<p>Hi,</p>
<p>My son is in his second semester of college. He is planning to apply for med school. I have just been browsing the threads here and I keep seeing "..and for TX, you do this...". We are in Texas, so this caught my eye.</p>
<p>Do the med schools in Texas use a different "system" than the other 49 states?</p>
<p>Yah, they use the TMDAS application , while everyone uses AMCAS application. One difference is in gpa calculation. </p>
<p>The TMDAS application uses the following scale to calculate gpa:</p>
<p>A = 90+ = 4.0
B = 80-89 = 3.0
C = 70-79= 2.0</p>
<p>AMCAS uses the following scale:</p>
<p>A = 93+ = 4.0
A- = 90-93 = 3.7
B+ = 87-89 = 3.3
B = 83-87 = 3.0
B- = 80-83 = 2.7</p>
<p>The good thing is that if you go to a undergrad school that uses the AMCAS scale and you are applying to Texas schools using the TMDAS application, TMDAS application recalculates your gpa using their scale. So all A- and A’s are 4.0. All B+s, B-s, Bs are 3.0.</p>
<p>There are other important differences that aren’t spelled out in their info. Since Texas schools are all rolling admission, you want to have applications in FAR earlier than their published deadlines…meaning you want the Texas apps in as early in June as possible. For whatever reason, guys tend to be much worse about getting them in early than girls do, so don’t be afraid to push him to be finished no later than the second week of June, earlier if possible. The schools start offering interviews in late July/early August and start sending out pre-match offers during that time frame as well. </p>
<p>You have to rank your preferences and the lower ranked schools (UT-MB, UTSA, Texas Tech and A&M) won’t even offer interviews to candidates that they view as being over qualified based on their respective school profile…in other words if the GPA and MCAT are significantly higher than their averages they won’t offer an interview. BUT, you still should send apps to them…sounds crazy I know but that is the drill. In our case, my son was only offered interviews at Baylor, UTSW and UT-H.</p>
<p>If you have any more specific questions, feel free to PM me though there are several other Texas parents on here who have been through the process and can also be very helpful to you.</p>
<p>^^^ Woah, what? I didn’t know I had to rank schools when I apply. Is there some sort of strategy that you can use to figure out how to rank schools in order to maximize the number of interviews and acceptances? (I this would dependent on a student’s stats, ecs, lors). Can schools see how you ranked other schools in Texas?</p>
<p>you only rank for the match in feb. not for getting interviews</p>