My son (in-state, Columbia) was waitlisted. Does anyone know about past trends regarding the waitlist? Do students find out in April or later on? Does the in-state waitlist move a lot each year?
Umkcdad42 - can you let’s us know your son’s ACT/GPA - I am planning on applying next year and am trying to get an idea of minimum score requirements in-state. Thx.
Accepted, in-state
Can someone tell me what the holiday breaks look like in years 1-2 vs. 3-6?
@moirawright - During 1st and 2nd year you get regular breaks like TG/X-mas/SpringBreak but you do have to take 8 week summer classes where you get 2 to 3 weeks for break after Spring semester and before fall semester;
For years 3 to 6, you will be allowed to take one month off every year based on your assigned schedule. The other 11 months you have to be doing work towards your MD degree.
@UMKCDad42, here is my post on the waitlist: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20476077/#Comment_20476077. That process will start after May 1st. Here is how it worked last year: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19656464/#Comment_19656464
@moirawright, you can see the holiday break schedule each year here: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/sa/MD_Handbook_2016-2017.pdf (“Vacation Time” on Page 62)
@Roentgen thanks for those links. In general (obviously no one will know the specific numbers), does the waitlist in-state move a lot from year to year in your experience/observations from this thread?
@umkcdad42 i was told yes, in general there is noticeable movement come after May 1
@umkcdad42, from my experience/observations on the thread, there definitely have been cases where someone who was in-state was able to get off of the waitlist and even off of the out-of-state waitlist, as well. In terms of how much of a degree there is movement from a particular waitlist pool, it’s really hard to even have a general idea from CC quite honestly, bc of reporting bias - not everyone who gets into the program off of the waitlist will come to this thread on CC to report it. We can only go by anecdote from those who take the time to post and say they got off the waitlist, although I hope if people do get off the waitlist, they do take the time to post it here on the thread to help future students. It also fluctuates so much even from year to year, because the reasons that students have to not do this specific combined program are more individual specific and are valid reasons, especially if you have very stellar undergraduate options with really great financial aid that isn’t all loan based. I realize that probably doesn’t help much, in terms of waiting for after May 1st, but thought I would give as much information that I could.
My son got waitlisted in regionals, we found out two more girls are waitlisted from Oklahoma, hoping something will go right for him. Even though he has scholarship in other universities, this is the only 6 yr he interviewed. And we are looking forward to hear from them. All the information in this board helps, wondering if someone can create group for waitlisted candidates by region and see what are the statistics of getting accepted from waitlist in terms of in state out of state and regionals.
Please let us know who are Accepted and NOT GOING to UMKC by pool (In-state, Regional, OOS).
I think it will help greatly for waitlisted students =D>
Thanks for bringing that up, somehow looks like not all students are using this thread. It will be of tremendous help.
Can anyone talk about the quality of residencies students at UMKC obtain? Is it possible to get accepted into a prestigious residency in say, General Surgery, coming out of UMKC’s School of Medicine? I’ve looked at the match lists and they seem to be relatively decent.
@potatopeel44 - check out UMKC match lists at http://med.umkc.edu/sa/match-day-2017/
@potatopeel44, it depends how you define “prestigious”. General Surgery is usually not considered a highly competitive specialty by itself (top tier programs are a different story but that’s the case for all specialties), although it is increasing because of the match crunch in terms of number of residency positions, and number of med school graduates. Overall, most of our graduates don’t tend to veer towards Surgery or Surgical subspecialties, as our medical school tends to really emphasize Internal Medicine (a lot) and we don’t have many of the surgical specialties (whether thru a fellowship or thru a residency) in-house: Neurosurgery, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Surgical Oncology, etc. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it gets a lot harder and you’re very much dependent on outside institutions.
I’m still working on my analysis of this year’s match list, but you can see mine for last year’s match list in the meantime here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20422975/#Comment_20422975
@potatopeel44 most would not consider gen surg overall as a “prestigious” residency as @Roentgen pointed out. In medicine, prestige tends to be associated with degree of competition. There will be prestigious programs within each specialty.
Typically speaking, when grads refer to the “prestigious” specialties they are thinking about programs like Derm at NYU or Miami, Plastics @ UCLA or Rad Onc @ MSKCC or MDAnderson to name a few. You can absolutely get into these programs from UMKC but as was pointed out, not having an inhouse department/residency at your home institution means you have to rely on away electives.
@sampil we have many students (approx 10% of the incoming class) from the 3 pools who will not be accepting UMKC’s offer. There will definitely be movement come May 1. Best Wishes!
Thank you so much for your great post, @DoctorTo!! The one clarification I would add to your post, at least from a UMKC standpoint, is that if we do match people into very competitive specialties like Derm, Plastics, or Rad Onc (this is a reflection of more and more 6 year BA/MD students willing to take a year off from medical school, postponing graduation, to do a year of research in order to get more research publications, to try to increase their chances of matching), it usually will not be at top-tier level training programs, like NYU/Miami for Derm or Memorial Sloan-Kettering/MD Anderson Cancer Center for Rad Onc, although even just matching into those specialties is competitive enough. As you mentioned, our students would be much more dependent on away rotations (in which these specialties are so competitive that having a connection longer than a 1 month away rotation may be necessary) and networking/exposure thru outside institutions during the medical school years, which tends to be harder to do. The closest to UMKC is the University of Kansas School of Medicine which views our students as visiting students (which we are).
Thank you for giving statistics from those who used the Advisor Prep program!
That’s good to know.
@Roentgen my pleasure and thank you for clarifying. I agree any residency program from those specialties is competitive and there is a benefit to having a home program. Without a home program, establishing connections and networks at surrounding institutions with those programs early on is an important consideration! good luck ya’ll.
Thanks for the responses! I’ve been reading up on pages and pages of this thread from previous years and thanks for all of the info. It’s been really helpful in preparing my mindset going into the program. Some other questions:
I’ve been reading up on the choices of majors and I know others in the thread have stated that going for the Biology degree messes up the schedule later on in the program. I really have no preference for any of the three majors so can anyone just speak to the practical uses of each major? Are biology and chemistry of any help going into further SOM classes? If there is no difference, should I just do the BLA because its the easiest? I’ve gotten a 5 on the Chem AP so I’ll be able to opt out of the 2 first gen chem courses, if that’s of any help. Thanks in advance.