<p>Since your S may apply to one or more UTs, why not apply to more UTs.</p>
<p>The beauty of applying to most TMDSAS schools is: There is no secondary for some of these schools. Also, I would imagine it will take a shorter time to fly from your home town to any major city in Texas, than, say, upper-state NY.</p>
<p>My point is: If you put down one TMDSAS school, there is no harm to put in more, as it requires little additional efforts. (Probably not ones in the western Texas though, as they put a lot of emphasis on being “from the local area.”)</p>
<p>*Since your S may apply to one or more UTs, why not apply to more UTs.</p>
<p>The beauty of applying to most TMDSAS schools is: There is no secondary for some of these schools. Also, I would imagine it will take a shorter time to fly from your home town to any major city in Texas, than, say, upper-state NY.</p>
<p>My point is: If you put down one TMDSAS school, there is no harm to put in more, as it requires little additional efforts. (Probably not ones in the western Texas though, as they put a lot of emphasis on being “from the local area.”)*</p>
<p>So since Tufts and BU are, you guessed it, in Boston, many of the people who apply to one of the 3 Boston schools (BU, Tufts, Harvard) apply to all of them. Tufts and BU are kind of along the same lines as Georgetown and GW in that they appear friendly to the low 30s MCAT applicant (with avg MCAT around 32, 33) but actually are extraordinarily difficult to get into because of their extremely high numbers of applicants. If he’s not really in love with the NE or the programs those schools offer, I’d nix BU, Tufts, and GW because the odds are stacked against him even though he hits their average MCAT. (I personally kept Georgetown and BU because I liked Georgetown’s Jesuit philosophy and I have ties to BU.)</p>
<p>I added Drexel too, at the last minute, to have another school that “fit” my stats of 3.8/30. Looking back, there’s no way I would live in that part of Philly and their curriculum was nothing exciting (in my opinion). If he weren’t also interested in Temple, I’d say nix Drexel.</p>
<p>Otherwise, list looks great. 17 apps is quite a few, especially for a kid sitting as pretty as he is. Completing that many secondaries takes a lot of work, and I personally think fewer but higher quality applications is a better strategy. Many people on this board will suggest applying to >15 schools to pretty much guarantee an acceptance somewhere. I mostly took this advice (applied to 13), but in order to get to that number, I had to add schools I really didn’t think I’d go to (eg Drexel). If I were applying all over again, I’d apply to all my state schools and probably 7-10 others, for a total of 10-12, especially if I thought I was a good fit for my state school and would like to go there if accepted. After finishing like, 8 secondaries, I was so burnt out on the whole process that I doubt the rest of my applications were that great anyway.</p>
<p>I’m a Philadelphia native (and went to undergrad there) so if you have questions about the Philly schools feel free to ask. Temple ranks people for merit money based on GPA and MCAT, and I was offered $10/year to attend (which would bring your son down to IS tuition). CC housing can be expensive, but Jefferson offers housing and many Temple students live in Manayunk/Roxborough (~$500/month, compared to CC @ ~$1k/month). </p>
<p>Drexel students often live in CC as well - I have many friends that are M1s there or are attending in the fall. I personally am not a big fan of the school after my application experience, but my friends seem to like it there. Most are in the IFM curriculum, which is very lecture-heavy and leaves little time for enjoyment. PIL is a PBL-heavy curriculum for students that enjoy small group learning. Drexel offers a free shuttle to center city during the week. </p>
<p>I would not recommend applying to Penn with a 32 MCAT. They are a very numbers-heavy school, and even with a 4.0 his app will probably get overlooked. The students there seem very competitive, and I know that the professors are encouraged to focus on their research rather than teaching. One professor was chastised by his boss for receiving a teaching award - obviously he was not spending enough time writing grants!</p>
<p>I think the TX app is a great idea! $10 for each additional campus! WOW!</p>
<p>Son didn’t have BU, GW, Gtown, Jefferson, Tufts on his list…only Boston school was Harvard. He too thought the same as the above posters. Just too many applicants, numbers didn’t speak to him. Only applied to Wake becasue of waiver for fee app and it is within 1.5 hours of home. The facilities at Wake paled in comparison to Temple. H’s and Cornell’s had an edge over Temple and Mt. Sinai’s weren’t better, Michigan was huge.</p>
<p>His buddy at Penn turned down Wash U and Hopkins. Wash U just did not fit and Hopkins financial aid SUCKED. His other good friend is at Duke and she wishes she could trade with him at UNC, just for the tuition alone! (and the basketball!)</p>
<p>Son is at reunions, so unreachable for now. But as soon as he is back I’ll ask for any other ideas.</p>
<p>So happy about that MCAT!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Look at the keck app again. Some of those humanities classes can be filled with “other” classes…I think there is some elasticity. Seriously, if he would “love” to go there he might be able to add a class or two before he matriculates.</p>
<p>Secondary application. Some are thinly veiled profit centers. “Send us yo money. Reeeee-jected.” Elapsed time counted in single digit hours. ( I picture a med school-wide kegfest. ;)) Some are notoriously hideous. Vanderbilt was unappetizing to my D. Duke was just not gonna happen. Some are easy peasy.</p>
<p>^ I received my MD from MCP Hahnemann which is now Drexel University School of Medicine. The neighborhood around the Queen Lane Campus may not be Beverly Hills but of the four allopathic medical schools in Phildadelphia it is almost certainly in the safest location. Temple is located in North Philadelphia, a part of the city that would make most war zones seem safe, and UPenn borders on West Philadelphia which is as bad as North Philadelphia. Jefferson is downtown and reasonably safe during the day but you would not want to be there after dark. I lived in Narberth in the suburbs which is extremely safe and was not too bad of a commute to the Queen Lane campus. </p>
<p>Also, as far as programs go the Program for Integrated Learning (PIL) that I spent my first two years doing is/was fantastic and I would highly recommend it.</p>
<p>"How many of ya’ll have they done that to? "
One more is here. The one who was accepted to Feinberg (at Northwestern) later, the whole idea was to apply to both…but city of Chicago did not impress my suburban kid, oh, well, she is where she wanted to be back in HS, it is strange how it works at the end…</p>
<p>Kristin’s point in #44 is very important in general. Back in “my” day, BU and Tufts had similar average MCAT scores, but BU’s admissions percentage was much, much lower.</p>
<p>Essentially, I think we need to be looking for schools that match three quantitative criteria:
(1) No major OOS bias. Compare OOS interview/admission rates to IS.
(2) A reasonable admissions percentage.
(3) An average MCAT score between 30 and 34.</p>
<hr>
<p>While the writing section is not very important, an M might be bad enough to cause some problems. I don’t think any medical schools will veto him on that basis alone, but… they might.</p>
<p>Two essays are graded by each of two graders on a scale of 1-6; your score is totaled from 4-24 and then divided by 2 to give 2-12. It’s then translated onto a letter scale; 2=J, 3=K, and so on, until 12=T. Your son scored either 9 or 10 points over his four essays (again, two essays graded by two people each), averaging about a 2.5 or a 2.25.</p>
<p>I don’t know that this has any practical applications, except as a re-reminder of our usual advice to apply broadly and to make sure that his essays are grammatically sound.</p>
<p>I don’t know that this has any practical applications, except as a re-reminder of our usual advice to apply broadly and to make sure that his essays are grammatically sound.</p>
<p>Oh yes. His essays will be PERFECT. Not only will his older bro look them over (who is an amazing writer and copy editor), but we’ll all give them a “look-see.”</p>
<p>Again, I’m certain that his essays were written in a grammatically sound fashion. He’s absolutely dumb-struck about that score. The essay questions weren’t difficult or a challenge. He had amazing English Comp teachers at his private K-12, and tested well (11s, 12s) in his SAT and ACT essays and writing sections. His teachers were sticklers and made sure these kids could write a proper essay…none of this “throw a completion grade on the essay” stuff with this crowd. They went thru boxes of red pens. </p>
<p>I wonder if he just didn’t write enough. Studies have shown that these graders are biased towards longer essays regardless of content.</p>
<p>*^^^ I had friends with high gpa and 40 mcat get rejected
*</p>
<p>Just my opinion, but I wonder if some of these folks with super-stats are hurt by SOMs assuming that they’re being used as safeties? And, furthermore, if these folks are mostly only targetting the tippy top SOMs?</p>
<p><a href=“1”>I</a> No major OOS bias. Compare OOS interview/admission rates to IS.
(2) A reasonable admissions percentage.
(3) An average MCAT score between 30 and 34.*</p>
<p>What is considered to be a “reasonable admissions percentage”?</p>
<p>(I’m still scratching my head over that essay score. Seriously, this kid is a decent writer…not a “OMG you’re a Pulitzer writer”, but certainly a student who could get an A in any writing class.)</p>
<p>“Just my opinion, but I wonder if some of these folks with super-stats are hurt by SOMs assuming that they’re being used as safeties?”</p>
<p>-I do not think that U of Chicago believes that it is “safety” for some. They are looking for something that nobody was able to pinpoint yet. There are other schools like that. One is Cleveland Clinic Med. School (free, 30 spots), some of them are actually rejected at Case. Could not figure out this one either, except that maybe Case and Cleveland Clinic actually talking to each other and sorting applicants out.
The others are actually opposite. Norhtwestern usually accepts those accepted at Case, there is thread about it on SDN. I have impression that there are unique something going on at each school, something that we will never know…</p>
How many of ya’ll have they done that to?</p>