<p>Thank you so much to all for the encouraging words! I am glad that I checked with you guys here today !!! I am staying away from SDN for a while…For the first time it almost gave me a panic attack yesterday!!</p>
<p>Rainy and gloomy weather today over here, but otherwise keeping my energy up!!</p>
<p>For the all applicants out there, this is still VERY early in the process. Despite what they say on SDN, this is early - lots of schools haven’t even reached their primary deadline yet.
And schools will be sending acceptances from now until school starts next year. There is so much time remaining in this process, its not even funny. Don’t compare your number of interviews/acceptances at this point with other people. Its not worth the stress.</p>
<p>Thanks Icarus, I’d been thinking that myself but nonetheless it’s nice to hear. I’m very much looking forward to my upcoming interviews, and am eager to hopefully have more invitations. </p>
<p>And to MyO, I’m not surprised SDN totally freaked you out! I seriously avoid that place like the plague. One of my mentors offered to do a mock interview with me and suggested I find questions from Mizzou and Northwestern on SDN–so I’m considering spending a few minutes over there in psycholand to glean some interview insight. Unless, of course, you’d like to share your Northwestern experiences with me (via PM, if you want)–in which case, I would be quite grateful.</p>
<p>One more quick thought for you: perhaps this is tough on you because a) you’re stressed with school/activities b) the weather sucks where you are c) you just found out a silent rejection was in fact a rejection AND d) other people are hearing back. None of those things means that YOU will not be receiving (multiple) acceptances in due time, but they sure can feel that way. They’re just making it tough to keep your chin up and keep pluggin along. I bet you’ll cheer up in no time–and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your acceptance letter if you’ll keep yours crossed for my interview invites!</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>Hey kristin, I will PM you this evening with my Northwestern experience!!</p>
<p>Here is a random question for all you knowledgable people - </p>
<p>I have a friend who was recently accepted to the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Is that a legit med school? How is an osteopathic doctor different from a medical doctor? Can an osteopathic doctor write prescriptions, etc? I’m thinking it is something along the lines of a chiropractor, but I honestly have no idea. From what I understand, all the other schools he applied to are “normal” med schools. Thanks for any input y’all might have. : -)</p>
<p>Yes. Mildly less prestigious but otherwise identical. Yes. Not like a chiropractor.</p>
<p>Osteopathic medical schools are also called DO schools, and both MD and DO schools graduate physicians. Someone more knowledgeable can clarify this, but if I can recall correctly, statistics show that DOs and MDs fair equally well in terms of getting into US residencies and passing boards.</p>
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<p>Yep - well, Osteopaths have their own licensing exam (the COMLEX) and their own osteopathic-only residencies. However, DO’s can also take the allopathic (MD) boards (the USMLE) and apply to MD residencies if they want.</p>
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<p>As BDM said, there really is no difference. Both MDs and DOs are physicians, learn the same things (DOs also learn skeletal manipulative treatment), and hold the same (unrestricted medical practice) type of license. There are DOs in every medical specialty.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! I had never heard of them before… you learn something new everyday. ; -)</p>
<p>Well, it looks like I will need to keep working on these panel interviews, cause I just got an invite from Stanford! I was about to turn off my smartphone because I was walking into an exam and got the email! I got so excited that people were looking at me weird (cause we all had been kind of edgy all morning about the test). I am so excited guys!!</p>
<p>How exciting, MyO!!</p>
<p>Oh, man! Stanford. Great job! </p>
<p>BTW. Ask them where my D’s “no love for you” rejection letter is from last cycle. ;)</p>
<p>Congrats, MyOpinion!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! I was just looking at the information they sent me and apparently Stanford will be using something called a Multiple Mini Interview format or MMI, for the first time this year. They are only giving about 8 days to interview this year. Each day, the group of interviewees may be between 30-60. They have 8-10 stations with one Evaluator who staffs the station. You need to address a given scenario, you spent 8 minutes at it and then move to another station!!! They said we will receive an “in depth” orientation to the MMI the day of the interview.</p>
<p>What the heck is that? Some barbaric version of the Dating Game or something? Apparently most Canadian schools use a similar system, but I had never heard of it before.</p>
<p>Impossible to prep for something like this, other than a few shots of coffee early in the morning. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>MyOpinion, Big congratulations!</p>
<p>My suggestion, MyOp. is to relax and not think too much about it. You are in the same boat in this as all others who will be in your group. Instead, celebrate the fact that you were selected, enjoy the moment and we all wish the best luck. I personally do not think that you can do anything about it but being yourself. Any interview is a personality contest more than anything else. I have had very many in my life. if your personality fit what they are looking for, you are in, if not,…then, just do not blame yourself for anything negative, do not take anything personally…and never look back, next opportunity will be there in no time. Sorry, cannot sugest anything else, but this is a speach that I always give to my own D. and I have been very proud of how she has handled herself thru the process with all little and bigger obstacles here and there.</p>
<p>lol. Speed dating meets med school interview. What a riot!</p>
<p>Still haven’t heard anything but the crickets chirping about interviews from 9 of the other schools I applied to. I’m sitting at 5-6 weeks since completion on most of them. </p>
<p>What can I do to be proactive about this? </p>
<p>My brain tells me that it’s unlikely I’ve been “lost” at any of my schools, but nonetheless it certainly feels like I should have heard more by now (although I admit, I don’t have a good “feel” for the timeline of this process anyway). A friend of mine who applied a few years ago (and is now an M2 at Mizzou!) mentioned that the one thing she wished she’d done differently is follow up on those “silent rejections” more, and I’m concerned that I’m headed that direction.</p>
<p>I think SDN can make people a bit paranoid about timing. I am in a worse position than you- I have been complete for over 3 months at some of my schools, and have not heard anything yet. But, I have checked other forums with more sane people, and many individuals haven’t gotten interview invites until 4-5 months down the line, or even more. I have a feeling that they interview interesting applicants first- applicants with unique hobbies, URM status, or life experiences, and then they trickle down and interview outstanding applicants who don’t have some sort of very unique catch. I’d say hold off on the update letters until late february, where it will act as a sort of “hail mary” for more concrete silent rejections. Right now I think it is too early to call them silent rejections.</p>
<p>Some SDNers talked about sending an “in the area” email. But I do not know when it would be a good time to send this kind of email.</p>
<p>Just another data point: I think DS currently has 4 “silent” schools (3 east coast, 1 texas), and I think his AMCAS primary was completed earlier than kristin’s and his secondaries (the ones he actually did – he skipped many secondaries) were submitted a little bit (like 1-2 weeks?) earlier than kristin’s.</p>
<p>If DS really wants to send an “in the area” email, he could be in the area of several of silent schools any weekend while having some fun visiting his close friends there :)</p>