<p>sharonohio,
Thanks for info about OH schools. Very helpfull.</p>
<p>D’s is Verified and planned to get 2 secondaries out in next couple days. </p>
<p>Anybody has changed anything after being verified? Did it affect process?</p>
<p>Called AMCAS today and spoke with an “Admissions Specialist” (boy that sounds like a HORRIBLE job, imho). I asked him about adding schools to the list after submitting and how that affects submission date.</p>
<p>He told me that the day your application becomes “active” is the day you’re officially submitted for verification purposes. You become active after all supporting material in the form of transcripts is received and logged. So, since I submitted on 7/7 but my transcripts weren’t received until 7/20, my “active” date is 7/20, and my “4-6 weeks for verification” started on 7/20. Adding schools to the list does not change your place in line; your place is determined by the “active date.” </p>
<p>Since adding schools before verification doesn’t change anything, I can’t imagine (though I forgot to specifically ask) that adding schools after verification would change anything either.</p>
<p>For those of you waiting to be verified, AMCAS claims to have no idea how long verification takes, just allow 4-6 weeks. Also! If you call, be prepared to give them your AAMC #, full name, and birthday. Quite specific, those folks. </p>
<p>Kristin</p>
<p>Just went over to student doctor network and found the prompts for 9 out of my 11 schools. Copy/pasted them into a word document so I won’t have to ever go back to that website (I’ll wait for my last 2 schools to actually send them to me, thanks). It’s 4.5 pages long! Yikes, got a lot of work ahead of me. </p>
<p>In other news, the one reply I posted at SDN was to a kid on the “chance me!” forum asking about his chances. He has a 38 MCAT and a 3.92. He’s applying to THIRTY-FOUR SCHOOLS. My reply was something to the polite tune of “34? That’s lots of time and money! Good luck!”</p>
<p>Is applying to 34 schools normal? I always wonder how many is “average” and how my decision to apply to 11 fits that (not that it matters though, I suppose–just curious). Hopefully with a few schools which should be great matches and the rest as reaches, I’ll pick up acceptances to one or two of my matches and at least one from my reaches. That would just be ideal!</p>
<p>I think the norm is around 15-25. 34 is way overboard.</p>
<p>Just FYI, secondaries are coming within hours after being verified. D. got the first in about 8 hours, the rest came next morning. She is waiting only for NW. But she has very short list of 7 schools. Writing time! Boy, it is very hard to write such short essays. The best to everybody! Thanks for all info., has been very helpful!</p>
<p>kristin, I think it varies as to what is reasonable. My D applied to @ 21 which was too many, in hindsight. 6 Texas schools, and 15 OOS. The 4-5 OOS she added at the end were not good choices and were just “paranoia picks” as she was unlikely to attend if she had received a Texas offer. </p>
<p>Had she not been from Texas she might have ramped it up to 25.</p>
<p>If a student had a deficiency in any area maybe even more.</p>
<p>In MiamiDAP’s kid’s situation with “one in the bag”, 7 seems reasonable to me. </p>
<p>So, like most of this process, the answer is more situation-specific than we would like it be.</p>
<p>Haha, thanks curmudgeon. I’m finding that “it depends” or “it varies” or “it’s all individual” to be the answer to wayyyyy more questions than I’m comfortable with. Thank goodness I’ve always been the type to just roll with the punches and see what happens next! Plus, no one in my family has applied to med school (I’m the oldest kid of my generation, and only my grandfather was a physician back in the day) and only one of my closest friends is too, so really…I barely know what to expect as-is. </p>
<p>So far it’s been a cool experience though–choosing schools was so much fun, and I’m sort of looking forward to working on secondaries (hopefully I have some time before I need to submit them–I’m not even verified yet) because I like reflecting about the things that I’ve done and writing about my hopes for the future, etc. I figure…I can only be the best that I can be, so worrying about what everyone else is doing and trying to get ahead is futile. Might as well concentrate on me & my application, right? Sure hope so.</p>
<p>My DD with a 29 and a 3.6+ applied to over 30 for a couple of reasons. She had one in state school available and it is very highly ranked. Her MCAT is below the average accepted. If not that state school, then it would be a roll of the dice.</p>
<p>Once she had her list of best likely matches, she tossed in a few reaches just to see and she went ahead and did all of TX as it is basically one app.</p>
<p>Since she got into her state school in the fall, it was 30+ too many apps, but had she not gotten in or not gotten in right away and had to wait until spring, it would have been comforting to have so many other possibilities.</p>
<p>Any time I think it was too many, I just have to read on the current SDN board for her school and see all the reapplicants, and then it does not feel like too many.</p>
<p>A great deal depends on your state school and how you fit their profile. DD thought it would be a great fit, but was not so presumptuous as to assume they would see it her way!
30+ apps and some were instant declines, 10 interview offers, some never said anything until the spring. </p>
<p>If her stats had been higher, then 15ish would probably be right. The thing is you cannot learn all about all those schools before you apply. Curm’s DD had TX in her pocket so could safely add a few reaches, but she needed to interact with those schools to see which appealed to her and which did not and also to know to which reaches she appealed.</p>
<p>
kristin, I predict that when you look back on this process, you’ll find that this was one of your greatest strengths. Stay light on your feet …stay away from the corners…and use your “jab”. Based on what I’ve seen from you, you’ll be fine. ;)</p>
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</p>
<p>DS has some deficiency in ECs (120 hous of hospital experiences only and, no shaddowing!) but has had some research (likely over two thousands hours before admission, over two years). He applied to 23. Too few or too many schools?</p>
<p>As his list is kind of a clone of the list of curm’D (excluding cleveland, case, duke, harvard, and all california ones, and adding a few he suggesed), I am worried it is too top heavy. Remember that he has no publication and no research awards. I heard that he only wrote about his research in his UT-SW secondary, but in his Dartmouth’s secondary, he wrote other things but none about his research. I could not tell what his strategy is. Improvise on the spot?</p>
<p>I think I am a similar position with your son. 2+ years of research but no pubs or awards. It really depends on the lab/field though, some fields and labs publish more than others. I think it is more important to be able to talk about it in an interview and write about it in essays.</p>
<p>Thanks curm. FYI, the final list in alphabetical order is!</p>
<p>Boston, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Iowa, Loyola, Mayo, Mizzou, Northwestern, SLU, Yale</p>
<p>I’d be absolutely thrilled to go to any one of them, and think I have a very strong shot at Mizzou, my current school, and I’m heavily leaning toward sticking around anyway. So perhaps there’s a possibility that this is all for nothing and a huge waste of money. But then again, I bet I’d always wonder “what if” had I not given some of my schools a shot, and that alone is worth the time and money to apply. (Went similarly with undergrad: applied to 5 schools–Mizzou, SLU, Michigan, UVA, and Elon–went 5/5 with acceptances, used the acceptances by Michigan and UVA as validation that “hey, I really CAN compete with the top students out there,” and ended up at my state school to stay close to family and not go broke. Never looked back and couldn’t be happier!)</p>
<p>Hi Kristin – if I were you, I’d shuffle that list quite a bit. Boston University, Mayo, and Georgetown are much more selective than their rank and MCAT scores would indicate. (Check out their admissions percentages.) Iowa, as an out-of-state public, will be the same for you. I don’t know much about Loyola. And of course Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, and Yale are long shots for everybody.</p>
<p>Realistically, that leaves you with two “good shots”: Mizzou and SLU. Two really isn’t enough, honestly – for anybody.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d drop BU, Georgetown, and Iowa – and replace them with another 8-10 schools.</p>
<p>Iowa surprisingly seems to be a great one for out of staters–interviewed 400 out of 2500 applicants (16%) and took 50 of those (13%) in a class of 140, so while being from Iowa would obviously be way better, as a state school they seem to take a surprisingly high number of out of staters. Plus they put a lot of emphasis on student involvement and community service through some unique programming, two areas that I’ve been told are some of my strong points. Furthermore they also have a large proportion of their classes as PBL/case-based, which was another plus in my book. Their 10/90 MCAT split is 28-35 and their 10/90 GPA split is 3.4-4.0, so from a numbers perspective I think I fit nicely in those ranges. I also have strong familial ties to Iowa and have heard that rural Iowa is similar to rural Missouri, so it was attractive for that reason too (if I practice in Iowa or Missouri, there’s a good chance many of my patients would be from rural communities). </p>
<p>Georgetown (and to a lesser extent, Loyola) has been my dream-reach for awhile even after learning that the odds are heavily stacked against me. It’s a Jesuit school (Loyola, SLU, and Creighton are too), and as a Catholic, nothing would beat a Jesuit education. The philosophy behind Georgetown and its emphasis on treating the whole person–from a different perspective than other schools that emphasize whole person–has drawn me to it from the very beginning, and Georgetown’s presence in the global medical community is attractive to me too because I find medical service in developing countries to be quite rewarding. Just wish it wasn’t so great as to attract ten thousand applicants!</p>
<p>As for BU, I was deciding between BU and GW and was having quite a hard time deciding. I spoke with one of my mentors who is writing a letter for me and learned that he was the dean of students at BUSM for thirty years and still pulls quite a lot of weight there. He really painted a wonderful picture of BU for me, and the city of Boston in general, so I decided to go with BUSM over GW. I think I hit much the same problem with Georgetown though–that thousands of people apply and it’s super hard to work against those kinds of numbers, which is unfortunate but is nonetheless a part of the “game”. </p>
<p>I respect your opinion quite a bit after reading your posts here and would be willing to reconsider my list, but the problem is that I don’t really know where to go. To me it seems like you can only get so much information from MSAR and websites, and beyond that I’m lost. Plus, I get the impression that all medical schools are great schools and you really can’t go wrong with any of them–I just can’t figure out which ones to try. What would you recommend?</p>
<p>To me, an ideal situation would be: accepted by Mizzou and/or SLU, plus accepted by 1 or 2 of my reaches, which is why my reach schools outnumber my match schools. Collecting 3+ acceptances would be golden, and perhaps it’s just my naivete talking when I think that just might happen. I really do think I have a solid shot at Mizzou, a school I would love to go to, which probably has influenced the makeup of my list.</p>
<p>Edit: it’s a little sick that I consider 16% and 13% to be good odds, mostly because they contain double digits. At least Mizzou stands at interviewing 48% of in-state applicants and then accepts 38% of those interviewed. Grrr med school admissions :)</p>
<p>You can keep them on your list if you really insist, but bluntly you need probably about eight legitimate applications, and I’m seeing two or three on your list right now. If you’d like to keep Iowa (accepts about 2% of OOS students when you multiple 13% by 16%), BU, and Georgetown – all well and good, but you really do need more schools.</p>
<p>I’d start with USNews. You’re looking for MCAT scores and GPAs which are in range and relatively high admissions percentages, if you can. I don’t know what your numbers are like, but Tufts, Mt. Sinai, Case Western, and others in that vein make very good choices.</p>
<p>If memory serves, GW is not a good choice for the same reason that BU and Georgetown are not good choices: their selectivity is absurdly out of proportion to their peer schools, just because of location or branding or whatever their secret sauce may be.</p>
<p>I wasn’t necessarily insisting that I keep those–more just justifying why they made my list, and if my reasoning seems sound. I know they’re long shots but hey, you only apply once (hopefully). </p>
<p>I’m up for adding more schools (and I do trust the wisdom of CC–been around for a few years, it has yet to steer me wrong) but I do wonder…why? Mostly because it’s a numbers game and one lone applicant is always against the odds? I hesitate mostly because of the additional TIME it would take to add 5 or 6 more schools (bring my legit apps up to 8, as you suggest), specifically their secondaries. I worry that working on that many secondaries (16-17) would totally swamp me, have a negative impact on my academic success next semester (which isn’t exactly easy, but should definitely be manageable), and might bring down the quality of each individual secondary (because the one’s I’ve looked at might be similar, but are definitely not the exact same).</p>
<p>So, let’s say I have 3, perhaps 4, legitimate applications out there. If that means I end up with 4, perhaps 5 (because a reach might end up working out), interviews, and 2, maybe 3 acceptances…would I really be at a loss? I really don’t know the answer to that. </p>
<p>I guess what I’m saying is: convince me that I need to apply to more schools in a way besides “the numbers are stacked against you” because it seems like the numbers are stacked against most people (unless, of course, that’s the primary reason, in which case…I’ll just deal!).</p>
<p>It’s also hard to come to grips with the potential reality that I wouldn’t get in anywhere, mostly because a) I’ve worked hard and b) according to tables/charts/etc in the MSAR, 86% of people with my stats do indeed get into medical school. What I mean is, it’s hard to plan for the worst (by applying very broadly) when I still like to believe that the worst isn’t going to happen.</p>
<p>For the record, I chose the number 11 because most kids at my school apply to “around 10” according to everyone I’ve talked to. As far as I know I’m as competitive or slightly more competitive than our normal applicants, and thus figured it would be fine to stick with that number. Our advising isn’t spectacular though, so it could be a function of that. Beats me. </p>
<p>All in all, thanks so much for your help! I hope you don’t get the impression that I’m arguing, because I’m not trying to be argumentative. Quite the contrary–I’m just trying to learn about this process while I still have time to adjust, and am quite appreciative of all your advice.</p>
<p>As mentioned, I don’t know your numbers and it’s conceivable that a place like Northwestern is actually a match rather than a reach.</p>
<p>If you’re a strong candidate, I think you could get away with 10-11 provided that you were picking them with one eye on how to get in. Right now, your list is heavily stacked with long-shots – again, BU, Georgetown, and Iowa are all deceptively selective in your case. If you want to add them, you need to add them <em>in addition</em> to your reasonable shots.</p>
<p>You can take Mizzou for an example. I don’t know what their in-state admissions percentage is, but let’s call it 15%. (Contrast with the above calculation for Iowa’s OOS at 2%). And let’s say you’re very well qualified – that your odds of getting in are four times the odds of anybody else getting in. That’s still a 40% chance of rejection. And that’s your best shot. Let’s say your odds of getting rejected are 60% at Loyola, 50% at SLU, and 90% everywhere else. (I think that might be a little optimistic, but roll with me.)</p>
<p>All of a sudden, you’re looking at a scenario where it really isn’t very hard to get rejected everywhere.</p>
<hr>
<p>80% of kids will get in somewhere, but I suspect that the majority of those kids have more than two legitimate applications. And the 20% probably aren’t sociopaths or incompetents – my guess? They’re in that 20% because they didn’t pick their schools very wisely.</p>
<p>I know the secondaries are hard. That’s why I recommend dropping BU, Iowa, Mayo, and Georgetown. They’re not giving you very good odds in exchange for the secondary time you’re spending. But if you want to do them, you have to do them in addition to eight (or if you really insist, six) legitimate applications. Right now you’ve got two or three.</p>
<hr>
<p>All this is assuming, by the way, that my statistics (from 2005) are still valid. Maybe BU’s gotten a lot less selective over the years or something.</p>
<p>Adding schools and time for extra secondaries:</p>
<p>Once you’ve done the 1st ten, there are not many new questions, just new word limits and slight twists on the same questions. Obviously there is more busywork, logging in, uploading or mailing a photo, etc, but as to the thinking part, once you’ve got your great answer to “Why I am special” you can see that the same info can be tweaked to fit several slightly different questions.</p>
<p>DD noticed this in doing the 30+ secondaries ;)</p>
<p>The comment from curm: “If a student had a deficiency in any area maybe even more.” makes me nervous. One weakness in DS’s application is that his hospital volunteering is only 120 hours (at two hospitals) and he has never had an experience in shadowing a doctor. Will adcom see his application and toss away his application immediately because of this?</p>
<p>He is not a “study drone” who could study all the time, nor is he a “lab slave” who could easily demonstrate that he has been putting in 20 hours a week in the lab for 3-4 years. But most of his ECs are not clinical/hospital related. This may be what curm referred to as “a deficiency.”</p>
<p>If we do the same analysis that BDM did above, will he be in danger of not having enough legitimate schools? Sometimes I feel that the only two bright spots of his application are 1) his two numbers, and 2) the abundance of his in-state friendly public medical schools.</p>
<p>I remember NCG (who has a very high mcat as well) went to a school (in the mid west area) for an interview a few years ago and was told by adcom he should apply to the other school in the same region instead – even though he was admitted by that school in the end. (I think it might be his first admittance.) Should DS apply to that school as well to increase his chances? I know many kids from Rice are admitted to that medical school every year so that school may not be “allergic” to applicants from Texas. (Many schools may.)</p>
<p>Right now, the lowest ranked schools he applied to are tufts (which may have too many applicants like Georgetown?) and some of his IS public schools. He really does not have many lower ranked schools besides his IS schools. The fact is it is not easy to locate somewhat lower-ranked schools that may be good for you if your deficiency is not your stat. If he does not get in this year, maybe he should choose to work as a slave in a hospital rather than in a medical research lab next year :)</p>