2010-2011 Med school applicants and their parents

<p>Oh, good God YES. Attend. And big congrats to the boy. That is a fine medical school. The best in Texas. Plenty of time for pre-match.</p>

<p>so when should one start getting concerned about a lack of interview invites? september? october?</p>

<p>^^^I think October might be the time to be concerned, but not to panic. I remember a poster on this forum saying that by October, most medical schools have given away 1/3 of their spots. However, it is not uncommon for people to get interview invites in December/January.</p>

<p>Re #782*:</p>

<p>It all depends on your personal timing. If you submitted everything right away and you still haven’t heard anything while folks on SDN are reporting invites, then yes. You should be concerned. If you submitted things really late, then no concern yet.</p>

<p>*782. Holy smokes this is a long thread.</p>

<p>Please note that different schools also have different timings. Some people may have more interview invites right now because they applied to schools which hand out invites early. Many schools haven’t even started handing out invites yet (at least according to SDN self reporting, anyway). If you want to know which schools have started handing out invites, I would recommend checking SDN.</p>

<p>DD was complete in early in early July. As I recall she got an early invite pretty quickly in July for an Aug interview; then another early on in August which she attended in Sept for two state schools (OOS); then in Sept she got an invite which was in early Nov; in Oct she got one she scheduled in late Nov. In mid to late Oct and early Nov she got her other 5 invites which were scheduled for Dec/Jan.</p>

<p>If some one looks back at the thread it might be a wee bit different, but that’s how i remember it unfolding. It seemed like each month she got one invite which was scheduled for approx the next month. I think most of the ones she scheduled for January could have been done in Dec, but she was hoping to be admitted IS before that so she could cancel and not have to travel as they were all back east.</p>

<p>Definitely watch SDN to see how each school’s process is moving. It was a bit sad on Oct 15th when so many CC people were already being admitted to schools, but she only had 1 school which was admitting any one that early and she was wait listed. It was good to know from SDN that it was her list and how those schools ran the admissions process not something wrong with her that had others admitted Oct 15th. In the same way, check your schools on SDN and you’ll know what to expect</p>

<p>A word of caution about SDN… I definitely find the info very valuable and you can get a general idea of what is going on. At the same time, if you start following it too closely it can get nerve wrecking…</p>

<p>I found out that several people got rejection letters from Boston University on Labor Day!! Plus when you see people with extremely high stats getting rejected outright, you begin to wonder… Anyway, anxiety is contagious…I need to work on that wonderful virtue: patience! The applications are in, and there is nothing I can do to stop the freight train…</p>

<p>So today is S’ first interview at the school he’s most likely to get into. Hoping it goes well for him but at least he should know in 6 weeks. This is the school he was waitlisted on the last time he went through the cycle but his MCAT is higher now as is his GPA (his Jr year grades had some issues and his Sr year grades were superb but they never saw them). </p>

<p>We spent a bit of time going over his list yesterday and checking status to see what the result was of PI still not delivering LOR. He’s marked complete at 6 of the schools so those obviously think that his LOR’s are sufficient. We also discovered one school where the secondary was completed a month ago but somehow their web sit is so confusing that he neglected to pay the fee so that was done yesterday – I guess better late than never but still annoying to miss the month.</p>

<p>Another warning about SDN. There is definitely some sabotage that goes on. The character limit at one school was stated emphatically by several posters for each essay as 1111 when in actuality it was 1555 (or something like that) which is a huge difference. So definitely need to verify everything.</p>

<p>Also, its really not clear why some folks are rejected. I have looked at stats for folks moving ahead at VCU and S’ stats appear to be in the range and yet he got a straight rejection. You just have to not take it personally I think. I wish it was possible to understand the reasoning.</p>

<p>^I believe that state of residence makes a diff. at some schools. Some people on SDN got invites to one of D’s school with the same or lower stats. I have looked at number of admitted broken down by states for last (not sure?) year. It was only 4 accepted from our state. We are OK, do not dwell on anything. D. will have her interviews then will see what happen next. It is fine with any outcome at this point, she is enjoying her classes and relatively relaxed schedule this year (at least for now). I am worrying about her driving to interviews more than anything else. Even very close from home school (about 2 hours) is about 5 hours from where she is now. She seems to be worrying mostly about skipping classes.</p>

<p>On SDN, just skim for dates that things are happening, ignore the rest.</p>

<p>Probably a stupid question but if none of the offered interview dates work and you need to ask for additional dates, what is the etiquette in asking for further dates? Should one directly state that other interviews are in conflict? Also the school that I can’t interview at because coincidentally the two or three dates posted are in conflict with others is one of my top choices. I’d assume it would be poor form to try to change already scheduled interviews and that I’d be better just asking for alternative dates from a school I haven’t yet scheduled but does this still hold if as I already said, the school I’m moving around is higher on my list.</p>

<p>Just stressed myself out on SDN (needed to see how to deal with a problem with Creighton’s text box–fyi, use IE not FireFox/Safari and you’ll be fine) and came over to CC for some relief :)</p>

<p>MCAT done. AMCAS done. COMMITTEE INTERVIEW done. SECONDARIES half done. LORs/COMMITTEE INTERVIEW in progress. Excited to move forward with this!</p>

<p>Secondaries completed: Boston, Creighton, (Mayo), Mizzou, SLU, UVa, (Northwestern’s almost done)
Secondaries not completed: Drexel, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Loyola (haven’t received), Tufts [luckily Tufts and Harvard are practically identical!]</p>

<p>^ DS has not completed the list of secondaries that you have completed.</p>

<p>He happens to apply to those schools that appear to interview applicants early. If he did not reschedule his dates, he will be out two days in most weeks of octobor. So he has postponed one interview from octobor to november.</p>

<p>He recently got another IS interview. So, two IS ones and three OOS ones are scheduled as of today, but they are all in octobor and november. He really does not want to postpone his IS ones.</p>

<p>Out of those schools for which he has completed their secondaries, 4 schools do not give him any news (silent rejection?) but 5 have invited him. It appears he has completed secondaries for 9 schools as of today. The original plan was to apply to 22 or 23 schools. I do not know his current plan, but suspect he may not apply to that many now. (Sometimes he is quite daring.)</p>

<p>Per S interviews went well. One was definitely higher stress than the other. Both mentioned his reapplication and wanted to know what changed and both pressed him on his work in research as opposed to clinical (which is what he wants to do). This school is trying to move a bit more into research so you would think his experience would be a plus but I’m not convinced. Definitely hoping for a good outcome and now have the wait. </p>

<p>Status of LOR from PI is still (I’m going to finish it … insert sometime in next week) and then not delivered. Have suggested to S that he give himself a deadline and then just send off an email to the schools saying its not coming. Not really sure what else he can do.</p>

<p>He still has two secondaries which he has not completed which he implied yesterday that he would do and a few others he decided not to bother with because they were just too long shots. This would leave him with 17 schools (but they are the ones with the highest probabilities).</p>

<p>Sharon, I ran into that problem too. I just sent him a polite email telling him that my comm interview was next Thursday and that all letters must be received by Wednesday (which was all true), but that I would be happy to postpone my interviews to give him more time, if he needed it.</p>

<p>apologetic reply received within twenty minutes, rec letter faxed shortly thereafter.</p>

<p>Could your S do something similar with PI? I’m sure the guy wants to write your S a strong letter, so maybe he just needs some fire under his tail!</p>

<p>I really hate the negatives and delays some of y’all are going through. I have great hopes for y’all and am more invested than I should be in your outcomes. </p>

<p>If you make a mistake …that should be on you, but most of this crap is either institutional or just plain inconsiderate. Keep your cool. Do your best. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Sending good vibes.</p>

<p>BTW. My D received one of the last invites to her school, possibly because of a Hail Mary update letter. It ain’t over (at any school) till it’s over.</p>

<p>Thanks for the good vibes curm!</p>

<p>Is anyone else having a lull in the invites trickling in? I haven’t heard back from any schools in 3 weeks.</p>