<p>You’ve never quite said what " not stellar" means. The Texas schools have such different profiles that it sounds like you could be a good match for the two you’ve gotten interviews with and a not so good match for the others’ prototypical matriculants. They won’t offer interviews to candidates too far out of their niche either too high or too low.</p>
<p>My S had a very high GPA and a 39 MCAT and ONLY got interviews at UTSW and UT-H among the state schools. Never heard a word from the others.</p>
<p>Continued…and even then, UT-H quizzed him about his true level of interest actually coming right out and asking if he’d seriously consider them because they “normally” don’t enroll students with his stats and they didn’t want to offer him a spot if he wouldn’t seriously think about going there.</p>
<p>eadad - where did your son go and how long ago? Is it possible other schools did not think he would come because his stats are tailormade for UTSW?</p>
<p>He’s a recent UTSW grad and is now in a surgical residency at a major out of state program (don’t have his permission to disclose location) that was one of his top two (tied in his mind) choices when ranking programs.</p>
<p>Agree, his stats were more UTSW and BCM than any other Texas programs and as it turned out, UTSW was his first choice school as well.</p>
<p>I want to remain as anonymous as possible. Lets just say that my LizzyM score is the same as the the average student who enrolled at UT-Houston.</p>
<p>My mcat is no where near your son’s.</p>
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<p>I can’t manufacture another LOR. I sent in a committee packet which contained the committee packet and an additional 4 LORs. I am thinking about sending out short update letters on the 17th if its possible because UT-San Antonio is filling interview seats all the way in November already, they have already filled the interview seats from now to early November. Texas Tech Lubbock just started filling interview seats at the end of october. El Paso is still filling seats in early october but there is nothing that I could really do for them, because they don’t like update letters. </p>
<p>Starting to lose hope for San Antonio, Tech Lubbock, El Paso. Oh well, hopefully I have better luck OOS. </p>
<p>Looking at my secondary for Texas Tech Lubbock, I don’t think it was all that good because it was the very first secondary that I did and the essays were slightly weaker than my A&M essays. I got the hang of things after the Tech secondary, and I guess the adcoms liked my A&M secondary enough to interview me on the first day.</p>
<p>That is the only thing that I can think of that may be wrong with my Tech Lubbock app. I have no idea what is wrong with my San Antonio app, and El Paso app.</p>
<p>Would San Antonio, lubbock, el paso be biased against kids who are not from west texas? One of the people who wrote my LOR is a faculty member at one of the schools I interview at. Maybe these 3 schools assume that because I know that faculty member really well that I might choose that school over the others? But that can’t explain why another school interviewed me whose faculty did not write any of my LORs. Or maybe my application is not as good as I thought it would be?</p>
<p>Tech Lubbock used to require an essay on “why I want to practice in West Texas”. That one meant my kid didn’t apply. lol Big regional bias back then (2010). Probably applies to EP, too. SA, still no idea.</p>
<p>i was flat out rejected by el paso, so don’t know what to tell you haha
for lubbuck, you defintely needed to show that you have a big desire to go there.</p>
<p>most likely. but i also had similar stats to eadad’s son and got interview invites at all the texas schools but el paso. i think my undergrad helped me out at the lower tier tx schools</p>
<p>To echo something Eadad told you earlier, Texas schools know what/who they are looking/expecting/want to enroll. Maybe that is what is going on. A little story maybe apropos to nothing, really. When my research heavy D interviewed at A+M her interviewer told her flat out that she didn’t need to go to school there. That she should be at SW. We thought that was the kiss of death, but she got a pre-match. </p>
<p>I can certainly see Tech and EP and their regional bias, plus the combined degree aspect, slowing/killing your II there. Houston is just odd and you may well still hear from them. UTSW is probably explainable by the MCAT. So that leaves SA. Maybe just un-lucky? </p>
<p>The good news is you looked good to A+M and UTMB and they do use the pre-match. A lot. You may have an acceptance in the early signing period at a dang good med school. A+M is up and coming (my kid said 2 years ago that they seemed primed to be making a big move in the next 5 years) and I happen to like UTMB. A good bit. I like the school, the kid liked the curriculum, and if I was 20-something…Galveston ain’t a bad place to be.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help curmudgeon and bedreddawgie, I am going to call the schools tomorrow and politely ask them some of the questions curmudgeon posted about the combined degree programs. I have a lot of research and I mentioned in my personal statement how I equally wanted both clinical medicine and biomedical research to play major roles in my career. Unfortunately my mcat score is not strong enough for the big research schools like UTSW and Baylor. I will let you guys know what those schools tell me in response to combined degree questions so that future applicants are aware and you guys can give me advise on anything else that I can do to get an II at those schools, lol. </p>
<p>I really liked UTMB because their students are easy going, the school has a lot research going on which is what I really want, and their board scores are off the charts. UTMB has students coming in with a 30-31 mcat score on average, and they prepare students so well that their average board scores are around 230-235. </p>
<p>A&M was also a great school that offered a lot of different combined degree programs for its students which is something that I am interested in. A&M students were also extremely friendly and seemed like a group who came into medical school with so many diverse backgrounds, including racial, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds, but they all managed to mesh together so well.</p>
<p>Looking at Sdn threads, El Paso, UT-San Antonio, and Lubbock haven’t sent out interview invites in a long time, which gives me hope that they are re-reviewing applications that they initially reviewed but did not invite for an interview.</p>
Really good descriptions. My D’s sorority little sister is a MS1 at the A+M Temple Campus. Small, tight-knit, new, great hospital setting. Almost botique experience medical education on the cheap.</p>
<p>I really liked the Temple campus myself. Scott and White is amazing. Great facilities for students. Great people. Only downside was Temple itself.</p>
<p>UTMB was still in hurricane rebuilding mode when I was there last year. Chill environment. And really cheap housing</p>
<p>On a side note, one of my S’s housemates matched for his residency in Temple at S&W. The cost of living/housing is very low there. That’s a great thing when trying to stretch a resident’s salary or keeping loans lower for Med students. … and Temple isn’t that far from Austin if you need a weekend respite.</p>
<p>Okay so I called the Tech Schools today. Here is the feedback that I got for the combined degree programs. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>For El Paso, I need to be accepted to MD first before I can even be considered for MD/MPH. All interviewers regardless of MD/MPH or MD only have 2 MD interviews. </p></li>
<li><p>For Texas Tech Lubbock, they told me that I had to be accepted for MD first, and then the Business school would consider my application for MBA. However they said that because I listed MD/MBA on my application, I would have to go through 2 MD interviews and 1 MBA interview at the school. I am assuming that since they only have a couple of people willing to give MBA interviews that may be holding my application back a little.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As far as update letters go, here is what these three schools told me</p>
<ol>
<li>El Paso: Once TMDSAS is submitted nothing else will really be looked at.</li>
<li>Lubbock: They accept them.</li>
<li>UT-San Antonio: They said that they don’t mind update letters, but that there is no guarantee that they will read them because their file is electronic, pdf, and they can’t really add anything to them. They said that they can have it available in case the admissions committee asks for it, but that is about it.</li>
</ol>
<p>Any thoughts on my next move? Try to send update letters, which I guess is the only thing that I can do?</p>
<p>Yup. That’s what I’d do. Spend some time crafting it for each school. Re-read their mission statements, heck, their whole websites. Set the right tone. Confident that you are the student they want. That you “uniquely” could take advantage of what they “uniquely” offer.</p>
<p>Thanks, I was wondering if you, bigreddawgie, and some of the other posters don’t mind reading over my update letters, can I pm you guys my update letters? I just want to make sure that I am not “hurting” my chances by the content in my update letter lol I don’t want to be moved from the stack of “interview later” to the stack of “never interview” because of the quality of my update letter lol.</p>