Session 156 As an older applicant, are there benefits to attending a premed conference? Can you make connections with schools that will ultimately help your application? Your questions answered here are taken from theNontrad Premed Forum. If you haven’t yet, please register for an account. It’s free! So you can join a wonderful, collaborative community of students who are on the same journey as yours. Also, be sure to check out all our other podcasts onMedEd Media Network for more resources to help you along this journey. [00:50] OldPreMeds Question of the Week: "I'm curious about the soft-side values of theUC Davis Prehealth Conference specifically for an older applicant coming as a career changer. I’ve read that it is a fantastic overall pre-med conference that gives a great introduction to all the details on the basics, but I’d like to get a feel for some additional possible benefits. I can make arrangements to attend, but want to make sure that the effort is worthwhile. Reading the list of schools attending is impressive. Do adcom attendees make note of future applicants they talk to and are interested in keeping an eye out for his/her application? Is it an option to come in pre-interview mode, dressed business casual and have something to leave behind like a resume or CV? Is networking possible? Can an attendee actually walk away having made a good connection with someone who has a role in admissions? Can a line of communication be opened via a connection made at this conference? (I previously attended the much smaller conference at UCSD and have not had response to any of the “fill this out with any questions” forms, so I’m not sure if the adcoms actually have time to follow-up.) Do the admission committee attendees/presenters find value in attending the conference? Do they “prospect” at all? I suppose the bottom line is, if someone already has a good handle on the pre-reqs, MCAT preparation, application cycle, etc. is there additional value in attending the UC Davis pre-health conference? [02:15] What Benefits Do You Get Out of Premed Conferences I'm working with a student who hasn't had much luck until she went to a conference. And she did this in the middle of the application cycle. Now, if you're doing this pre-application cycle, this allows you to ask for more advice because you're not a current applicant. As a current applicant, your advice isn't as robust as it may be if you were not an applicant and you're only planning to apply the next year or the year after. Depending on where you are on your journey, if you're a current applicant, I highly recommend you go to conferences. Aside from getting to meet me, you get to network. [04:20] Is Networking Possible? 100% possible. The question is how much effort are you going to put into it? Are you going to go to all of the sessions? Or are you going to get up there, say hello, and shake hands? You can actually bring a resume if you're not a current applicant. Most importantly, come prepared with questions. Do your research like you're planning on applying to these schools. Do your research like you're going to talk to them why you want to their school. Don't just walk up to them and say hi and ask them to tell you everything you need to know. That's a useless conversation. "Come in prepared with questions - that's the key thing." If you're a current applicant, talk about the application - where you may be struggling, why you haven't gotten an interview. The student I talked about who attended the conference had a low MCAT score. And we were able to talk about that. It's her second time taking it and her score increased a ton but it's still low. So she made some good connections at the conference and weeks later, she went to theAAMC Minority Student Career Fair in Texas. She lives on the east coast so she flew out to UC Davis then went to Texas for the fair, where she got even more traction. She got a couple of the same people and got to show her face again. She also got