<p>Trying to understand how the med school admissions process works. Dear friend's son has had 6 med school interviews and has been waitlisted at all 6. She says he may not know if he's admitted until summer. Can that really be the case? Do the odds increase with more interviews? Is this a typical experience?</p>
<p>Students can and do get taken off the waitlist up the week (or day) before classes start. So that part at least is true. However, some schools maintain rather large waitlists so whether he get taken off one will depend upon his place on the list. (Top 3 or 4 = good chance; #25 = not likely.)</p>
<p>Being 0 for 6 after interviews–I’d say that’s unusual, but not unheard of. </p>
<p>Typically having that many interviews is a positive sign.</p>
<p>Not unheard of. The student should be very aggressive w update letters. His odds are fairly good.</p>
<p>When were these interviews - if they were all summer/early fall, then as other said, unusual but not unheard of, if these have all been very recently, many schools have filled large portions of their class by the time they even saw him and I wouldn’t even call it that unusual.</p>
<p>It’s possible that your friend’s son is doing or saying something during interviews that is turning schools off. Getting an interview is akin to a school saying “Ok, you have what it takes, let’s see how well you fit in here and what really makes you tick.” Since they are all wait lists (and not rejections as i thought I was going to read) he’s obviously not raising a huge red flag, but should he have to reapply, his interviewing needs to be examined because you’re right, getting a lot of interviews (assuming you’re not talking about 6 out of 20+ schools he applied to) usually yields better results and indicates that there isn’t much wrong with his paper app.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of folks not hearing until the summer as well, after thinking their chances were long gone. Waitlist is definitely better than not hearing anything. Good luck to your friend’s son. I also have a friend’s son who is waiting and it’s so tough. Waiting for my son’s final decisions is driving me crazy, and he’s already been accepted somewhere. </p>
<p>Does anyone know the date (is it March?) when <em>most</em> decisions are made? Is there such a date? You could go dizzy looking at all the different information on SDN. </p>
<p>Good luck again~</p>
<p>Seems like most decide by March. At some point in May (either 1 or 15, can’t remember which), you can only hold one acceptance and must turn the others down–which is why there tends to be waitlist movement in either the middle or end of May (depending on if it’s 5/1 or 5/15). Keep in mind that if I release my acceptance to school A in May, they’ll offer my spot to a kid on their waitlist. If that kid had an acceptance to school B, now B would have an opening too–so if your kiddo was waitlisted at B, part of his eventual acceptance depends on how other schools’ waitlists are moving (because that’s what opens spots at his school, for the most part). </p>
<p>Additionally, most schools have another deadline for deferring matriculation (deadline seems to be in July), so you also might see movement around that time. Otherwise, waitlist movement is pretty slow.</p>
<p>I think it’s appropriate and worthwhile to figure out where you are on the waitlist and how large the waitlist is to get a better idea of what your chances of admission are. Usually this can be accomplished with a phone call.</p>
<p>IIRC, May 1 is the the date by which FA packages have to be in the student’s hands. May 15 is the date before which one must pick one acceptance to ‘really, really’ accept and must withdraw from all others.</p>
<p>(IIRC, on May 15, med schools submit their list of admittances to the national clearing house. If a student holds more than 1 acceptance as of that date, the students gets automatically removed from all acceptance lists.)</p>
<p>Regarding the student with interviews, but WLs, Brown beings up a good point. Did he apply early and get early interviews (say summer/fall) (and to be sure about those schools SDN would be a good tool) and if so, WL means there is room for improvement in the interviewing. It could be that he is entirely qualified, but simply not revealing enough personality to be interesting, just through nerves.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, these were later interviews, Dec/Jan/Feb, then the schools may already have filled most of their class, meaning the application could have the weakness, meaning scores or date of application or weak PS.</p>
<p>If he does not get in anywhere, tracing back through the timing might help him improve the chances for next year. I have heard of kids being late admitted the very first week of med school when a student drops out, so it COULD happen all summer.</p>
<p>Getting six interviews is impressive, and I’m sure the applicant is pretty upset about the waitlists. Since I don’t know to which schools he applied, some schools are really tough to get into even if you’re interviewed(e.g. take a look at Georgetown’s statistics). I’d recommend that, as previous poster suggested, that applicant send letters of interest to the schools, with any new accompishments of any type. There is also a fair amount of movement on the lists-again, this depends on the school-so tell applicant not to lose hope.</p>
<p>six and oh is rough.</p>
<p>sdn has an admissions thread for each of the med schools where there’s enough of a chatter on which schools are sending IIs, how often they WL people, and later on, who’s getting out of the waitlist. It appears some schools offer to more than they have places for, based on their calculated yield, and dip into their waitlists to different degrees. eg. I was told Temple hardly took anyone off the WL last year while others offered many positions in the last minute.</p>
<p>I would be surprised if a large number of applicants are accepted off of the waitlist because I think all medical schools know that many applicants will get multiple offers and they can only accept one. The medical school in Philadelphia where I received my MD can accommodate about 260 new students per year but reportedly sent out close to 400 offers of admission knowing that many applicants would have multiple acceptances and some would choose to go somewhere else. It would seem that only in very rare and unusual circumstances that a US medical school would still have openings to fill after sending out acceptances given that they already accounted for a certain number of applicants choosing another school when they decided how many offers of admission they were going to send out.</p>
<p>^260 is a very big class. The biggest that I was aware about in our state was 220. Normally they are about 170 and i know one Med. School with 30 spots.<br>
There are cases when kids will not know until summer. It is very hard place to be. Hopefully, he will kneo by May 15.</p>
<p>Some of his interviews were fairly recent. Believe he had 3 in October, another in December and a couple more recently. I’m developing a whole new respect for those who have the intestinal fortitude to go through such an ordeal! I just hope he gets in somewhere as he’s worked so hard to date.</p>
<p>Happy to report this young man received a call from his first choice med school and will be matriculating there. (Now his mom is scampering around gathering furniture and planning his move. She’s one proud mom, let me tell you!)
A slot opened up on their waitlist and he was the happy recipient. He’d been accepted at another school which didn’t seem to be a good fit for him, although he would have attended and, I’m sure, done very well.
My respect for those who endure through this process remains. Such a roller coaster ride! Sending my respect and congratulations to the prospective med school students and their families… We should all be grateful that they will be there to take care of our loved ones!</p>
<p>I was hoping that was the reason for the bump! Congrats to the boy!</p>
<p>So glad to hear, masslou. Best wishes to your friend’s son!</p>
<p>Congrats! What a relief!</p>