My future is now in the hands of another being. Last night, after triple-checking all of my work and making a 15th revision to my personal statement, I took a deep breath and submitted my AMCAS application. All of my transcripts have been received, so I expect the review process to be relatively quick. April MCAT scores haven’t been released yet, but they should be available by the time my application is ready for submission to my chosen schools.

Speaking of schools, I’ve got 15 on my list, all located between Philadelphia and Raleigh/Chapel Hill. I’m also applying to Weill, which is Cornell’s medical school in NYC. I fully expect to be dinged, but I had to do it for tradition’s sake. I don’t think alma mater plays much of a role in medical school decisions.

I’d like to say that my work is finally over, but I think it’s hardly begun. Between secondaries, interviews, and (hopefully) acceptances, I think the next few months are going to be seriously busy. Of course, if all of the schools on my list just read my undergrad transcript and reject me right away, it might be an easy summer.

Why is writing so hard?

I mean good writing, not the kind of stuff that I usually publish here. I mean, I like to think that most of my blog articles are well written, but they’re not the kinds of things that get published or read critically by other people. Good writing takes a lot more time, and a lot more editing. Sadly, the more I edit my work, the less I tend to like it.

You may have guessed that I’m talking about my personal statement, and you’d be right. My first draft was just that. It was grammatically acceptable, but awkward in some spots; in was rough around the edges in terms of organization and content; and it was too long by a few lines. But it was mostly unadulterated thought translated to paper, and I think most of the people who read the first draft got that feeling from it. Every time I was faced with a creative writing task, I found that my best strategy was just to slit my literary wrists and let the ink bleed all over the page. The result — soggy, somewhat messy, and unfiltered — was often far better than anything that took more than an hour to write. In other words, you could say that consciousness gets in the way of my subconscious creativity.

The problem is that editing requires less emotion, less instinct, and more intellect. This is fine for fixing grammatical errors, typos, and other mechanical issues, but it’s an absolute nightmare for editing content. My revisions become more plastic, less expressive; it’s a bit like looking at a wax statue standing next to the real person. Stylistically, I can see the passage going from enthusiastic to forced.

Of course, editing is not optional. Few first drafts are complete enough or polished enough for submission. But how polished is too polished, and how do I strike a balance between the rational and the inspirational? I wish I knew. Until I figure it out, I’ve got to resort to re-writes. After getting some needed advice from a good friend, I tore apart the old statement and rebuilt it. Most of the parts are there, but they’ve been rearranged and rewritten to let my personality through again. I’m getting close to the deadline, but it’s worth the trouble. I only hope I don’t have to make too many edits.

At approximately 4:25am on May 11th, my watch stopped ticking. I noticed this as I sat down to breakfast and some last-minute studying for my physics final. It was quite noble of my watch to hold back time for me, or at least try; unfortunately, it would’ve taken a lot more than one dead battery.

Using my cell phone to keep track of time, I made my way to campus to take the exam. It was surprisingly easy, but I couldn’t rest afterwards. I spent the rest of the day, all of Thursday, and all of Friday studying for orgo. It started at 4pm on Friday; by 4:05, I knew we were all screwed. I can’t say that the problems were very tricky. However, there were a lot of them, and the exam was very comprehensive. We were tested extensively on sections that I had skimmed but not studied in-depth, and we were given problems that we hadn’t exactly seen before. I’m not upset over the exam itself, but I’m disappointed in myself for not preparing myself adequately. Time was called at 6. I feel lucky to have at least attempted every question. Everyone came out of there with glossy eyes and dazed expressions; one poor girl was crying on the steps as we walked out. Another one exclaimed that she was “raped,” which is something one doesn’t hear much in more politically correct circles. The rest of us talked about stepping in front of buses, jumping into rivers, or driving into ditches on the way home. Of course, doing any of these things would have prevented me from taking my bio exam at 12:30 the next day. Yes, Saturday.

I stayed up as late as I could, but by 3:00 in the morning, my notes were starting to look very strange. The growing disconnect between my eyes, my brain, and my hand was making me write things down that were grammatically correct but comically nonsensical. I set my alarm for two hours of sleep, but overslept by an hour and a half. After a few more hours of panicked studying, I made my way to school and gritted my teeth. Thankfully, the exam was long but relatively easy. By 2:10, according to my cell, I was DONE with school for the year.

I got my battery replaced yesterday afternoon. Time is now running along again, but I suspect it never stopped in the first place.

I really loved my year of school, but it’s definitely time for a break. I’m glad to have a job basically on campus, as it will give me a chance to keep in touch with my professors and maybe sit in on a class in the fall.

First final is tomorrow, and I’m cramming. My only motivation: In 14 hours, I may have worked my very last physics problem, EVER. I have to say that I enjoy working through physics problems, but the subject as a whole is just incredibly boring to me. Which may explain why it’s taking me so long to cover all of the material. Sigh…

In other news, I’ve started to fill out my AMCAS profile, and my personal statement has been sent out to a select few for proofreading. I think I’m one or two quick revisions away from the final draft, which is somewhat comforting. A lot of people tell me that I’m a good writer…I’m not so sure about that. Writing is easy, but writing well is very difficult and I’m definitely out of practice. It’s one thing to be struck by inspiration, to let your thoughts spill through your fingers and onto whatever medium you happen to be using at the time. It’s an entirely different matter to make something coherent, concise, and interesting to more than one person.

There’s a lot more I want to say about that, but I need to get back to physics. 14 more hours…

Tiger rocks.

I’d like to be asleep right now, but orgo is keeping me up. I think I still have enough time to prepare adequately for this thing. My two previous exams have gone relatively well, so I guess I can afford not to be stellar this time around…but it sure would make finals a lot less stressful if I can do really well.

While studying tonight, I’ve had the chance to reflect on some of the organic questions from yesterday’s test. Upon further examination, I’m fairly sure that I answered one of the questions completely wrong, and a second one most probably wrong. If I keep finding little things like this for the next eight weeks, I’m going to go crazy. I know I should stop obsessing over it, just calm down and let the scores come in, but I can’t. The test is too important, and I’ve spent too much prep time, for me to just lean back now. Hopefully I can put some of that nervous energy to use in writing my personal statement this week.

Got home, grabbed dinner, bought a couple of CDs, and now I’m back home.

Reflections: It was rather calming, and kind of fitting, that I drove to Georgetown in the face of a gorgeous sunrise. I was the first one there; as a matter of fact, I beat the guy who was putting up the room assignments by ten minutes. We were checked in just before 8:00, and the first section started at 8:35. Lunch ended at 12:50, and we were done by 4:00. Towards the end, all of us were getting tired. I saw a lot of red eyes and yawns as the bio section wore on. The poor guy sitting next to me couldn’t stop sniffling when his head was tilted forward, which was most of the time. It drove me nuts but I’m sure he had a rougher time than I did. The only hiccup was that our proctors forgot to collect our admissions tickets until some of us had already made it outside. I drove home in some of the best weather we’ve had all year, singing along to U2 at the top of my lungs and coming home somewhat hoarse. It’s probably a good thing that I was alone.

For those keeping track (or who perhaps took the test themselves), I took form EM and essay booklet 61. In practice tests, I found absolutely no correlation between my impressions of a test section and my actual scroe. I’ve had “easy” sections with low scores, and “hard” sections with high scores, so I really can’t predict how well I did today. In general, though, the test was roughly as hard as the practice tests. I guess I’ll found out how I did when everyone else does, which is in roughly 60 days. I can try to make some predictions, though.

I took eight practice tests between February and last Thursday. The moving average of my raw percentages rose from 83% to about 88%, with actual values between 82.2% and 88.8%. Scaled scores ranged from 31 to 38, with a moving average going from 32 to about 36. My weakest section in February was biology, by a large margin; since then, my bio scores have risen to roughly equal the other two. The last three tests went 38-36-36. In the last test, answering one more question correctly in each of the science sections would’ve bumped my score by two. What does this all mean? It’s all speculative, of course, but I would safely predict that I scored at least a 35 today. I think anything between 36-38 is reasonable, and that 39 or 40 are both very possible. Anything above that would require luck. I’ve told myself to avoid revisiting any of the topics or questions for the next week, and to concentrate instead of my orgo exam (Monday) and physics exam (Friday).

No matter how it turns out, it’s done. And I highly doubt I did so poorly that I’ll need to take it again. That, by itself, is a huge relief.

Lunch break almost over. Doing well, IMO, but that’s never a great indicator for actual performance on this test from my own experience. More later.

The MCAT is tomorrow. I’ve certainly spent as much time as I can to prepare for it, while also doing my best to keep up with all of my classes. If my score comes close to the ones I’ve gotten in the most recent practice exams, I’ll be satisfied. I’ve spent most of today building confidence and convincing myself that I’ll meet my target score. It’s too bad that I can’t celebrate aftwards, since I have an orgo exam on Monday.

It’s time for bed. Wish me luck!

The MCAT is on Saturday.

That is all.