<p>lol. No. Stuck-up wasn’t what she was talking about. Just that maybe the SW students were possibly more outgoing or maybe more socially adept. BTW , so were UT-H and UTMB students.</p>
<p>It’s nice that your D has a choice, for many people it’s “I’ll take what I can get.”</p>
<p>When my son interviewed at UT-H both interviewers said their typical matriculant didn’t have MCAT scores like his and asked him straight out if they were his first choice, all other things being equal. They both said they would argue strongly on his behalf but he interpreted that to mean that he was over matched and they were concerned that they might burn an offer knowing that he had already interviewed at UTSW and other OOS schools since they asked him where he had already been.</p>
<p>To me this is ALL about yield wouldn’t you say mudge?</p>
<p>Agree on the “more outgoing and… more socially adept” comment though like most classes they have their groups of different students like the gunners who they’ve only see on test days after the first days of school, those who don’t mix at all, and then there is the “social” group who have figured out how to maintain balance in their lives.</p>
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UT-H is notorious for grilling students during the interviews just that way. Also, if you’ve applied OOS expect to be asked “Why?”.</p>
<p>eadad, one of my favorite stories from last cycle was my D’s interviewer at A&M that looked at her stuff and told her “You need to be at Southwestern”. lol</p>
<p>And lollybo, we know how fortunate she was. She got very lucky. It couldn’t have played out better for her.</p>
<p>It would be extremely beneficial for future/current applicants if we had an “accepted seniors thread going”, similar to CC’s What are my Chances Forum thread, outlining stats, ec’s, lors, where they applied to school and its results, classes they took, experiences, etc. I know MD apps has this, but they are not really detailed, half the profiles aren’t even completed, and they don’t include the intangibles like interview experiences, how the lors turned out to be, research experience comments, volunteer work, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the medical school process; I am just a freshman; so having real concrete examples would help tremendously.</p>
<p>VF, a lot of that for somemom’s D and mine can be gleaned by wading through the 2009-2010 thread. But I’d pack a lunch. 
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<p>I’ll be happy to answer specific questions on this thread. </p>
<p>So I’ll take research as it was a strong point in my D’s app and may have resulted in her “better than her MCAT would have predicted” admission results. </p>
<p>My D started cell research her freshman year at her LAC. It was a well-funded and well respected (if somewhat obscure) lab. She continued that research soph year, and the summer as a NSF Summer Fellow, was awarded a Goldwater after soph year, continued the research every school year and summer (again as a NSF Summer Research Fellow) till graduation. She presented posters and presentations at a number of regional (and a few national) conferences and won the top awards often. </p>
<p>She can and will speak at length at the drop of a hat about her area of interest, her experiments had some autonomy, she rose to the rank of the Senior Student Investigator, received her school’s Bio research prize as a junior, and she was genuinely interested in the subject matter.</p>
<p>I believe this came through in her interviews. She always seemed to be paired with a PhD. interviewer (I don’t think it was a coincidence) and they would discuss what her research was about and wrangle about where it might lead in cancer therapies. She made it a point to know who was doing research at the med school that related to her research (even tangentially) and was conversant in that research. </p>
<p>Also, she had occasion to run the lab in the absence of her PI and had an instance of a weather-related power outage of several days while the PI was absent. She wrote about that experience and was questioned about it more than once. </p>
<p>Her interest is research and academic medicine (and for a long time was MD/PhD. oriented) and chose to apply to research-focused MD schools only. </p>
<p>The take-home message from this is:</p>
<p>Her interest in research was genuine.
It was long term.
She had some responsibilty.
She received some recognition.
She tailored her app (from personal statement to LOR’s) to highlight that research (without in any way ignoring the soft stuff of which there was plenty).</p>
<p>She was and is a kid who is going to do things her way. She was told that she was too “research-y” focused on her app (and it ended up that way on for the post-graduate scholarship she applied for). Some med schools liked it, some didn’t.</p>
<p>wow Curm thats impressive. See info like that can be really helpful to an applicant. I guess I have to find something to concentrate my app around lol. hahaha I guess I will start reading through the really long 09-10 thread.</p>
<p>Part of it is the packaging …but you still have to have the groceries. ;)</p>
<p>Would you feel comfortable disclosing your daughter’s MCAT score? Your daughter sounds like an extremely motivated and talented researcher, congrats. I would like to know how well essays/ECs can make up for an MCAT score. I tried searching, but you have thousands of posts and the search wasn’t very helpful for me :)</p>
<p>I can’t tell you the exact score. I’m waaay to private with her data. But I can say that she had no section score above an 11. Or below an 11. ;)</p>
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Yeah. They pay me by the word. </p>
<p>As to your larger question, I think @ 3 points is the max you can make up with stellar “everything but MCAT”. Why that number? Just seems like that’s the way it works out from what I’ve seen by watching this process. My guess is that somemom’s kid and mine got most of the available discretionary points. </p>
<p>*Do remember to compare yourself with female applicants. Assuming that lollybo is feminine. Which now that I think about it, I’m not so sure. ;)</p>
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<p>Curm, getting those discretionary points is VERY difficult, =)</p>
<p>Hey, if it was easy they’d call it “business school”. ;)</p>
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<p>I’m a dude!</p>
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<p>^^^^^ hahaha. ROFL…</p>
<p>Gee. Sorry. Dang glad I edited my post then to allow for that possibility. ;)</p>
<p>Hey. I’ve been mistaken for a female many times on this site but for the life of me I can’t imagine why.</p>
<p>WAIT what? You’re not a female??? I’ve stalked through all the posts in here and this whole time… sigh</p>
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<p>IIRC, don’t you have a long ponytail? :)</p>
<p>If I’m completely wrong, sorry, my bad!</p>
<p>I thought lollybo was a female as well.</p>
<p>My hair is much shorter than usual now. D made me cut it for graduation. And I’d look goofy(er) in a ponytail.</p>
<p>And I would, in fact, make the ugliest woman you’ve ever seen.</p>