What does it take to NOT get in to Medical School?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I was looking at statistics for medical school admissions, and after noticing that more than half of all applicants get rejected from every single medical school they apply to, I was wondering what the actual pool of applicants looks like.</p>

<p>I know that people who get in to medical school generally have a GPA of over 3.7, a high MCAT, and good research and volunteer experience.</p>

<p>However, what kinds of stats do the people who get rejected have? Is it generally just people with GPAs of around 3.6 or so who applied just to see if they get in? Could the 60% of people who don't get in be the people who applied to medical school as an afterthought? If someone spends their four years of undergrad as a pre-med right from the beginning, do they really have a lot to fear?</p>

<p>Any insight, opinions, or personal experience would be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>yeah, great question, can somebody answer this?!</p>

3

<p>Not-so-cool personality.....</p>

<p>There are many people who have good stats (3.7+, 32+) and extracurriculars, but very few of them have the personality to rock the interview.</p>

4

<p>Things that could break you include:</p>

<p>1) Lying about something on your application. This is as bad as it gets, as far as I'm concerned, because your acceptance or your diploma could be rescinded at any time.</p>

<p>2) Poor essays. Many schools have an essay on their secondary that basically asks, "So, why do you want to come to our school in particular?" An unsatisfactory answer could spell trouble for your application.</p>

<p>3) Poor interview skills. You could have great stats, but if you come across as socially inept, insensitive, or make inappropriate comments, it'll be a problem.</p>

<p>4) Bad application timing. If you apply late and therefore interview late, even if your stats are fabulous, you'll find it much harder to get a spot simply because so many spots have been taken already.</p>

<p>5) Stats that don't match the average for the school. It's not hard to understand why someone with a 3.5 GPA and a 31 MCAT score doesn't get into Harvard. I personally believe the converse can be true, as well - someone with a 3.8 GPA and a 38 MCAT score may find it hard to get an interview at places like Drexel or Temple because the adcom just doesn't believe the applicant will actually choose to attend, when all is said and done.</p>

<p>6) Applying to too few schools. Getting admitted into medical school is a bit of a crapshoot - you're unlikely to be admitted to every school you interview at, If you only interview at 2 or 3 places, your chances of getting in anywhere are worse than someone who interviewed at 9 or 10.</p>

<p>7) Being a bad advocate for yourself. If you end up on a waitlist somewhere and decide to do nothing about it, your chances for eventually getting in are less than those of someone who proactively contacts the school to make the adcom aware of their undimished interest in the school and to regularly update their application with their latest and greatest accomplishments.</p>

5

<p>
[quote]
I personally believe the converse can be true, as well - someone with a 3.8 GPA and a 38 MCAT score may find it hard to get an interview at places like Drexel or Temple because the adcom just doesn't believe the applicant will actually choose to attend, when all is said and done.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm sure our medical school has people with those boards, so I highly doubt one would be turned away for seeming overqualified.</p>

6

<p>I don't really understand how med schools give out interviews sometimes. Yes, you'll find 3.8/38's who interviewed at Drexel but you'll also find people with those stats who didn't even get an interview, muchless an acceptance. I had those kinds of stats and wasn't offered an interview at Drexel. And during my Columbia interview, we were talking about the med school application process and it turns out just about everyone in the interview group had been rejected by BU without an interview. So, it's hard to understand sometimes.</p>

7

<p>Hm. I suspect we're dodging around the question a little bit. I'm gonna rephrase the questions a little bit, just to make sure we're really getting at the question.</p>

<p>Of people who enter college as premeds, about how many of them eventually become medical students?
Probably around 10% or so. We know that about half of the kids who take the MCAT end up not bothering to apply, and that more than half of all applicants get rejected everywhere. So that leaves us with only 25% of the kids, but don't forget that those are already the kids who have made it through physics, organic chemistry, etc. The students who don't survive those (or find something else they like better) are at least half of the premed pool, so we're probably looking at about 10-12% or so.</p>

<p>Of the students who survive, are most of them rejected because of numbers?
I think so. We know that the national average among all applicants is an MCAT score of about 27 to 28, while the national average among all admits is around 31 or so. So the average among rejects is probably around 26 or so, I suspect. Similarly, look at their BCPM GPA's: accepteds have about 3.52, while overall applicants have 3.30. Rejects, then, might average something like a 3.1.</p>

<p>AAMC:</a> FACTS Table 17: MCAT Scores and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools</p>

<p>So if my numbers are good, I'll get in?
No, that's definitely an overstatement. Shades has an excellent post #4 here, and this thread should be read, too:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/470818-horror-stories-what-we-can-learn.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Maybe all the rejects are late entries, so if I'm here early, my odds are better?
I doubt it. There's no evidence to support this, not least because late entries are probably GPA-range candidates (or else why switch in?). If anything, I think it's the reverse.</p>

<p>Maybe all the rejects are doing stupid things?
Again, I doubt it. Most premeds are getting rejected on the numbers, from what it looks like. And that doesn't mean they're doing stupid things. College is hard. Science classes are tough. The MCAT is a difficult exam. Getting a 27 and a 3.3 doesn't make you a screwup or an idiot -- actually, it makes you a very bright human being in absolute standards, but medical school asks for more than that.</p>

<p>To say the same thing in reverse: just because you're bright and diligent doesn't mean you will get "good" numbers.</p>

<p>Is a 27 a good score?
Yes, very, in an relative sense. Remember, any premed who takes the MCAT at all has already survived his prerequisite classes, which include a lot of very tough classes. To score a 27 -- I think that's around the 65th percentile -- means you're beating an awful lot of pretty bright kids already.</p>

<p>On the other hand, absolutely speaking, it's hard for a 27 to get into med school, which is the purpose of the MCAT. The point is it's impressive, but often not impressive enough for what these kids were hoping.</p>

<p>So the rejected kids include a lot of kids who aren't stupid and aren't lazy?
That's exactly right.</p>

<p>So... I'm feeling kind of scared now.
Well, in some ways that's appropriate. The odds are pretty low. But that shouldn't scare you. For one thing, there's a lot of great jobs out there that a lot of freshmen don't even know about. High schoolers all think their options are medicine, law, and some generic ideal of "business." And, of course, the vast majority of jobs out there are not one of those three things. So there's a lot of room for personal growth, too.</p>

<p>Yeah, but I want to help people.
Well, all jobs help people. After all, nobody would give you money if they didn't feel helped. But if you specifically want to help sick people, the allied health professions are always in a dramatic labor shortage. The world is desperate for graduates of nursing, physician assistant, physical therapy, optometry, dentistry, audiology, social work, psychology, pharmacy, medical research, and many, many other such programs. The money is good; the hours and stresses are a lot lower than those in medicine; and you usually get a lot more time to spend with your patients.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
I don't really understand how med schools give out interviews sometimes. Yes, you'll find 3.8/38's who interviewed at Drexel but you'll also find people with those stats who didn't even get an interview, muchless an acceptance. I had those kinds of stats and wasn't offered an interview at Drexel. And during my Columbia interview, we were talking about the med school application process and it turns out just about everyone in the interview group had been rejected by BU without an interview. So, it's hard to understand sometimes.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I dont go to Drexel.</p>

9

<p>I think part of the reason that it seems so random is because of the sheer number of applications that each medical school gets. They can afford to decline to interview someone with amazing stats (maybe many people with amazing stats) for essentially whatever reasons they choose to, and anyone who isn't in the admissions department wouldn't have any idea what's going on.</p>

<p>Since it was brought up, isn't Drexel the school to which something like 1 out of 3 medical school applicant applies? When you've got that many more applications than you have places in your class, there are always going to be people who would be wonderful doctors who aren't going to get interviewed. There's just not that much time.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
Yeah, but I want to help people.
Well, all jobs help people.

[/quote]
lol........</p>

11

<p>i just read somewhere that someone went for a group interview and did poorly because all the others were prepared for questions, and so had answers in order. how does one find out the questions they're going to ask?</p>

12

<p>try studentdoctor...they're pretty good. Also, a lot of pre-med/how to get into medical school books will give you websites/questions that are common...</p>

13

<p>With that said, this is not necessary in the least, and the other students were almost certainly not prepared with an exact list of the questions. One should be able to improvise considerably, and in fact the other students would have had to improvise as well. They might have had some idea, but they wouldn't have known exactly what to expect and would have been surprised by at least a couple of the questions.</p>

<p>Besides that, you're not in competition with the other interviewees anyway. So their preparation might have been a little embarrassing, but it wouldn't have CAUSED the person to do poorly.</p>

14

<p>Interview</a> Feedback: Allopathic Medical Schools</p>

<p>for some schools this resource is really great but i agree with BDM's improvise comment. you have to be quick on your feet and be prepared for anything.</p>

<p>i didn't have any group interviews though so i dont know about the specific situation you are talking about</p>

15

<p>Many questions are asking the same thing only in different words. So, it's good to have an answer for each type of question rather than for any specific questions.</p>

<p>I only had one group interview. Despite the fact there were a lot of ethics questions in the SDN Interview Feedback for the school, only 1 ethics question was asked in our group interview and it was not directed at me. Sometimes they ask strange questions indeed: they asked one person what her favorite movie was, then they asked the next person what her favorite band was, and when they got to me they asked me some random question about the secretary general of the UN. At one point, they also asked me 3 questions in a row which was also strange. In general, med school interviews are not stressful.</p>

16

<p>How about "What does it take to NOT get in to Medical School with 4.0, very high MCAT, lots of meidcally related EC's (shadow, various volunteering, reserach), leadership experiences, good interview skills that have been tested many times, minors that show deep interests in unrelated and related fields?</p>

17

<p>Late application, poor essays, bad recommendations, criminal convictions, ethical lapses noted on your transcript...</p>

18

<ol>
<li>Cheating/academic disciplinary action noted on transcript</li>
<li>Felonies and serious misdemeanors </li>
<li>Lying about any part of your application and getting caught</li>
<li>A bad recommendation letter</li>
</ol>

<h1>4 is probably the most common. I don't know why some professors agree to write a LOR only to write a negative one. But, when asking for a recommendation letter, it's very important to ask if they can write you a POSITIVE recommendation letter.</h1>

19

<p>
[quote]
I don't know why some professors agree to write a LOR only to write a negative one. But, when asking for a recommendation letter, it's very important to ask if they can write you a POSITIVE recommendation letter.

[/quote]
Probably because some people can be really evil. The truly evil profs will say that they can write a positive letter and then give you a bad one.</p>

20

<p>omg, how do u know if a prof will write a bad lor? u can't screen it. is that uncommon i.e. a prof agreeing to write a lor but writing a negative one?</p>