and how it’s different from just ordinary BS MD programs.

Sumanth
So a partnership program is essentially just a BS MD program, except that it’s between two different schools. So for instance, one of the ones that I know of is there’s one that’s St. Bonaventure University to George Washington University. I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. But basically, you go to one, the St. Bonaventure, for undergrad, and then after that you matriculate into the George Washington Medical School. So it’s a partnership between the two schools that allow you to do that. And I know there’s a lot in like New Jersey, I don’t know the exact ones, but a lot of them go to Rutgers University, medical school. And so it’s basically it’s the same as a BS MD where you have to have these GPA requirements, and it, but did you do you don’t end up in the same place for all eight years or seven years?

Kamila
Huh? Okay. And you’re, it’s the same thing, like you’re kind of guaranteed, you may have to take the MCAT or, and get a certain score, but you’re still like, guaranteed to get into George Washington? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. And let’s go into the pros and cons of a BS MD program. And then we’ll get go back to your extracurriculars and kind of go deep dive into them and see what you did there. So BS MD program? Obviously, you’re not in college university yet. But do you know how it doesn’t impact the college experience? Does it change anything? Are you required to do something that other university students are not besides maintaining that GPA?

Sumanth
So I know that the requirements was there’s like, like, at Alabama, I’m required to do some shadowing, and some, like research and stuff like that. And I’m from what I’ve heard about most SMBs is kind of like a tight knit group of people. So I know that Alabama, there’s only 15 of us, and we have to take some classes together. So it’s like, you’re kind of with that group throughout the whole time. So you really get like a good friendship and a good bond with the others. So I think that’s something that is very unique about it. And it’s kind of different from the traditional undergraduate experience,

Kamila
where we 15 people, how competitive is this?

Sumanth
Ah, I have the number of applicants it was, I can just, it’s about 500 applicants for that one. For 1500. There’s only 15 to get in. Yeah, so that was actually not the highest one for I applied to Case Western vs. Druckman. They had, they usually have 1000 applicants, they had 2900, for 50, interview spots, and then probably like 10 admissions. So it’s very competitive. So it’s basically

Kamila
just as competitive as applying, like going to undergrad and then applying to medical school, it’s just as competitive.

Sumanth
It probably is more competitive than doing that. But the thing is, you can still end up at a the thing with going to undergrad and then applying to med school, in my opinion is that if you don’t get in to like a med school, you have to wait a year to apply again. So that’s kind of something I didn’t want to do, just because I’m already in the older side of my graduating class. And I didn’t want to wait another extra year. So that was kind of a big thing. But also, um, you can still even if you don’t get into a BS MD, you can still go to a regular university. So that’s kind of the big thing. So you can still go to traditional path, even if you don’t get into one. So it’s kind of like it’s kind like a lottery, as my mom would say.

Kamila
But that’s crazy. Competitive. Okay. Oh, medical school. Okay, let’s go back to pros and cons. So another thing I had a question was does it does apply to a BS MD program affect the cost of attending college? Do you get some sort of discount? Or are you required to pay more or the same?

Sumanth
I’m not 100% Cheer for everywhere. But I think that Alabama, it’s the same cost as going traditionally. But I know that it like UMKC, which was one of the one I was interviewed at, I’m pretty sure that cost increases just because it’s a shorter time. So it’s that’s a six year program. So you’re mentioning the pros and cons. So I think that some of the pros could be the speed you get through the program a lot quicker. So the MKC you can graduate that you could be a doctor in six years. And like George Washington has seven years Boston University seven years, but then like programs like Alabama and Pittsburgh are both eight years. So I think Rochester is is also eight years. So you have like the speed but there’s also that’s not necessarily true in every every program. And as I mentioned that UMKC I think the cost is higher just because you have two years of undergrad and then four years of med school so they kind of I think they raise the cost because of like equalize it or something. And I’m not 100% sure about that.

Kamila
Oh, and then another thing that just came up when you mentioned that, since you are in a BS MD program, and you’re saying, I want to study medicine, I don’t need to, like, look around different majors and choose, I’ve already settled on medicine. Does your undergraduate years, can you like avoid some standard classes that other people need to take? Because I know, there are some requirements for social sciences, regular science, math that most university students need to meet. But as a BS, MD, student, are you kind of exempt from those and can go deeper into more stem related subjects?

Sumanth
I think that some programs Yes. Like the UMKC program, you really don’t have like a normal undergraduate experience time you grad you had you start, you’d only do undergrad for two years. And then you get your degree after your fourth year, but you’re kind of doing medical classes from day one. And you’re like shadowing and doing all the things you do in medical school. But like Alabama, and Pittsburgh, you could do any major. So like I’m majoring in Computer Science at Alabama. Right now, I made, I don’t think I’m going to change. But I’m considering like some other majors. But I have to take the normal math and English and all those standard requirements to graduate. So I think that that is still there. But some programs it’s not. And like, I think that you still have to do all the basic requires for medical school, like the chemistry, physics, biology, bio, biochem, all that stuff. So in the overall it’s not really that you get out of classes, but in some programs that is like you do have a more streamlined path.

Kamila
And if you what was the UMKC? If you had or you didn’t get into it, did you? Or did you

Sumanth
I got an interview, I won’t find out till April 1 If I get it. Ah, if you do

Kamila
get into that, are you certain that you’ll probably go there? Like, would you choose that school over most,

Sumanth
I would probably take Alabama over it just right now. Because um, Alabama is like the medical school is ranked 30th around 30. So I think and also the fact that you can apply out from other places, to other places. And just from what I’ve heard about the MKC program, the medical school is not as strong as some of the other programs that I have, like on the table, or that I could potentially get into. I think that those, those are some of the big reasons. But I think if the medical schools were equal, I probably would go to UMKC just because it’s a much quicker, much faster, and I graduated quicker.

Kamila
And another thing that you said you wanted to talk about is, what should you look for in a BS MD program? Like what are the different factors like Okay, think about this, think about that, think about that, and then factor that all in. So what what should a student look for? If they’re thinking, Okay, I think I’ve decided I want to do BS MD, what should I look for? How should I pick my schools?

Sumanth
So I think that there’s a couple major things. So I think the first thing is like the strength of the other graduate, just because you don’t necessarily want to go to a place that would give you like a subpar education. I guess most schools won’t give you subpar, but I think you know what I mean. And then um, especially because if in the middle, you decide to drop out which you can, then you’re kind of, you’re kind of messed up, because if because if you’re getting to be SMD program can probably get into a much better undergraduate school. So if you end up dropping out in the middle, then it’s like, you may not get into whatever postdoc post undergrad or jobs you might want because of the school you chose. thing and that’s something to look out for. And then but I think what’s more important to the strength of the medical school, for instance, some of the programs, some of the BS MD programs, they they feed it to medical schools, which aren’t like as good, or they’re all US medical school. So you can get into whatever residency is you want and, and then fellowships or whatever specialties, but it’s a lot harder to get in somewhere from like, for instance, UMKC, than it would be from like the University of Pittsburgh vs. MD, just because Pittsburgh is a much stronger medical school. So and it’s a lot better respected in the community, medical community. And Senate, Alabama, Alabama, just from what I’ve heard, is has a really good reputation. So you kind of look at that. Then another thing is the requirements while you’re there is like GPA MCAT extracurricular requirements. So for instance, Pittsburgh has a relatively high GPA requirement at 3.75. But so you have to like look at that. And then you also have to, like Brown has, I don’t think they have a GPA requirement, because I don’t think Brown has a GPA at all, just refer to a lot of the classes like pass fail. It’s a very confusing setup, but you have to look at stuff like that. And then like MCAT, so like UAPs MCAT is 506. But then there’s some places like Drexel, which requires like a 513 or 514 on the MCAT. And then that’s a big thing because if it’s the MCAT requirement is really high. In my opinion, it may not even be worth going to a program just because if you’re getting that score, you could get into medical school anyways. So I think that that’s an important thing. But I think that the most important thing is to look for is kind of like the fit with the program. So in a place like UMKC I think they accept 100 students so it’s not as small of a program. But in a place like UAB you only have 10. Kids like Bryce Baylor, there’s three this year. So yeah, recipe losers, very competitive. I think they interview like 12 for three, they usually take six people but this year, they only take three from what I’ve heard. So it’s like you have to look at kind of the size of the program and kind of how you’d fit. Like, for instance, I don’t like the brown program. It’s a great program. But I don’t know how well personally I would do there just because I don’t know, if I would fit in at the brown style of teaching where it’s very like freeform and just you it’s kind of up to you what you want to do. So I think I prefer more structured path. So that’s kind of why professionally other schools. Yeah, those are some really important things to look at.

Kamila
And another thing that I want to talk about, like I guess we say, the pros and cons of BS MD, is, in the future when you do graduate with your BS MD degree, do job recruiter see someone with a BS MD? Program? Like who did a BS MD program differently than someone who went to college or university for undergrad and then apply to medical school? Do they see them differently? Is one considered better than the other? Or is it there’s no difference?

Sumanth
I think that I don’t think there’s any difference just because the BS MD is just a way to get into medical school. So once you get into medical school, if you’re a physician getting hired, they’re not going to notice any difference. So the real benefit of a BS MD is that it eases the process of getting into medical school and doesn’t really help you be on that. So like if you went to like, let’s say, went to Harvard, and then you went to Pitt med school, versus you went to Pitt, Bs MD, or pick direct Med, there, there may be some benefit to going to Harvard just because it’s a Harvard education, you have that reputation with you. But in from what I’ve just heard in the medical field, nobody cares where you went to undergrad. It’s all about the med school and the residency. So if you go to Harvard, you’re not going to like the Caribbean for medical school, that would be significantly worse than going to somewhere like Pittsburgh.

Kamila
So I guess, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And let’s go back to your extracurriculars that you did in high school. So can you walk me through each one that you did? Like step by step? And then tell me, what role did you actually play in for college application purposes? What did you put on your college application? Like I was president of this club, you did say you were the founder of a chapter in your school? So how did you structure on your college application? And what did you actually do in that club? Or you did do some clinical research? So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sumanth
So I sort of assumed like the non medical related stuff. So I think the biggest thing that I did was the I solve the Rubik’s cube. So I’m like, competitive and speed cubing. So I can solve the cube in like, eight seconds. And

Kamila
yeah, I see. I’ve seen I’ve seen some people misquoted it and they solve it. Yeah.

Sumanth
Yeah. So like, for the two by two, I can solve that. It’s, it’s like the regular Rubik’s Cube, except it’s like a two by two square, I guess, solve that in like 1.8 seconds. And I ranked like, my peak rank, I think, was 113 in the world. And I think right now, I’m like, 150. So I thought that was pretty good going going. Thank you. Yeah. So I like I went and competed the US National Championships and the World Championships. And that was in Australia. So I went there. And I competed. And I put that on my resume. And that was like, the first thing I put on my common app, and my personal statements, but the cube. And like, that was a kind of a big thing in my application. And then another thing I did, that was, I think most of my a lot of my like, because it’s like ranked one through 10. I don’t know if they look at this and importance, but I think they read it in order. So like a lot of the next ones were like the medical related stuff, like the host chapter, and the clinical shadow, the clinical research and the shadowing I did, then some other stuff, and like the extra club was on there. So like some of the non medical stuff somewhere on medical stuff was like I was on the tennis team. I’m number one this year on my varsity tennis team. I play piano and there was a thing called the National Federation of music clubs. So I competed in that and I got the highest score every year since freshman year. And since before high school, but I just put down since freshman year.

Kamila
Is that like a like? Regional State and the Nationals?

Sumanth
Yeah, so basically, the way it works is, you have like, this year is online. But before you pick two songs, and you’d have memorized them, if there’s if you don’t memorize them, you can’t get the highest score. So I’ve memorized them maybe to go to Gainesville, or the University of Florida is and they like rent out the entire music building and we play, then if you do well there, then you can go to the state level one, I think it was a state level one. And and then you I think there’s a national one, but I’m not sure how you qualify for that. And the only way he’s qualified for the state one is you get the highest score. So that’s so that works. And you like play in front of a judge and then they score you.

Kamila
Also Did you qualify for states?

Sumanth
I did. I only won an eighth grade. I never went again. Just because I was always it’s always in May. And I’ve always had IB or AP testing. And this is IB testing. So it’s kind of I’m always conveniently they

Kamila
planned it for everyone. Yeah.

Sumanth
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a kind of the worst time possible for this date one and turn. What else did I put? I’m on cross country. So I’m the technically I was a varsity runner this year. So that was something else I put. And I did a lot of stuff that like I didn’t necessarily put on my resume. So I did a lot of volunteer and community service. So as I was actually the student liaison for educate Foundation, which is like a independent organization that raises money for the school district. So I did a lot of stuff there, we help we fundraise for a golf tournament that was cancelled because it was last April. So they did it virtually. And then that tournament raises like $50,000 a year. So that was I don’t think they raised as much. But that was a big thing that they did. I also held a Rubik’s Cube competition through them. I partner with them, and we raised like, $3,000 for the schools. So I did a lot of stuff like that for the community. I think I’d finished with 450 community service hours.

Kamila
Wow. That’s Yes. And this is outside of like, what school requires you to do, because there is some requirement?

Sumanth
Yeah. So for Florida, Florida, there’s a thing called Bright Futures, where if you have a certain LSAT score and 100 community service hours and some GPA requirement, you get, like $30,000 scholarship to any in State University. And I think some out of state ones will match it. But that’s only for it’s like Florida residents. So

Kamila
yeah, I’ve heard of bright futures. I’ve interviewed someone from University of Central Florida and University of Florida. That Bright Futures Program sounds incredible.

Sumanth
Yeah, it’s paid for by the lottery. So we’re joking about, like people who don’t really know that they’re like wasting their money or help actually helping us, like pay for education. So yeah, so I think that’s, that’s great. And that was the requirements, only 100 hours. And I think that there’s some community service, our requirement for IB, X and other there’s the CAS requirement, which is Community Action Service, I think. I don’t remember the acronym. But basically, it’s just like community involvement. So I used most of those things for castes and for community service, and I just kind of went above and beyond because I enjoy helping people.

Kamila
Yeah, 50 hours is a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s move on to the medical related extracurriculars. I can’t remember all of them. You opened up a chapter at your school, you were vice president of a club, and then you also did shadow two surgeons, you said, and you were a clinical assistant?

Sumanth
Yeah. It was one surgeon and one like primary care physician.

Kamila
Okay, so let’s get into the like high school related like high school oriented clubs, and then we can get into the actual shadowing. So first, the chapter at your school? How did you open it? How do you become interested in it? And then what did you actually do as a leader in that club? Founder president.

Sumanth
So a lot of the clubs like in our local area, not in my my county, but in the neighboring county, they had the chapters of HOSA clubs. And there was one at one of my neighboring high school that it kind of died off. And then they they started up again, last year, actually, the same year, we did. So I had heard about the club. And it’s called, it used to be an acronym, but they changed it. It’s HOSA. future health professionals like the official name now. So that’s how it is supposed to stand for Eye Health Occupation students of America, but they chase weird. They used to mean that but like, in 2014, or something, they changed it. So it doesn’t actually mean that anymore. Postal is just its own term. I’m pretty sure. It’s a very confusing, I don’t really understand the politics of it all. But that’s what that’s there’s something along those lines. And basically, I just kind of approached a teacher and my biology teacher and talked to him about starting the club. And it kind of was like, the worst year possible, I guess, because COVID had it towards the end. And we I actually had, we had a lot of big plans, like we were going to partner with the hospital to start a shadowing program, which didn’t happen because of COVID. And we went to the raid, there’s a regional competition. So there’s like, a lot of different competitions. There’s like a medical terminology test you can do there’s a thing called Host Scible, which is kind of like a quiz bowl. So they ask questions, and you buzz in. And there’s like a lot of different things. There’s a first aid or thing CPR. So you can do like a dummy or something. And you actually have to do stuff. And we actually almost made states in the hosel. But it was our first year. So we didn’t really know what to expect. So we did not we ended up not making it. But states were canceled anyways,

Sumanth
everything was canceled, wasn’t it? Yeah.

Sumanth
And that was, that was one of the big things we did and then this year to make up for the fact that we didn’t get to do the shadowing thing. I talked to the CEO of a hospital to do a virtual shadowing program for you kind of zoom in with doctors and talk to them for a little bit of time. And then we also did like a zoom me conference with medical residents who we because our hospital has a residency program, so we did it with three or four of the people at the hospital. So that was really cool. And then it’s just all under HOSA Yeah, this is all HOSA Oh, yeah. So it actually wasn’t as much as it sounds. Just because there’s kind of like a six month break where nothing happened because the the conference was in October and the the competition was a January or nine month break, I guess or not much happened just because we were going to start doing stuff in March and then COVID hit and then we just couldn’t do anything until Jim stuff happened. So I think that that really was one thing. And then you do want to we were talking about the all the medical stuff for just the Wholesale Club.

Kamila
I don’t know all nautical stuff. So that’s you opened a whole chapter at your school. And then you said you were also vice president of another medical related club and then shadowing the physicians.

Sumanth
Yeah. So that club, I got involved that after ninth grade, or during ninth grade. So that was a really small club, I think there was only like five members at the time. And I basically we do is the hospital has a lot of excess supplies that maybe expired but are still usable. And actually a lot of them aren’t expired. So they’ll take a lot of times, they just throw them away. So this club has been going on for like 10 years, where they give it to one of the teachers, and then he gives it to us and we pack it and ship it like sorted inventory, everything. So I was doing that. And then 10th grade, I became the webmaster because they were doing everything like on paper. And I kind of showed them that Excel was a thing and a spread, or Google Sheets technically. So we made like a Google form that you could put in all the information and actually store it digitally. And it wasn’t, it didn’t take us long. So I got the webmaster position because of that. And then junior year, one of the seniors was graduating and she was the president. And she kind of this, it was still relatively a small club at the time, she gave me vice president. And then to me, she made me vice president and then somebody else was president. And then the club actually grew a lot after that. So I think we have like 40 members now. And not all of them coming to meetings just because of a COVID. And also people can’t come a lot. But we have like 10 people come to every meeting. And some of the rest will come occasionally screw a lot. We’ve shipped over 400 boxes of medical supplies to places. And then the teacher actually took like 10 or 15 degrees to some refugee camps. And he is able to like give them out and actually see how they’re being used there. So that was really cool. And actually one of the things that I thought was really unique about it was that one of my friends who was in the club, he started a club really similar to it. But instead of medical supplies, it was food. So what he did is he bought a bunch of rice and like dried vegetables and would ship those in sometimes that actually shipped with the medical supplies, because often the places that need one knee to the other. So that was really unique. And that was something that I was actually able to help a lot with too, even though it wasn’t an officer.

Kamila
I mean, that’s great. And you’re still your senior. So you’re still kind of vice president of that club.

Sumanth
Yes, I’m still vice president of it.

Kamila
Okay, wow, that sounds incredible. 400 bucks, the anti refugee camp. That’s amazing. So let’s go on to the last medical related, extracurricular, you mentioned, which was shadowing to doctors. Okay, so I think a lot of people in high school don’t realize that they can do stuff out of high school, like, you don’t just need to do clubs. And it’s hard to find stuff to do. Because you don’t know where to start. You don’t know who to ask to do. Like research, you don’t know who to ask to do shadowing, you don’t know what you can actually do. So can you tell me how you came upon the shadowing of the two doctors? And then what did you do as a shadow? Because, obviously COVID it’s virtual, it’s, it’s gonna mess up everything. But if it weren’t, if it wasn’t like for COVID, what would you have been doing as a shadow?

Sumanth
So actually, with the one I shadowed, I was in person, because both positions. Yeah. So that I think that was kind of rare for this time, but both physician or both doctors said that I was they said it was okay for me to come in. And like watch. So with, with the, um, the, the way that I really got into it was that my dad is a doctor. So he has a lot of connections that made it a lot easier. But I was telling one of my friends that it’s really just as simple as going up to your, your doctor, like your pediatrician or your like your parents doctors and asking them. And it’s like one of my friends, I saw that I was doing it, they actually asked their doctor, and their doctor said, okay, so they’re able to shadow as well. So it’s really not as difficult as people think, to get involved with that. And I know that like the hospital had a lot of volunteers that weren’t allowed to go back because it COVID. And so there’s a lot of opportunities like that, that were that would normally be open. And now I think they’re allowing volunteers back in if they have the vaccine, so it’s mostly for adults, but some people or some some of my friends have the vaccines that are allowed to go back. And I think that’s one of the things that people need to realize is that it’s not impossible. And if you really want to do it, there is a way. So the way that I specifically got into it, is that, right? Like, like two miles from my house, there’s a doctor’s office. So I just went there and talk to the doctor. And here to do my dad’s that made it easier, but they weren’t like super close. So it was more kind of my own own initiative. And then after kind of talking to them, I shadowed them for and it was all of June, and then there’s like half of June and all of July. I went for about four and a half hours every day. So I’d go in the morning and then by about like 1230 or one I would go home and then I would go to my research clinic in the afternoons. So what I did it the shadowing was that the way their doctor’s office was set up was kind of unique because there was only two doctors and there was six or seven physician’s assistants and one nurse practitioner. So kind of the way it works that patients would see the PA and then I followed the PA and saw the patients on, like regularly. But then one day a week, I would go with the physician because he wasn’t there every day doing like interesting stuff. And I saw a lot of things like mole removals. And he did a circumcision, which was kind of interesting. And I was able to watch a lot of that and I actually was able to help with the more with the removal because it was like a certain like a procedure. So we had like a scalpel on the cut the cut it open and kind of let it like, leak. I don’t know the medical term, but let it let it drain. And I was like helping hold hold the guy down because it’s it’s pretty painful. Yeah, so

Kamila
that was kind of incredible. So sometimes doctors will allow you to help them with some stuff, obviously not like a full on surgery. They’re not. Okay, but you can do some like stuff here and there.

Sumanth
Yeah, so like when I was with the PDAs, and also the medical assistants who were like the the nurses who come in, like take your temperature and your vital signs. They let me take the temperature and the heart rate and stuff like that. And they were actually showing me how to take blood pressure. I didn’t really like I didn’t really learn how to do it because it’s pretty complicated, but I was able to like learn a lot with that. So I was able to see like a lot of patients and see EKGs see procedures I mentioned. And that was i My only issue with that is that it was a primary care and pediatrics clinic. So it was pretty repetitive as most people coming in for drug refills, or for like school physicals because right before school was starting. So besides that, that was interesting. And I think that the the shadowing that I enjoyed a lot more was with the other was the surgeon, so he’s he’s technically a dentist, he’s a dental surgeon, but it’s oral Oral Maxillofacial maxillofacial surgery. So,

Kamila
you’re gonna have to find that I don’t know what that means.

Sumanth
Yeah, I don’t really know how to pronounce it. But basically, it’s like wisdom teeth removal, and like facial surgery. So he showed me some pictures where like, they cut the skin off of a face and then do surgery on the bone and then put the skin back on it like they cut by the hairline, so that you can actually see the scars. So they didn’t do anything like that, because I started a hospital. But they did like a bone graft when I was there, and a lot of wisdom teeth removals. But that was that was really unique. And I was actually talking because there’s two, two dentists, there are two doctors there. One of them said he was one classroom becoming an MD as well. So it is like really medically, like really similar to like a medical practices run, that that was really something that I never actually realized. And, and so I like I was able to like participate in some ways in, in the surgeries, like I wasn’t like taking out wisdom teeth or anything. But they kind of said, watch this, make sure that this meter isn’t running below this. So I was always like actively doing something. And even when I wasn’t he kind of made it to that way I was able to watch what he was doing and was explaining everything as I went. So whenever he was taking out a tooth, he was explaining what he was doing with the drill. And I thought that was really unique. So

Kamila
I have two questions that come up from that. So number one, when you are I mean, there’s a high school student who’s just doing a general education versus someone who’s actually pursuing their doctorate degree, so they do know more medicine more about the medical field. So when a person who’s in medical school, let’s say they get another, let’s say they kind of get an internship like you did, and they shadow a doctor, are they able to do more as because they’re a medical student? Are they able to perform some very minor surgeries as well?

Sumanth
So I think as a medical student, they may not they probably want I like to do surgeries or anything. So there was actually a dental student there. Yeah. You

Kamila
mentioned that’s why I was kind of curious

Sumanth
about that. Yeah. So she was only there for like, three days with the overlap, because I only went for two weeks, because it was a really long day. Like I’d go in seven in the morning, it wouldn’t come back till 6pm. So there was a very long days. And one of the surgeries took like four and a half hours. So that was very long. Yeah, there. It’s a long day. So yeah, so like she was she didn’t she didn’t like get the cut or make any incisions or anything. But she did a lot more like examining, just because she knew what she was doing. So because because that was a that field specifically is so specialized. I think that if it was like a regular dentistry, even maybe like an orthodontist, they may have allowed them to do more, just because it’s not as surgical and not as like, you have to have so much knowledge and doing it. So think that that would be a lot more and then like, if you’re a medical student, that primary care that the regular office, they probably would let you do a lot more like talking to patients trying to diagnose them. But of course, the doctor would be there to ensure that you don’t miss diagnose or do something wrong. So that that would be probably be where the where your own responsibilities grow more. And I think that they actually what they were saying is that sometimes medical students come in, they let them go be their own medical assistants and like go get vitals from patients and talk to patients and do things like that. So that way, they’re not always helping the practice because it’s helping them move faster. It’s helping the students actually learn and like CSI medicine that I think a lot of people may not get to see.

Kamila
And I have another question for your application, your college applications. For a BS MD program, or Yeah, I guess it’d be BS MD because that is specialized in Edison, do they require you to do like get some sort of recommendation letter from someone you shattered or did research with is that like a requirement of some BS MD programs or applications,

Sumanth
it is for some, so like Pittsburgh required one in school and one person who was related to your extracurricular activities. So I got one of the I got one of the physicians at the research clinic to write mine. So he that was what I did there. And then I also submitted it to brown. But those ones were like significantly later than any of the other applications. So I wasn’t able to, I didn’t get those done for the rest. So most of them don’t require anything like that, because not everybody gets to shadow. So for instance, one of the one of the friends I mentioned earlier, who got into HP, me, which is Northwestern ZPs, was Northwestern his BS, MD. He did no research, like no medical research. So his only research was in like, materials engineering or something. So he didn’t really do anything medically related in that sense. But he did shadow a little bit. And he was the he also, he was the president of his HOSA chapter. And he actually went to the regional level and became like, the regional head. So he did a lot of stuff like that. So I think that they don’t require it, because they know that not everybody has those opportunities.

Kamila
And I have another question for BS MD programs, it is specific, you say you want to go into medicine, you’re not just applying to university, you did say there was a separate application. But as a student who perhaps doesn’t have, like, for, let’s say, the school doesn’t have funding for a club that they want to start. And they they’re not able to do that, and they’re not able to shadow anybody. Does it become that much more difficult to get into a BS MD? Like, are there certain things like we should see at least something medically related in your extracurriculars? Or, like, can you explain it there? Is it difficult for people who don’t have access to any of that stuff to get into a BS MD program?

Sumanth
I think that it may be more, it definitely would be more difficult. But I think that there’s a lot of different essays, like most PMDs require, like multiple essays. So there’s definitely ways to integrate that into the application. So that way, they understand that, oh, I didn’t have opportunities. I wasn’t able to go shadow because of these reasons. And I think that that’s probably something that if you don’t have those opportunities, a student would definitely need to do that. But I think that he’s mentioned the lack of funding for a club. I don’t think I think the host chapter I don’t think we used any of the schools money. So I think that that was something that was like, really, I think that’s certainly a club is not necessarily like, monetarily, that shouldn’t not always be an issue. Just because it, you don’t have to do stuff that requires money. But I think that even outside of shadowing and all those things, you can just go volunteer at, like, I know, the hospital for the, for a long time, as long as you’re 16 years old, you just have to go to their volunteer desk and ask them and they would let you do it if you fill out a form. So I think that even with like that’s I think that’s pretty common at most hospitals. So I think that even without a lot of those opportunities, it is possible to do other things medically related. But I think that if somebody is not able to do that, then it’s they definitely have to mention that in their essence. Because like they have like a why medicine and how did you prepare for, like a BSN do for medical school? That’s usually like a question in the essays. So if you mentioned that you really wanted to do it, but you weren’t able to, then that would be something you could implement.

Kamila
Okay, and one thing before I move on to actually applying, you know, picking colleges and applying is You did say you did do some clinical research. So can you get into that and what you did there?

Sumanth
Yeah, so the clinical research was basically I’ve been working there for like a year, I started January 2019, I think, and it was like really on and off because it was during the school year, and they closed at five. So it was like, I’d go once a week for like an hour or two. But then over the summer, I went a lot more. And then the summer I went in the afternoons every day, like Monday through Friday. And that I actually didn’t go into there, Fred, I think I went three or four days a week for like, for three to four hours a day. And so while they’re the biggest things is that they didn’t a lot of times they don’t have a lot of patients. So they when they do have patients to come in, it’s very methodical, it’s a lot less free form than the regular shadowing, because they have like a form of everything they have to get and everything they have to fill out. So basically, every time they would like draw blood, they would do like all the standard stuff, but then they’d have like specific questions they would ask. And it’s a lot more like testing. And sometimes the patient visits took a lot longer than they really needed to just because nobody had anything they needed to do. So that was kind of funny. Because like the doctor’s office, everybody’s really rushed, because they’re basically always behind which something that I noticed that doctors offices are really behind all the time.

Kamila
Why is that? So because there are a lot donations. It’s really it’s kind

Sumanth
of weird, like the doctor, he would take a long time talking to patients, and he would like no one have conversations with them, which is really nice for the patients. But the medic, the MA’s, or the nurses would get really frustrated because they wouldn’t have room to put patients in or they wouldn’t really think the patients will get upset because they’re not in the room and they don’t get to see the doctor. So that was kind of something that I noticed that there and like the difference that there wasn’t that much of a rush at the research clinic. But the thing I got to do is I got shadow there as well like at the shadow physician whenever they would come in. And they didn’t come in every day. So I didn’t get the shadow all the time. But I got to do a lot of things like, I got to break down some lab kits. So if stuff expired, I would go through and make sure that stuff wasn’t thrown away that they needed, I got to help with the data. So I got I got to like, like, I got to help digitize like a lot of the data. Because once again, they were using paper,

Kamila
introduced Excel and Google Sheets. Well,

Sumanth
I didn’t do that much. They already were like, in the they already had it. And most of their stuff was digital already. But I helped. So like the last stuff that they hadn’t already put it I put on to their program. And then there was, I don’t know the word. Like there was like the medical the drug companies can’t know where the patients are from or who they are. So there was sometimes they would be sending reports to, like, if something happened, like a negative thing with like a drug or a treatment, they would have to send a report to the company. So I’d have to like, take a Sharpie and cross out everything. So I got to read a lot about the drugs and a lot about like the cases and stuff that’s happening. So don’t think I’m legally allowed to say what I read, but Oh, not necessary. Yeah, so like, I got to see some interesting stuff like that. But it was like a lot more like data analysis. They explained to me like how centrifuges work with blood and a lot of stuff like, like, more analysis of stuff than, like medicine, and a lot of ways, but I thought that was,

Kamila
you said it was a clinical research place. So did was there like research going on in the building next door, or like in another floor of the building.

Sumanth
So it was like a really small like Office build, it wasn’t like an office building, it was it kind of felt like an old house that was converted to an office. But in clinical research, basically, the way it works, it’s not laboratory research, where they’re like doing some, like testing something new in like, they’re not test, like with a cancer, they’re not trying out a new treatment for that. The way it works is that there’s a drug company, like, somewhere, they’ll make a drug, and they want to test it on. Like they were doing COVID vaccine trials, for instance. So basically, the way they did it is the company would send them X amount of vaccines and they’d like have so many like X amount of patients they’d have to get try to get, and they would just try to give the treatment or excuse the vaccine to the patients, and then observe there’s any adverse effects, if they get COVID, if they get a lot of different things like that, so that way they can determine safety and also dosage. So that was something interesting. And I actually got to see kind of how they recruited patients, because oftentimes, they would talk to a lot of physicians in the area and say, if you have anybody who qualifies for these specific symptoms, or these specific diseases, then you can come to us. So that was really cool. I got to like hear them like on the phone with patients and a lot of times like trying to recruit them and actually get paid the patients get paid by the Euro companies to like go undergo trials. So that was kind of like the big seller for a lot of people. Oh,

Kamila
yeah. And is that the kind of last medical related extracurricular? You did?

Sumanth
Um, I think medical related? Yeah, I actually thought of one more thing I did. That’s not medical related. I don’t know if you want to. Sure mention it. So I was in the quizbowl. Team, or it’s called Academic Team here. So I was on varsity the past three years. And I actually made the state team last year where we’re going to go compete at Disney World, going for a really, really close, but they’ll never guess what happened. They got canceled due to COVID.

Kamila
I would have never guessed. Yeah, you’re right. Okay, so we’ve gone through extracurriculars and such. Now, we know how you applied common AP, you soft apply common app to get into the school itself, right? Yes. Okay. So let’s quickly talk about that. And we’d have to do about the little supplementals. Let’s talk about the big personal statement. Can you tell me that this the 650 words? Yeah, 650 words? I think. So. Can you tell me again, how did you approach it? Was it really hard for you to find a topic? Again, process? Did you have people edit it for you? Does your school offer some sort of like editing service or like teachers edit it for you? So how did that process go for you?

Sumanth
So I, the the idea, I always kind of like, for the past like year before I wrote it, I kind of knew I was going to do another Rubik’s Cube. Because that’s like such a big part of like, what I do that I knew that that was going to be what it was based around. But beyond that, I didn’t really know what like the actual topic was going to be. So kind of the way I write is that I just kind of like this actually happened a lot with my essays, as I’ve read the prompt and brainstorm for like 2030 minutes, and then I would just write, and just whatever my ideas were, they would end up on like Google Docs. And that resulted in a lot of bad essays, and then a lot of drafts. So I think I did five, like full drafts of my personal essay, but I think I had like 10 to 15 like shorter things that I scrapped because I didn’t like it. So with that, I did a lot of work in that. And I think that I finished it really early because I started in like end of July beginning of August, because I knew that I was gonna apply to a decent amount of schools because a lot of their BSN Ds are really hard to get into. So I knew that I had to finish early if I really wanted to try to finish all the supplemental applications. And you mentioned editing. I actually used a college counselor, his name is Mark Stucker. I think you interviewed him like Yeah, a couple weeks ago. Yeah. So he was really helpful like he would, he had like a form that I’d filled out from the personal essay just to kind of figure out what I was going to write about. I already knew, like the idea what I was going to do. So that was it did help, like, narrow down specifically what Rubik’s Cube. But I, as I mentioned, I knew, but he only helped edit it and kind of told me that some of the drafts weren’t as good. And then some one draft, I think my second full draft, which was like after like, a lot of shorter essays, that was the one that I think was started to become actually decent. And then I did, I think I was, I think four drafts after that, that were, and then until I got like, a final, really good one. And that took me like, two, three weeks to do of like pretty constant work just because school by school started August 20. So I had like three bricks of just nothing where I was working on that. And then yeah, I think that’s basically it.

Kamila
Can you tell us? So you did say Rubik’s Cube? It’s specifically what about the Rubik’s Cube did you write about, you don’t have to go through like every single word. I’m just saying, like just the general topic that you wrote about.

Sumanth
So I kind of started off. So Oh, actually, something else I did is I read a lot of like examples. So like, John Johns Hopkins has like a website of essays that worked. I know, right? It’s great. It’s

Sumanth
a great website. Yeah, I

Sumanth
think my the one that really worked was kind of modeled off of one, I think it was sort of rock climbing. There’s one that I saw that I really liked. And I kind of modeled it sort of that. So what I did is I did like an anecdote about the Rubik’s cube. So I just kind of wrote like a little story. It’s like, based off based on real life, so it really happened. And then I kind of went off of that. And then the story was kind of like a failure about the Rubik’s cube that I did. Or like, I don’t know what the real life was a failure. But I didn’t mention that part. I just kind of said, How was preparing for a solve. And then I went off of that and said, How the Rubik’s Cube has helped me like, focus and how it’s helped me become more patient. And then I kind of tied it into a lot of different personal things that I’ve done, and that I like characteristics about me. So I think that was really something that was unique. Like, I think that would made it really work well, because I didn’t just focus on The Cube, I focused on a lot of different things that cube has helped me do. And then yeah, so I kind of that, I think, was one of the things that was good was that at the like, my concluding paragraph was like really short, but it was kind of like, had that, you know, like a one liner at the end that it’s kind of like philosophical, something that college people, they college admissions counselors tend to like, like, Oh, I think I said, Life is like the cube. It’s something about like being unexpected. I’m looking forward to every twist and turn personally like that.

Kamila
Wow, very philosophical. Yeah, indeed. I have a question that’s not really related to college. But if you can solve a Rubik’s Cube in one point, however many seconds and you only place like route 150 in the world, what is the number one person what is

Sumanth
my 100. And I’m like, 200. And basically, the way it works is there’s like an average and a single solo. And the average is that you do five songs, they drop your best numbers time, and they average the middle three. So I’m like to 10 per average with my in competition average is 2.1, or 2.08. I think technically, but I do a lot faster at home. So my best solving competition is point nine 0.92 seconds for the two by two. The world record is 0.49. So it’s like

Kamila
how do you even measured that like? Okay, yeah, interesting there. Okay, so that was just a little question I have. So let’s move on to application. So first, walk me through the schools that you are applying to so those that just don’t have a BS MD, you’re just applying to them because you like them, and you’re not. I don’t know, it’s not be SMD but you still like them? And then the ones that are BSM, D, and then can you rank them for me like the in theory, if you got into all those schools, which would be number one, number two, number three, and so forth.

Sumanth
So I applied to a lot of schools, just because I’m kind of like, my dad’s a doctor. So money is not necessarily an issue for me. And the way that I kind of proposed the idea of find a lot is that, I mean, they’re gonna end up at us where I get everything paid for and actually going to give like, they pay for more, so I get spending money and stuff. So all the money saved for college, he’s going to get to keep it or I’m going to end up at like Harvard or somewhere where it’s going to be 70 grand a year and this like little amount of money is not going to he’s not going to remember that he spent spent it anyways. So there’s very little Yeah, cuz like it’s going to be like a drop of water in a sea of debt. I think that’s the, that’s the metaphor I used. And, um, that kind of was how I did it. So I ended up applying to like 20 schools. A little over 20. Yeah,

Kamila
that took me a second to register 20 schools.

Sumanth
I think it was 24 was the final number.

Sumanth
Can you remember all the schools that you applied to

Sumanth
have a sprit hold on my spreadsheet right here like pulled up? So do we just list them? And yes, so I played the MIT Michigan Brown alum. Oh, these are the direct metal ones here Brown, Alabama. UMKC Pitt case Western Rochester Boston University and George Washington University.

Kamila
Okay, pause there for a sec. So those are the BS MD programs. Can you kind of rank them in? Which ones if you in theory got into all of them? Which ones? Which one are you most likely to go to? And which one are you least likely to go to?

Sumanth
So my number one since I decided I wanted to, like, go to all your BS MD was always been Pittsburgh, like, that’s always been my number one cause board at Pittsburgh, and I just really liked the program. But then once I got into Alabama, I actually kind of liked that lower before I got an interview just because I was like, Oh, I don’t really want to go there. And then I got an interview. And I heard about the program, I started reading more about it like they, they had like an information session. And then I kind of that kind of shot up to like I made choose that over Pittsburgh now that they kind of really close like one and two. Just because like Alabama, they have a thing where you can pursue like an MBA or an MPH during undergrad where I really like that that aspect. Then the rest I am. I don’t know, I don’t really have like a ranking necessarily, oh, I don’t like the Boston University Program at all anymore. Because the way they do it is that if you get an interview, they tell you, but if you don’t get interviewed, they don’t tell you unless you ask if you got an interview. It’s a really messed up system. And then if you don’t get it get into the BS MD, you can’t actually get into the regular program like regular school unless you ask them or like notify them you want to, but then you can’t notify them you want to unless you ask them. It’s like a big mess. And I don’t like it. I felt like it’s really conceited and, like self absorbed and a lot of ways. So I didn’t like that at all.

Kamila
So it’s like, number however many like the very last one, where

Sumanth
if I got an interview, I’d be like, Oh, that’s great. But yeah, so it’s kind of hard for me to rank them now because I didn’t I got rejected from case Rochester BU and GW. But I got interviews at UAB. UMKC and Pitt and then Brown. There’s no interviews this year because of COVID. So it’s just you did like a video that I had to submit and then they’ll tell me on April 6,

Kamila
so is so if you get into a BS MD program, do they tell you along with like you got into the school, or did they tell you you got into the school? Wait for the BS MD program acceptance. So

Sumanth
Pitt, UAB and UMKC are all rolling admissions for regular so like I applied to Pitt in mid October, so I undefended in two weeks, UAB I found that up is just based on test scores and GPA. So I found out like immediately UMKC, same thing I found out like two days after I applied or the day after they got my transcript. And the Bsmt part is like there’s a supplemental application like pit, you have to have this checkbox, you have to click on the application, like do you want to apply for it? Or do you want to be looked at for it, and you have to have a certain essay at certain GPA to qualify, and then they send you the application, then you can apply for it. So like that was due? December 1, I think it was the middle of December, I don’t have an actual date. And then you UAB is also doing November? I think?

Kamila
I have a question. So I’ve never understood what rolling admissions is I kind of get it but I kind of don’t. So can you quickly do a quick like spiel on it? What does it actually mean?

Sumanth
rolling admissions is just like they have a date, like the last day you can apply? Usually it’s like March. But basically the way it works is you can apply at any point before then and they’ll tell you like rolling kind of like I applied to like UCF and Pitt in October and they told me then, so like you don’t have to wait until April 1 or middle of March like you do for most schools. So it’s kind of like, well, based on whenever you apply, they’ll tell you soon after that.

Kamila
So there’s just like a certain window, you can apply whenever and then they’ll just get back to you. As soon as they read your application. There’s no like official date they release.

Sumanth
Yeah. So that’s kind of how it works. And then

Kamila
if you apply, like, say you’re applying to Harvard regular decision or whatever, you can apply before the deadline, right?

Sumanth
Yes, but they won’t tell you until this year, April 6.

Kamila
So rolling admissions is just there’s no set deadline to when they tell you.

Sumanth
Yeah, they’ll tell you as soon as possible. Especially how it works.

Kamila
Okay, so we’ve gone through the BS MD programs, I kind of listed them in order. Now let’s go to the ones that are not PSM. D. Can you read those out and then kind of rank which ones you like?

Sumanth
So I mentioned MIT and Michigan, both of which are applied early action. I got deferred from MIT and I got into Michigan. So then Columbia or I guess, Michigan Ann

Sumanth
Arbor Yes. Wow, good job.

Sumanth
Thank you. Yeah, so I Brown is a BS MD, but it’s also like I applied out applied the regular anyways, I got a Columbia Cornell Duke, Emory, Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, USF Penn, Stanford, Yale, Vanderbilt, and Dartmouth. So I applied to every Ivy League, and more like every top 20 school. I did well but the thing is that it was kind of like really daunting at first I was like, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it. But though as I looked in the essays, a lot of them are really similar. So it kind of like I haven’t gotten into a lot of them yet so I don’t know if my strategy work necessarily but a lot of them had like the why Northwestern Why’d Penn why whatever school so I kind of did it was I I had like a little thing about like Northwestern I visited campus. So I wrote like a little anecdote about visiting campus. And then I would go find a research lab and write why that research lab, most of the research labs are like, pretty really like similar in the topic that I was interested in. So I just wrote like, basically the same essay for most of them. So it wasn’t as much work as it may seem, but it was a lot of work.

Kamila
Okay, and you did lose a lot of school. So let’s just do top five, what would you bring number one, number two, number three, number four. Number five, if you got in theory got into all of them.

Sumanth
So I would say the direct meds are ranked above all of these, just I would say, like any direct matter, except for UMKC. Every other direct med I would consider better than those. So I would say one is Columbia, too. I’d probably say like, I don’t know, I would, I kind of never assumed that I’d get into more than like one or two of these. But I would say like either Northwestern or Princeton. Probably I just really like I visited Princeton and Northwestern. I really like both campuses.

Kamila
And other. I mean, Princeton’s campus is just gorgeous. Probably one of the prettiest and then Northwestern. I love Chicago. So I was like this right there. It works out perfectly. Yeah,

Sumanth
really cool. I was gonna apply to the University of Chicago, but their essays are really hard.

Kamila
Yeah, it’s just so random. And I like it’s really random. Like, what would you do if you had a jar of mayonnaise? Yeah, they want me to say the

Sumanth
one that I was gonna do was find like a tongue twister. Like, I don’t remember. I think the example was like, How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, and then solve it? So I, I like the prompt that that was really intriguing. But I didn’t want to write it. So that was had that was happened that don’t happen there. And then I forgot, I think Stanford would be next. Number five, four, or five, whatever. I don’t know how many I said.

Kamila
Okay, so But you said the BS MD programs are ranked all above all of them. So since you did get into Alabama already, you’re probably just going to go there. If you don’t get into other any BS MD programs?

Sumanth
Well, I mean, yeah, for most likely. So like, if I get into Pittsburgh, it’s going to be witching hour ban Pittsburgh, I could get into Columbia or MIT. And I could choose either the BS MD is over them. Oh,

Kamila
that’s great. And now let’s talk. I guess the last kind of topic we can do actually know, one thing before I get into that. So I wanted to talk about the Bsmt application itself. And any advice you give there and how it’s differs from just regular common app. But first, I want to get into IVs. You did apply to all of them. And then you apply to a bunch of other top 20 schools, your top tier schools as well. Do you have any advice for when applying to an Ivy if you do choose like, Oh, I’m going to make a couple of my reach schools. You know, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, whatever. Do you have any advice for people when they’re applying for any top tier school, not just Ivy’s?

Sumanth
So I think the biggest advice is to do a lot of do your research, like spend time reading to the programs reading about like, what’s unique about them. Just that way, you can write an essay that is like, specifically about that school, because you really want to be like, have specific details. Like you don’t want to say Oh, I really liked the program, because like You’re like from us by the computer science for a lot of them. You don’t want to say I don’t like the computer science program, because there’s research you want to like, or because of like the curriculum, you have to say specifics about all of that. And like, that’s really important. So you have to do a lot of research with that. But I think the biggest thing I can say is that you really want to start, like early, you don’t want like don’t start like sophomore year writing your essays or anything. But like, if you start make end of July, reading your personal statement, beginning of August and you try to finish that relatively early, then you have the rest of the time just focusing on writing the supplemental essays, which is that’s the only reason I was able to apply to so many schools and to all the BSN DS, because like a lot of my friends, they would have two weeks before the deadlines. They were working on the personal statements. But I finished mine so long before that I was able to just kind of crank out schools. Yeah, so Okay, good essays, because you really get in a flow just because a lot of the essays are so similar that you can kind of use ideas between them, so that

Sumanth
they can just change it to the specifics of the school. Yeah, so

Sumanth
like, my Michigan essay, I think was or my Penn essay was the same as my Michigan essay with like the specifics change. So like, I had the same introduction. And then I applied to computer science at Penn and biomedical engineering or bioengineering at Michigan so I had to change a lot of the details but overall they’re really similar essays. So that actually cut down a lot of the time and like with the BS MD is the why medicine essay is like you can basically copy pasted it it’s just standard for most it’s standard but then they also like some of them have like why this school specifically so I had to change that but Brown had a had a Why do you want to be a doctor and then why do you want to come to brown so like the Why do you want to come a doctor was exactly the same as the Why do you want to become a doctor for every other school? And those were all like, I think that I finished all of those in like three days because after the first one that took me a while but after that first essay was finished, the rest were so similar that I just was able it was like a breeze.

Kamila
And then can you tell me for a BS MD application specifically? Is it kind of a mirror of the common app is there one Big personal statement and then a few supplementals, or is it just a few supplementals that they attach along with your common app essay?

Sumanth
So it depends on the school. So like Brown, I think had 5x dresses? Like supplemental smaller metal? Yeah. Well, most of them, some of them are as big as the common app, personal statement. So like the why medicine essays are usually why medicine essays are usually can’t speak are usually 500 to 600 words, I think 501 of them, I remember was, I think 701 of them was 700. But it was like, most of them are 250. And they’re not super different. Like, they’re not super long. But there is some and most of them are like repetitive. So like a lot of them are, as I’ve mentioned that a lot of the supplemental ones for the IVs i You can literally use the exact same essay. So like there’s like a y extracurricular or like, tell me about one extracurricular type of essay, that was exactly the same between like Stanford, and then for Harvard, like, I used, essentially the same essay for all for like a lot of them. So that made it really easy. And then that also kind of transferred to the Bsmt application. So it’s usually like another writing supplement or another section in the academics portion of the Common App under each school. So you’d have to write a couple of essays. And I said, Brown was probably the hardest, just because there’s more assists.

Kamila
And is there anything else that we should talk about, that’s more specific to be as MD programs in the application? Like, any sort of requirements that you need to meet any sort of test that you need to take? Like, I guess, an MCAT? For high schoolers or something? Is there anything that you need to take before you get into BS MD? Or is the application enough?

Sumanth
So I mean, I would say take all the APS and IVs. And all the tests you can and try to take the hardest classes available at the school just because if if they see that there’s a you’re not taking the hardest classes, or you’re not trying there, then you’re not going to get in, you have to take the most challenging curriculum available to you, even if that’s not an eight, like if your school doesn’t offer APS, they’ll, like, look at the school report. Understand that. And they that shouldn’t disadvantage you in any way. And I think that you have to maintain like a high GPA, you don’t have to maintain like a 4.0, necessarily. But you should obviously aim for that. And then try to get as close as possible as you can. I think that’ll help. And then testing wise, besides like, APS and stuff, I think, like, you have to take the LSAT a CT, like they are test optional for a lot of these places.

Sumanth
You have to take the AC T, it’s not

Sumanth
their test optional, but I think that there’s like, it’s they, I think a lot a lot of them are, but some of them aren’t like PID I mentioned, you have to take MCAT if you don’t do sh t or AC T, I think Alabama was not I don’t think Alabama was test optional. They may have been I don’t remember exactly. But theirs was a really easy application. They just put in your send them your transcript, and I sent it and then I was in. And then um, yeah, so it’s like, just try to take the test. And then I also say don’t wait till your junior senior year to take them because like with COVID, a lot of people got messed up and weren’t able to, like retake or take them. So I took I started taking it after. I think either summer before sophomore year or during sophomore year, I don’t remember when I took my first one. But I was able to that relieve a lot of stress. Because I did pretty well on my I did well my first LSAT and then I was just kind of was able to focus a lot more on extracurriculars, because I wasn’t stressed that I have to take that test. So that was something that I would say. And then with I think the application itself is super important. Because you can have like a 1600 essay at 4.0 number one in your class. But if your essays aren’t that great, or if your essays aren’t like what they’re looking for, you’re not going to get into the application, they get into the the BS MD program. But I think that the application can only do so much. Because if you’re in the top, I don’t know 5% or 10% of applicants that are that get in then you get an interview. So the interviews is actually what like makes or break the your application. Like for Alabama, I wasn’t actually offered an interview. At first I was an alternate. So I emailed them. And I don’t know if it actually helped. But like the next day, they immediately offered me an interview. So that I was like the last person, they gave an interview spot, and then I actually ended up getting into the program. So I think that that shows the interview is super important. And actually more important. In some cases, it’s not more important application, the application is like getting your foot in the door for the interview is like opening the door fully. And then sort of frontal from what I’ve heard that no matter how good or bad your application is, if you get an interview, that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just based on how you perform at the interview. So I think that’s something else that super important to know. Well,

Kamila
now we just have to get into interview tips, don’t we? So what do what happens in a BS MD interview? How does it kind of differ? Do they ask the same questions? You know, why should we accept you and such? And then what tips would you give for people who are because you said that interview has a huge impact. So what tips would you give there?

Sumanth
So with the interviews, there’s a couple different types of interviews. So I had a thing called an MMI, which is like it’s called a multiple it stands for Multiple mini interviews. So what they do is they ask you like a medical situation or like an ethical situation, for instance, they’ll say, like, trying to think of what cuz I started like a nondisclosure on that. So I’m trying to think of one that’s like not related to, well, here’s like a standard one, your friend is cheating on a test. So it doesn’t have a medical related, like your friend is cheating on a test. You go, what would you do to like resolve the issue? Or like somebody has cancer? How do you tell them? Stuff like that? Where it’s like, those are pretty generic could offer I think, I’m not going to get in trouble. But it’s like, actually, those are, I don’t think I was asked either of those. So I don’t think it matters. But um, yeah, stuff like that. And you have to give your answer and like six or eight minutes, or however long they give you. And then they so there for me UMKC, I had 11 of those 10 or 11 of those. So it was like a two hour long interview with like different stations and different people. But then like at Alabama had three of them. And then I had a traditional interview with a faculty member where they just asked like, it’s like a standard interview stuff. So I’d say that prepare questions like look up medical school interview questions and general interview questions. Because a lot of those school like a lot of the interviews are a lot of the questions is similar to stuff you’d see in like a alumni interview for like an IV or for a regular undergraduate program. They’ll ask like, why do you want to come here? Tell me about yourself, what are your weaknesses, etc? And

Kamila
oh, kind of have a little question here. So that interview as I understand it, because you said not all of them are medically related. I’m sure there are some that are medically related in specific like, Oh, why do you want to come to our school? But would you say the interview is more to find out the kind of person that you are Nessus? Like over knowing your like your medical knowledge and stuff?

Sumanth
Yeah. So they don’t actually ask for medical knowledge. Specifically, they won’t ask like, Oh, this is the this is like the picture of this condition? What do you diagnose? Like, they’re not gonna ask anything like that? They may ask like, general medical stuff, like, what do you think about the medical, like, the medical setup in the United States, stuff like that? Like, what do you think is the biggest problem that medical, medical community faces like general stuff like that, but there’s not going to be any specifics? It’s just based on general knowledge. And I think that the interviews are really to find your personality and fit with the program, because they already know you’re smart enough to get in at that point, because your scores are good enough, your essays are good enough. So they know that you are intelligent, they just want to make sure that you are good at speaking and are a good person. Yeah, good person. But I think is the big thing about the MMI is because it’s like an ethical situation. So it’s like, they just want to make sure you’re not jumping to conclusions, you’re thinking critically, which is like one of the biggest things, they want to make sure you’re like analyzing a lot of different ideas. And yeah, I think that the biggest thing you could really do to prepare is just to practice a lot of different stuff, especially for the MMI is there usually or what? So there’s, like three types. There’s like the interview type, like that traditional interview, they ask a question, you say your answer, and then ask questions about it. Those like an acting situation where they didn’t have them this year because of their resume. But usually when in person, they’ll have like an actor in a room. And they’ll say, like, Oh, you have to tell this person, they have cancer, and you have to go in and tell them. And then there’s another one’s like collaboration where you like, have a picture, you have to explain how to draw it to someone else, which we didn’t have any of those. So that made it a lot easier for me. But I think with all those, it’s just about practicing and getting comfortable in that type of environment. And that’s the same for regular interviews, where if you just like, you don’t want to memorize answers. You don’t want to sound like you’re speaking from just something like you’re reading something you want to sound genuine. So I think that’s really important. You want to like know your answers enough for you’re not like stumbling for words, you’re not like pausing for 15 seconds in the middle to think about what you’re gonna say stuff like that.

Kamila
Okay, so one last topic I want to go over. So really topic is just a simple question here, before we wrap up is, who would you recommend applies for BS MD program.

Sumanth
So I think that you only should apply to be a CMD program, if you know you want to be a doctor. Actually, I’m not going to say that if you have like a decent amount of interest in being a doctor, I don’t think it can hurt to apply to a BS MD program, just because if you get in and then at some point, after the application like this is submitted, you decide you do want to be a doctor, you know that for sure that you do have that option. But I think that you kind of have I think that it’s more likely to get in if you do know for sure, because you’ll be doing more like medically related activities, more extracurriculars in more in school. And I think that you really have to like if you do decide to enroll or commit to a program, you have to know like 100% For sure that you want to be a physician. Because if you end up let’s say, I go to Alabama and then in the middle, I decide, oh, I don’t want to be a doctor that can drop out like you’re allowed to drop out of the program and you’re allowed to just be a regular student. But that would be kind of be like a big, there’d be like a big downside of that because I could get into like a Columbia and if I’m going to a school to not pursue medicine, that I might as well go to the higher ranked school where there’s like a better reputation and like the better school stay and that’s something that you don’t want end up doing because it could hurt your education in the long run. And then also, I think that most people who get in are usually like, in like the top 10 15% of their class. So if you’re below that, it is possible to get in, I don’t want to say don’t try to get in. Because if you do have a lot of extracurriculars you can definitely get in. And if there’s something like really unique about your or something that you’ve done, that stands out, you could definitely get in with that. And if you’re in a really competitive school, then obviously that doesn’t necessarily apply. That make recommendation. So I think that overall, you have to be like a relatively strong student to get in or to have a chance of getting in. And I think that if you’re not, then you should still, you can still apply, but I think you definitely have to have that interest in medicine.

Kamila
So you have to like compensate in other areas of your application.

Sumanth
Yeah, so like, let’s say, my, like, let’s say your si t, or AC T is like lower, like, I know that one, some people who get in, you can get in with like a 1300 or so. But you have to have like a lot of medical activity like medically, medically medically related activities are like shadowing, or you may have to do research, like publish something like getting a published paper, something like that, to really make you stand out. So just whatever you can do to stand out is that I think that would be something and actually, I think that apply to undergraduate like regular undergrad as well is that it is important to do a lot of things. But I think that it’s a lot of times better to really stand out to really shine it like one specific thing. Like for instance, I have that I’m really good at the Rubik’s cube. So I think that really made me stand out. Somebody else I know when like they do they play tennis, they’re like, top 10 in the state. So I think that they got into some pretty decent schools. So I think that really made them stand out. And stuff like that, where you don’t want to like be mediocre at 15 things if you can do those do fortunately, those like pretty well and do one of them really well. That’s a really big, really big benefit.

Kamila
So anything else you want to add about BS MD programs? Any sort of information you want to include?

Sumanth
Um, I mean, I think I covered everything, basically. Yeah. So

Kamila
because now I want to move on to the very, very last bit before I like officially say no, it’s a good night. That is advice. So since you are in a BS MD program, I’m gonna ask you to do a little bit more. So one piece of advice for high schoolers, this can be anything you know, extracurriculars wise, general application wise, what advice would you give for high schoolers? Or can just be like life advice, whatever. Number two, is for students who want to apply for a BS MD program? Like they’ve discovered? Yes, I want to do this. Like, I want to do a BS MD program, what advice would you give for them, so one for just high schoolers in general, whether they’re applying BS MD or not. And then one specifically for BS MD program, people who are interested in the program.

Sumanth
So I think that like for the general I got regular undergrad, I kind of gave some advice for like the try to excel at one thing, because I think that really makes it stand out because I kind of went up before. But I think that another thing that I would say is really important is to just try a lot of different, you know, a lot of different subjects or different classes, like for instance, I’m majoring probably going to major in computer science. But before sophomore year, I really had no idea that I even like computer science until I just randomly decided to take a class on it. So like, I think like even extracurriculars, right? Like you may never know that you want to do medicine or you want to do a specific field until you go like volunteer in that field, or you read about that field. Like I know one person I know is was planning a, I was planning on majoring in history. And they actually they like history in school, but they didn’t really know they wanted to major in that until they actually went and talked to like the history teachers about it. And they did a lot of stuff like contacting a history professors at various universities. And like that really opened up a whole new path for them. So like, I think that you really want to just try everything, like in school extracurricular, just whatever you can, so you can broaden your horizon to whatever opportunities can come your way. Like, and that’s, I think that’s also a thing like in sports, for instance, I liked basketball, but I didn’t try it for the basketball team. And I got something that I wish I did. And I think that it’s really important to enjoy high school, it shouldn’t just be like work, work, work, work, work, you want to have fun, you you want to show colleges that you also can have fun and do things to relax. So I think that you want to also have that, that thing that you can do. Like I listen to music a lot, I play music, I do the Rubik’s Cube but like I do a lot of things that aren’t academic, in like a sense, just and I think that you want to be a very well rounded person. I think that’s really important. And I think for Bsmt is all of that is true. You want to if you can try to do all of those things, and then also have like a focus on medicine. So you have those like medically related things. I think that’s really important. Like it doesn’t have to be research. It can just be like, you can volunteer at a hospital. You can volunteer in a medically related club, you can do like anything, basically, I think that that’s it doesn’t have to be something like you have to write a research paper. It doesn’t have to be that extreme to get in. I think that’s the thing that people don’t really like. I think that’s something that people should realize.

Kamila
I should know. Okay, so thank you so much for coming today. Have a good night. You too. Bye. That’s it for my interviews. Sumanth I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, make sure to subscribe because next week I’ll be releasing an interview with Jack from Northeastern University. Now what makes Northeastern an incredible university and sets it apart from others is its Co Op program Cooperative Education Program. This means that students take what they learn in the classroom and apply it in real life. Most North Eastern students have two to three internships under their belt before they graduate. So make sure to stay tuned for that. Also, check out my blog, a college kid.com For more college related content, follow me on Instagram at underscore a college kid underscore but other than that, I hope to see you in the next one.