Maggy B., M1

During my undergraduate and master’s years, I’d learned to exist in a particular kind of academic environment that didn’t really work for me. I thought that the experience of undergraduate and graduate training was necessarily a little bit isolated and independent, where you provide most of your own support system, and the search for mentorship was largely driven by luck.

As a result, I started my med school application process believing that my experience at any given school would be much like that and so the only factor that mattered in choosing a school was ranking. That pretty much held up through most of my school visits and interviews. WashU was my last interview, and knowing the stellar rankings and reputations that WashU possessed, I expected that I knew all I needed to know about WashU coming into my interview day.

However, in my brief visit to WashU, the faculty certainly, but especially the students, conveyed such warmth, generosity, and a genuine enthusiasm about WashU. Everywhere else I’d visited, it was clear that students were proud to have gotten in to each given institution, but here they seemed so proud of the institution itself: Proud to be a part of what WashU offers and excited to share the way they’d been affirmed and supported in their time at WashU. I remember the names of nearly every student I met at WashU because each one was so invested in our interaction; they really seemed to care that I got the information I needed to find out whether WashU was the right fit for me.

At WashU, I realized I was interviewing schools as much as they were interviewing me. I concluded that I wanted to train somewhere I would be happy and supported, where faculty go out of their way to affirm my interests and offer me opportunities individually, where students work with each other and bond rather than just studying in parallel, and living in a city in which I could afford to enjoy the world around me. Since arriving, I constantly find myself appreciating how much the culture at WashU has allowed me to thrive in medical school in a way I never did in my undergrad or graduate schools.