<p>Medical schools interview the strongest applicants first. Those may or may not be from top colleges.</p>
<p>You’re wrong. On a number of levels:</p>
<p>1) Timing: Med schools essentially have rolling admissions, so if you apply early, and you’re stats are good enough for an interview, then your interview will be early in the year. It’s not like they’re going to hold your application until every single last “top school” applicant gets their application in.</p>
<p>2) That a top school makes up for a poor application: if you’re a better applicant, then you are a better applicant. PERIOD. </p>
<p>3) The importance of the interview. As BDM has mentioned in other threads, some schools throw out all the stats and the interview is all that matters while others interview everyone and take the whole picture, while other schools interview just to make sure that you aren’t a psycho. So in some cases, even under your incorrect assumptions, you’d get an interview regardless.</p>
<p>4) The assumption that every medical school has a ton of “top school” applicants. Sure, some schools have huge numbers of top school applicants. But the applicant profile for every school varies, based on geography, reputation, and any number of other factors. Sure every school has somebody that comes from HPYS. But at some medical schools, there are enough applicants from those types of schools to fill a class. But other schools might have 30-40 applicants out of 800 or 1000 from those schools. </p>
<p>5) Applicants from the top schools can only go to one school. You have to remember that medical schools have to interview a lot of people. Each school has three options with their interviewees - reject them, waitlist them, accept them, and applicants in each of those categories may get accepted to other schools. </p>
<p>6) The importance of secondary applications. This goes back to the fact of being just a better applicant. Depending on how important the essays are for a certain school, those essays and other facts on the secondary, you can easily be considered a better applicant than someone from a top school, even if they have better stats than you.</p>
<p>You really need to get over your inferiority complex about going to a state school. It’s really a non-issue.</p>
<p>Students from top colleges get into med school at a high rate not because they went to top colleges, but because they were top students in high school and continue that in college. People with high SAT 1 and 2 scores tend to get high MCATs. Med schools do not selectively favor the top colleges. They do favor high grades and test scores, and the top colleges have lots of students like this.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure than most doctors went to state universities for undergrad.</p>
<p>good stuff guys, but why doesn’t everyone just send apps to at least 1 lower-tier med school, in order to have a higher chance of at the minimum going to school the next yr?</p>
<p>Most people do. Only a few are delusional enough to only apply to top tiers.</p>
<p>The problem is that admissions at every med school is so competitive, simply applying to one low tier school is not enough (unless that school is your state school). I applied to Drexel, Jefferson, etc. and haven’t received any interview invites from those schools. </p>
<p>As I have said already, you have 40,000 applicants for 17,000 spots. You can’t guarantee everyone a spot. You can’t even give half of everyone a spot. There has to be people who get shut out.</p>
<p>i think i’ve also heard (maybe on CC) that if your stats are way above a school’s averages, then the may reject you b/c it thinks that you’ll end up matriculating to another school? is this technically fair/unfair?</p>
<p>It’s probably unfair, but there’s nothing you can do.</p>
<p>Isn’t that what a waitlist is for?</p>
<p>A school like GWU gets 13,000 applicants for 170 spots. They interview 1000, accept 350, and waitlist the rest. Out of those 13,000 applicants, you can bet many many will have high stats. GWU’s avg’s are only 3.6, 30 so it’s not inconceivable that 4000 or more will have better averages than those. GWU can’t afford to interview all 4000 (like I said, they only interview 1000 a year). So, they choose people who they think have a high probability of coming. In fact, they’ll probably give many of their interview slots to people with LOWER than a 3.6/30 average. </p>
<p>A few do slip through though. I had a terrible interview at GWU where the interviewer spent the entire time trying to prove that I was using it as a safety school. Consequently, I got put on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Do most schools waitlist everyone whom they interview but do not accept, or does the policy vary widely? Stanford is the only place I’ve seen where that is the stated policy (which makes sense because they interview so few), and I see numerous mdapplicants entries that are rejected post-interview from places rather than waitlisted (WUSTL stands out, thought they interview a ton so that makes sense too I guess).</p>
<p>Most schools waitlist everyone (or at least most people) who interview but are not accepted.</p>
<p>Some schools do give out a fair number of post-interview rejections (JHU, WashU, etc.). But, I think most schools do not follow this. </p>
<p>Michigan said that they only reject around 8 people (out of 800 interviewed). I guess you’d have to say something racist or seem totally disinterested at some schools to get rejected.</p>
<p>I feel okay explaining this to phillySASer08 since he’s applying right now.</p>
<p>But, this is kinda what I meant when I said in another thread that some of you HSers get too caught up with the logistics of applying. I feel like sometimes you guys have no idea what I’m talking about when I throw around these numbers. If you’re in HS, worry about getting good grades. Don’t worry about the games schools play.</p>
<p>One thing I found in my two interviews…and in talking to other people about interview policies at other places, is that how schools go about their admissions decisions varies widely. Some are very, very open about the process, tell you exactly what will happen, and what the results will be and how soon you’ll know, while others are very secretive and keep you in the dark. </p>
<p>The one school I interviewed at was very open as said they only put people on the waitlist that they were willing to have come to their school. They didn’t interview that many, but knew from their past experience that for a class of 175, they needed a waitlist that ran about 225. They rarely made it past 120 on the waitlist, when filling spots, but wanted to make sure they weren’t ever in a position where they would either not fill their class or be in the awkward situation of sending a new letter to someone they had already rejected. Of course, they also told you exactly where you were on the waitlist (I had a buddy who was #102…very nerve wracking being right on the border - he had to wait until July 18th -about a week before classes started- before finally getting a letter saying he wouldn’t be accepted in that class).</p>
<p>My medical school however was less open. They only told you that you were in a quartile on the waiting list. So you might be told you were second quartile, but you had no idea if you were close to the top 25% or closer to the middle of the pack.</p>
<p>Either way, med schools need to waitlist a significant number of interviewees. Because med school classes are so small, it’s a big burden for med schools to overenroll by even 9 or 10 people. So, med schools try to avoid that. To do that, they use the waitlist extensively (similar to what WashU does w/ undergrad admissions). It’s not uncommon to see a med school enroll 1/4-1/2 of its matriculating class from the waitlist.</p>
<p>I’m curious and have a question for Curmudgeon since he is from Texas. (others with knowledge feel free to chime in as well!) I have heard anecdotally that Texas is the place to attend medical school because it is so inexpensive for in-state residents. If one works there for a year after undergrad and then applies to med school, are they considered in-state residents and therefore pay the lesser tuition?
After all, who know/even cares where their doctor went to med school?</p>
<p>1.) I very nearly attended medical school in Texas.</p>
<p>I would have had to purchase a residence – most likely a condo – during my first year of medical school, lived there personally for a year, and subsequent to that I would have qualified for in-state tuition.</p>
<p>2.) Even out-of-state tuition is pretty cheap at some Texas medical schools.</p>
<p>3.) It is certainly true that the prestige of your medical school doesn’t matter much for private practice physicians.</p>
<p>4.) Texas has two of the most selective medical schools in the United States.</p>
<p>5.) The main advantage to Texas residency is for admissions, not just cost of tuition. Texas has plenty of medical schools, two of which are extremely high-powered research institutions for those who are intending to pursue academic careers.</p>
<p>r-mamma, as my D is a Texas resident, I’ll defer to bdm’s greater knowledge of how to achieve resident status. </p>
<p>As to the other part of your question, I think that Texas has a great wealth of quality medical schools, with all but one being state schools. I have toured one of the schools not ranked as highly and from my admittedly naive viewpoint, it was fantastic. Clean, modern, with students who were both impressive and involved. Looked pretty good to me.</p>
<p>General thoughts: Just do things normally!</p>
<p>Go to the best undergrad you can get into and can afford, while remembering that “best” doesn’t mean “highest ranked in US News.”</p>
<p>Choose any academic major you like. English, sociology, biology, doesn’t matter. But don’t major in something vocational.</p>
<p>Take normal courseloads. Don’t withdraw from courses if you can help it.</p>
<p>Take your courses at your home school unless you want to study abroad. Don’t take summer courses, don’t take community college courses, don’t take courses at an easier school near your parents’ house.</p>
<p>Study hard for a couple months for the MCAT, but don’t put your life on hold for it. Hold down a full time summer job, or a normal courseload while you study.</p>
<p>Get clinical experience with patient contact and physician contact.</p>
<p>If you want to go to a school that values research, you have to do research. Something medically oriented is nice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean science.</p>
<p>Don’t apply if you don’t think you’re a good candidate. If you want to take a year off and apply then, do that.</p>
<p>Apply broadly to a whole spectrum of schools: some where your MCAT is a little higher than their mean, some where it’s about the same, and some where it’s a little low. If you can’t find any schools where it’s about the same, you should not be applying to medical school.</p>
<p>When is “early”? When is the soonest one can apply?</p>
<p>Also, what advice would you offer if the student is a resident of the state where she began UG school- say CA, with 5 difficult med schools- so good reputations, but difficult admissions, yet Mom has moved to a new state with 1 highly ranked med school to cover 5 surrounding states. Schools in both states are well-ranked, should D stay a resident of her state or become a resident of my state- she has been doing summer school, so over the next year coupd shape her residency wherever she determined to do so.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Thanks, curm, for starting this new thread</p>
<p>Also, where is the best list of rankings to make sure the lfinal app list includes some “lower” schools- since joining this board, I have tried to steer away from college rankings!</p>