<p>^ From where we live, I think it would take us more than 5 hours to drive out of our state, in any direction.</p>
<p>Like curm once posted: some of our counties may be larger than some other state. :)</p>
<p>Just wondering, how many interview invites is normal for an applicant who applied to ~20 schools? I received 4 so far.</p>
<p>lollybo, there are so many variables that it’s impossible to answer that question. There is no “average” or “normal” number of interviews to receive.</p>
<p>The median is almost certainly zero.</p>
<p>It’s still August; 4 really isn’t a bad total. One of the cute things you can do is figure out how many of their interviews eventually gain an admission – and use that to calculate your odds of going 0-for-4. (Back in 2005, you had to combine USN and MSAR data to get this probability.)</p>
<p>well lollybo, I was just “complete” (now, 2 days) at about half of the schools I applied to and no interviews yet. AMCAS received my Committee Letter a few days ago, and half of the schools are not showing it as of yet. I am hoping that because of the week end, a lot of the schools will be downloading the information from AMCAS early in the week. I am keeping my fingers crossed to hear some positive news before Labor Day!</p>
<p>Good luck MyOpinion! (And lollybo too, of course) </p>
<p>My committee interview is on Thursday afternoon–any tips from the CC veterans? </p>
<p>Luckily for me, the committee chair and I get along quite well–he’s infamously known to be quite the pill to pre-meds he doesn’t like, so I’m thrilled we have a good time talking together.</p>
<p>Thanx kristin!!! And I just got my first interview now, at Dartmouth !! So psyched here! Great way to start the week!!! </p>
<p>Now, I am a bit reassured that I did not screw up that primary application. I will probably be calling them later today (after I calm down some…lol)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you guys also!</p>
<p>Great job! My D really liked Dartmouth. </p>
<p>kristin, with the relationship you have , I’d only be concerned about being overly-familiar, overly-confident, overly jocular. Show the prof respect and deference. Make sure they know that you know this is serious, professional, mature business. If they want to turn it into a love-fest, that’s perfectly fine…but follow their lead.</p>
<p>Good call, Curm–I hadn’t thought of that one. I’m typically more professional(-seeming) with this particular advisor than my other ones (mostly because he’s the “head health professions advisor” “dean of the honors college” etc whereas the others are “just” professors I’m close with) anyway, but I’ll definitely throw on the monkey suit (gotta dress to impress) and keep the tone professional/follow their lead.</p>
<p>MyO!!! How exciting!!! Congratulations!!! I wish I had more exclamation points for you!!!</p>
<p>MyOpinion, Big congratulations!</p>
<p>Will you be able to take Amtrak there from where you are to White River Junction? If you fly there, I heard most may fly to Boston first and then take some special bus (likely called DartmouthCoach) there. – Here, I am just a messenger who forward what I learned from curm in the past to you. (It appears curm knows everything. This is an under-compliment, curm 
)</p>
<p>Nice! I was also really excited when I received my first interview. That is a huge plus, your chances for getting into that school skyrocket after the interview.</p>
<p>I was just wondering: Do many medical schools look at letters of recommendation before inviting candidates to interviews? I said “many” because it seems like the admissions process is anything but homogeneous.</p>
<p>
lollybo, I do not know the answer to this question. But this reminds me of something DS told us once regarding the secondaries. One of his friends who was applying last year told him that he suspects many school’s interviewer only read the secondaries a few minutes before he interviews you – as he really does not have time for reading much of that. And when he reads the secondary, he only skims it with the intention of locating some weak points from your secondaries to “attack” you based on what you wrote during the interview.</p>
<p>This is an opinion of a single student and could hold a biased opinion expressed when he was very much stressed by his application process.</p>
<p>He was interviewed everywhere except a few places which are similar to the difficulty of getting into HYPSM during the college admission cycle. He did have an interview at UCLA (which may be the most difficult one for him to get an invite) though but did not get in in the end. (Others may be Chicago, NW, wustl, Michigan, Columbia, Penn, NYU, maybe many others.) He is now at a medical school in NYC. He also thinks NW is an unfriendly place for him (He was interviewed there but did not get in.)</p>
<p>Another friend told him that he got into a single school with a 40 on MCAT even though he interviewed at likely ~8 schools (likely too top-heady in his school list as an ORM without a good EC), and another friend with a musch less stellar MCAT got into one public school and one mid-ranked private medical school (not in a state like California, but in NY) – he applied to around 30 schools.</p>
<p>Hearing about so many depressing news last year, DS almost wants to give up on this career path and almost took LSAT instead of MCAT. It is sometimes better to not know too much about this than to hear too much biased opinion (LOL, this post includes many biased opinions!)</p>
<p>mcat2, I have a feeling that those experiences may be pretty much the norm. I have seen several people get invited for interviews within hours of submitting the secondaries (sometimes in the middle of the nite!). That suggests to me that the school in question had the applicant 's file in a certain “pile” and receiving the secondary was a “pure formality” to email the invite for the interview.</p>
<p>I also question LORs as a factor in generating the interview. After all, i think that most of them will be pretty predictable, don’t you guys think? Perhaps, they play a greater role as a tie-breaker (after the interview). Anyway, just speculating here.</p>
<p>From what I am able to tell, each school has its own system for inviting people, selecting, etc.</p>
<p>My daughter had to schedule any offered interviews to when she was back home in the US on breaks from school in the UK. She pushed Dartmouth until December. There was an eighteen hour window between snowstorms yet somehow she got in and out. She loved the hospital and the school.</p>
<p>Congrats MyO! Break a leg. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html</a></p>
<p>Yeah, I know a lot of similar kids. One in particular springs to mind – 4.0/36 from flagship state school. Interviewed at I believe 11 schools and got into none – eventually sneaked off the waitlist at the least-selective IS Public.</p>
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<p>Mike, thanks for the link. I’d like to hope that the kind of people you talk about in your story are few and far between (though nonetheless examples of what to avoid/what to learn as the title suggests). Any insight into how prevalent this type of applicant is? I bet that’s hard to know, but with such a heterogeneous applicant pool, it makes me wonder how many make the mistakes outlined in your post. </p>
<p>Furthermore, those seem to be pretty glaring mistakes to most people who are at least somewhat “in the know” about med school admissions (ie, I doubt such mistakes would be common among applicants/kids of posters on this thread in particular–at least I’d hope!) hopefully would know to avoid. So can you think of any less-glaring problems or not-quite-horror stories that we should look out for? (Assuming we’re cognizant of, and therefore carefully avoiding, situations like those already described) For example, curm’s pointing out that it would behoove me not to come across as too conversational/laid back/etc with the committee I’m quite familiar with–that it would probably be a good idea to keep it professional–is something I didn’t think of but seems to be a good tip. Any similar ones out there?</p>
<p>Hopefully I mentioned most of the ones I can think of on that thread! I did know several of them. I also hate to say it, but a lot of it might have been cultural things. To my friend (parents were Asian immigrants), seeking a career that honors your parents is a legitimate reason to enter a career. That kind of Confucian philosophy, though, will strike many Western-folks as perverse and inappropriate.</p>
<p>So some of it is cultural and maybe even a little bit religious. Now that I look back at that thread, I notice that all of my horror stories are children of Chinese immigrants (“honor my parents,” refusing to do research) or Indian immigrants (Edgar himself). I can’t help but think that some of those errors are just cultural illiteracy.</p>
<hr>
<p>I will also note that all three got into medical school eventually. One just barely on his first try; the other two took three each.</p>
<p>My school offers some mock interviews to prepare applicants for the real thing. I am very interested to see how that works. I am taking curm’s recommendation to heart as well.</p>
<p>Just earlier today, I found out about a top notch applicant to a certain school (where the mother was also a member of the Board of Trustees) who completely blew the interview. The student was “definitely in”, based on his academic record and the interview was considered just the “necessary formality”; however, the interview was so disastrous that the mother recommended her kid to take a year off and reapply the following year because he was set on that particular school.</p>
<p>Anecdotal, I know, but I guess it illustrates the importance of the interview. But I agree with you kristin, at this point I think we need to be careful with all the subtle stuff.</p>
<p>BDM, Your post reminds me of a true story about a business major at some school. In his freshman year, in some freshman business seminar class, every student was asked to tell the class why he chooses this major. This dude stood up and just briefly commented: I am in this major because my parents make me do this, and then sat down. The lecturer’s comment: At least you are very honest.</p>
<p>DS also knew some (not many) of his classmates (not on the premed track of course) would not care a bit about the grades. They only need to graduate from any major and everything else is not his worry. One of them even did not bother to get up to take the final (He may even need that credit to graduate timely.) DS went back to his dorm room between classes to pull him out of his bed and “forced” him to go take the final. (Somehow DS would feel worse than him, if he forfeit his credit just like that. DS tends to worry too much.)</p>
<p>When a family is well-off and very secure, everything could be different (not always this way though).</p>
<p>All right guys, committee interview day is fast approaching (Thursday after lunch!). Being the responsible person that I am, I just dusted off the monkey suit and am planning to take it to the dry cleaners tomorrow (1, I hate formalwear; 2, me + iron = bad idea). </p>
<p>Which got me to thinking. I own 2 “grown-up” suits–one’s a light grey one with a subtle pinstripe that I wear with a blue oxford (which I love, but it currently lives in St Louis); the other’s black that I wear with whatever suits my fancy (currently, a really awesome salmon/coral top) (on its way to the cleaners tomorrow AM). While neither is my favorite outfit, they do set the professional mood/mindset. I’m tempted to wear my fave summer business-y outfit–navy slacks, same great coral/salmon top, cute white blazer–because, well, I just like it better and would dig another chance to wear it this season.</p>
<p>So, oh wise ones of CC–do I go with the more conservative but less favorite black suit, or the “totally kristin5792” albeit still business-y white blazer combo? </p>
<p>FYI: the packet from the committee suggests shirt and jacket for guys, and the equivalent for “ladies” (ew I hate that word), with examples including pantsuit, skirt/dress, blazer, and the ever-ambiguous “etc”</p>