MS1 at Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell

Collin Brantner

Collegiate Athlete

first in family to attend medical school

no pre-med advising in college

TL;DR

Collegiate Athlete (Baseball)
No pre-med advising at my college
2 gap years working as a clinical research assistant between college and medical school
Currently interested in pediatrics

Update: Jan 2021

Perhaps still a bit insecure about my academic ability, I came into medical school geared up and ready to tackle the academic challenge but neglected to anticipate the accompanying hurdles.

Full disclosure – I’ve never been great at keeping up with my family. In college, I would go weeks between calling home and catching up, and that persisted through my gap years. Unsurprisingly, this trend continued through medical school. The turning point was when I began to realize how much my family’s support helped me through stressful times. I felt recharged catching up after short conversations and, especially with the pandemic, it helped me feel connected during a time of increasing isolation. Since I still struggled to consistently call them, I was intentional about incorporating it into my routine. While it definitely felt forced to set a reminder to “Call parents” after my last classes on Fridays, it helped integrate the action into my schedule.

The challenges I faced didn’t stop at connecting with family. Maintaining a relationship during medical school has been more challenging than anticipated. I found myself falling behind on texts, becoming anxious about not communicating as well, stressing about my school work, and then further falling behind on texts. I’ve been dating my girlfriend since I was a junior in college, and we’ve managed to coordinate college and long-distance schedules across different time zones for years with little to no problems. However, I’ve found the intermediate distance between us (~40-minute car ride) more difficult to manage than long distance. There’s an implicit pressure that we should be seeing each other in person way more frequently. I found that communicating this feeling with her and defining our expectations were two strategies that really helped lessen my anxiety. We worked together to create a rough visiting schedule that balanced the demands of school with trying to see each other as frequently as possible.

My girlfriend is one of the biggest parts of my support network – and I can’t stress enough the importance of building up a strong support network. While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of medical school so far, it comes with its fair share of stress. Regardless of how the stress of medical school presents, I’ve learned it’s essential to keep those who lift you up as close as possible.

While this update has focused on the challenges I’ve faced since medical school, I do want to make clear that I have had an incredible number of positive experiences. From small outdoor gatherings with classmates in the summer and fall months, to getting to some hiking trails around New York, I can honestly say I’m extremely happy to be in this position. One of the pathologists at our school will invariably slip into his early lectures that there is no place he’d rather be on a weekday morning than on Zoom talking about histology. While he says this tongue-in-cheek and we all smile, I can’t help but kind of agree. While histology might not be the FIRST thing I’d like to talk about at 8am on a Friday morning, there really isn’t anything else I’d rather be spending this much time doing than learning about medicine. And if there’s anything that I’ve gotten out of my first few months of medical school, it’s that I can say I’m exactly where I want to be.

Background

Hi! My name is Collin Brantner. I’m 23 years old and I’m from Farmington, Connecticut. Growing up, my parents didn’t push me to go into a particular field of study; they wanted me to go to college and do something I was passionate about. I don’t have any family members in the medical field, so even when I started to become interested in science in middle school, becoming a physician wasn’t really on my radar. Alongside academics, I was heavily involved in sports. In high school, I was a 3-year varsity starter for both football and baseball, becoming captain of the varsity baseball team my senior year.

I ended up attending Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. If I were to be completely honest with myself, academics weren’t the primary driver in my choice to go to the school. I was able to play baseball in college, and I really liked the coach. I was a B+/A- student in high school and I knew Macalester was a great school that would prepare me academically for whatever I decided to pursue.

I definitely wasn’t set on becoming pre-med when I began college. However, I was interested in science. My first year, I ended up taking courses medical schools required anyways since they were required for most science majors. It was during these first few classes where major flaws were exposed in both the studying and organizational skills I developed in high school. I wasn’t used to studying more than a few days before an exam, and my time management skills were non-existent. All of this combined accounted for a C+ in my General Chemistry class. By the time the spring semester rolled around, I thought I had adjusted my studying and organization skills, but then I began to be “in-season” for baseball. The athletic demand climbed even higher than it was in the fall and winter. By the end of my first year, I had a 3.24 cumulative GPA. While my grades were falling, my interest in medicine started increasing. I attended panels that got me really excited about the idea of becoming a doctor. I was faced with a decision: commit to pursuing medicine and take a heavy pre-med course-load with pressure to perform well to correct for poor grades from my first year or abandon ship and pursue something different. Even if I did decide to pursue medicine, my school did not have pre-med advising – I’d have to figure out how to get myself into a position to apply myself. I think this is when I had my most valuable discussions, both internal and external, surrounding my career path. For anyone deciding to pursue medicine, I would highly recommend being honest with yourself and self-define why you personally want to go into medicine. One thing I can’t stress enough is to be kind to yourself during these reflections! Focus on what makes you happy and let that drive you. Plenty of people who go on to be great doctors have had moments during college and medical school where they aren’t sure they are on the right path, especially while going through particularly harsh academic or social stress.

For me, I researched what doctors do on a daily basis as well as the time and financial commitment I would be agreeing to. There are career paths within medicine that aren’t becoming a doctor, and they can be incredibly fulfilling as well. For me, I sought out the advice of one of my teammates who was a year older than me, who was also pre-med. We talked all things pre-med: What exactly was it about medicine that interested me? Was becoming a doctor the best way to pursue those interests? What did I need to do, both through academics and extracurriculars, to make myself a competitive applicant? In addition to talking with him, I did my own research on medical schools by researching online forums and using AMCAS’ Medical School Admissions Requirements tool (MSAR). The conversations alongside the research not only allowed me to consolidate all of my thoughts on becoming a doctor, but I also created a plan on what I needed to do to get there. I knew that this is what I wanted and this would make me happy; I was ready to put in the work.

Advice

1. Stay organized!

It sounds cliché but without a pre-med advisor, YOU are the only person who can keep yourself on track. Try to keep a list of all of the requirements necessary to apply to medical school (i.e. required classes, common extracurriculars like volunteering and shadowing, when to take the MCAT etc.) and schedule when you think you could complete these requirements.

2. Seek out a mentor.

The best advice comes from someone who recently went through what you are experiencing now.

3. Trust yourself.

Imposter syndrome is rampant throughout pre-med students. Online resources can also have a “gate-keeping” effect, featuring the scores and activities of the top 1% of 1% of applicants. I found discussing your anxieties with friends who are also going through the same process helped alleviate these feelings the most.

4. There is no such thing as a ‘perfect application’.

Trying to cherry-pick opportunities because they “look good” on an application isn’t effective. Medical schools value authenticity and longevity. They want to see continued interest in areas you are passionate about. How you explain your narrative in your application is just as/more important than having “good” activities.

5. Be smart with how you schedule classes and activities.

The following advice applies mostly for student-athletes. I learned that during the spring, I would have significantly less time to spend on classwork than I did during the fall. I tried to ‘front load’ my schedule so that my hardest classes and most hours volunteering/in research labs were in the fall. This gave me the best opportunity to succeed academically and potentially the only opportunity to have extra-curriculars while playing a sport.

Where I Ended Up

I learned from my mistakes, limited my distractions, and graduated from college with a 3.59 cumulative GPA, averaging a 3.7 from sophomore through senior year. I did this without compromising my love for baseball, continuing to be a three-year starter and helping lead the team to its first NCAA playoff berth in school history.

I researched volunteering opportunities and ended up at two different hospital systems over the next 3 years. The first was at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, in the pediatrics department. While I primarily entertained kids and cleaned toys in the inpatient unit, I was able to see how the doctors interacted with their patients. I became interested in pediatrics and ended up volunteering at the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis and St. Paul for the next two years.

I also participated in basic science research for the summer and fall into my junior year of college at the neurology department at the University of Minnesota. My senior year, I joined a lab at Macalester College and helped conduct behavioral experiments on rats. As a result, I was a co-author on an abstract at the Society for Neuroscience conference.

Lastly, alongside two other classmates, I helped found the Horizons Initiative, which is a non-profit aimed at increasing African American representation in STEM. We helped organize events for students at a local high school to interact with professors at both Macalester College and the University of Minnesota Medical School to increase interest in STEM fields.

I ended up taking the MCAT the spring semester of my senior year of college. Because of credits I had coming into college, I was able to go part-time during the spring. Due to the reduced course load, I had time to dedicate towards studying for the MCAT. I studied from January through March and took the exam during the first week of April. I bought the Kaplan prep books and the AMCAS practice tests and self-studied from there. I have two main pieces of advice: start studying earlier than I did and buy the AMCAS prep materials. I definitely did not devote enough time to studying during the 3 months I was preparing and that was reflected in some of my subsection scores. Luckily, I only had to take the MCAT once. I ended up scoring a 512, which was higher than I was anticipating given my practice test scores and perceived level of preparation. I mainly attribute the score to the AMCAS practice tests. I found them almost identical to the real test in terms of the phrasing of the questions. This helped guide and refine my approach to each section.

I took 2 gap years as a paid research assistant at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. I knew someone who worked there and he highly recommended that I apply there. He said that he got unparalleled access to working with current physicians and he was able to see what clinical research as a physician looked like. Following his advice, I applied and was selected. For me, I knew based on my limited experience shadowing physicians that I needed a job that would give me closer access to what it meant day-to-day to be a doctor. I also felt that I wasn’t ready to apply just yet – I needed more life experience. I also didn’t want to get burnt out going straight into medical school. Lastly, I needed time to decide if I was going to do a post-bac or not. I had never met anyone with a 3.59 or lower who applied and got into medical school. After a year of work, I decided that my upward trend in GPA sufficiently proved my academic abilities and I didn’t need to apply for a post-bac. Instead, I turned my sights onto the medical school application.

I applied to 28 schools. Because of my stats, I didn’t really view any schools I applied to as “safety” schools. I applied to 5 reach schools and the rest were schools more or less in my range (at least 10th percentile MCAT and GPA).

I ended up getting into the two schools I was offered interviews: SUNY Downstate and the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. I ended up choosing to be in the Zucker School of Medicine (Class of 2024) because they had a really unique approach to the curriculum that seemed to especially prepare its students for residency. The entire school is relatively new, but it seemed to be built with a really student-centric philosophy. The students I met there were incredibly sweet. I loved my interview there and immediately gained interest in the school.

It has been a long road, but even through the first two weeks of medical school I can tell I’m in the right place for me. I’m excited to learn every day, which is something I couldn’t say with complete confidence during college. If I had to offer one final piece of advice, it would be to trust yourself. You know yourself better than anyone else does. Everyone has a different path to medical school, and any resource telling you they have a definitive method to get your acceptance is lying. Pick and choose strategies that you determine will help you the most. I can’t wait to start this next part of my journey and I wish you the best of luck as you embark on yours!