 Why now? Are you ready for this kind of commitment? These are just a couple of questions that non-Trad applicants must address. Stick around, let's chat. Hi, my name is Dr. Josie. This is Write Your Acceptance. I work with pre-medical, pre-dental and MS4s when they are ready to elevate their message and apply with the strongest application possible. I have students with full rides to Mayo Clinic because of their personal statement. I have pre-dental with the Dean's Scholarship. I have students with low MCAT scores who get in and have multiple acceptances because of their messaging. I know what they're looking for. Let's start chatting about non-traditional applicants today. Let's get into it. So I won't spend too much time on the two buckets, but there are two main differences between non-traditional applicants. There could be the student who applied with a non-bio major, an English major. Let's say they pursued public health and they took their science pre-rex and they are kind of taking a couple gap years. They're still in their kind of early to mid-20s and haven't yet started a full on second or first career. Those students will for the most part have a similar trajectory or strategy with their application. They might bring in different aspects of their major and academic kind of awareness as to how it rounds out their candidacy. That often enough when you do it very strategically is great and really lends itself to helping you stand out. I've had students bring in their theater background and start with a pivotal scene from a play in their personal statement. I've had history buffs talking about a specific court case and so there are definitely ways to kind of you know really bring other aspects and flavors to your application as a kind of that aspect of a non-trad, right? But we're going to focus our energy today on the non-traditional applicant who has had a full on career and is returning to school, right? And so I definitely kind of have a few tips for you to consider. First know that medical schools are assessing you on 17 different competencies, right? But they're looking for diversity. So you want to make sure that you are bringing and highlighting and stressing in your application how you are different, more capable, how you are wiser, how you kind of come with a wealth of knowledge from a previous academic or professional life and you're bringing that to your lived experience as a medical student and beyond, right? So whether it's linguistic, cultural, demographic, psychographic, this is a new buzzword I've been seeing kind of cropping up there. How do you kind of really what do you bring to the table and how do you leverage that to not only stand out but to contribute to a matriculated class? Tip one and this is the tip before you apply, right? How do you prepare for application in the most strategic and sound way? So first you want to kind of think about do you need to return to school to community college to a post back to basically stitch up together your prereqs, your science requisite courses, right? Do you kind of have to, how many months do you have to prepare for the MCAT? And when do you plan on taking the MCAT? Do you want to kind of ideally put that together with when you're taking certain science courses so that you are kind of, you know, remedying any content gap knowledge as well as practicing for the exam so that you are taking the prereqs that you need to take and that you are prepping and well equipped to take the MCAT as strong as possible. Also get help when you've been out of the game out of college, you know, for a few years, you may want to consider seeking a mentorship and advisor, especially if you don't have really kind of a relationship with an institution or you know, your bachelor's institution is not somewhere kind of you've continued a connection with. So there are free services that you may want to look into. Amwa, I know, have had students that I've worked with on messaging and application that have kind of received free guidance from there. National Association of Advising for Health Professionals, I'll link the website below so that you can look at that and seek the guidance that you're looking for as well from a kind of macro advising purview. Start requesting letters of recommendation that reflect your lived experience. So maybe a couple of letters from people from, you know, colleagues and professionals, supervisors in your previous career. A couple of science professors, faculty members that you've taken recent science classes with. If you are applying to MD and DO, make sure that you are kind of, you know, shadowing and observing, working with DO physicians. Maybe that's a letter of recommendation too that could really kind of help you reflect your commitment long term to the field, but also to that specific approach. I always tell students to request a letter of recommendation from someone who's seen you in action with patients. And so if you are volunteering or shadowing a DO or MD, you know, maybe that is someone who could really be a letter writer that helps you show you in action. Another tip before you apply is really tailoring your school list to the school's mission. So are you committed to education, preventative health, innovation, because you were an engineer in your previous life. So think about what the program's mission and focus is and really kind of tailor your school list, your program list. So you align very nicely with those specific programs. Step two, how to stand out and confirm your why. So for students who are non-traditional and kind of returning, you know, to school, to pursuing a new degree, they will be asking you yes, why medicine, but also kind of inquiring as to why now. And have you really thought it through about the kind of level and rigor, you know, level of commitment and rigor that this next step will entail. I would implore you to consider your wealth of experience and knowledge as an asset. So really think about when you can, you know, in moments like the personal statement, in certain activities, the most meaningful where you have a little bit more space to stretch out rhetorically and speak a little bit more, really think about and secondaries of course, bringing in your wealth of knowledge, your specific background and lens of experience. You've had more concrete experiences with more time in the professional field, obviously probably older. So you've had this kind of, you know, wealth of knowledge, bring that through concrete experiences. You have a sense of awareness of not only self-awareness, but also awareness of your point, your position in the world. And so you really want to kind of bring that in and highlight that. Think about your values, what you bring to medicine, what you will contribute to medicine that is unique to you and your kind of, you know, patchwork of experiences. So really think about your values, your commitment, your purpose and how you kind of honor and convey that through anchored specific details. I had a student who was a firefighter and who started their personal statement with kind of narrating a particularly hectic day and how they took patients three times to this one ER in that one morning shift. And so they talked about the seconds and minutes that they learned were so critical in emergent situations and how the handoff, it was kind of a series of handoff imagery at the beginning of the personal statement. And it was compelling and beautiful in its delivery, but painful to kind of almost read like you were really listening to the anguish of unfinished business. And so I've had firefighters, I've had nurses. And so, you know, you kind of connect with patients or you connect with individuals in these crisis moments. And so you have maybe perhaps a lot of patient facing experiences. However, I've also worked with lawyers turned doctors and teachers turned physicians who start volunteering and start kind of, you know, building up their clinical experiences and bring that wealth of knowledge, you know, they're kind of teaching an education background and legal studies expertise into kind of the clinical experiences that they were amassing to build out their application. So I'm not going to say always, but I would say it's kind of a hard pressed usual that any student that I work with that has had a full on first career, that they address that in the personal statement. I'm not going to say always just because then, you know, someone will send me a personal statement and it's amazing and it's a non-trad and they didn't kind of talk about their engineering background or they didn't talk about their first career in, you know, XYZ. But for the most part, those students I've worked with, they really focus on positive attributes of their first career and how that kind of, you know, lends itself to their why medicine, how it's nourishing their why today. Are you a non-trad applicant and are kind of wondering what direction to go with in their application? Comment below if you want to start chatting. This is tip 1.5. And for me, the stories that you select are key. This is kind of in many ways a tip that I would tell every student no matter their background, right? You want to carefully and strategically select the stories you're going to tell in the personal statement, in your secondaries, even in your activities section, because you want to make sure that you are really focusing on not only what you're saying, how you're saying it, but also the subtext. What are the takeaways that you're going to talk about? What are the lessons? How have you deepened your wisdom, deepened your commitment to medicine, advanced that commitment and solidified your why medicine? And so you really want to think about which stories am I going to tell that will have very takeaways so that I present a multi-dimensional aspect of my why medicine and why now. For all students, like I mentioned, you want to kind of unfold a unique kind of mapping as to your kind of why medicine, your journey to this point so far. To my non-trads, you really want to dedicate some time on commitment and why now. So timing and purpose, right? If you want to learn more about how I work with students and how we go from personal statement all the way to interview prep, comment below or you can link with me on my calendar. The link is in the description. You also have my webinar that you have a kind of a more of a deep dive in the personal statement. And so you'll have all those links in the bottom. But if you want to chat with me, get on my calendar for our strategy call and I'll see you soon. Have a good one. Bye.