MCAT, GPA, ECs...but what about course choices?

Parents Forum
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<p>LOL, curm! Nice to know that D1 wasn’t the only kid to get a fast-turn around rejection…(BTW, the school was Wake Forest–which screens its secondaries so it’s not like she received a automatic secondary and then they decided her grades and scores weren’t good enough. Given that her BF also got the same treatment–he’s a 3.9/40-- it certainly wasn’t the numbers.)</p>

<p>D1 thinks WF: a) just wanted her $100 and b) really, really held it against her for being OOS even though it’s a private school. (That and like curm said their model said that D1 and BF wouldn’t enroll since UNM is approx equally ranked and soooo much less expensive.)</p>

<p>Maybe they didn’t understand that D1 and BF applied because of the potential for excellent rock climbing in the Smokies…</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>so, are we to take from this that med schools are kind of “need aware”…and they assume that kids will take their cheapest instate offerings. </p>

<p>Are these schools aware if you can be a full-pay or not?</p>

<p>Curmy…you mention merit. Do these privates give merit? </p>

<p>I did read somewhere (maybe the USNews grad school book), that schools like Vandy give med students a lot of grants. Don’t know if that’s true or not.</p>

<p>and…frankly…I think it’s rather gross and insensitive for a med school to ask for an app fee and then reject within hours. It does suggest that they just want money from desperate students. Ugh. (this practice should get exposed to embarrass them, but they probably would just respond by holding off the rejections for 72+ hours.)</p>

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<p>.if it is re-phrased to ask whether you get extra points for taking the hardest curriculum available (like the GC checking that box for UG), then I’d say “NO”. But, if the OP is asking “do they consider the depth and breadth of your course-load after the initial screen?” then my answer would be “most certainly”. </p>

<p>this is good to know. My pre-med son is majoring in Chemical Engineering, but has recently added Math as a second major. I’m wondering if he’d be better off adding something other than math. He could still have math as a minor. He’ll have a lot of Spanish credits, but I don’t think he wants to do a minor in that since Spanish minors (at his school) requires a higher number of credits…more than regular minors do…which typically requires 18-20 credits. I think a Spanish minor is more like 27 credits.</p>

<p>I’ll have to talk to him about this…he may look too “mathy science engineering” only.</p>

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<p>AFAIK schools are not “need aware” in that they look at both your application AND your financial info at the same time. (Given that D1 hasn’t been asked to send in her financials anywhere yet, I can’t see how they could.) But I do think schools are sensitive to the fact that private medical schools are insanely expensive. BTW, I was shocked to learn that even though D1 is 25 and has been self-supporting for a while now, I will still be expected to provide <em>my</em> financial data (and by implication provide financial support) until she’s 28 or 30 for many private medical schools.</p>

<p>Some private and some public medical schools do offer ‘merit’ and grant money. Since we are not there yet, I can’t tell you how these work. (OK, I <em>do</em> know how grants work at our in-state med school, but that’s not terribly useful to you.) Maybe Curm can.</p>

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<p>Too sciencey? You can’t get more sciencey than D1 (physics and math majors with minors in chemistry and biology), but that has never even come up during her interviews. I think that so long as one can present one’s self as having interests outside of a narrow science focus then it really doesn’t matter.</p>

<p>She has mostly been asked about her hobbies (rock climbing, road biking, triathlons and snowboarding), her jobs (and got a long disquisition from the chief of surgery about how waitressing and being a surgeon are alot alike), whether she can do computer programming and what programming languages she knows (that was way outside the box…) and, of course, the expected medicine related questions.</p>

<p>As for the math–and this is my prejudice–but I have strongly encouraged both my Ds (and just about everyone else I know) to include a math minor or major since I feel that math is one of the most valuable skills you can ever have. It will open doors into many careers for you. (And both my Ds have a major in math: D1–see above; D2–bio and math.)</p>

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<p>**so, are we to take from this that med schools are kind of “need aware”…and they assume that kids will take their cheapest instate offerings. </p>

<p>Are these schools aware if you can be a full-pay or not?**</p>

<p>Not need aware in the UG sense. But very yield aware. Makes the “Why us?” question very important. Where D couldn’t make a great argument, she didn’t get a lotta love. Imagine that. :wink: </p>

<p>IOW, “being as you are from Texas where med schools are plentiful and cheap, why should we waste an interview spot on you?” I found that this was very important at the lower-top or mid-ranked schools. The top schools may just assume you’ll go if accepted. </p>

<p>(I really believe Texas kids have this cross to bear OOS, even moreso than other OOS kids.) </p>

<p>Curmy…you mention merit. Do these privates give merit? Some do. As do some OOS publics.<br>
Chicago is a big merit school as are Pitt and WashU.</p>

<p>I did read somewhere (maybe the USNews grad school book), that schools like Vandy give med students a lot of grants. Don’t know if that’s true or not. Some med schools are very generous with need-based grants. My D was very fortunate to be accepted to one of them. There are not that many and they are the largely the “usual suspects”. Many schools are loans-only for FA.</p>

<p>YSM has beefed up their middle-class FA substantially. Harvard has always been great. Stanford is unique and hard to calculate but their students appear to be very happy. Mayo is outstanding as every student last year got a half-tuition scholarship (styled as merit but literally everybody got it.) In some years Mayo was even better. Others schools have less positive FA feedback. JHU is one of those.</p>

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<p>Too sciencey?</p>

<p>LOL…what I meant is that my son may not appear very “well-rounded” with his strengths in Chem, bio, math, and engineering. Since he’s an Eng’g major, he’s had very few Core Req’ts outside that area and most were filled with APs.</p>

<p>However, he’s a very well-rounded kid…works on cars, has TONS of friends, has had little side businesses, and works as a waiter in the summer. </p>

<p>One thing that I think has served him very well so far (and hopefully when he takes his MCAT) is that he works as a university tutor, so he’s constantly reviewing math, bio, chem, etc, when he helps other students. I think this helps keep many concepts fresh in his head. (fingers-crossed)</p>

<p>*As for the math–and this is my prejudice–but I have strongly encouraged both my Ds (and just about everyone else I know) to include a math minor or major since I feel that math is one of the most valuable skills you can ever have. It will open doors into many careers for you. (And both my Ds have a major in math: D1–see above; D2–bio and math.) *</p>

<p>Oh good! Older son is a math major, but younger son (the pre-med ChemEng student) just added math as a double major and my concern was that he would look too “geeky” instead of the well-rounded kid that he really is.</p>

<p>Curmy…How’s your D liking Yale Med? I was so happy to hear that she got in. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Curmy and WOWM…How many apps did your kids send out? </p>

<p>*“being as you are from Texas where med schools are plentiful and cheap, why should we waste an interview spot on you?” I found that this was very important at the lower-top or mid-ranked schools. The top schools may just assume you’ll go if accepted. *</p>

<p>Good to know. I guess those who live in Calif and NY might face similar issues.</p>

<p>Hopefully, med schools will realize that our state only has 2 med schools…one really good one and one “ok” one.</p>

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<p>She loves her school and especially loves her classmates. Very social. Very together. Just a very well-selected class. </p>

<p>I think she sent out 21 and finished …uhhhh…less than that. Never sent secondaries to Duke (hard) or Emory (was already in at Baylor and UTSW ;)). So, I guess 19 full apps. 3 withdrawals prior to interview decision (there’s that Texas thing again. ;)) . 13 interview invites. 8 acceptances straight out. 3 wait-lists she declined to stay on. 5 straight out rejections or “ignores”. </p>

<p>BTW, I have no idea if those numbers add up…but it was something like that. ;)</p>

<p>Real good application season. Humbling and affirming, sometimes in the same week. She was well-prepared, had a great pre-med advisor, had a plan, and had good follow through.</p>

<p>Negs? </p>

<p>Her school schedule was too difficult senior year causing some problems. The expense of interviewing is much greater when you have to fly everywhere and can’t afford to miss too many classes. Budget it all out to the penny…and then double that. </p>

<p>Apps and secondaries are bad enough $. </p>

<p>MCAT is a bear and unlike any other standardized test she had taken. Don’t be over-confident no matter your previous history. Do a real prep course or at least give it your max self-study effort. Take as many real practice tests as you can under test conditions. Your score will be from 3 up to 3 down of your most recent practices. If that range isn’t good enough, keep studying.</p>

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<p>D1 applied to only 9 schools–our only state med school plus 8 privates, including a high reach and two reaches. She got secondaries from all of them; 2 interview invitations (so far–crosses fingers), 1 rejection and no word yet from the rest. But she did apply late in the cycle.</p>

<p>Part of reason she only applied to 9 is that the secondaries are an very time consuming (tough when you’re working 2 jobs and more than 40 hours/week) and expensive. We’ve split the cost of her apps so far, but it is alot of $$ (and flying out for interviews is even more expensive.)</p>

<p>She also has some other offers on the table. (PhD programs in either medical physics or nanoscience–both of which include fully funded RAs.)</p>

<p>D1 worked as tutor at her uni for 3 years and said many of the bio & chem tutors were pre-meds earning some $$$. It’s a good way to review for the MCAT.</p>

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<p>Good to know about senior year, interviewing, and maintaining coursework…</p>

<p>Would interviews be mostly fall semester of senior year? or what?</p>

<p>What was hard about the Duke app? Was it unusual in some way?</p>

<p>My H has a niece who unsuccessfully applied to med schools 2 years in a row. I don’t know many details, but she went to a popular LAC and was always a strong student. </p>

<p>I do know that she didn’t apply to very many schools which probably was a factor. I wish I knew more to learn from what went wrong, but the family is a bit embarrassed because they went into major debt to send her to this LAC because the belief was that she was going to be a doctor and earn big bucks.</p>

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<p>*Part of reason she only applied to 9 is that the secondaries are an very time consuming (tough when you’re working 2 jobs and more than 40 hours/week) and expensive. We’ve split the cost of her apps so far, but it is alot of $$ (and flying out for interviews is even more expensive.)</p>

<p>D1 worked as tutor at her uni for 3 years and said many of the bio & chem tutors were pre-meds earning some $$$. It’s a good way to review for the MCAT. *</p>

<p>After reading your and Curmy’s posts, it looks like that’s the way to go…applying to in-state publics and the rest privates. </p>

<p>We are really hoping that he gets into UAB … a very good med school with a very good price for instate…tuition/fees about $25k and total COA is about $45k (and that’s with a rather highish R&B). The OOS tuition/fees are nasty…about $64k…so COA would be about $85k per year. Yikes!!! (who would pay that much? )</p>

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<p>Get the MSAR and research OOS publics that accept a reasonable number of OOS students. Some OOS publics have a rule that if they award you a scholarship of even $1000 , they give you in-state tuition. Although the Texas schools have a imposed limit of 10% OOS, many OOS students that do apply can take advantage of that “IS tuition” rule.</p>

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<p>*kids are not hysterically trying to get into NC State University, but engineering companies will quickly take anyone who graduates from their engineering program. *</p>

<p>??? Even for med school? Wow! What states do that for med school?</p>

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<p>Very long. I believe 6 supplemental essays.</p>

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<p>Yikes…6 supplemental essays. </p>

<p>I still want to know which state med schools charge in-state rates if you get a small scholarship there. </p>

<p>And, I will get the MSAR…thanks for that tip.</p>

<p>BTW…what medically-related ECs did your kids do?</p>

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<p>From my reading (aiding my son who is in his third year of Med school), the most important thing you can do is apply within a couple of days the day the common application becomes available. Have you essay and everything else ready to go. Most of the schools interview in waves, and clearly if slots fill in the early waves, fewer slots are left. </p>

<p>A couple of comments on points above:

  1. My son was told by the director of admissions at WashU that they do take into account the undergraduate school you went to and weight them accordingly. This may not be in the initial screening for secondaries (my son, no superstar, got secondaries from every school he applied to), but in the selection process for those they intereview. Also, my son reported from the intervie trail that the more prestigious the medical school, the applicants came from predominantly more prestiogious undergrads. It is simply impossible to know, on an overall basis, what role this play. I suspect it plays little role for instate applicants at their state medical school, but more of a factor at privates.
  2. You can fail an interview. At at least one school, he was told that, once you get the interview request, they no longer look at grades or MCAT. Selection is based on the intereview. At other schools, he was told that it is a mix, so the intereview was probably less important. This just shows it is very difficult to generalize about this process.
  3. The nature of the courses taken in undergrad didn’t seem to have an effect on my son. He was an econ major (no double major, no minor) who took the minimum required classes and did fine in the application process. He had to eliminate certain schools becuase he never took biochemistry and others who required some other classes. But there were plenty let to apply to. He made sure to check the requirements for his state school, which included a year of psychology!<br>
  4. He applied to around 15-17, got 8 interviews and four offers. He had strong grades, a good MCAT, and probably average to weak ECs and recommendations. </p>

<p>Hope this helps. Good luck to all parents watching their kids go through with this arduous process.</p>

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<p>this may surprise a few people: “We can’t overestimate the value of a Classics major. Check this out: according to Association of American Medical Colleges, students who major or double-major in Classics have a better success rate getting into medical school than do students who concentrate solely in biology, microbiology, and other branches of science. Crazy, huh?” Princeton Review</p>

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<p>Duke’s secondary sounds like USC (Keck)–D1 said they want 50,000 words of essays and they wanted the secondary back in 14 days or less.</p>

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<p>D1 earned her EMT-B and EMT-I. As part of EMT-I training she had to work 6 12-hour shifts in various clinical capacities at several different hospitals, including a very scary 12 hours in the ER of the city’s only emergency care psychiatric hospital–where the police bring those who are in a mental health crisis. Among other things, she got to put a jugular line (because all his other veins were sclerosed) in raving drug addict who was hallucinating and psychotic. She also helped deliver a baby–just not at the psychiatric hospital.</p>

<p>Prior to her EMT-I, she did weekly volunteering in the ER at a local private hospital for 6 months (and got exposed to meningitis when she helped during a lumbar puncture). </p>

<p>She also spent 3 months working in the ER as a full time EMT in a public hospital in Capetown, SA. (Only public hospital for the whole city. It was in the middle of the townships and served over 400,000 people. She did a homestay and lived in a colored neighborhood where she was the only white girl for about 5 sq miles.) While in SA, she also did rounds with the med students and interns (who mostly were from India, the Middle East and Australia).</p>

<p>Since she’s a climber, she’s also a volunteer EMT for our local mountain search & rescue. </p>

<p>For the past 2 years, D2 has been a volunteer in the neuro-rehab ward at the hospital adjacent to her college. She assists the patients with their various therapies (play/occupational/art/etc) and has been allowed to sit on the weekly dept planning meetings with the therapists, the neurologists and the med students doing their neurology rotations. </p>

<p>Besides that D2 works with special needs /emotionally troubled young teenagers as a therapeutic mentor/big sister–she’s been doing that since high school. </p>

<p>D2 also holds a a wilderness first aid rating (because she and a friend hiked the John Muir Trail this summer and getting certified in wilderness first aid was part of the deal to get the parents to sign off on letting 2 19 year old girls do a 230 mile wilderness trip by themselves). She will likely get her EMT-B this summer so she can work as an EMT in Yellowstone next summer.</p>

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<p>^^^^^^^^But other than that, not much, huh? Jeebus. Compared to that ^^^^^^^ uhhh…mine drove past the hospital a couple of times. ;)</p>

<p>She did a summer at the local hospital between HS and UG where she got the idea for a service project she continued to work on in college. In college she volunteered at the county hospital maybe 3-5 hours a week all 4 years. She had about 6 50 hr weeks one summer of extensive shadowing of 3 docs (switching back and forth). Saw lots of surgeries. Lots of procedures. Had access everywhere. Was very hands-on. Just wonderful experiences. I know some places have more restrictions. Here is not one of those places. ;)</p>

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<p>Side question, on behalf of a friend: what’s the recommended “safety” plan if your state doesn’t have an in-state med school, public OR private? (Is this true for anywhere else other than DE?) I’m considering the same issue myself wrt law, since DE also has no public law school and only one private.</p>