I’ve never covered up the hard stuff before, and I won’t do that now. I won’t pretend that I’ve actually changed my mind and decided to put off med school. I won’t pretend that my career plans have changed, and that’s why I’m not starting medical school this fall. It’s because I got rejected from everywhere. All 29 schools.

I have known from the start that this process would be difficult, and I’d heard horror stories about my peers getting flat-out rejected. Being rejected 29 times, spread out over 9 months, really wears on a person’s confidence. The hurt comes in waves, but I am comforted by the knowledge that I held nothing back. I failed harder than even I thought was possible. I’m disappointed in these schools’ failure to see the value I will bring as a physician, but I guess I need to make it easier for them to understand.

I won’t be discouraged, I’m leveling up. I’m going to take a year, pursue my Master’s of Science, then reapply to medical school in 2021 to begin in 2022. I’m going to work over the next year to make it so painfully obvious that I deserve to be considered, that I actually will be. I don’t know which master’s program I will choose, but I won’t squander the opportunity to demonstrate my competence and motivation.

I will start school (again) this summer and am aiming to be finished by Spring 2021 (roughly one year from now). I will re-apply then, for matriculation in Fall 2022. I don’t want to be starting medical school two years from now, and could hypothetically reapply now to start in 2021. I need to take a year to do something meaningful (and, ideally, successful) to really add value to the time I have taken off since graduating.