Demographic Oppression

I am currently reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a very interesting read -- Ross recommended it to me and I am finding it captivating so far -- but it is making me depressed about my future.

Gladwell's thesis is basically that wildly successful people achieve great success not only because of their own talent and hard work, but also (and mostly) because of their life circumstances -- even because of the day a person was born. This is not exactly an earth-shattering proposition to me. However, Gladwell gives examples of one success story after another, and the more I read, the more fatalistic I get about my own chances for, oh, say, achieving my life goal and dream of becoming a physician.

I have failed to gain admission to medical school twice now. I don't think I am an unqualified candidate. I went to college on academic scholarships and won two writing contests. I completed all the pre-medical coursework and then some, and my GPA is 3.46. I scored a 28 and then a 29 on the MCAT. My most significant work experience is in clinical and research settings. I have done hundreds of hours of volunteer work and extracurricular activity participation. My application essays are eloquent, and I can discuss multiple current issues in modern health care at length. The numerical values of my preparedness are not the best ones out there -- they are around average, a little below average for matriculating med students in the years I applied. But they ought to be good enough.

In 1999, the average MCAT and GPA of a newly accepted medical student were 29.7 and 3.59. In 2010, the averages were an MCAT of 31.1 and a GPA of 3.67. In the last decade, average medical school acceptance rates have stayed around 42% or 43% while grade point averages and test scores for applicants have inflated.

But I was born in the Millenial Generation, the biggest generation since the Baby Boomers and, I read, three times the size of Generation X. My graduating class pushed our school buildings' capacities to the limits. The "Great Recession" hit in September 2008. I graduated from college eight months later. I've read somewhere that young people who enter the job market during a recession face handicapped earning potential for the rest of their lives. Demographically, according to Gladwell, I am screwed. Someone just like me but fifteen years older would have faced far less competition and probably succeeded where I have failed. I wish I had known that years ago. I might have spent extra hours studying.

One of the points that Gladwell makes is that there seems to be an intelligence threshold for professional success. One does not need to be the most intelligent or get the best grades or test scores to succeed. One only needs to be intelligent enough, a good enough student. Surely more than 43% of medical school applicants meet that threshold and would be successful physicians given the chance. I think I am one of them.

So many people have commented to me that I would be a good doctor or that they would see me as their personal physician. I have wanted that, and worked for that, for more than half my life. There is a physician shortage, projected to get worse. So why am I facing an identity crisis instead of finishing my second year of medical school? Why am I trying to dissolve fourteen years of hopes and dreams, to convince myself that I don't want to be a doctor after all?

This was not the plan.