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Huh? I am making a statement that applies to all cases. ALL med schools use the same application. This application requires a personal statement, recommendations, and a summary of extracurriculars and research experience. If some schools choose to ask for more, that's fine, but your statement that the schools don't ask for recs/ECs/SOP until second round is patently false.
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<p>That is NOT the point. This is not about what is required, this is about the WEIGHTINGS of the various criteria. Whenever you have different adcoms, you are inevitably going to get different weightings. Different adcom officers are going to want different things. Is that really so hard to understand? </p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Think about how grading works for subjects like English. I think we all know that 2 English profs can demand the exact same assignments, yet if you submit the same paper to both profs, you may get 2 entirely different grades. One prof may love your paper and give you an A. The other prof may hate it and give you a C. But it's the EXACT SAME PAPER. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the different standards as far as how the profs go about deciding what is a good paper or not. In fact, one of the 'games' you have to play as a college student is to figure out what kinds of style your prof likes, and then submit papers in that style.</p>
<p>That's exactly what happens with adcoms too. A personal statement that one adcom officer thinks is the greatest thing since sliced bread, another officer might think is total crap. It's the inherent arbitrariness of what different people think is good and not good. </p>
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It's generally understood that if you have applied to a grad school program and get an interview, it's usually yours to screw up. They just want to see if they can get along with you. For MD and MD/PhD, they are looking at a lot more, and they invite more people than they have spots for.
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<p>Oh, I don't know about that. Take a look at the mdapplicants website. Plenty of people get dinged after the MD interview. I would say that it's about 25-50% of those who get an interview do not get admitted. Again, look at the website yourself and you can convince yourself of this. </p>
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You're not making any sense. If your point is that different people will see things differently, I suppose that's true. I'd also point out that even for two people interviewing for just the med school, they may be interviewed by different people. But you're not even going to get before the committee unless your stats are plenty high. The fact that they are different people is rather irrelevant - the people may be different, but I assure you they are all looking out for the same things. The med school people are looking out for the med school, and if you think that they're going to let in a substandard candidate, think again. Combined program or not, the med school's name goes on that person's degree, and they're not going to give a free pass to someone just because they would make a great PhD candidate.
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<p>But they are NOT really out looking for the same thing. I am not talking about giving anybody a 'free pass'. I agree with you that the MD representatives are there to make sure that only qualified people for the MD program are admitted. But just because you're qualified doesn't mean that you are going to get admitted.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Let's say that you are a rep from the MD school on a MD/PhD adcom. A candidate file is being reviewed. The PhD reps on the committee see the file and strongly endorse him because they see some sort of research brilliance in the candidate. To you, the candidate is acceptable to you (in that you are pretty sure that he is a worthy MD candidate), but he wouldn't exactly be one of your first choices. Still, you're probably not going to ding him simply because he passes your most important test, which is whether he is good enough for the MD program. You're probably thinking to yourself that, well, he is good enough to pass my qualifications, and if the PhD reps think this strongly of him, then, fine, let's admit him. Let's face it. You are going to ding a guy who the PhD reps endorse strongly only if you have a strong reason to do so. In this scenario, you do not.</p>
<p>Now, if this same file was admitted to the MD adcom, he probably wouldn't be admitted because there are no PhD reps there to endorse him. And that's exactly my point - some people will be more successful in the MD/PhD admissions procedure than the regular MD admissions. </p>
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Pure speculation, based on the fact that you speculated the median GPA for the MD/PhD program. How can you use that as an argument?
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<p>Sure, it's pure speculation. But so is UCLAri's. And, in fact, so is yours. We are ALL basing our opinions on speculation. None of us have ever actually been on an MD/PhD adcom. </p>
<p>So if my opinions are invalid because they are speculation, then so are yours, and so are UCLAri's. What you are basing things on are what you have seen others undergo, like your husband. For me, the same (I know people who have gone through the process). So we are using the same standards of proof. If you say that mine aren't good enough, then neither are yours. </p>
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I believe it's absolutely disputable, and I think making a statement like that with arguments that haven't been substantiated on your part at all is silly. My husband, who himself is a soon-to-be graduate of a highly ranked med school and again has experience with all of this, says that there is no way a person would get into a combined program unless the med school accepted you first - in all cases, the med school comes first. This makes absolute sense when you think about it - why would a program that has very few spaces and many applicants accept substandard people to the med school based on their research when there are plenty of people that apply that have research AND great stats? It's nonsensical.
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<p>He can say it's as nonsensical as he wants, but, again, look at the Johns Hopkins procedure. JHU specifically states that they have a special admissions procedure dedicated just to the MD/PhD's. JHU does not admit you into the MD program first. It does not. Nor is JHU the only one. Many other schools ((i.e. some of the lower UC's) do the same.</p>
<p>Now, if you and your husband want to take it up with these schools and ask them why they are doing things this way, feel free. But don't blame me. I didn't create the rules. They did. I'm just telling you what the rules are. Don't shoot the messenger. </p>
<p>Nobody is saying that these people who are admitted are "substandard". Obivously they are all good enough. But my point is, just being good enough is not enough to get you in. Lots of people who apply to MD programs are good enough for the program, but most of them don't get in. Again, if you happen to be a brilliant researcher, that fact may be clear to a MD/PhD adcom, but not to a MD adcom. You may be "good enough" for the MD program, but not admitted to the MD program because there are other candidates who are better. On the other hand, you may be admitted to the MD/PhD program because your research potential puts you over the top. That's the point.</p>
<p>Again, I would reiterate the example of the girl I know who only got into Harvard of all of the Ivies because Harvard needed a goalie. It's not like she didn't get into those other Ivies because she was "substandard". She got on the wait lists of several other Ivies. So clearly she was good enough for those Ivies. But being good enough was not enough to get her in. In her case, her one star attribute (hockey skills) were highly prized by one specific adcom. The other Ivy adcoms obviously didn't really care about that trait.</p>
<p>Similarly, if you are a star researcher, that fact will help you more in MD/PhD admissions than it will in just regular MD admissions. It's like if you have an English prof who really likes a certain style of writing, and you happen to be very good at that style, then you will probably get a better grade than if you had a different prof who doesn't like that style.</p>