N/A.

The general notion I’ve come to know from years of r/premed & r/medicalschool browsing is 4.0 at Duke > 4.0 State School, but 4.0 State School > 3.5 at Duke, unless you have a highly competitive MCAT to offset the low GPA. You most certainly should’ve gone to a State school on scholarship & left with a highly competitive GPA & MCAT with low debt. However, your gamble by going to Duke could’ve paid off, as a competitive MCAT & GPA from Duke would’ve set you up excellently for T10 Med School admissions. Though it’s not a perfect science, there absolutely is a relationship between UG prestige & Med School prestige, and same for Med School prestige & matched Residency prestige. Whether that’s due to more driven/proactive students going to those schools/programs in the first place and that trickling into the next phase, or due to the prestige that those schools/programs add to an application, who knows. So you did what you had to do to achieve your goal. It didn’t exactly pan out how you thought it would. The only thing to do going forward for you is to kill the MCAT, the great equalizer. That’s all there’s left to do, in addition to paying off the massive student loans you now have.

I lived at Duke Manor for 2 years while working on West Campus (Duke SOM Research Tech). I would highly recommend against Duke Manor for the following reasons: (1) package theft from front doors was so common that it was literally a toss up if your package was going to be there or not when you arrived back home late at night, (2) gunshots from the neighborhood down the street and from vehicles driving past the complex were heard anywhere from 1-2 times per week, (3) there were 2 separate times someone was robbed at gunpoint on the property late at night, and 1 instance where a kidnapping was attempted, (4) though not intentional, I was consistently over-charged (e.g., charged twice for amenity fees, highly overcharged for water due to a faulty meter, etc.) and had to monitor my statement very closely each month, (5) it was very common for multiple Durham PD cruisers to be parked outside apartment buildings with lights on to handle domestic disputes consistently, especially for ‘repeat offenders’, and (6) the walk from West Campus back to Duke Manor across Erwin Rd. at night was extremely sketchy even for a male, let alone a smaller female. A decent percentage of the residents are Duke undergrad/grad students or Hospital employees, but the vast majority are not. Look elsewhere and avoid Duke Manor at all costs.

Indeed, people on Reddit aren’t very good at taking constructive criticism lol but I agree, ‘theme’ is one of the most talked about MD application elements here aside from stats & maybe ways to get clinical experience. Tying everything together can only help your narrative & very easily demonstrates you didn’t just toss pre-med stuff together. It also helps answer the ‘Why MD’ question too, and demonstrates targeted passion. I don’t know how theme can be argued with haha

Out of curiosity, what’s your overall ‘theme’ going to be on your application? Just wondering how you’re going to tie together this seemingly broad/unrelated collection of experiences.

Jeez, almost ended up on a different subreddit

Yeah. We have someone else do them and not me.

I will consider myself HIT

I hope TikTok doesn’t get deleted, I mean where else will these shallow, pick-me, non-self-aware, cringey females get their daily dose of male attention and compliments? I don’t think it’s fair they’ll have to go get a real hobby/profession.

SOMEBODY HIT SOMEBODY

I have a hard time dealing with the little fur floaties from one Ragdoll, I can’t even imagine three

I hate to be that guy, but I’d argue it’s not your call. She has ambitions of being a professor in academia or being a senior exec at a biotech. She needs a PhD for that. Therefore, that needs to happen. But at what cost? If she’s content giving up the $100k salary, then that’s her call and enough said. If household income while she’s in grad school is the issue, then you may need to explore other job options to support things in the interim. This may sound harsh, but taking away PhD aspirations from your wife because of money concerns due to your $50k per year salary doesn’t seem fair at all. I know you said it’s your dream job, but at the same time your dream shouldn’t be prohibiting her dream. Grad school will be managed just fine by her. It’s difficult for everyone, the vast majority get through it, and it’s supposed to be a grind. That’s what breeds relentless and talented scientists. Y’all will make it work!

This is what I think I look like until I watch the video of me maybe getting a foot off the ground…

Gravity

And the HR clowns will still be scratching their heads wondering why they haven’t received a decent application in 6 months. Unfortunately, people aren’t as desperate as you’d like them to be to work for you for basically nothing. Meanwhile all the actually qualified applicants are taking 6-figure jobs elsewhere, and you’re still sitting here bad at your job. Embarrassing.

Yeah, all jokes aside, I wouldn’t recommended looking like necklace guy in any professional setting.

Don’t say this to her out loud, it makes too much sense

Makes sense, definitely leveraged your YOE from one job to the next it seems. I’m assuming you went up in job title during each transition, from J1 to J2 to J3?

From your first industry job post-bachelors to now, how many job transitions did it take to get you to 135K? And what area are you in?