<p>42 MCAT, 3.89 BCPM, 3.91 Overall, Dual-degree, full scholarship, clinical experience, research but he only get accepted to one place (his alma mater).</p>
<p>Are the only variables the essays, interview and letter of recommendation?</p>
<p>He did his undergrad in 3 years. Could that be it?</p>
<p>Probably lack of social skills. His app was also slightly late (complete in October at most places) so that probably didn't help him either. That said, he got the interviews you'd expect but couldn't secure the acceptances so there was something wrong with the answers he gave or the way he gave those answers at the interviews.</p>
<p>I agree with norcalguy that social his skills/interview ability had to be incredibly weak to not have earned at least a couple of additional acceptances. His nonacademic extracurriculars are also very weak, so people might have assumed that such a high GPA (which is also no as impressive given where he went to school) was from never leaving the library for several years. Still, a 42 MCAT is a 42 MCAT...</p>
<p>@philly</p>
<p>He doesn't have any nonacademic extracurriculars, but that is one of the elast important factors for medical school admissions.</p>
<p>Also, he seems to have a lot of academic extracurriculars, so he isn't just a bookworm.</p>
<p>While my stats were no where near as good as that guy's, I can imagine he made some of the mistakes I did.</p>
<p>1) Applied way too late. I completed my last application in <em>cringe</em> mid-December.</p>
<p>2) Didn't practice enough for the interviews. I'm not naturally a sit-down-and-talk-with-you kind of person, so I really needed to work at projecting myself in a positive way.</p>
<p>I consider myself as someone with weak social skills. Any tips on improving your social skills/interview ability?</p>
<p>Is this guy lying? Anyone with a GPA of 2.1 and an MCAT of 11 is very unlikely to have something like a Nobel Peace Prize in Biology (2006) for contributions to a cure for cancer. He also got accepted by many top schools.</p>
<p>how is it that the first guy with an amazing application did not get in while this second guy with a 2.1 GPA and 2.3 BCPM got in Duke and Harvard?
and there is no way he was nominated for Noble Peace Prize. But then he could not be lying because Medical schools check the application out. this is confusing.</p>
<p>shows why you can't believe everything you read on mdapplicants, btw that's really funny</p>
<p>Heh, the second one (2.1/11/Nobel) is clearly a fake. Still, it might be real... he did score 4 touchdowns at a football game at Polk High. That's a major tip factor; right up there with saving the world from alien invasion and total extinction.</p>
<p>I must be getting too old. Am I the only one who got the reference in the 2nd mdapplicants profile?</p>
<p>Married... with Children? You're not that old yet, don't worry.</p>
<p>ysk1, pakbabydoll:</p>
<p>Regarding that obviously fake mdapplicants profile... you've just got to take some things with a few (or many) grains of salt. Don't be so credulous - use your critical thinking skills. You'll need them for medical school. :)</p>
<p>ysk1: </p>
<p>Practice, practice, practice. My mom is really good at interviewing - she's worked her way up from the bottom to a pretty good job where her people skills really matter. She was the one who coached me for about a month before my final interview. We practiced all the standard questions, and we went through the SDN interview feedback for that school. </p>
<p>If you don't have the benefit of a parent to help you, use your friends or your school's career center. I also did a mock interview that was recorded at my undergrad's career center, and the playback really drove home that I could be talking too fast.</p>
<p>After all that prep, out of all my interviews I had the best showing at that final one, and now I'm a med student at that school. :)</p>
<p>Most people with that Gpa and MCAt score surely get accepted.</p>
<p>In order of importance:</p>
<p>1.) Applied to too few intermediate programs -- Northwestern is the only one on there. Where's Pritzker? Case? Emory? Vanderbilt? Mt. Sinai? NYU? Tufts?</p>
<p>2.) Applied too late. Secondaries should be sent in in July, not October.</p>
<p>3.) And then he compounded that by delaying his interviews. Why on earth did it take him six weeks to interview at Hopkins, two months at Columbia?</p>
<p>4.) Graduated in three years and didn't take time off, meaning only two years of coursework were available to the admissions committee. One comment from his profile: "I have yet to hear of someone who finished college in 3 years who was accepted at a 'top 10' med school." Add to that, now, that he's young, even for someone who graduated in three years.</p>
<hr>
<p>One very intriguing comment from the profile suggests something I hadn't realized: his intellectual interests seem very firmly in the hard sciences. Why is he applying to medical school? Combining this with his race -- and I'm also Asian, but it's a consideration you have to be aware of -- places great weight on a spectacular personal statement.</p>
<hr>
<p>I think any two of the above four are adequate to explain the situation. We can add to those some hypotheticals, however, if we so choose:</p>
<p>-Letters of recommendation (esp. no committee letter)
-Essay
-Interview skills
-Is English his first language? (It would seem so, but you never know)
-EC's as listed on mdapplicants always lack detail
-I'm almost certain he took the late MCAT
-Was this his only MCAT administration?</p>
<hr>
<p>But choosing his list of schools poorly, applying late, interviewing late, and graduating in three years are all more than enough to explain what happened.</p>
<p>**Learning points:</p>
<p>1.) Apply early.
2.) Take the MCATs on time.
3.) Apply broadly.
4.) Give the committee more than two years worth of schoolwork.**</p>
<p>5.) NOTHING is guaranteed in medical school admissions.</p>
<p>6.) Win the Nobel Peace Prize in Biology (even though there is no such thing as a Nobel PEACE Prize in Biology...)</p>
<p>If you're awesome enough, I'm sure they'll let you name the prize whatever you want.</p>
<p>I'm gonna genetically engineer a cat that talks. And drives. That would be awesome. I'll have my feline chauffeur drive me to the Nobel Peace Prize reception ceremony to claim my prize.</p>