picking a school and matters of the heart
We are told time and time again:
“Never go to [X] school because of a boyfriend.”
Or girlfriend. Or significant other. Or best friend. Whatever. The point is that we are always advised to choose our universities because we want to go, not because someone else tells us we should go.
While I think it’s fine advice, I’m going to argue the opposite in this post. Hear me out though before you accuse me of subscribing to the patriarchy or whatever it is people call it nowadays.
When I was a senior in high school and looking at colleges to apply to, my mom was quite insistent that I attend a school where I had family less than two hours away. It wasn’t an attempt to control me or keep tabs on me; it was so that they were reassured that should I ever need somebody, there would always be somebody to answer my call.
My dad, on the other hand, had grandiose dreams of me attending MIT but my average PSAT score killed that early on hahahaha.
Now that I’m much older and pay my own bills and taxes, I applied the same criteria to medical schools. The one exception was KCUMB but that is a three to four hour drive away from my hometown and one of my cousins lives nearby at the border of Missouri and Illinois. I loved having that security while in undergrad and grad school, and I knew I definitely needed it in med school.
But there is another matter that has my mother concerned and it is five foot eleven inches with pretty blue eyes and stole my heart away in the most unexpected of ways.
She told me to expand beyond our home state and ensure that I gave myself the best possible chances of getting into medical school somewhere. With 2.92 science GPA as calculated by AACOMAS and a 503 MCAT, my chances of getting into school were contingent upon strong extracurriculars, a strong personal statement, and strong letters of recommendation. I spent the last three years since I started this studyblr and decided that this was the path I wanted to follow doing everything in my power shy of enrolling into a post-bacc to make myself competitive and still I wonder: is it enough?
My boyfriend decided to apply to medical school this cycle and he received an interview from the same school I applied to within days of submitting his secondary. This week, he received an interview invitation from the other school he applied to. My boyfriend worked his ass off to earn his 511 MCAT and 3.4 GPA. I am excited and thrilled by his prospects because he deserves this chance to obtain the best education he possibly can but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder: will I ever get the same opportunity?
I received my first interview invitation yesterday. My first in the six years I’ve been applying and trying to get in. I’m ecstatic for the opportunity but terrified at the same time. The school I’m interviewing at is two hours away from our hometown where the two schools my boyfriend applied to are located and three hours away from the main campus of one of the schools. He does not know which university or campus he will end up. My prospects for obtaining an interview at the same school he applied to become smaller and smaller with each passing week.
In any version of my future, he is always in it.
See, that’s the thing, studyblrs. That’s the very damn thing they always tell you not to do. Don’t let your heart guide you--be practical and make the best logical decision for your future.
Logically, I will be a doctor. But logically, I will be absolutely miserable.
He makes me better--a better friend, a better sister, a better daughter, a better human being. He is my pillar of support, my strength, and my rock. Without him, the ocean of insecurity threatens to swallow me whole. How can you tell me that logically letting him go is what is best for me?
