<p>GA2012. Thank you! DS doesn’t say too much about the whole process. Only thing he did through the summer was email essays for my husband and me to read. He didn’t always agree with the feedback and I had to let it go since this is his decision and his life! He’s under the impression that the interviews are not too stressful but more to find out what type of person you are and how you think. </p>
<p>Wow, good for him if he doesn’t find the interview trail stressfull! Just the logistics of interview travel (my daughter went to 13) while juggling her senior year plus a sport was enough to send both her and I (the travel agent) over the edge. Sounds like you have a chill guy…good for you.</p>
<p>Wow 13 interviews! How did she find them? I’m assuming she’s in med school now…where did she go?
My DS’s comment to me last week was that he’s heard the interviews are not stressful and his job is to show who he is as a person. I’m not even sure if he has read over potential interview questions. Fortunately he is well read and keeps up on many current events. In general he is very laid back and doesn’t worry about what he can’t change. Unlike his mother, I might add.</p>
<p>is</p>
<p>Is he still in school? Most pre med advisors will do mock interviews with their students. Wow, I don’t know if I am happy for your son for being so chill about the whole thing or think he should get some advice for his interviews? He does have an interview suit, yes?</p>
<p>Oh yes, he has 2 suits…one is brand new. His sister who is two years older than him told me she will make a point to discuss interviews with him. She worked in an oncology office for 2 years and had the opportunity to get to know scribes who were in the process of applying to med school. She probably heard every interview question that came up for the scribes. It’s not like he won’t listen, he just doesn’t say too much and then goes ahead and does preparation. At least that is what he has done in the past for interviews etc.</p>
<p>And to answer your question, he graduated in May 2014 and is doing a gap year. Actually is working for an ER doctor who does work in Central America. It’s good use of his time this year and hopefully he gets the opportunity to discuss it in interviews. </p>
<p>Definitely remind them to check every couple days (I wish I could convince my D to check ONLY once a day) for interview invites. Some schools give you only a handful of days to respond or you lose your chance. I find this harsh considering all these applicants have to wait weeks/months for the invite!</p>
<p>Congrats for your DS, VAMom! Welcome Wirefox. I haven’t posted much either, but it is nice to be able to “talk” and “listen” to others going through this. I have gained a lot if useful information here as my DDs went through college applications, then oldest applying to law school, and now youngest applying to med school. </p>
<p>Thanks dheldreth. I’ve already learned what an II is! Plus I learned last night that DS has done a mock interview for med schools. Who knew? Not me that’s for sure until I told him they seemed to be suggested by people who have done this process. He replied with, “I’ve done one”, and when I asked if it was for med school, he said yes. </p>
<p>That’s why I love this forum. We parents can come here and find answers to questions! I didn’t know for sure what a II was either and got it verified here! So feel free to ask questions. Someone will be able to answer it! </p>
<p>
I agree. This forum was helpful in so many ways…the most important being I didn’t ask D quite so many questions about the process that were so basic they brought on some eye-rolling. ;-)</p>
<p>Best of luck to everyone as they go through this cycle.</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve certainly learned numerous bits of information about this whole process by reading CC over the past few days. </p>
<p>Another question I have is, what is a LizzyM score? I’ve seen people post their numbers as exact numbers as well as ranges between numbers. I just haven’t figured out what it is and how it is determined.</p>
<p>LizzyM, along with many, others (Goro, Ismet, gyngyn, Law2Doc, Catalystik,etc) post regularly on Student Doctor Network (SDN) and are almost consider gods in advice/comments they offer especially to premeds. </p>
<p>As I understand it, Lizzy score is the school’s avg gpa(10) + avgMCAT - 1. An applicant then plugs his/her numbers into formula (not -1). An example would be applicant with 3.4 GPA x 10 + 35 = 69. Applicant’s number (69) is then compared to school’s Lizzy score and is meant to provide applicant with a very rough way to evaluate his/her chance for a med school interview (not acceptance) </p>
<p>Post by Catalystik (<a href=“Chances Calculator | Student Doctor Network”>Chances Calculator | Student Doctor Network) provides link to a downloadable google.doc spreadsheet data (an SDN collaborative effort from 6/2011, based on the Lizzy M score), where applicant can fill in your own stats and it will tell you for which US med schools you’re competitive. </p>
<p>LizzyM is an adcomm at a top 10 med school who is a frequent poster over on SDN. A LizzyM score is a rough estimate to see if an applicant is competitive for a particular school. </p>
<p>An applicant can calculate their Lizzy M score using this formula ( MCAT + (GPA x 10) ) -1. </p>
<p>There are some circumstances where the LizzyM score can be adjusted. (URM or military veteran status increases an applicant’s LizzyM score, for example.)</p>
<p>A school’s LizzyM score is from a old (2011) spreadsheet that’s floating around. Basically it’s each school’s median accepted MCAT + (median accepted GPA x10). The numbers on the spreadsheet are out of date since the data used to calculate a school’s LizzyM score is now 4+ years old. </p>
<p>There was a lot of talk of updating it last year on SDN, but nothing came of it.</p>
<p>A LizzyM score only suggests whether an applicant may be within the parameters of typically accepted applicants. You can get the same (and more recent/accurate) idea by looking the middle 50% of accepted students in the MSAR.</p>
<p>I also do not believe it has to reformulated to reflect new MCAT scoring</p>
<p>LizzyMScore will have very odd problems reformulating it to the new MCAT score.</p>
<p>They won’t have a real baseline until after 2017 admissions if not 2018. Many colleges are stating either or for 2016 cycle, some are still allowing current MCAT in 2017 based on last published table by AAMC but everyone will change over to the new MCAT by 2018 cycle.</p>
<p>The new MCAT score goes from 472 to 528 which is really a 56 point scale. However, will they start valuing the new score more than GPA going forward? </p>
<p>I would expect the formula to look somewhat like this if we assume the old norms hold true even with the new MCAT score.</p>
<p>(((MCAT2015 score - 472) /1.244) + GPA x 10) - 1 if we are still going to stick to a similar weightage in 2017 or 2018 or even 2016.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the information. I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions at some point. And for some reason this med school application process is more stressful for me than college apps were a few years back.</p>
<p>Regarding interview invites, it is in your best interest to check ASAP upon getting the interview email, even to set up phone notifications. There were schools that invited DD and when she checked the offerings on their schedule, there was nothing left, she had to waitlist which just makes scheduling all the more fun…not. This is one case where being obsessive can be a good thing.</p>
<p>Congrats, VAmom! </p>
<p>I wish my son was a little more obsessive about checking his email. He’s not been great about checking in the past, but I hate to add to his stress by asking if he’s checking regularly. He did mention that one II came as a “status update” and not as a separate II email. I think it took him a few days to follow up on that one. </p>
<p>He has 9 interviews scheduled so far and he seems to be stressed about missing class/tests/etc. to get to all of them. A couple assigned him an interview date but he was able to choose from available dates for most. The good news is that he has a good number of interviews. The bad news is that they’re all scheduled in October, so he has at least 2 per week and he’ll miss a lot of school. </p>
<p>9 interviews, that’s great ohiomom24! Missing school is a stressor, but hopefully his professors understand and are accommodating. Good luck!</p>
<p>My DS received an II yesterday. He was offered one day for the II, which was 10 days away from yesterday, plus he had 24 hours to respond. Fortunately the offered day is doable otherwise I’m not sure if he could have arranged anything else.</p>