@Vicky2019 True, the whole process is lengthy and tiring; I wish my son was interested in some other field other than med, I even tried to discourage him but he had made up his mind and wouldn’t budge
haha yeah. Keeping hope until I get a decision either way!
Lol, my parents forced me to apply bsmd
Penn State changed its interview dates 2 years back. Before that, their interviews were in February. Two years back, they moved it to Jan.
So, they have been among the first to interview.
But past two years, they have notified students in middle of Dec about interviews.
This year, they started notifying students within approx. 2 weeks of the application deadline.
The process in the past was something like this:
- Penn reviews and shortlists about 800 applications from the total number of applications
- They send those 800 to SKMC
- SKMC then shortlists 100-120 for interviews
- They send that list back to Penn
- Penn notifies students of their selection for interview or not.
I find it hard to believe they followed this process in the past two weeks.
For the BU portal, are the three required teacher recommendation letters not automatically added?
Did you guys only apply to bs/md too? I just applyed to 3 bs/md and will look for donation in india otherwise.
@Sooar78 If you only applied to 3 BS/MD’s you probably should look for alternatives. IMO carribean is better than india
@NoviceDad Please give advice to @Sooar78
Congrats and good luck to all kids who got PSU/SKMC interview. My D also received an email yesterday about getting selected for PSU/SKMC interview.
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@aspiringbsmd2021 , for BU, it takes them up to 2 weeks to add those recommendation letters to the portal. You should call them and confirm that they did receive the letters from your teachers. My D called them and they confirmed that they have received them and told her that it will be 2 weeks before they show up as received on the portal.
@Sooar78, I don’t understand when you say you will look for donation in India. What do you mean?
@rk1235rk Do you have any advice for me. I applied for 3 BS/MDs and am looking at india donation spots for backup. I might end up applying for 1 BS/DDS too.
IMO, just applying to 3 BS/MD is not such a good strategy. Most people suggest that you apply to 8-10 colleges to have some chance in getting into at least one. Also add some regular undergrad colleges in your list to apply.
In India you can buy a medical seat at a private medical college for 10,000 dollars. Afterwards you study for 5.5 years there and come back for U.S. residency. Looks like it might be better option than going through undergrad and the possibility of having to take gap years.
Why go through risk of getting low GPA or low Mcat when you can head directly to Indian medical schools.
I am not a expert in this field but if you are suggesting that you will get your medical degree from some college in India and try to get back to US for residency, I would suggest you do thorough research on this. I know it is very hard for IMGs to get residency in US and even if they get one, usually they are not such competitive residency. But if you are a US citizen, it might be a slight different story. But still, I would think US grads are preferred over foreign university grads (unless foreign university grads have very good USMLE scores and other ECs).
It’s also possible to get into top undergrads (T20s/Ivies) even if you don’t get into a BS/MD so make sure to apply to undergrads as well!
@rmsm99 @grtd2010 This is actually how the Penn State Admissions process works—I received a letter stating I wasn’t selected for the PMM program but admitted to the premed major. IIRC Penn State requires you to select pre-med as your major (or Bioengineering, but that might be Pitt.)
@CollegeAddict934 There was a definite lag between when admission letters (for undergrad) were sent out and when your status was updated in the portal—just check your portal every few weeks to see if it changes.
Do I have good chances at Penn State? My SAT is 1460 and my GPA as 3.57. My application also says under review.