2009-2010 Med school applicants

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
741

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<p>You have just described my child :slight_smile: For some reason, he likes many things associated with this big state. He wore his favorite orange-colored jacket to his school’s football game this year, and some half-drunken students or alumni yelled at him: “You have come to the wrong game!” I said to him that I am not sure whether it is politically correct to wear other school’s jacket to the game, but he said he did not care. He did have other much warmer, nicer jacket. I think he intentionally wore that jacket to the game for whatever reason it may be. (Think about it: he really has no reason to bring that quite worn-out jacket to his school. Just weird.)</p>

<p>Thanks, curm!</p>

742

<p>MCAT2- there are quite a few states in the west and middle America which take no or few OOS kids.</p>

<p>WA takes almost only from WA/AK/ID/MT/WY and has averages around 31-33</p>

<p>UT, NV, NM, KS, OK, NE admit almost only IS students and have lower average stats than, say, CA. In those states, for example, a 29 is not the kiss of death</p>

<p>AZ just opened their admissions to OOS student this year- 25% max but had previously had slightly lower than national average stats.</p>

<p>States like TX//FL/NY seem to have a large number of schools, but I don’t know much about their averages being out west.</p>

<p>It feels like many of these states admissions are essentially designed to protect state residents (tax payers) from an influx of high achieving Californians</p>

743

<p>We live in a target rich area.</p>

744

<p>Somemom, it is nice to know which state takes mostly IS applicants. WA was originally on my child’s radar screen (probably because his first two years of life was there.) We probably should talk him out of this.</p>

<p>Last time I saw it, IL seems to have many medical schools as well. I do not know whether it mostly takes in-states though. Was IL on your D’s radar screen also when she applied?</p>

<p>Besides his home state medical schools, I think he once mentioned that he will likely consider medical schools in the NY state (He seems to mention some up-state one – Is there one in Albany? – and maybe also NYU. Someone he knew seems to have gone to NYU.) But I do not know why he may choose those schools. I only know that one of his best friends is from there and he visited his friend’s family during some parent’s weekend. (lol, maybe his temporary surrogate parents.)</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

745

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I’d be happy to answer whatever questions you have.</p>

746

<p>Again, the point of the thread was to share data. How many schools applied to? How were they decided on (application strategy)? Would be a good place to start. </p>

<p>For example, (and to catch you up) my D is a Texas resident who attends college OOS at a Top 50 LAC. She has a top 10% only time MCAT (low for top-most schools) , very high GPA, some national and regional research awards, very active EC’s, big hour , big doings volunteering, shadowing, and wants to go into what is loosely called academic medicine. She has zero interest in primary care. She feels equally comfortable with PBL and lecture. Location is not a concern (of hers ;)). She plans on a research year between MS2 and MS3. </p>

<p>Because of her desire for research , she chose not to apply to schools with a huge primary care push. Because of her less than stellar MCAT she applied to 15 OOS schools heavy into research as she could not count on being accepted to the 2 best match Texas schools. Her cycle thus far has yielded great results at research schools ranked in the teens and twenties, and she’s been ignored by those ranked higher. </p>

<p>It appears to me that great soft factors can add 2 points to an MCAT, but maybe not 3. Just one data point but hey, it’s a data point. :wink: Someone similarly situated might find that interesting. Limited? True. But interesting nonetheless.</p>

<p>Some might find your story interesting, too.</p>

747

<p>Last year when I was going through a divorce, I asked on this forum how much money would need to be set aside to cover the med school application process. This was important since it was one of those “negotiable” items between the lawyers. I had several people reply, mostly current med students and those going through the process. One Harvard poster stated that their office of career services said to budget around $8000. Now these are Harvard students and one would expect that they don’t have to apply to 30+ schools and so maybe their application fees would be lower than average. But if Harvard is telling their students to budget 8 grand, then I am going to pay attention. This isn’t too far off somemom’s numbers. Has DS spent $8000? No he hasn’t. But this process is not cheap and as several posters have noted, it depends on number of schools, airfares, price of hotels in certain cities, etc… It can quickly add up. </p>

<p>One can save on hotel costs on some interviews. Some schools have “buddy” systems where the applicants can bunk down in a current med student’s place for the night. DS stayed with friends in some cities. One night he spent with relatives. Sometimes you can’t avoid an expensive hotel fee especially if interviewing in places such as NYC. </p>

<p>DS has tried to limit expenses as much as he can. Flew cheaper airlines (yeah Southwest!), took trains, etc… Can’t avoid $45 taxi fares though in some places. He stayed at places like Days Inn and cheaper hotels. When available, he used the hotel shuttles to get back and forth from airports. Ate subs a lot instead of real meals when he was out of town. Bought one suit and then a couple of shirts for diversity. Booked in state interviews around times when he would be home. He limited his selection of schools to a geographical area. No long cross country trips had to be scheduled then. </p>

<p>Lots of little things make that total rise. I never “budgeted in” things like taxi fares and meals but after several interviews, those things add up. </p>

<p>Jamestown - how have you cut or limited your expenses during this process? Anything that you can add would be beneficial.</p>

748

<p>Didn’t want to post this in the above posting since it is a completely different topic, but DS did hear back from 2 more schools this week. He was waitlisted to one and accepted to another. That makes 3 acceptances and they are completely different schools. He has no idea of which one he will choose. He has to spend some time thinking about each of them and going over finances. There are still 3 schools that he has not received a decision yet and he is going to drop one or more of them. He is not complaining about this though! He fully realizes how fortunate he is to have this choice.</p>

749

<p>"One Harvard poster stated that their office of career services said to budget around $8000. "</p>

<p>This seems to be a lot more than my kid and her friends were told.</p>

750

<p>Great news, mom2boys. Yeah for choices. And thanks for sharing. We are all in this leaky boat together. D has had some $45 cab rides, too and unfortunately for her several non-Southwest airline tickets averaging about $275. For hotels , I used priceline name your own price every time and never had to pay more than $100, most times $80 including taxes. </p>

<p>I don’t want to add up what she (and I ) have spent but it’s a big number. Has to be scaring $8K or maybe worse. I really don’t want to know. ;)</p>

751

<p>My DD lucked out with free rooms on her interviews, but we did have to pay $70 each way in DC for a shuttle due to late flight arrivals after public transport was done and then leaving with a very short time period between the interview and the departing flight (last one out that night to our area) So, $140 for a shuttle was more than some SWA flights!</p>

752

<p>Well, my D has been home long enough to re-charge her batteries so tonight she will work on her combo update/letter of interest letters to her “ignore” and waitlist/hold schools. From reading sdn it seems that at some schools these letters are of little to no effect but…at least for the 4 ignore schools (her highest ranked remaining schools, 2 have already said “No, Thanks”) she doesn’t have anything to lose as at 3 of the schools , interview invites are just about done. (At waitlist/hold schools , they seem to be more effective. And in some cases, maybe even expected. Pitt anyone?)</p>

<p>Her proposed strategy for the “ignore” schools is “bold” (but hopefully not “brazen” or “desperate”) and she’ll address the one negative (or at least “less than positive” ) in her app directly. Nothing ventured…</p>

753

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<p>My cycle has been fairly similar, minus the Texas thing and the expensive undergrad thing. Similar numbers, from the way it sounds. I applied to about 20 schools with a range of average numbers, and have had interviews at a little more than half of them. The interview schools have been across a good range of numbers too. Trying not to make a decision until May, but I have options at this point.</p>

<p>It sounds like your daughter got a 33. That’s a great score, and won’t close any doors at any school. It’s all a crap-shoot after you get the numbers, write the essays, and do the ECs.</p>

754

<p>Jamestown –
Curm may not tell you…but…as a stalker of his daughter…I am fairly certain his daughter turned down the “expensive undergrad thing” at Yale or Amherst for a full ride (tuition, room & board and some additional nice perks) to her top 50 LAC. It’s in a somewhat out-of-the way location though…in terms of major research med school areas…so I imagine there were hefty transport costs to some of the research places she must have interviewed.</p>

<p>She also has won a significant National award for students planning on continuing their education in science or medicine.</p>

<p>He, and others on this thread, have been exceedingly generous in the information provided on timing, procedures and costs – and I’m sure it will be helpful to other students and parents going through this process. They are single data points, but still helpful.</p>

755

<p>^ I would not say that the largest city of a state is in a somewhat out-of-the-way location :slight_smile: I would believe that the city where her college is at has much to offer than, say, Williamstown, MA.</p>

<p>I agree with you that, if a college is not in a mega-sized city (like Dallas, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Philly, SFO, LAX), it tends to cost a lot more to fly in or out of that college.</p>

756

<p>Memphis just has pretty poor air service, unless you’re a package. :wink: Most of the time she has to fly SW from Little Rock. Occasionally Memphis is competitive but usually it’s…not.</p>

757

<p>Somemom, I learned from SDN that, at Berkeley, they have a default of one semester of gen chemistry, a year of organic chemistry, and then a semester of biochem to count as the 4th semester of chemistry, just like my child’s school. (Actually, I found out that many schools have this sequence.) Did your D happen to take this sequence of chemistry courses? If yes, when your D applied to Texas Medical Schools (I learn from your previous post that she had an invite from UTSW), did they allow your D to use the AP chemistry credit to substitute for the other semester of gen chemistry?</p>

<p>Another more specific question: On the transcript from Berkeley, are the “(course) prefix” and the “course number” of the Berkeley course that is equivalent to an AP course explicitly listed? I ask this because I heard that on TMDSAS’s system, they ask the applicant to enter the prefix (e.g., “CHEM” or “BIO” or “MATH or CALC” part of your course name) and the course number of the course which is equivalent to your AP course.</p>

<p>Sorry to raise this question again as I raised a similar question before. But this time I have a more specific question, that is, what the transcript from Berkeley looks like for an AP credit.)</p>

<p>BTW, congrats to your D to have gotten into her first choice.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

758

<p>My DD did do that sequence of general chem, ochem, ochem, biochem at Berkeley. She did NOT even take the AP Chem test in HS, though she did take the class, so there was no AP credit for chem in the mix. </p>

<p>I do recall one non-TX school required the Berkeley people to specify how their chem track worked and then appeared to accept that information once received from the school rather than the student.</p>

<p>I do not recall any specific course being listed on the transcript, it was just something like AP Bio 5.3 units. She did apply to all the TX schools and got 2 interview invites from TX as OOS</p>

759

<p>Somemom, Thanks for your first-hand info. I asked this question because I bumped into some very old thread (see below) at SDN, where some premeds from Berkeley discussed this question. I guess, from the context, that the course 1a is gen chem, the course 3a and 3b are orgo I/II, and mcb 102 (or 100?) is biochem. But this post refers to Berkeley’s course numbers before 2005 so the course numbers may haven been changed since then.</p>

<p>When I told my child he may follow what Berkeley’s UCS suggested back in 2005 and treat his one-semester of gen chem and orgo I as two semesters of general chemistry, and orgo II and biochem as two semesters of orgo, somehow he seems to disagree with me. But he still does not know what to do with the chemistry course sequence come the application time next year (that is, how to enter his courses into TMDSAS’s system.)</p>

<p>I also know for a fact that one Texas in-state, who was at Berkeley for his freshman/sophomore and then at another school for his junior/senior, applied with one semester of general chemistry, two semesters of orgo, and one semester of biochem (without taking biochem lab) during this application cycle. He also said that the course numbers are not listed on his transcript. But he got into 3 Texas medical schools (UTSA, UT Houston and UTSW) just one month ago. He did mention that he worried that some medical schools (he mentioned JHU in particular) may likely give him some trouble because of the lack of two gen chemistry classes. He did get an invite from UPenn and several medical schools all over the country though. (He has an insane GPA and 35 MCAT.)</p>

<p>I also found it is strange that:</p>

<p>“the career center said that dartmouth is filled out differnetly bc you say chem 1a for the full year of gen chem and 3a/3b for o cehm.”</p>

<p>From your successful case and his successful case, I now believe that maybe only the “extremely picky” medical schools (like JHU) will care if you take this chemistry course sequence.</p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>

<p>[Who</a> went to Berkeley [Archive] - Student Doctor Network Forums](<a href=“Who went to Berkeley | Student Doctor Network”>Who went to Berkeley | Student Doctor Network)</p>

<p>"hi,</p>

<p>for all those who went to berkeley, how do you fill out the secondaries that ask you to list your courses. i am having trouble with the chem req as all schools want a year of Gen chem</p>

<p>the career center says to list 1a/3a as g chem and 3b/mcb 102 as o-chem.</p>

<p>however, for tulane’s secondary, it asks for 6 sem hours of each g chem, ochem, bio, phys… so do you just write 8 sem hours when they ask for how many hours?</p>

<p>for dartmouth, they ask for 8 sem hours of all the sciences. and the career center said that dartmouth is filled out differnetly bc you say chem 1a for the full year of gen chem and 3a/3b for o cehm. so when dartmouth asks semester hours of gen chem, do you write 4 (which is just chem 1a) or 8 (bc the career cneter says our gen chem is considered a year for dartmouth)</p>

<p>please advise, so confused!!!</p>

<p>What you should do is when they ask for 2 semesters of gchem and 2 of ochem, put chem 1a, chem 3a as your gchem requirements. For the 2 semesters of ochem, list chem 3b and mcb 102 (or whatever biochem class you took…the only other one i know of is mcb 100).</p>

<p>For your darmouth question, I’m kind of confused. If they are asking for 8 hours of each gchem and ochem, you should do what I wrote in the previous paragraph.</p>

<p>In the case of tulane, again just do as I said in the first paragraph. That way you will exceed their requirements. The career center has it on their website that you should list chem 1a, chem 3a as your gchem and that no med school has ever had a problem with this (one med school did after a person was accepted but the career center explained it to that school and everything worked out fine)."</p>

760

<p>mcat:</p>

<p>better sources (than sdn) are the colleges themselves, (particularly since the Dartmouth quote doesn’t make any sense).</p>

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<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepPrereq.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepPrereq.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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