Your D can only attach one label to each experience.
She has 2 options:
split the experience into 2 items on her AMCAS, label one community service/volunteering, clinical and list only those hours AND label one physician shadowing/clinical observation and list only those hours
However, this has 2 disadvantages–one, it takes up 2 of the limited number (15 total) of slots on her app; and two, it looks like she’s trying to double dip on one activity.
label the entire experience as community service/volunteering, clinical and include the shadowing as part of her description of her activities.
From my perspective it doesn’t really matter. I paid much more attention to the actual descriptions of what you did and where you did it. E.g. for the exact same activity at a free clinic for the uninsured which I would count as both community service and clinical exposure if done at a regular doctor’s office I’d only count as clinical exposure and not community service even if you are doing it for free. The only headers that were really important in making sure I didn’t miss an experience were research and leadership. Everything else gets kind of lumped together and can count for more than one category on my evaluation.
My school scored based on best single sitting. If the super score was significantly higher I would comment on it. If you took it twice and didn’t improve significantly it was disappointing and evoked a negative feeling.
What types of reasons would a 4.0 and 520 with good ECs end up on the no interview pile for your school? Just curious as to why some schools interview early, late or not at all for high stat applicants. Sometimes it’s seems like no rhyme or reason from an applicant standpoint.
Assuming they submitted early enough that person with “good ECs” (I’m assuming you definition of good ECs matches ours - not always the case) would only end up in no interview pile if they had red flags in LORs, sounded really obnoxious in their essays, or had some sort of disciplinary history.
Are there any unwritten rules that you would give GPA bump, saying add 0.2, to the applicants from like WashU, Princeton, etc? I saw many people including university advisors claimed that to be true.
If you go to some top schools website premed section, they do discuss the gpa bump up with their students. You will find the margin on the bump up is not very big, not as much as .20, but more less like .1. And a lot of top schools have grade inflation, so the med schools will take that into consideration.
yes, that “into consideration” actually is what puzzles me:) Many top UG schools claim that, but I am not so sure if that is true in the eyes of Med. Schools. To make this GPA bump work with like 8000 applicants each year, there must be a screening system in some medical schools to do that efficiently and fairly:
have a list of those top UG schools in secret.
how much GPA to add or deduct from each applicant based on his/her major/school.
I guess the work load would be heavy, even impossible. Maybe @iwannabe_Brown could share some insight from his/her reader experience:)
FWIW (probably nothing) but since med school GPAs are sliced and diced by year and cumulatively, and also broken down by sGPA (all bio, chem, physics, math courses) both by year and cumulatively, there is so much more to consider in an app before offering an acceptance (eg MCAT, including subscores), ECs, LORs, PS, interview), that some small fractional bump in GPA because of college attended probably carries minimal weight, if any. No two apps are the same.
By reading this thread, plus the information provided by my friend from a top med school. I came to the conclusion that most likely a 3.7 is not going to make it into a top med school. You might be getting IIs, but no champagne.
My friend is working for a top med school dean or admission decision maker, I believe all finalists after interview will be screened by him before admission is granted. Like @iwannabe_Brown 's school, they also admits less than 2% of the applicants. Based on my friend, who kept the file for her boss, her reject file is full of 4.0 students with close to 520 or old 36 Mcat applicants. If so, why the med school has to take in a 3.7? Unless the applicant has a big hook that they have to.
Now a days, even the newly opened, for profit CNU has an average GPA of 3.7 for admitted students.
What’s the difference between “for-profit CNU” and a private med school?
A “for profit” college is in it for the profit made off the students, not the education, so they teach nothing of value, but a med school would have to meet a pretty high bar in terms of quality, I’d expect. So, what makes it different?
A new school commonly starts at the bottom of the prestige/desirability/selectivity range compared to existing schools of the type, especially if it has the stigma of being a for-profit school in a sector where private schools are mainly non-profit. But the bottom of the prestige/desirability/selectivity range for medical schools is still extremely high, because there is a surplus well qualified pre-meds who get shut out, and there are high accreditation standards, so the situation of a new medical school is somewhat different from that of a new college.
A for profit med school is not the same as any other trade school, it graduates is called MD or DO and can participate in the residency matching pool. Actually, Rocky Vista COM opened in 2008, a for profit DO school has a better reputation than many not for profit DO schools.
All those Caribbean medical schools are for profit, no matter how we look down upon them, 50%~80% or more of their graduates have become MDs and their MD is no different from any other MD you met in the hospital.
One of the major issues with CNU is its refusal to submit the necessary paperwork to receive Dept of Education approval for federal student loans eligibility. Every other med school, including the for-profit Rocky Vista COM AND the for-profit Caribbean medical schools, has done so. CNU’s steadfast refusal to open its books to DoE review is what is making people leery of CNU. This refusal is forcing its students to take out private loans to pay for medical school. Private loans offer much more limited repayment options for students and shuts students completely out of all service repayment options. The exclusive use of private student loans disqualifies low(er) income applicants from enrolling at CNU.
There are some additional beefs-- the failure to enroll a balanced class with a equitable number of women and UiMs in each of its first 3 years of classes. A faculty that has a significant lack of scholarly credentials. A (now former) dean who was fired from another med school for unethical behavior. A fraud lawsuit filed (and settled with a NDA) against one of the primary investors.
These are some of the reasons why the LCME has twice declined to advance CNU accreditation status from prelimiary to provisional, and twice refused to allow CNU to increase its class size.