2009-2010 Med school applicants

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
561

<p>Well, there appears to be an ebb and flow in this process for my D. Still a couple of weeks before Texas schools release early “pre-match” acceptances (11/15-ish) and several of her interview schools OOS have a while to wait for her (based on sdn). Nothing really un-expected but combined with interview invites drying up several weeks ago it just feels like kind of a dead time. </p>

<p>There are rolling schools that trickle out acceptances to superstar stats applicants early, but for more normal applicants it appears that decisions come (sometimes much) later in the game. Others blow them out pretty quickly to a mixed bag of applicants. From reading on sdn Chicago, Case, Pitt, UVa, Ohio State fit the second category and Baylor and Mayo the first. So, the lesson is “rolling” does not always mean the same thing at each school.</p>

562

<p>Accepted to MUSC and UVa today. I like MUSC more than my other IS acceptance (Univ of South Carolina) and UVa was really nice (brand new building and curriculum). Looks like your daughter and I are potential classmates, curmudgeon!</p>

<p>Sadly, those were the last of my schools with quick decisions - now comes many weeks of waiting. Pitt and Vanderbilt should come sometime in December. I’m not sure how long Mount Sinai and Emory take, but I’m thinking one month turnarounds for December notifications are probably on the optimistic side of things. Cornell and Duke won’t come until March.</p>

<p>But I’m accepted at a couple schools I really like a lot, so no worries. Now this becomes fun…</p>

563

<p>Steeler- mega congrats! You are in a fortunate place for the rest of the waiting. I recall my DD getting a rolling admissions offer in October of her senior year of HS and whilst awaiting those April 1 invites, it was so nice to have that back pocket acceptance.</p>

<p>Makes me wish she had early schools on her list; her favs will not notify her likely until March/April</p>

564

<p>Steeler, a big woohoo! or is that Wahoo? :wink: Yep. You are sitting pretty now with some IS love (two times the love) and a great OOS acceptance. Many, many congrats.</p>

<p>UVa is awesome. Both the school, the town, and the surroundings. Any idea how y’all would afford it? Game show winnings? Garage sales? Bank robbery? Global narcotics trade?</p>

<p>I also want to thank you for adding so much to this thread.</p>

565

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>I’m thinking bank robberies are the way to go. The thing is, the two South Carolina schools are great in terms of acceptance rates but not so much for their costs. MUSC’s tuition alone is $29k! So UVa isn’t looking that bad by comparison, their cost of attendance at $65k is only $12k more than MUSC’s. The big difference is that I have a really good shot at scholarships IS (Univ of South Carolina has two full-tuition scholarships, MUSC awards one full-tuition + $1.8k/month stipend scholarship), while merit aid at OOS schools will be ridiculously competitive.</p>

566

<p>I looked at the 2008-2009 UVa thread and searched scholarship and came up with 3 whole posts. One said they were rare. One said there would be in the acceptance letter. One said almost all need-based. Not very good odds, but mine knew that going in. I’ll check UsNews to remind myself how bad it is. </p>

<p>Edit:</p>

<p>Well, this doesn’t look as bad as I remember. </p>

<p>Percent of students receiving any financial aid 92%
Percent of students receiving loans 83%
Percent of students receiving grants/scholarships 82%
Percent of students receiving work study 0%
Average indebtedness for 2007 graduates who incurred medical school debt $116,769</p>

567

<p>$116k looks pretty bad to me, curmudgeon :(</p>

568

<p>$116k is well below the national average… sadly.</p>

569

<p>Out of pure curiosity…are there any med schools that offer full rides to exceptional applicants?</p>

570

<p>Yes, a lot of them do. They’re very rare, though. Also bear in mind that a lot of schools are offering them to the same national handful of students. So X school gives out a $160,000 scholarship and Y school gives out a $160,000 scholarship – but to the same kid, who can obviously only take one of them.</p>

<p>So you’d look at that and think that two kids are getting full-rides; in reality it’s two offers and only one kid gets a full ride out of it.</p>

571

<p>UVa is actually “good” , comparatively. Of course, every student’s situation will be unique and these “average debt for those taking out loans” figures are just the most basic of starting points. </p>

<p>For reference, this would be comparatively “bad” - Drexel </p>

<p>Percent of students receiving any financial aid 90%
Percent of students receiving loans 89%
Percent of students receiving grants/scholarships 41%
Percent of students receiving work study 16%
Average indebtedness for 2007 graduates who incurred medical school debt $188,888</p>

<p>Again, Drexel might be the perfect choice for some students based on their “economic profile”. </p>

<p>IOW, you don’t really care what the average student gets, you care what YOU get. An example of that would be steeler and his IS choices, both of which on average have higher debt levels than UVa (as reported by USNEWS). But how are those levels calculated? How much does steeler’s economic profile (including his parents) change those numbers? How much do they value steeler’s attendance? Enough to give him a merit package? </p>

<p>My D’s strategy is not driven entirely by costs, but by a combination of costs, “feel” or “fit” ( real biggie for her is her fellow students), and what I’ll call “reputation” (for lack of a better word that encompasses residency results, step scores, peer scores, residency directors evaluations, research rep and funding, and the ever popular “prestige”). She has realized throughout the process that it will be difficult to “justify” an OOS school and as such only applied to OOS schools that ended up being Top 25 (with a couple of personal additions outside that). </p>

<p>Within her OOS schools she has a few that grant scholarships to all (Mayo and Cleveland Clinic) and many (Pitt ), and a few (that unfortunately are ignoring her) with great reputations for FA. Our economic profile suggest that she would qualify for FA if she could gain admittance. One thing we learned early on, free rides are not on the table for her. Many schools require all FA students (excepting of course those with giant merit awards) to take out “unit loans” (usually around $24K-34K/yr). </p>

<p>So, if she were to gain admittance to an OOS school that for whatever reason sings to her more than one of our fine state schools (that hopefully admit her), our best hope will be that she will end up owing the “unit loan” ($100K-$140K) or (with any luck) less, after we pay our parental contribution. So , $116K after med school is not out of the question (while $188K probably is).</p>

572

<p>I spent a little time looking at the “top” schools (as she defines “top schools”) that granted my student interviews. Students receiving scholarship/grant aid varied from 100% (Mayo and Cleveland Clinic) to Dartmouth at 49%. Average indebtedness for those taking out loans ranged from a low at Baylor, Mayo, and Southwestern ($80K,$84k, $92K) to Pitt at $138K. I didn’t find numbers at Cleveland Clinic (yet) but since they give everyone a tuition-free education I’d expect them to be among the lowest. </p>

<p>I’m quite excited/nervous that those 4 just happen to be among her top 5 on several other measures she attempts to track, too (many of which are qualitative, heck, almost indecipherible ;)). It would be great if it worked out at any one of them. </p>

<p>My kid is a practical kid and I doubt she’ll “fall in love” with any one school. She didn’t during the UG process. I expect cost to be a significant player IF she’s fortunate enough to have choices. Right now she’s just happy that she has a great school to attend so early in the process.</p>

573

<p>BDM, would the school whose scholarship offer was declined not want to offer that to other students?</p>

574

<p>^You would hope so, but unfortunately schools do not seem to reassign them (at least not at the schools that I am familiar with). The explanation that I got was that schools offer more scholarships than they have available based on predicted values of those that will accept/reject.</p>

575

<p>Do these students have MCAT scores in the 40s generally? {As in, are unrealistically competitive?}</p>

576

<p>There generally are one or two full-tuition scholarships given out per year at my school. Rumor is that the guy in my class who got the full ride had an MCAT score of 41.</p>

<p>So yes, generally the full-tuition scholarship recipients are truly stand outs in some way or another.</p>

577

<p>

Generally yes, but there are exceptions. Mayo, for example, can’t possibly give scholarships only to 40+ candidates, but I don’t know what their statistical profile really looks like.</p>

578

<p>Mayo gives everybody 1/2 tuition scholarships plus travel money plus other benefits (laptops, etc) . Some get full-tuition. What the decider between full and half is not clear yet on sdn, at least not to me.</p>

<p>My understanding is that Mayo is selective in a very unique fashion. While they have the ability to pick and choose from a massive number of folks for each of their 42 MD spots (they are only bested numerically by Stanford in lowest %-age accepted), they do NOT pick the big number folks exclusively (hence their average matriculant MCAT 2 -3 points below less selective schools… like Harvard ;)). </p>

<p>My D describes the interviewees (I’m paraphrasing) as “just incredible people” with life histories and profiles that defy description. All smart but more like folks who “may very well save the world”. She actually said they “might be too good”. Whatever that means. I think it means she was humbled, and that - my friends- takes a bit of doing. ;)</p>

579

<p>Basically, once you hit 35+, the competitive advantage you get in terms of chance of acceptance starts to diminish. However, full rides seem to be mostly for 38+ students at the top third of schools. You can definitely get merit money and maybe even a full ride from less competitive institutions with a 35+ though. All of this is assuming that the rest your app is also great.</p>

580

<p>"DocT- Best wishes that the acceptance is on the way, but beware a bird before it is in hand. "</p>

<p>The bird is in hand! Congrats to all!</p>