A New Chapter

Following a bit in the theme of last time because I seem to be in a bit of a reflective mood for some reason – bye bye Track. No more obsessive checking. No more mashing the F5 key in the frantic but slim hope I logged in a second too soon. No more getting frustrated with your extra pages keeping me from finding my fate. No more will you make my heart catch in my throat and my stomach turn as you load the page sooo slowly, only to find the decision column is blank, still, again, like I knew it would be, and then I feel silly for thinking it may have changed. I have moved on, I have no need for you anymore. Your bookmark is deleted. 
Nottingham put out their results last night and I had an email telling me I was on the waiting list. Now Notts aren’t as nice as St George’s in that a waiting list place isn’t a ticket to an automatic place next year if you aren’t called for this year, it’s really just a holding status. ‘We don’t like you enough to offer you a place, but we do like you enough not to reject you’. You may be offered a place if enough of those who were offered in the first place turn down their offers, or if people don’t get their grades come results day and the uni has places to fill. This means you could be given as little as a few days notice to pack up your things and come to uni. When I saw the email, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I’d thought the interview had gone really well, so to only be on the waiting list? I kept trying to rationalise it that maybe it was because I still had some documents to send to them, or because my GAMSAT wasn’t that high, or because they’d seen me on the different forums talking about wanting to go to PCMD, but I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter. At least it was better than an outright rejection, and it’s not like I wanted the place anyway. So I logged onto Track for the last time ever, withdrew from Nottingham and firmed Peninsula. There we have it then, my path is decided. After three applications, five years of stressing, one degree, 3 entrance exams spanning a total of 7 hours, 5 interviews, countless amounts of money spent on preparation books, entrance exams, train tickets and a degree, and so many tears and sleepless nights, I am finally in to the place I wanted to be in from the very beginning. And to think that I didn’t want to try again this year, I was ready to give up. My family had to coax me into it (according to Dad, I’m a bean, and bean’s don’t give up [for bean, insert surname]). Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry class of 2015. Hopefully I will hear from them soon with a campus allocation and all the other paperwork I need to fill in. I am now Bean the medical student :)