Decisions Decisions

In mere days, nay mere hours if promises can be kept in this modern world of ours, I will hear the final decisions from the last of my schools. Six months since interviews, nine months since finishing applications, ten months since I began applying, over a year and a half since the MCAT and six years since I decided, one sultry summer that I, Meat, wanted to be a doctor and in mere hours I will be faced with that reality.

Well a portion of that reality; I will know what school I am attending. Actually I will only know where I am attending if my top choice schools don’t waitlist me. If I am waitlisted I get to play OT and wait til I either get placed off a waitlist or am finally rejected for good. This can take until August. But Meat, doesn’t school start in august? How observant of you, why yes classes do start in August. Supposedly one can be taken off a waitlist up to two weeks after classes start. And that isn’t some statistical anomaly reserved for the really evil premeds. The one’s who wrote molecular orbit filling sequences on their hands for tests or who pushed the smaller premeds down and stole their mass spectrometry printouts, this happens regularly to good hearted, hard working premeds like you and me (well you).

Schools are, by AMCAS law, required to make decisions by March 15*, but through the magic of the waitlist, the schools can check the “maybe” box and hand you back your note as you stare blankly at the unchecked “yes”/“no” boxes on your “do you like me” letter. This leaves you with 6 more months of uncertainty, second guessing and making extravagant deals with the deity of your choice, just to get an answer. I can’t wait. Actually all I’ve done is wait for over a year, I’ve become quite good at it.

*Update: I have no fucking clue where I got this date. It’s not true at all. I didn’t hear from my last school until March 30th and I didn’t hear from a single school on the 15th. I’m an idiot.