<p>Hmm, maybe he should look primarily for schools that are pass/fail? Curmudgeon can probably speak better on this, if not now, then in a few months(I think his daughter is going there?) but I believe Yale is completely pass/fail with anonymous exams, making for a very relaxing environment, relatively speaking at least. I know there are other schools that are truly pass/fail as well.</p>
<p>Basically my point is, I don’t necessarily think that rank of a school is a good barometer for stress of school. I suppose you could argue that if he goes to a school where he is on the upper percentile on stats, that will make it easier, but I feel like in medical school, since its mostly memorization, that won’t necessarily be the case. And anecdotally, I think there are plenty of cases of low stats schools being highly competitive and stressful environments and highly ranked schools being less stressful, and more focused on relaxing, intellectually stimulating experiences. (Relatively speaking- and again, this is all heresy on my part but it seems to be widely touted)</p>
[/quote]
Freud? Freud? Is that you, Freud? You may have meant hearsay but heresy works, too. </p>
<p>
I agree. I don’t believe stress level automatically rises with selectivity. And, if so, my kid has made a grievous miscalculation. </p>
<p>As to Yale, she is hopeful. The learning environment she believes to be there is (largely) why she is going there at all. Her other final choice was just too good to let selectivity or student outcomes be enough of a reason to go to Yale at a higher cost. She’ll see soon enough.</p>
<p>Haha, yes meant hearsay. And unless every poster on SDN who talks about Yale, as well as Yale’s own website is lying about the situation, I’d say her choice was made on quite solid ground.</p>
Well, despite having little research before senior year (an independent project that I couldn’t talk about much in applications, but sadly didn’t get much of a chance to talk about during interviews), I applied to the top 25 schools because they each had characteristics I found really appealing, that didn’t include NIH funding. Curriculum organization (Emory, UVA, Penn, and to a lesser extent, Duke), international opportunities (Cornell, Pitt, Emory), training facilities (Penn, Pitt), or location (Cornell, Sinai). The top research schools can still be great environments for people not interested in research, or like me, only interested in a particular niche of research. My honesty probably didn’t help me much in interviews, but I ended up getting into a place that I feel fits my goals perfectly. Your son might as well try! On SDN, a current Penn student said she told her interviewers she had zero intentions of doing research of any kind…</p>
<p>^I believe that honesty is a key in interview. D. went thru several interviews at Med. Schools while applying for combined bs/md’s. She ended up at one that I practically ruled out becuase of D’s question during interview after she did not understand the interviewer’s question. D. has asked the meanning of one very common word! I was shocked. But I quess, they appreciated honesty. But again, keep in mind that she was HS graduate at that time, not college graduate and they could have adjusted to her young age. Still she kept repeating that she just tried to be herself and enjoy conversation. Some of those interviews were almost working day long with lunch included. Would be pretty stressful for most people, let alone 17 years old.</p>
<p>DS said he would complete his TMDSAS primary this long weekend. We will be overejoyed if he really completes this one which is more critical to him in the next couple of days. His transcript has been received by both TMDSAS and AMCAS. I wonder when he will need to mail in the money order. (Is a cashier check from a bank OK also?)</p>
<p>His AMCAS primary is likely in a worse shape. He told us that he would like to put CO in denver into his list of schools and we think it is a good idea. When I told him it is a good OOS school for him as that school may be willing to take OOS students, he is surprised I know so much – In reality, my secret weapon is CC: I learned about CO from somemom on this thread not long ago.</p>
<p>if he applies to too many OOS schools, will his IS schools more likely reject him? (TMDSAS asks for the list of OOS schools he applies to.) We are inclined to ask him to remove some ivies like Dartmouth. He told us he does not like Penn because he heard the location is not very good (unsafe.) He may put in Columbia because one of his friends go there and he think he may have some chances as their stats are quite similar. (But her ECs are probaly better as she paid much more attention to medical school related ECs.)</p>
<p>Also, we just learned that his MCAT subscores are quite balanced, rather than skewed toward sciences.</p>
<p>A related question: DS used a photo taken outdoors. As such, the background is green – If you look closely, you may notice the green is from tree leaves. There is even a slight shade on his face as he is under the sun. He did wear a suite with a tie on that photo (He actually wore the graduation gown as the picture was taken during commencement.) Is this kind of photo acceptable?</p>
<p>lollybo, Are you familiar with the admission standard for wustl for their own undergraduates? I heard that if a student from that college meets some threshold on gpa and mcat, it is almost an auto-admit, no matter how “bad” their ECs may be. Is this true or just a myth which is untrue? Or there is no such separate standard for their own students. One of DS’s friends was admitted there (from another college) last cycle, and his stats was likely 3.9/37. (He has quite good premed ECs though.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the auto-admit thing for WUSTL undergrads is a de-facto policy. I do know, however, that Wash U has a University Scholars program where undergrads are jointly enrolled in the med school, and can stay in the program if they maintain a certain GPA and MCAT cutoff (36 for MCAT I believe). If the auto-admit thing is true, I’d be really happy, however :)</p>
<p>DS has just submitted his TMDSAS primary. (I know it is not early. Hopefully, it is not too late.)
Question about the fees (processing fees?): Should he mail in a money order or a personal check is fine? Does he need to mail it in a certified or registered mail, or a first-class mail is OK?
Also, a question about the secondaries required by some of the texas schools: Will he need to wait until the school notifies him before he can submit the secondaries? Will he need to pay more money to the school when he submits the secondary?
I think he likely selected about 12-14 OOS schools when he filled out his TMDSAS application. He will likely apply to about 20 schools totally. Too many? Too few? I worry that his list may be top heavy as he mentioned that he had a hard time in finding mid/lower-tier schools. His list of schools may be like a random selection of top-40 schools (excluding the top-5, excluding west-coast schools which, in his words, would take too much time to fly there even if he gets an invite :)). His IS schools do include some mid-tiered ones though. He does not fall in love with any particular school at this point.</p>
<p>ON the photos, just pick one where the student looks appealing and not too casual, DDs was an outdoor (sunset) shot as that is what we had available.</p>
<p>We mailed a check to TX, regular mail, and I would mail it ASAP so it can arrive and get matched to the file, as many TX residents filed their apps in mid-May and when my DD was doing TX it felt like she was so far behind the TX kids, then when we realised we had to mail a check, not pay by CC, that seemed to take forever.</p>
<p>His schools as of today are the following. Is this list too top heavy for 3.9/39 (the lowest sub-score is 12 on VR.) --do not know much about his ECs (but the ECs are definitely not that strong.)</p>
<p>texas ones: utsw, baylor, ut-sa, ut-h, ut-mb, texas a&m, tech tech lubbock and el paso.
mid-west: michigan, colorado, wustl, pitts.
east coast: yale, dartmouth, columbia, brown (hope for an “incest” effect here :)), mt. sinai, nyu – many big city schools here. he must love nyc (“It would be nice if he does not have to drive.”)
east coast but a little bit south: uva, temple, emory.
Should he add more, remove some or replace some with others?
I feel his list is still a very volatile one, and could be changed any time.
mom/dad in this family wants him to apply to fewer OOS ones. He himself wants more lower-tiered ones. one of his friends wants him to add more top ones.
Thanks for any input.</p>
<p>BDM, Thanks for the suggestion. I may have a hard time in convincing him to do H and JHU. I may try to convince him on Penn. This is because he saw many of his friends who got rejected from these two. Boy, he even mentioned he wanted to scrap Y a few days ago (just because one of his friends with 3.9/37 got rejected there, and a recent YDN article said that YSM wants to educate leaders and he is not a leader-type person.) Comm’on, does he only need to walk a block or two for an interview if he got an invite?! It would then a good practice with zero cost in traveling. I also said to him that BDM once wrote that all applicants should try his own school He just has that kind of personality – for example, he only applied to a single ivy during college application (if his incomplete application to Penn did not count.)</p>
<p>If Vanderbilt is not that top, he would try to apply there. – “because I may take some lessons from some good but starving musicians there during weekend.” LOL. He did take a lesson from a store near Whittney while in college – That is where he became familar with his physics teacher who ends up writing his LOR. </p>
<p>I empathize: I didn’t even get interviews from Harvard and Hopkins. But realistically, he’s probably got a reasonable chance at getting into them (25%?), and I’d think it’s worth the application fee. (Harvard in particular tends to make very different admissions decisions from some of its peer schools, such as Penn, WUSTL, Duke, etc.)</p>
<p>It’s probably about $100 to apply to them. Harvard has no essays, and Hopkins has three short ones. I don’t see any reason not to.</p>
<p>utsw- Truly great. No negatives for her (except the sometimes gritty neighbors). Working hard to counter their “competitive” reputation. </p>
<p>baylor- Truly great but in some $ turmoil. Great pre-clinical. The TMC is the nuts. </p>
<p>ut-sa- South Texas Medical Center impressed me. Her? Not as much. </p>
<p>ut-h- Under-rated. Chill, out-going, social kids. Maybe not as intellectual as their neighbor. </p>
<p>ut-mb- Great school. Great curriculum. Great Texas rep and tradition. Laid-back to the max. D- Maybe too laid-back for me. “Let’s hit the beach.” </p>
<p>texas a&m - “Will be great in 10 years.” Scott and White is quite cool. Two campus thing turned her off. Not a fan of “distance” lectures. </p>
<p>mid-west: </p>
<p>pittsburgh- Very impressive. Livable city. Great hospital system. Screwy admissions (they wait-list almost everybody).
east coast:</p>
<p>yale- D’s favorite. New Haven is the only negative and it ain’t that bad.<br>
dartmouth- Made her top 5. Probably her favorite campus environment but “limited patient pool diversity” killed it.
east coast but a little bit south: </p>
<p>uva-loved campus, curriculum, new digs, but not as great clinical rotations. </p>
<p>OK. Had D read my post and she says (paraphrased) “Congratulations. There is absolutely no reason to apply to a non-Top Tier anywhere outside of Texas unless you have a specific reason to be in NYC or Atlanta (or out of Texas). Don’t waste your money. I didn’t even go to interviews or complete secondaries after I pre-matched. I immediately withdrew from several schools.” </p>
<p>A clear credit card and creeping paranoia can make you spend some serious coin. For her it was “unknown school” and “less than expected MCAT”. Your kid doesn’t have those two to worry about. He may have other things to freak about (leadership, etc) that she had covered pretty well, but on those two…he’s good to go. ;)</p>
<p>curm, curm’ D, and BDM, Thanks for your input. The descriptions of many of these schools are useful for us to make a decision. (You may notice he “clones” a big part of the list of schools of your D’s.) Hmm…maybe he should eliminate Pitts because of its screwy admission process. He probably can not let go of uva, the Thomas Jefferson school in such a nice town.</p>
<p>Paranoia is definitely a major part of it. It is hard not to be so when you are on this side of fense, i.e., not a single school has shown you love yet. He kept mentioning how random the admission process could be, after he had seen first-handedly how suffering many of his friends were during the last application cycle. (I heard, in the past year, he “supported” the application efforts of some of his friends by providing them with his class notes when they needed to miss many classes due to their interviews.)</p>
You may have meant hearsay but heresy works, too. </p>
and not too casual, DDs was an outdoor (sunset) shot as that is what we had available.</p>
He just has that kind of personality – for example, he only applied to a single ivy during college application (if his incomplete application to Penn did not count.)</p>