<p>I learned recently that one of DS’s IS schools conducts a “blind interview.” It means the interviewer is given your PS and secondary essay only, and nothing else about you.</p>
<p>But still, I do not understand why the result of interview could not be one of the crucial factors (assuming you do not behave badly during the interview.) Isn’t it true that only a fraction (say, one third or one half) of the applicants who are interviewed will be accepted? Adcoms must use the interview result to help them select one out of 3 (or 2) interviewees.</p>
<p>Some claims that, if you look at the GPA/MCAT of the applicants who are interviewed and the GPA/MCAT of the accepted applicants, you may get some clue about the weight of the interview – if such data exists of course. This also assumes that very few have very outstanding ECs.</p>
<p>This begs a question: which school has a large stat descrepancy between these two groups of applicants (interviewed vs accepted)? I bet ucsf, mayo and harvard will not be one of these schools – They look for ECs while stats are for the screening purpose only.</p>
<p>Just thought of what curm once posted about the age of a typical interviewee at Mayo: Most of them are not traditional students (those not applying in the fall of their senior year.) So, if you look at the age of the accepted students, you may know which schools put a lot of weight on the interview.</p>
<p>One currently working at UTSW said she heard a rumor that UTSW prefers high stats younger applicants in one year and then prefers older applicants with great ECs the next year. Do not know wherher this is true.</p>
<p>This applies to the interviewer only, not to the admissions committee. In my opinion, this is a terrible way to interview as you spend most of the interview rehashing your accomplishments instead of saying anything meaningful. Many interviews end up being “blind interviews” because the interviewers are too busy or lazy to look at your file before coming to the interview and end up asking stupid questions whose answers could’ve been found in your file. If they ask you not to ask stupid questions where the answers can be found on their website, why can’t they request the same of their interviewers?</p>
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<p>This is precisely why the interview doesn’t mean very much for most applicants. As I explained above, 90% of applicants good enough to get an interview will have decent social skills and will be a “good interviewee.” If we simply went based on the interview, the post-interview acceptance rates would be 90%, not 20-50% as it usually is. Hence, the interview only makes a difference for a small % of applicants. Adcoms probably already have a preconceived notion of who they want to accept. But, they give interviews out to a larger group of people in the hopes that one or two will surprise them.</p>
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<p>I have never ever seen data on GPA/MCAT of interviewees.</p>
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<p>I think you are confusing putting weight on the interview vs. putting weight on EC’s/life experience. Those are not always correlated. A school can be very stats focused and still put a lot of weight on the interview or not. How much weight is put on the interview probably depends more on how stingy a school is in giving out interviews. The more stingy you are in giving out interviews, the higher your post-interview acceptance rate, and the more liniency you’ll give on the interview.</p>
<p>I know of at least one school which tracks this data internally, but does not release it. This is the school I was discussing earlier. One of their high-level professors explained: “We don’t conscientiously try to ignore GPA and MCAT after the interview. But the statistics indicate that that’s exactly what we do.”</p>
<p>Thanks to both of you for giving us some insight about this issue.</p>
<p>Regarding the school you were discussing earlier, I think what you are implying is that, for this particular school, the average stats of the accepted applicants is not very different from the average stats of the interviewed applicants. Do I interpret what you said correctly? What may also be interesting is: among those applicants who got the interview invites, how correlated are their stats and the qualiity of their ECs? A positive one or a negative one or no correlation at all? I believe the “high-moto” personal characteristics may correlate better with the quality of ECs as a great EC would take even more time and energy than a great stats would.</p>
<p>Actually, I do not know which institute (the medical school or the college) has more vested interests in finding this.</p>
<p>I believe that, for a high schooler to apply to the Rice-Baylor BA/S-MD combined program, the interview and ECs are much more important than the stats. The stats are just a screening device. Once your stats are above some threshold, it appears the adcoms never look at your stats. I wonder whether the admission of BCM is like this as well (for their regular MD program.)</p>
<p>Columbia has two programs, and the Bassett program is a new primary care track with rural medicine emphasis. However, you do NOT have to apply to both. You can apply to the Regular MD program (the one in Manhattan) and choose not to be considered for the other one.</p>
<p>mcat2, make sure your DS is aware of that choice</p>
<p>Think we could hold a cyber moment of silence for today, the day when kristin5792 became an old geezer by turning the ripe old age of 22? Thanks.</p>
<p>Happy birthday, Kristin! And no, 22 does not render your status as “geezer”. LOL</p>
<p>And some good news! DD had her committee review yesterday and was rated “strong candidate”. SO happy that now the real fun will hopefully begin. Her mock interview is in an hour. </p>
<p>Dont know if she’ll be wearing her silly bandz but she is wearing the suit! Ha ha</p>
<p>kristen, Happy birthday! I wonder whether college kids still have their birthday party. It seems some of them still do, albeit not having a very official one. The only difference is the parents are not involved.</p>
<p>DS once said somebody made sure he had at least one piece of a birthday cake on his birthday, but he did not know where the cake came from. (It was very strange to me!) One of the most “splendid” birthday parties he was ever invited to in college: one of his friends rent a limo and took all of his close friends to see a baseball game (in a reserved balcony! How much would it cost?) in NYC. BTW, DS thinks NYC is very fun and convenient, but you can smell money most places you may go as a visitor. Last weekend, two of his friends invited him to go to a concert there. They ate lunch somewhere and the “cheapest” entries cost almost 30 dollars including tips/taxes. (One of his friends really can afford this kind of restaurant food everyday.)</p>
<p>kschmidt, congrats to your D for being ranked very high by her committee. I did not know the premed committee would rate the students – I really did not know it. I thought the committtee people are just “cheerleaders” for these premeds and do everything under their control to help these kids. I guess I was wrong. (Hopefully, DS himsrelf knows it.)</p>
<p>Happy B-day, Kristin! So, you have been oficial for awhile, D. is still waiting for few more weeks, but oh well, who did not try by now. Have a great day, relax, you earned it!</p>
<p>My daughter who is starting junior year has been planning her 21st birthday for months now, and it’s not till January. I think she has a theme, decorations, guest list, and of course libations already planned out! I’m glad I instilled planning in her, but she is taking this to the extreme!</p>
<p>Hmmm…I thought most invites are notified by email. Now I know there are some invite notifications by phone calls. I still believe most should be notified by email.</p>
It all depends on the school and the committee. The larger (or older) programs that feel they have a reputation at stake will flat out grade applicants for the med schools. The med schools get familiar with each undergrad’s committee system, and if they respect it, that committee letter can carry a significant amount of weight (a lot more than an individual faculty letter would). </p>
<p>The system I went through (that Arkansas uses) is a four year, step-by-step sort of thing, and the committee interview and letter is part of the final step. They inspect your AMCAS, a secondary form they require, and have an interview with two (of the 16) faculty committee members, who then “represent” you at the committee review of your file, (essentially, just like a med school does). The committee writes a letter about you and labels you as “Highly Recommended, Recommended, Recommended with Reservations, or Not Recommended” based off all the pieces together. I, naturally, was terrified of being a Not Recommended candidate at the time, but apparently they liked me, so it all worked out. I’m a strong advocate of the system where they actually make it rigorous and grade their applicants- it ends up being a far better help for their students when med schools know the letter means something.</p>
<p>I think most pre-meds know how their school’s system works, and hopefully they take it seriously. If they don’t know how it works, it’s generally not a good sign since they haven’t bothered to find out (which will trickle through to the med school application process, which you just can’t do!). Good luck to all of you applying this year, let me know if you have any questions from a recent applicant’s perspective (and recent arts and sciences/premed counselor).</p>
<p>DS just got an invite from one of his IS schools. He is very excited.</p>
<p>There is some optional event (called Clinical Round) the day before the interview day. (curm and eadad, Since your D/S has been there and done that, you should know which school it is.) He wonders whether he should attend that event. He is inclined to attend it. But if he does it, he may need to reschedule the interview day of another school.</p>
<p>25 percents of the applicants are invited for an interview for this school, according to what the school tells him in an email. Is the interview rate low or high compared most other schools?</p>
<p>He also wonders whether or not he may know the result (accepted or not) on November 15 (the first day when the prematch result is announced for IS applicants), if his interview day is on Oct. 9.</p>
<p>If you are speaking about the school that my S attends, then yes I’d recommend doing it.</p>
<p>S did the two days and in all honesty it was what swayed him to move the school to his top spot…i.e. “if accepted, this is where I will go.” As I think I told you in a PM, we were really surprised when he told us of that change of heart/plans but very happy to hear it as well.</p>
<p>With an Oct 9 interview he should still be part of the pre-match process…</p>
<p>NCG, What you said is definitely correct. According to USN, many private schools interview one out of 8 or 9 applicants.</p>
<p>DS heard a rumor that one girl applying this year has already got 11 invites as of today. He does not know her personally. Now she has a lot of troubles in scheduling all these interviews. She seems to have pushed all the buttons correctly and timely. For example, she submitted her primary at the beginning of June and has written and submitted her essays very timely. She decided to have a gap year before applying to medical schools so that she could have accumulated more experiences before application. Hopefully, her family are able to fund all these 11+ interview trips.</p>
<p>eadad, thanks for the input. I think he has signed up for the Clinical Rounds event. For this particular school, the acceptance rate for IS interviewees is like 40% - 45%. So for all IS applicants, the acceptance rate is 25% times 40% = about 10%, I think.</p>