Guest Post: How to Get a Fuck-You MCAT Score
In which former student Griffith Hughes learns to stop worrying and celebrate a nearly perfect imperfection
I’ve had hundreds of great students. Dozens I still think about now and then. Maybe I even have a sort of top ten? Griffith Hughes is way up there. Such a great writer, a thoughtful guy, the kind of charming and genuine young adult about whom you instantly think: I could probably be good friends with this guy.
An EMT, Griffith wrote in my class with alacrity, originality, surprise, depth, and power. But the work he sent me after the class? It was definitely thoughtful and well-meaning. Perhaps, though, it could be a bit stiff. Too compact. Angular. A tiny itsy bit tortured. (I might be wrong, of course, these are just my impressions.)
There are many versions of each of us. The magic of writing is the way you can kind of capture, as if in amber, a split second edition of… well, you. This gets weird when you work on a piece for weeks or months or years. Then you might produce a kind of amalgam? Ideally, this brew of you is the best versions, distilled. Sometimes it’s a big mash and a bit schizophrenic. I know I’ve spent years on certain essays.
But what we have below is, I think, more like a split second than something Griffith worked on for months. I loved reading it. The way it captures something fleeting. You’ll never again be exactly who you are… right now. I have a feeling a year from now I would enjoy reading this again. Griffith? I’m not so sure if he’ll reread this in a year. I have a feeling he’s going to be pretty busy… for something like the next ten years.
A Fuck-You MCAT Score
By Griffith Hughes
I've been thinking about shitty first-drafts a lot lately, and the fact that I haven't written any even though I should. I guess this will be one, but I'm not sure if it counts. Maybe I'll let you know by the end.
I've also been thinking about the fact that I'll be applying to med school soon. I believe that there is a certainty of purpose that comes with being a pre-med student. Even if you take a different path at a different speed, we all have to hit many of the same milestones: take some tests, apply to med school, take some tests, apply to residency, take some tests, apply to fellowship, take some tests. When you know what the next decade holds, it's even easier to live in the moment. But I've underestimated the periods of upheaval that come with each of these events.
The MCAT? My goal was to get a fuck-you score: one that schools wouldn't ever be able to reject me for because it was too low. I stared at my laptop for eight weeks over the summer. Pressed spacebar to flip my flashcards. Took a practice test every week. Drove to my testing center every Thursday morning to get used to the traffic. But none of it could prepare me when my certainty of purpose, the armor that projects and protects into the future, disappeared the day I took my test.
I sat in the waiting room with strangers, tagged with a number I've forgotten, quietly shepherded to the slaughter one by one. By the time I was checked in, the bile had risen in my stomach and started to attack my throat. I could feel the weight of the next decade sitting on my chest, paralyzing me as I tested the highlight function one more time and attested that I am indeed Griffith Collwyn Hesketh Hughes. Eight and a half hours later, I was numb. Then the worst part of the MCAT began.
They make you wait a month to get your score back.
The first two weeks went by quickly. I cut my hair, flew to San Francisco to visit my girlfriend, Zoomed into some Bioengineering seminars, helped my friend move, went to UCSD Bioengineering orientation, and got new teeth. I was so stressed for so long that I had flattened my canines by grinding my lower jaw (None of my teeth were actually removed, I just like to refer to them as my new teeth since they reformed them with resin). The dentist did compliment my flossing though.
I didn't sleep well the second two weeks, but I was able to distract myself with my new classes and friends. Until I checked the AAMC website during my statistical mechanics class and had to step outside. I think that the certainty of purpose is similar to trust in that once they have been broken it feels impossible to ever restore it to the same strength. A little piece of doubt remains no matter what is done to regain it. Even if they write “100th percentile,” we both know that's not possible. Not true.
Now I'm gearing up to apply to med school and the nerves are slowly returning. My certainty is buckling under the growing weight of my expectations. I'm scared to take the next step and write a shitty first-draft of my personal statement. To trust all that I am and all that I want to be to only 5300 characters. I'm procrastinating by focusing on random projects instead: 3D printing my brain from an MRI I had a couple of years ago; writing this shitty first-draft of a promptless mini-essay at 2 am.
I think I finally understand what it means to keep a journal.