The Cost of Applying to Medical School

I'm going to give you an employer evaluation.

I don't think that's a thing.

Yes, it is a thing. Don't you want to improve as a boss?

Yeah, I'm pretty good.

Hi everybody and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie and I'm joined.

Here by my colleague Dr. Sarah Davis.

Who is also my mother.

Mother?

Is that what you're adding to the intro?

That's what I'm adding to the intro, Mother. Okay.

Well, how you doing?

I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm good.

I'm alright. I know I said I was going to stop talking about pre med stuff, but like, what else am I gonna talk about?

Well, you don't have any other life.

I. I work for you.

Well, Right, right. So we can talk about that, but there's not that much to do.

Yeah, I don't know, what am I supposed to talk about? Being a medical assistant? Like. Yeah, there's not much to say.

There's not much to say.

So something that I want to talk about. I don't know how this got brought up. I was just thinking about, I don't know, the hate that I got and you know, people saying I was a Nepo baby and like all that stuff and. But I was just kind of thinking about it and I was like, how are you supposed to go through this pre med process without having any money? It's so expensive.

Yes.

So I went through and calculated how much it costs for me to apply to medical school.

Oh, wow.

How much it costs you for me.

To apply to medical school? See what my ROI on this is going to be?

Yeah, zero. But how much, like do you think? I don't know if you've seen budgets of recommend recommendations, like, what is your starting? Not including college tuition, but starting from the MCAT through primaries, through secondaries. How much do you think it costs?

Probably at least a couple thousand dollars. Like $2,000.

Okay, so I'm going to walk you through all of these costs. What's crazy is just like when you're going through it, you're kind of like looking at these costs and you're like, oh, that's, that's kind of expensive. That's kind of expensive. But I just went back and like really calculated everything and it is just nuts. And like, I want to preface this by saying, like, I am just saying that this is a part of the problem. Like these schools talk about how they want socioeconomic diversity and they want all these things. And like you, I don't understand how you could go through this process without having money. Like, it's crazy. And like, I have the privilege of having my parents to help me out. If I didn't have that privilege, I literally, I don't know what I would do. You'd like. It's just not feasible. So starting with the mcat, just to take the MCAT exam. So to sign up, it cost me $330. So and this was the early fee. If I signed up late, if I didn't know the whole signup time, then it could be upwards of $400. But $330 to just take the MCAT exam. I got the Kaplan books, I got those used, so that cost me $50. I also used a UWorld subscription as a study tool and that was $320. And then I use the double AMC prep bundle, which costs about $250. So total for studying for the MCAT and taking the MCAT test, that was $950.

And that's only taking it once.

Yes, only taking it once. So if I had to take it again, that'd be another 330. Also, if you use some of those services, that's upward of $1,000 just to study for that. Like, I could have maybe not done that uworld subscription. You have to do the AAMC Prep. That's a must. You gotta do some sort of like, there's not really any cheaper way to do this. Unless I didn't. Uworld was a bit expensive, so I could have like not done that. But I mean, that's still.

Well, right?

600 something dollars.

Yeah. Yeah. And you could do, you could study for the MCAT much more expensively than you did. I mean, including private tutors. All kinds of companies will come in there and say if you do our thing, you're. You're gonna end up with a much better score. Blah, blah, blah. Kind of try to scare you in that. So, I mean, I think people could easily spend thousands of dollars just on the MCAT.

Yeah. So I spent $950. Then these are things that I went back and I looked at and I didn't really realize that I paid money for, but the Casper that I paid money for, that you paid money for the Casper test. So this is a test, another freaking test that you have to do that you have to send to a lot of. Not every single school requires it, but most all the schools in Texas do. And most schools do. It's one of those ethical dilemma tests. So that was $85 to take that test. So another, another thing, then we go into applications. So there's applications fees for each stage of the process. So just to send your application to medical school is a fee and to send your application to each medical school is a fee. So I did two application services. One of this was amcas and one of this was TMD sas. TMDSAS is Texas. Amcas is the out of state schools. So for the AMCAS application, it's $175 flat rate. So that's just to kind of make an account and be able to fill out the application. So $175 and then plus $40 per each school that I sent it to. Okay. So I applied to about 30 schools. So with that it cost me $1,375 for just the AMCAS primaries. Then for the Texas schools it was a flat rate to send it to all 12 MD schools and that was $215.

Gosh, that's actually a good deal.

Yeah, I thought it was 100 for some reason, but then I just went back and looked at my receipts. But anyway, then these other little fees that you don't really think about, but transcript requests. So I had to request my transcript from two schools because I had dual enrollment credits plus my at Clemson. And then I had to send that to both TMD, SAS and AMCAS. So that's $40 right there. So after you just did all that, you submitted your primaries, you submitted your primary application to each individual school, then there's still more. So then you have to send secondaries to each school and to fill out all of these essays. For the secondaries, it's about 50 to $100 per school. So I went back and I found the price point for all of the Texas schools. For the out of state schools, I kind of just did an average because I didn't even know. But for Texas, like Baylor was $100. UTMB was 70, McGovern was 80, Texas A&M was 60, Tech was 60, University of Houston 60, UT GRV 70. So total for secondaries in Texas was another $500. Then again, I also filled out about. I just averaged, I filled out 20 out of state secondaries and I averaged 75 dollars per secondary. And so that comes out to be 1500 dollars for just my out of state secondary.

Then I want a refund.

Then interviews. So I got ten interviews. I only had two in person interviews. One of them was local and then one of them I had to travel for and cost of travel. I don't, I Just kind of averaged it to be $500. I don't know exactly, but like flight and hotel. And then she came with me. So that's another flight and hotel.

We rented a car.

And we rented a car. So it probably ended up being more than that. But let's just say it cost $500 to travel. And like, thank God it was only one in person interview. Like, I don't know what I would have done if the rest of them were in person, but they were virtual. So for $500 for interviews.

It is amazing because when I applied, I had to do all. We didn't have the Internet, so it was all in person interviews. And it was a big deal. I got some interviews that were on the east coast, coming from California, and it was super stressful. Had to find friends to stay with.

Well, how much did it cost you? I was trying to figure this out. How much did it cost you to send your application and stuff?

Well, well, I remember that the secondaries at that time were usually about $50 each secondary.

Oh, wow.

And I had to send a bunch of secondaries because I was from California. The in state schools were really ultra competitive. But I think I have told you this story. But the only reason that I applied to KU was because their fee for the secondary was only $15. And the application was the easiest one ever. You just had to draw a circle on a map of where you were from. You had to put a dot and a circle around the table town where you grew up. And that was like the biggest part of the application. And I don't think there were even any essays on it or anything. And so that's the only reason I applied there. And then that's where I got in. Well, there you go.

So total for everything just to apply to medical school, it costs me on average, it probably costs more than this. $5,165. Yeah.

Gosh.

Like, I, like, thank God I had you guys to help me out. Like, as a college kid. How am I just supposed to come up with $5,000?

Well, yeah, I mean, what I had to do was you're working during the summer, you're saving up money for this whole thing. But you know, the idea of when people have to reapply, like, that was just not gonna be an option for me. Yeah.

And you have to re. So that's another $5,000. And so like, okay, now I'm a college kid. I have to have a job where. Well, I'm in school. Okay. That cuts down my studying time now. I don't have the GPA that I need to get into school. Okay. I don't have time to study for the mcat. Like, then what am I supposed to do? Okay, okay, you want me to take out loans? Okay, then I'm in debt now. I'm going to school for another 10 years and I'm about to be in like $150,000 in debt. And I didn't even talk about college tuition either.

It is crazy. And I mean, a lot of those things that some of the other things that you didn't factor in there were time off from work. Okay, so you're doing a job during your gap year where if every time you have to do these interviews, even when they're virtual, it's an all day thing. So now you've got to take off time from work for that entire day when you otherwise would have been getting paid. But your job's not going to pay you to do these interviews and things. So I mean, those are all those other incidental things. And it's really. And then I see these people saying, okay, well, no, you need to take another gap year because you need more clinical experience. Now you're doing the job. You've got a college degree for two years out of college. You're doing a job that does not pay very well at all, doesn't pay nearly as well as it would if you were using your college degree kind of on a more career path, but you're doing something else to get this clinical experience. So that's another two years of lost income that people have from all these ridiculous reporters.

It's just absurd that these schools just say all this stuff about wanting to have diversity and wanting to have people from different income levels. And I'm just like, you're a part of the problem.

You are the problem.

You are the problem. Yeah, like, it's just, I don't understand why it's just not feasible. Like, it's literally not feasible. Like, you go into a bunch of debt just to go into more debt. It's just absolutely ridiculous. And then you could say, okay, well, you know, and we talked about this in when I went through my application of, okay, maybe I just should have applied to the Texas schools. You know, I'm a Texas resident. Like, great, okay, I just applied to the Texas schools and maybe I threw my application in like five amcas schools. So I did. I applied to five out of state schools and then just in state because like 30 schools, that's a lot. That's ridiculous. I think If I was paying for that myself, I wouldn't have cast that wide net. But I didn't know, you know, like, I was just trying to get in and like, think about the cost benefit there. Like, I might as well pay the $100 now, then have to go through this whole application cycle again and pay another $5,000.

Well, it is kind of weird how you get, like, you got a couple of interviews from schools that, like, I don't know that we necessarily would have predicted that you were gonna get an interview there. Like, there's a couple weird things that sort of come up that you're just like, oh, okay, I'm glad I applied to that one. It turned out you didn't need it, but you might have. So.

Say I just applied to Texas schools and a couple out of state schools, so that would still be. I calculated just with everything else, it would still be about three grand. So, okay, that's $2,000 less. But, like, I'm still. I. That was my net worth when I came out of college. Like, I didn't. And even if you are, you know, working a full time job while in school and all this stuff, it's just. It just doesn't make sense.

No, I mean, it really doesn't.

And yes, I did cast this wide net and spend a lot of money on. On applying to a lot of schools. But, like, I mean, I didn't do any, like, private tutoring. People have these, like, interview coaches that they'll. There's like, there's this whole business behind it to just make money off of these people that are just desperate to get into school.

Yeah. And they think that there's some sort of secret I have to share that on, you know, on one of these Facebook groups that I'm on. But I, you know, said that my daughter got in and all these people were hitting me up like, what's her secret? You know, how'd she get in? Blah, blah. And they think that there's some sort of secret that you have or that she has that, you know, can get shared with you if you pay them enough money or something. And it's like, no, it's just all the information that's out there. So, I mean, at the same time.

The information that out there is like very wide and vast, and it's hard for people to be able to navigate that and they want to be able to pay somebody to help them with that, which is okay. And, you know, college counselors are terrible. They don't. Like, most are really bad and they don't really know what they're talking about. But still it's just, it's, it's just sketchy to have to pay somebody like gobs and gobs of money to walk you through that.

Yeah. Because they don't really have any. There's no secrets there.

Yeah.

All they can do is condense the information that's already out there in a bite sized portion for you, making your, making things a little bit easier for you to digest, I suppose. But it's, you know, they don't have. Just because you pay. I mean these things were like between 5,000, $10,000 for some of these people. And they supposedly give you hours of this, I don't know, coaching or whatever it is that they do. I don't know. I'm not disparaging anybody who decides to do that, but it's, it's a lot of money.

Yeah. It's absurd. And I saw something of people saying that you should average $10,000 to, or you should save up $10,000 and budget that to apply to medical school. Which I just think it's like, how are you supposed to just come up with this money?

Yeah, yeah. And I think you mentioned this in one of the TikTok videos you did about studying for the MCAT, but we hadn't talked about it on the podcast about how the MCAT thing also that you take these practice tests that are put out by these certain companies and you get a very low score, which kind of freaks you out. And then they say, oh well here, now buy our course and we'll improve your score. But your score is somewhat artificially deflated on their pre test.

No, it is deflated. If you go in there and you do the calculations based on how many you got wrong and stuff, they literally deflate your score of what you see so that you get scared and then think you're not prepared and then spend money to buy their test prep. That is the whole purpose of those things.

That's just mean.

Yeah, no, it's really bad.

So I mean they're gonna sell their product to enough people. They don't have to do that. Well, and just backing up. So just the other things, I mean, besides just all the application and as I always talk about like lost time. But what about people who have to do a postback because they didn't get a high enough gph, usually in undergrad or they didn't take enough of the classes that they needed to take, so then they go and do these programs like another bachelor degree. It's not, you're not even getting like a master's degree or anything else that would help you. If you do some different job, some different career, it's just going back and taking these classes, and that's going to cost you more money and again, more time. And that's just to raise your GPA so you can be competitive so that then you can apply to med school.

Yeah, I mean, I said this at the beginning. I felt like people were gonna come at me for spending $5,000 to do this. But there's plenty of people who spend way more than that.

Way more. I mean, gosh, if you just, if you added it up, especially people that apply over and over, over the period of several years, you know, and then I said, like, working as a scribe for a year, I mean, doesn't a scribe pay like $15 an hour or something? It's, you know, you've got college educated, super smart person working for a year for $15 an hour just to get. Sorry, our viewers can't see she's pointing at herself. Yeah, yeah. But sometimes it can really help out in the back. So sometimes we can get over educated people doing these, doing some of these jobs for us, which actually is somewhat of a business model. A lot of people are having people who are gap year students working as their scribes, working as their mas. You got a really high quality person doing that job you're paying that. They don't even care that much about how much you're paying them because they're doing it for the experience. And then that's just one more cog in the whole wheel of, of the system, man.

Stuck in the system.

Stuck in the system. You haven't even really, really started. You're all down on the system, but, you know, sooner or later you'll be on the other side and then you can be abusing people.

I'm not gonna do that. I'm trying to be outspoken right now.

Okay.

Talk about it.

Yeah, but agree. The idea of getting more diversity in medicine is just gonna be harder and harder and harder.

Yeah. And they're making it harder and harder and harder. Like, this is, this is the system's fault.

Yeah, but. Okay, so you're the dean of a medical school. What would you do?

Free supplemental. Okay. Yeah, free supplemental. Some of the schools did have free supplemental. Yeah, I, I don't know. I have to, like, really break it down because you still have to have, like, to pay people to, you know, be on the admissions committee and stuff, but I don't know I would rather have a free supplemental and have a higher tuition at that school than, like, have people pay for the supplemental.

Well, that's fair, because there's a bunch of people that aren't gonna get in.

You know, or like a $10 supplemental. Like, okay, then that's still, like. Then you're not just getting, like, a bunch of applications of just people sending it to you. But, like, so it's still something, right? But it's not. It's ridiculous. Like, I saw supplementals that are $150.

It's just, like, now they're just trying to make money.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Well, that and then I just think. I just think all this gap year stuff is just ridiculous. I mean, one gap year is fine. And if you didn't see it, go watch Stephanie's TikTok. On a Day in the Life of a Gap year person. Her life looks pretty good. So that's. That's not so bad. But. But, you know, one gap year, that's fine. Especially because you can take your MCAT near the end of college, and then you're applying during your gap year. I don't have any problem with that. But this idea of hundreds and hundreds of clinical hours, I think is just the stupidest thing. You don't learn anything more. After about hour 10 or 15 in any particular job, you're not learning anything else.

Yeah, Yeah, I would agree with that. Hey, I learned something new the other day. I learned how to take out sutures.

That's true.

Took me about five minutes to learn.

But I was something you would learn once you're a medical student anyway. So, you know, again, so. So much of that stuff, like, you don't need to know that before you got. Before you go to medical school. That's what medical school is for, is to teach you that. And even Steph, you've gotten good at drawing blood, which is great. I had no idea how to draw blood before I was in medical school. I learned it, then I forgot it.

Then I'm gonna go, and it's gonna be like a waste of time when I have, like, lab doing that. And also everyone is then on a different level, like, you know what? I. Yeah. So I don't know.

I don't know. I think a lot of that is just. It's just really dumb.

Okay, well, moving on. Speaking of me being the medical assistant that apparently you're taking advantage of. Hey, so we're nearing the end of my time here.

Oh, okay. Sorry. That's just sad.

No, it's Been good, it's been nice. It's been great. You've been a great boss. But as we did before, you did to me an employee evaluation. I'm going to give you an employer evaluation.

I don't think that's a thing.

Yes, it is a thing. It's definitely a thing.

Do they do that in jobs?

Yes, they do that in jobs. Don't you want to improve as a boss?

Yeah, I'm pretty Good.

Okay. Humbleness. 0 out of 10.

What do we got?

Okay, so I got a couple of different, couple of different categories here that I'm gonna go through and kind of just. We'll do it as you did to me. I will give you the category and you can see what you would rate yourself and I will give you the rating. I have a feeling you're just gonna rate yourself very high on all of these things.

We'll see. We'll see. Depends on what the categories are.

Due to the lack of humility, there's.

Some areas where I really excited Excel.

Okay, so one positively motivates employees to achieve goals.

I think I'm pretty good at that. I'm gonna give myself a nine.

I give you a 10 out of 10.

10 out of 10. Alright.

There you go. I think you are. You're a puppy. You don't yell at me a lot. You know, lots of you're doing a great job is what you say. So you know, positive reinforcement is good.

Okay. Okay. Well, let's just end there.

Okay. No cap. Competent.

I mean, at my job.

Yes, at your job.

I mean. Yeah, 10 out of 10.

I give you a nine out of 10. Just due to the fact of referring to specialists.

I have to refer to specialists. I can't know everything about everything. My ego's not that big.

Okay, well, that's why you got a.

Nine out of 10.

Because you don't know everything about everything.

Well, that's ridiculous. If I'm expected to know everything about everything. Okay, 10 out of 10.

Willingness to work together to find a solution and reach goals. With the office team.

With the office team. Yeah. I kind of. I help out. I'll give myself a nine out of ten.

I give you a six out of ten.

Wait, what? What?

The reason is because I feel like a lot of things are just kind of offshooted to me. Okay, you figure it out. For example, every time you leave the office and try to lock the door, you come back in and say, hey, help.

I can't do it.

Rather than let's work together to try to find A solution to, to fix that problem. It's just.

Alright, Stephanie, I have a solution. You lock the door. That's my point. That's the solution. Oh my gosh. You can, you can't get up off your chair to come and lock the.

Door because that's fine. But I'm just saying, I'm just saying other things, you know, which is like, ah, you figure it out.

But that's. I'm giving you all of that independence. I feel like I'm really helping you by doing that.

Are you gaslighting me?

Okay.

Okay. Anyway, moving on.

Okay.

Treat employees with respect.

Oh, I'm very good at that. I'll give myself a. Well, I'll give nine out of ten.

I give you a nine out of ten minus one for stealing gum and snacks.

I thought those were mine. Didn't I pay for those?

Okay, fine. The gum might be communal, but you did eat my chocolate covered raisins at one point.

Oh, I see all the time. Oh, see, I didn't. I thought I had bought those. No, that's disrespectful. Buy me some. Buy some.

No, the yogurt covered raisins are in there. That's fine. That's communal. But at one point I brought in a bunch of chocolate covered raisins and you ate them all, so.

Oh, okay. Well, you didn't have your name on them. Maybe we need a new system where some things have names and put in the break room. See, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine.

I disagree. But anyway, that's okay. Speaking of that, you know, just being able to communicate sort of those sort of things. What do you think you stand on communication?

Probably pretty good.

You said you were like, had some humility.

Well, you're asking about my communication. I feel like I say the right things. I feel like I'm probably a 10 out of 10. But just to be humble, I'm gonna say nine out of 10.

I give you a six out of 10.

Wait, what?

The reason is because, you know, you are. It's redeemable because you do tell me what to do clearly and tell me when I'm wrong. And you're able to kind of like be, you know, a teacher in that sense. But also, you know, I would describe some communication styles as a bit unique in regards to kind of either, you know, if I'm doing something running in and interrupting me, or taking a piece of paper and writing it on the piece of paper, but writing in chicken scratch so I can't read what you're saying.

Okay, so wait, we gotta like, back up and go through this because now I write those things down because I know how it is when you're in the middle of doing something and I'm telling you something, it's very easy for that to just fall through the cracks. I mean, I think that happens to everybody. So that's why I write it down on a piece of paper.

Minus points for the chicken scratch.

Wait, I'm getting handwriting critiques. What is this, second grade?

Well, sometimes I can't read it.

Well, then just ask me what it says.

But I'm in the middle of something.

Okay.

Punctuality.

My punctuality?

Yeah.

10 out of 10.

3 out of 10. The office hours are 8:30 to 5. You've never once been here from 8:30 to 5.

I don't have to. It's my office.

Plus points for being here whenever a patient is here. But minus points for not being here during office hours.

No, no, no, no, no. I am here. When am I ever late? If the patient is coming at 9 o', clock, I am here by 8:45. I am getting all set up and I am ready to go when the patient is checked in. When have I ever let a patient wait?

Office hours are 8:30 to 5. All right, tech savviness.

Well, okay. Better than a lot of people my age. But I'll just. I'll give myself a 6 out of 10.

3 out of 10. You were just like, looking up something on Google on how to like, watching something.

You didn't know how to do that either.

I didn't try.

How is that like. Wait, what?

Also, there's so many things that you're just like. It's just. It's not working and you just kind of.

And then I give it to you and you figure it out. Exactly.

Which is fine. But text having ness is low.

Okay.

Office morale.

Sometimes for our listeners, we do some team building events. Those usually take place at like, a nail salon, things like that. So are you saying you need a morale booster?

What score would you give yourself for the office morale?

Yeah, I think eight out of ten.

I give you a ten out of ten.

Ten out of ten. Okay.

That's what Romaine's peppy organizes. Team building activities.

Okay, very good.

So there you go. Office morale. High.

High. Nice.

Teaching leadership.

10 out of 10.

I gave you a nine out of 10. I could have given you a 10 out of 10. You do you very little. Do you get frustrated with me? You're a much Better teacher than dad is.

Yeah.

So sit in the bar.

Woe there.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think you're good. You're patient enough. But also, I don't mess up a lot, so it's easy. Okay, boundaries.

Oh, this is talking about work around the dinner table. Okay. I guess. And I try hard not to do that that much, but sometimes it's just relevant to the conversation. Fine. A seven.

I give you a 6.5. Out of 10. You're mostly good about not talking about work at home anymore. You've gotten better.

Okay. Showed improvement.

Showed improvement still comes up. You also know to close the door when I'm cranky, so that's.

Which is just most of the time if I just keep my office door closed.

Sometimes you can't take a hint to just, you know, to leave.

She wants me to leave my own office because she's tired of me. Like, how am I supposed. Why am I getting docked for leaving my own office?

Well, sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's just. If you're just trying to chat and I'm just like. It's not work, really. I know you're my boss, but.

So. Okay, if I were not, your mom and I were just trying to chat, would you hold that against me?

Well, I wouldn't spend as much time with you, so I'd probably be more willing to chat.

Hmm. Okay.

I think you're gonna see some improvement when the new person comes in and wants to please you more. I feel myself going downhill.

Yeah. Yeah. That's gonna be fun. She's gonna be all peppy. She's gonna like me. She's gonna laugh at my jokes. I'll have to send her this. Okay.

And this is the last thing. Office napping skills.

Okay. You're not supposed to say that out loud. People aren't supposed to know about that. Well, sometimes a person gets tired and they just go and sit in the big chair that we have that leans back and close my eyes for a little bit to revitalize. So I would say my office napping skills are pretty good.

Said 10 out of 10.

10 out of 10.

So there you go. I didn't average the scores, but overall, I think, objectively, you're a good boss. Subjectively, you're also my mom. Sometimes it's a lot, but sometimes it's a lot, you know?

Okay, well, I'll take that.

Okay, guys, so that's it for us. My name is Stephanie.

I'm Dr. Sarah Davis. And you can drop us a note in the comments.

Drop us a note in the comments. You can find us on TikTok enerationsmd. Please follow us on Instagram generationsmd. Since TikTok is getting banned, we're gonna kinda, you know, post some things over there too. You can also follow the office at parkcities Personal Physicians and we will talk to you next week. Bye bye.