Evaluate my med school list please?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
21

<p>Take the # of top 20 schools you have and cut them in half. I don’t think you’re the most competitive candidate for a top 20 med school. There’s no harm in applying to them but there’s no way there should be so many top med schools on your list.</p>

<p>All of your backup schools are uber competitive because they have so many applicants. I couldn’t even get interviews to schools like Georgetown, BU, etc. muchless acceptances with a 3.9/37. You need to find more schools like SLU, Tufts, etc. that have a lower number of applicants.</p>

22

<p>^^^ I have got a question. In general, if money were not an issue, is there any major downside to applying to a huge number of schools?</p>

23

<p>^ I can think of two (I think BDM mentioned the first one before):</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The quality of your secondary will likely be lower when you have so many, or you may turn in your secondary late.</p></li>
<li><p>By some magic day (march-may), medical schools will know what other medical schools you apply to, waitlisted or accepted. Some schools may not want to take a chance on an applicant who may have been waitlisted at too many schools of the same competitiveness. Some interviewers will ask you what other schools you apply to and what your impression about other schools you have interviewed. Some mentioned at SDN that the admission dean at wustl may even spend a lot of time “lecturing” you on why you should NOT apply to so many other schools during your precious interview time. An analogy is that if you show interests to too many girls (or boys), many girls may think you are not for her.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>BTW, I think DS likely applied to about 25% of top 20 schools – especially he skipped the few very top ones like H, J, Penn, etc. (Reason: Too many top applicants apply there. So the yield for your efforts will likely be low so why bother?! The same for a school like Mayo, Stanford, Chicago, etc. – i.e., the smaller schools which give out money.)</p>

24

<p>As of 2009, the average GPA for students admitted into Emory was 3.78, and the average science GPA was 3.74.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf[/url]”>http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>U of Illi (3.62/3.53/33), Georgetown (3.69/3.65/31), Albany (3.58/3.49/30), Drexel (3.62/3.57/31), University of Minnesota-Minneapolis (3.74/3.72/31) all look like almost perfect matches for you</p>

<p>I think you should cut out U of Chicago, JHU, and Columbia, and replace them with some of the schools above.</p>

25

<p>Chem,
D. has applied to good number of schools on your list. If you want to compare results, I can PM you.</p>

26

<p>Hey MiamiDAP that’d be great. </p>

<p>Right now I’m researching NYU, Rochester, USC, Temple, George Washington, Jefferson, and Emory to add to my list.</p>

27

<p>Chem - Based on experience of some current medical students I know, UT-H looks for diversity in their applicant pool and try to recruit students from schools across the country, specifically top 20. However, it is a given that all Texas schools are limited to 10% OOS but if you are recruited, it is more than likely that you get IS for tuition. </p>

<p>OTOH - if you are interested in UT-SW, please make sure you apply in May, when it opens. They have rolling admissions and tend to fill their slots early.</p>

28

<p>K the final list of schools to add is Emory, USC, Temple, George Washington, SLU, and Jefferson. Now I have to cut back on the reach schools but thanks for your help guys.</p>

<p>Do med schools see what other schools you apply to when you submit the AMCAS?</p>

29

<p>

</p>

<p>Dude, where are you getting your numbers from. You seem to be looking at the average gpa of the kids accepted. I was looking at the average gpa of the kids who actually enroll. I was strictly referring to the incoming gpa of the Freshman class. Not all those kids that are accepted enroll. I remember a veteran poster on this thread once saying that its better to look at the average numbers for the kids that actual enroll rather than the median for those that are accepted (MSAR) when creating a school list. In the US News book, it says the entering class of fall 2009 had an average overall gpa of 3.66. </p>

<p>*** On Emory’s Med. School website, it says that the average overall incoming gpa for the class of 2009 is a 3.65. However it also shows that the average mcat score is a 33.8, so I was incorrect in assuming it was a 33. </p>

<p>[url=<a href=“Admissions | Emory School of Medicine”>http://www.med.emory.edu/admissions/mdprogramaboutsomdemographics.cfm]Admissions[/url</a>]</p>

30

<p>Im not particularly worried about your GPA, I think your stats are average for top schools when you factor in your mcat. That being said, definitely top heavy with your ecs. Consider adding Ohio schools.</p>

<p>Schools don’t know where you applied when you submit amcas. Only at the end of the cycle essentially.</p>

31

<p>Chem,
Are you from OH? If so, add OSU, I do not know any other OH publics to consider, D. had Cinci by default and you are already considering Case. Why not Cleveland Clinic then, no additional fee and can schedule interviews one after another. And from what I understand, sorry, but Mich. might be out…or you might be very lucky OH kid. U of Mich. does not like OH or it might be just my impression.</p>

32

<p>mmmcdowe, throughout my interview process I was under the impression schools knew where else you were interviewing (where you applied could be a different story). At one of my interviews, the interviewer offhandedly mentioned one of my interviews at another school–we hadn’t been talking about it either. Same thing happened to a friend of mine also applying this cycle. No clue if this plays a role in admissions decisions.</p>

<p>ChemFreak, I’d put GW in that category with Georgetown, Boston, and Tufts. Just my opinion, but I wouldn’t bother applying to more than one of those four–since your odds, regardless of your stats it seems, of getting in there are just pathetic thanks to the volume of applications they receive. The rest of your additions look good!</p>

<p>If you’re trying to figure out which schools to cut, I’d probably compare all of them and cut the outliers. For example, I ended up interviewing at 4 schools: all have small class sizes, all have unique curricula, all have early clinical exposure. 3 were in suburbs/small cities, 1 was in a big city. Guess which one I withdrew from after the interview? Big city. Had I needed to cut schools from my list, I would have cut the one that felt like it didn’t belong–and for me, that was a big city school. </p>

<p>The trick here is figuring out what you want–and you probably don’t know what you want, and don’t really care that much, you just want to go to medical school. In that case, prioritizing a list of characteristics helped me decide too.</p>

33

<p>Yep thats exactly it. I figured out a few things like I don’t want rural small town but other than that I just want to get in somewhere. </p>

<p>^^MiamiDap, I’m from Missouri.</p>

34

<p>@College00701
I got it from the link I posted lol (post #24). They were median not the mean (makes more sense). It was from WSU website. Well, when looking at the numbers of those that got accepted, you can find schools that would be more likely to accept you. Looking at enrollment stats is more related to the schools composition. If school ABC accepts on avg 1.5 gpa / 42 mcat, thats what you base your chances on. If you have a 0.6/13, you shouldnt apply. If you have a 1.5/42, than you probably should. But if people enroll have a 1.2/42, than that just shows the general comp of the school, not the chances your going to get in. Those other kids with higher gpa could have got into another top state school and went their instead. That doesnt mean youre more likely to get in with a 1.2/42 than a 1.5/ 42</p>

35

<p>ChemFreak, another thing you can think about is what kind of curriculum you think you’d like. Some of my schools had more traditional curricula–lots of lectures, quizzes, tests, etc. The ones I ended up liking the best had more unique curricula–problems based approaches, more predictable schedules, fewer lectures, etc. Do you typically like large, anonymous lecture classes more, or do you like working in groups? Do you want a larger student body, or do you prefer a small environment? Are you at all interested in a dual degree? Do you want to continue doing research? If those last two things interest you, you might want to explore some dual degree programs or schools with flexible curricula. Overall, those were the biggest differences between programs that I saw. In the end, it seems like most of them are more similar to each other than they are different.</p>

<p>Dwalker, I think colleges was using enrollment data to get a more accurate picture of the school’s composition, like you said. I personally think enrollment data is better than accepted data because it isn’t as skewed as acceptance data could be. Take, for example, a kid like ChemFreak who has a 38 on the MCAT. </p>

<p>If he applies to 17 schools and is accepted to, say, 5 of them, then each of those 5 schools can include his high MCAT score in their published average MCAT score, even though he only gets to go to one of those schools. If you look at the enrollment data, you’re only looking at data for the students who actually chose that school–and your numbers aren’t skewed by all the students who don’t choose that school.</p>

<p>It’s likely that the GPA you’ve found (for accepted students) is higher than the GPA colleges found (for enrolled students) because the accepted students’ average GPA includes the high GPAs of students who chose other schools. I think you’ll get a more accurate view of the school by looking at the students who actually go there, which is why I typically advise using enrollment data.</p>

<p>I agree with you that data for accepted students is useful. I personally think it’s most useful for determining acceptance percentages and the likelihood of being accepted after interviewing somewhere. In this instance, if you used enrollment data, you’d likely make the picture look worse than it really is. For example, my school (a state school) typically interviews about 700 students, accepts around 150 students, and eventually enrolls about 100. Even though it’s just a few percentage points, calculating the odds of getting one of those 150 spots are better than getting one of the 100 spots.</p>

<p>I personally think the most accurate way to wade through all of this data is to use enrollment data for student statistics (GPA, MCAT, etc) and to use acceptance data for statistics like interviews and acceptances. Last year, this information was most easily accessed via USNews. I don’t know how the new MSAR works.</p>

36

<p>At the same time, medians rather than averages (which is what US News uses) are probably better reflections of the admitted classes. The medians are likely higher than the averages given the presence of outliers (URM’s, non-trads). In addition, US News uses data that’s a couple of years old.</p>

<p>So, the truth is somewhere between US News and the MSAR’s numbers.</p>

37

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<p>Be careful here because I know for a fact that at UTSW that 33 is highly skewed by URM enrollees. The actual non URM number is significantly higher, more like 36-36+. Which means that the 38 is in the average range for non URMs.</p>

<p>UT-H on the other hand has a lower average profile and would be a closer match for the OP. I suggested UTSW because the incremental cost of the application is under $25 and why not throw it against the wall?</p>

38

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<p>Good point. I didn’t think of that. But if that were the case, then shouldn’t that be the case for almost all medical schools? Unless UT-SW has a huge number of URMs compared to other schools.</p>

39

<p>

In one recent year, they need to compensate for a 26 MCAT of an URM student in the JAMP program at a school where many of the admitted students are 36+.</p>

<p>College00701, I believe Texas may have more need for serving URM areas. If you think of this: How many states have the “top-10 percents” rule for college application? Then, you will understand there is likely more pressure to admit URM applicants.</p>

40

<p>Thats why the data I found has median scores. Thats the best estimate for central tenancy because it will not be skewed. You can’t use mean on skewed data. Thats why looking at accepted median is better than accepted orw enrolled mean. Enrolled mean can be SIGNIFICANTLY skewed. For instance, if you have 50 students all with 36mcat or 3.6 gpa all enrolled into ABC, and 10 more all with 26 or 3.3 gpa, your average mcat will be 34 and gpa 3.5, but your median will be 36 and 3.6. Not the perfect example but w.e. Thats enrolled, but the same can be done with accepted, which makes more sense to find what schools typically accept a certain applicant. I can go on but I dont feel like it lol.</p>

<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC App</p>