<p>^^^</p>
<p>Right…I wasn’t referring to UChi. I didn’t realize that was the school that BigredDawgie was referring to. I thought he was talking in general terms of tippy top stats kids getting rejections.</p>
<p>Re: the essay score. I’m wondering if it’s possible that the grades for one of his essays weren’t included or something. Is there a way to find out?</p>
<p>haha sorry for the confusion. i was referring to that school only.</p>
<p>Ok…dumb question (and the answer is probably “no”), should my son address that M score in any way? Or should he just let his essays speak for themselves? (I thinking that the latter is the answer.)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Yup. That’s a bingo. </p>
<p>edit: Write good essays. Other than that , blow it off. If asked about it, say you must have been drunk. ;)</p>
<p>Yep, do not draw attention to the negative, only present the positive.</p>
<p>Received scores last Tuesday-10PS 13 V 14 B and a “Q” for writing</p>
<p>gpa science and overall both 3.93</p>
<p>would appreciate suggestions on where to apply other than RWJ- (NJ state school) thanks</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>Interests? (Academic medicine? Primary care? Rural medicine? Dual degree program?)</p>
<p>Regional preferences? (NE? Mid-Atlantic? Midwest? Southeast? Rocky Mtns? West Coast?) Any regions she won’t consider?</p>
<p>Location preferences? (Major big city? Smaller city?) Any cities she won’t consider?</p>
<p>Curricular preferences? (Early clinical exposure/PBL? Traditional 2+2 program?)</p>
<p>How does she feel about religiously affiliated medical schools? </p>
<p>What kind of atmosphere/ vibe/ student body is she looking for?</p>
<p>Any financial restrictions?</p>
<p>deb, I would say she should apply to to 40 schools in the east or midwest (say, choose 22 out of these 40 schools). 37/3.93 is likely good enough for a top med school in Texas also. (DS’s stats are quite similar to your Ds, with a couple of points higher on MCAT.)</p>
<p>If ECs are also good, be careful about the time commitment and travel expenses for the interview though. I think it is better not to apply to a med school that would cost you too much time and money.</p>
<p>Whether or not to apply to a super-reach med school is the quality of ECs (not the stats), as stats is in general a qualifier but not a distinguishing factor for a selected few super-picky schools (A few of these super-picky med schools that may put more emphasis on non-stats factors: Mayo, Chicago, H, UCSF, Stanford – heck, maybe any med school in Cal if you are not a resident there.)</p>
<p>Compared to WOWmom’s very sound suggestion, mine looks like “shooting randomly at the dart.” LOL. I am most concerned about the potential side-effect caused by “med school’s yield management”, which is much more noticeable in the med school admission cycle than in the college application cycle. Many med schools seem to be eager to protect their yield (and to avoid too much hassle at the last minute as the size of their admission staff (maybe the admission-related job is their sideline job, not their main job after the application cycle is over) is tiny compared to that of college) as long as they can get good enough students – good enough in stats and ECs. A good mindset for an applicant early in the application cycle is that you are likely not that “special” in the eyes of many of these med schools. This is because they have a quite large pool of qualified applicants to choose from. They are not hunting for a future potential Nobel-prize winner like in a science community. They are hunting for a well-rounded, overall speaking good enough applicant.)</p>
<p>not into a general practice- maybe some kind of surgical path, not into rural medicine or a dual degree (md/phd)</p>
<p>from NJ so anything in the DC to Boston corridor is most likely, also looking at Emory b/c it’s warm- she’s in cleveland now so that kind of weather is harsh- BUT is still applying to Case since it’s a great school.
prob would do well in a non heavy lecture curriculum- more of a learn by doing type- studying the text and relies less on the class time- at least at college level</p>
<p>Not into a religious atmsophere like a Loma Linda- will be applying to Einstein</p>
<p>D isn’t overly competitive- doesn’t like to do well at others’ expense but doesn’t like group projects when some don’t carry their weight- she’s confident she can do well wherever she goes-i’m the one who wonders if you want to be somewhere where your peers are in the top percentiles- that’s just me.</p>
<p>Finances no problem- will get through with very little debt- have saved enough for at last 3 years worth of COA.</p>
<p>planning on applying to about 15 schools- prob not outside of the East and Southeast and her UG school Case Western</p>
<p>^ Definitely have a good chance at Case Western but not necessarily the one that starts with the name Cleveland where the tuition is free. Hmm…Case is not that far from Northwestern or Chicago or Michigan. So (s)he may score some points in the regional bias factor there. Chicago is famous for giving you a very fast response, esp. rejection. Some think it is goo while others think is bad to have such aresult early in the application cycle.</p>
<p>Since you are from the east,some med schools may have some doubt on whether you will attend their school if you are admitted there (you may fare better if you live in the region where the med school is.) This is a dicey issue.</p>
<p>Be prepared that some med schools may ask you where else you have interviewed. Some even claimed that the timing or order of getting invites/interview trips/acceptances may have some effect on your future interview invites or acceptance. You may be given a long “lecture” about why you should not apply to such-and-such schools or “convince me that you think our school is better than the other” (instead of asking your achievement/qualification) using your precious interview time, if they do not hear what they like to hear. (The best answer is that I only apply to your school. To apply to a med school is somewhat like finding/pursuing your future spouse. She or he would love to hear that your love interest is only her/him. She or he would not appreciate that you also show slight love interest in someone else, especially those who have equal or even better “quality” than her/him. This is not jealousy issue. This is a yield management issue.</p>
<p>not interested in the cleve clinic med school- too much research focused</p>
<p>Dartmouth
Yale
Pitt
Einstein
Mt Sinai
NYU
Rochester
Jefferson
Temple (all new facilities at the med school)
UVA
Duke</p>
<p>My subscription to US News just expired (and I’m not going to renew it til I have D2’s MCAT score) so I’m trying to remember.</p>
<p>Deb09 mentioned that she prefers a school that is not too research focused. YSM is research focused! (due to its thesis requirement and many are therefore doing 5th research year, putting the clinical training/residency application temporarily on hold. One of their goals is to produce a doctor who has more training as a medical scientist, thus more research oriented rather than grade oriented (more like a PhD program in this sense. A PhD student generally could not care less about the grades given by the professors as long as they could pass the qualify exams and they do care about producing results in their research.)</p>
<p>Pitts seems to be quite research focused as well.</p>
<p>Deb09 mentioned the surgical path. One school seems to be quite focused on that: Columbia. This school even includes the “surgeon” in its name.</p>
<p>I always wonder that, if a student wants to be trained as a practicing doctor as a specialist, what kind of med school should (s)he attend? The list from US News & Report won’t help much. (Well…for most applicants, they go to a school they are admitted. The school chooses them, not the other way around. But fortunately, the disparity of quality among med schools is not as widely spread as UG. So for many, any one is good.)</p>
<p>BTW, Cleveland Clinic does not accept with higher stats than Case. Not sure what is going on, but it almost feels that they talk to each other deciding which candidate belong to which. However, there are some applicants who are accepted at both. Cleveland Clinic is free, but there are no lectures, so it is not fo everybody, plus there are only 30 spots.</p>
<p>When it was MCP-Hahnemann School of Medicine (now Drexel University School of Medicine) I was one of about the 10% of the entering class that chose the Program for Integrated (PIL) track, which is a case based, hands on, small discussion group with faculty facilitater based curriculum where there is a lot of independent reading but no required lectures. The program is intense (clinical rotation instead of vacation beteen first and second year) but during our 3’rd year clinical rotations taken at various hospitals with students from other medical schools in Philadelphia (Temple, Jefferson, UPenn and PCOM, those of us who completed the PIL program were clearly ahead of the students not only from our own school but the other medical schools, which were all lecture based, as well when we hit the floors. </p>
<p>I am not sure if Drexel has continued the PIL program since it had to be very resource intensive and expensive to operate compared to a lecture based curriculums.</p>
<p>^^Drexel has continued the PIL program. It was available when D1 was applying for the 2010-2011 cycle. It was one of the reasons she applied to Drexel.</p>
<p>I had similar stats to you son. 3.95 BCPM and reg GPA with a 33M MCAT (12, 11, 10). I had good clinical experiences with shadowing and as an EMT, and had 2 years of paid research. My other main EC was being captain of a collegiate team which was nationally competitive and that was pretty much it.</p>
<p>I applied to around 20 schools and narrowed my final choice to UMD (state school), Georgetown (school I will be attending), and Vandy.</p>
<p>If your son has decent ECs he should be competitive at schools like Vandy and Duke. Make sure to apply to all of your state schools as a safety.</p>
<p>Deb!!! Congrats to your child on the awesome MCAT…super-dee-duper!!! </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I think this is his list</p>
<p>ok…</p>
<p>UAB
USA
GWU
Tulane
Vandy
Emory
Drexel
Temple
NYU
Tufts
BU
Albany
Hofstra
Cornell
USC…he realized that he does have the Humanities, but this is very much a reach because of all the Calif kids. </p>
<p>He also has a couple of OOS publics that I told him told take OOS kids, but the LizzieM chart is showing OOS kids, so I can’t seem to convince him. Maybe the OOS kids are from neighboring states that have agreements??? </p>
<p>Are we missing any other good possibilities?</p>