A premed student’s perennial question: What is the point of all this?

If you are reading this post, you are probably a premed student either still in college or having already graduated. One of the biggest concerns in your life is getting into medical school, and you feel that you’ve worked too hard, sacrificed too much to not get into a good med school. At this point, you will probably do close to whatever it takes to get there, whether you’d like to admit it or not. Maybe you’ve already tried MCAT test prep, spent Saturday mornings volunteering at a hospital, talked to countless people who have “already gone through the process.” Whatever it is, you’re reading this blog because you’re trying to find someone who can help you maximize your chances at fulfilling your dreams.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you all about why you should pick me to be your med school admissions coach. That is entirely your decision. What I will write a bit about is a perspective I wish someone had shared with me when I was in your shoes.

I grew up in a first generation immigrant family. When I was eight, my parents, brother, and I uprooted ourselves from our comfortable lives in Korea and moved to New York, where we knew no one. For years, my parents hopped from one business to another to support us, and each time they found something, they gave it their 100%. The number one virtue in our household was the importance of hard work and time management. I, too, gave school my 100%, and I did all the things a good premed does. I could not fathom a world in which I didn’t succeed academically. People said med school was hard to get into, and I could definitely see myself as a doctor, so I decided to make that my aim.

Here’s the thing: med school classes are pass/fail. This means that a 75 and 95 on an exam mean exactly the same thing. What are the primary reasons you study hard for an exam? Maybe you are fascinated by the material and merely want to measure how much you know. If that’s the only reason, though, why not study however much you want and leave the rest up to fate – why do you stress? I doubt you will correct me when I say that a primary purpose of yours is to get a good score on the test, so you can get a good grade in the class, so you can get a good GPA, so you can get into a good school and get a good job.

My point is this: all that goes out the window when you enter med school. You do not have that external motivation anymore. You need to be able to study because you love the material, because you can’t wait to see how you can use this to help someone sick, because you can’t imagine doing anything else in the world.

I stand corrected – you can go through med school without being any of those things, relying on sheer willpower and dedication, as you’ve been training yourself for so long. You could convince yourself that, well, your primary purpose in med school is to get good board exam scores so you can get into a good residency, so you can get a prestigious, well-paying job. But where does that end? The ladder of medical hierarchy is long. For your entire life, you could be reaching for the next chief position, the next director of an institute. When will you be happy?

As you contemplate starting the process of applying to med school, I beseech you to think about this question: what is the point of all this? Why do you wake up every day and pull yourself to wherever you go? What is the true reason you are equating your dreams with an acceptance letter from a top 10 med school?