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[Hypothermia]

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[collegestud2013]

Something is not adding up here. Are you sure there are no red flags on your application? 3 IIs out of 30+ applications last year seems low for your stats. Even accounting for your top-heavy list, you should be getting at least double the IIs last year. ~150 clinical shadowing hours is adequate for most M.D. med schools and was not probably the main issue last year.

Some things to consider
-What is your home state? Make sure you apply to ALL your in-state med school if you haven't done so already since the average applicant will have the highest chance at those. Of course there are some states like California that are notoriously hard to get into even if you're in-state.
-Try reaching out to schools your applied to via e-mail such as with a letter of interest, but only do this if you see others on SDN already getting IIs. These can sometimes lead the school to read your app more closely before making a decision (with the volume of apps schools get don't assume that all the rejections you get are decided after thoroughly reviewing your app, sometimes there's just not enough time or staffing to thoroughly read every app)
-Did you fulfill all your pre-med pre-req courses for all the schools you are applying to? Check their websites individually as some schools have more specific requirements both in terms of science classes and non-science classes. This can be an issue for non-trad applicants who did not plan their undergrad courses around med school application.
-Any very low grades in your pre-req courses (eg D or F)? these may have to be re-taken
-Are all your courses taken at a 4-year college? Many med schools look down on courses taken at a 2 year community college
-Any chance there's something negative in one of your LORs or the wording is questionable? I'm assuming you waived your right to see them but try to get someone else who has access to them to look at them. Adcoms expect LORs to be all written very positively so any LOR that has questionable wording in it sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, if you're applying again you should have more recent LORs (at least since last cycle) and at minimum if you're reusing any the date should be updated (obviously this will require reaching out to your LOR writer). Also make sure your LORs meet each individual schools' requirements.
-Have someone also read your entire AMCAS application as well to make sure it's well written. Though if you already submitted it's probably too late for that this cycle.
-Are you an ORM by any chance? Not much you can do if you are but this does make it harder to get in for people with borderline apps to get in
-When comparing your stats to the school's average stats make sure you are using their ACCEPTED GPA and MCAT and not those of their matriculants (which are almost always lower since those with higher stats on average will get into more medical schools)

 

[Dave1980]

something is definitely wrong. with those stats and that school list you should be getting interviews.

i wonder about the LORs.

i am in med school applications and dont have time to read the entire letter a lot of the time. I read the first few and last few sentences. those should include something along the lines of "recommend without qualification" or "recommend as highly as possible".

i feel bad for you. seems like you deserve a spot. i wouldnt fixate on being a white male. women don't really get a boost anyone so you only get the help if you are black, latino, or native american

 

[Dave1980]

if you PM me i will look at your personal statment. also do you have the LORs or just saw them? also, i just thought about the fact that the writer can indicate if they showed you the letter or not. if some of them showed you the letter and indicated they did on AMCAS that basically negates the letter and is kind of a red flag itself.

 

[collegestud2013]

Things don’t add up for me either. I thought I had been doing everything “correctly”.

-I had meetings with adcoms at 2 schools between apps, and they said there were no red flags. I even asked one of them explicitly if my LoRs had any, or if my Casper had anything. Btw this year I got 4th quartile Casper, I’m sure I did last year too :/ maybe they were just not telling me the truth or the person doing the thousands of app review meetings did not look at my app thoroughly.

The Casper is still pretty new so there's no consensus across schools on what extent it's used in admissions. As with most metrics, extremes of scores are most likely to get someone's attention. A high score can benefit someone with otherwise borderline stats at some med schools though a high Casper score alone won't trump a low MCAT or GPA. A very low score though can hurt someone's application regardless of how high their GPA or MCAT is.

-can I really send letters of interest to like 20+ schools? Do they have to be very school specific letters? Won’t they be annoyed with me reaching out?

They should be school-specific to show interest in a school or region/state you otherwise don't have any connections to. Also don't just regurgitate the same information you wrote in their secondary essays, AMCAS, or directly from their website; but obviously anything you write should be consistent with the information you are already providing to the school. The idea is to get the school's adcoms to look at your application more closely in case it got overlooked in the thousands of apps they get. They can hurt your app only if the school said somewhere that they explicitly don't want any interest letters or if the letter is poorly written; otherwise, it's either slightly positive or neutral.

 

[Dave1980]

Alright thank you, I will send you it soon.

My letters were uploaded to amcas via interfolio, where I was the one to mark them as confidential, I do not think they have that option?

I asked an Adcom at a top school about my LoRs and she said quite “your LoR are fine, no red flags”. Obviously it doesn’t mean it’s fact that there are none. But I am convinced there are none.

could be the letters were good/lukewarm. when everyone has stellar letters this could be seen as bad. if it was a new faculty or young faculty they may not know how to write a good letter.

 

[Hypothermia]

could be the letters were good/lukewarm. when everyone has stellar letters this could be seen as bad. if it was a new faculty or young faculty they may not know how to write a good letter.

Ya could be. It is possible that there are no read flags, and I just don’t stand out at all?

 

[Hypothermia]

@Goro @LizzyM @gyngyn @Faha @gonnif
@Catalystik

I was wondering if any experts could weigh in here. Does it have to be a red flag issue or could it just be I don’t stand out?

 

[Goro]

Here’s my stats and ECs:
-stuff with asterisk is new

515 (126 CARS is lowest), 3.6X cGPA, 3.86 sGPA, engineering major.
Work:

-Medical assistant full time (1800 hours)***completely new since last year.
-engineering jobs >2500hrs
-TA 100hrs
Research:
>2000 hrs basic science research, pub pending *increased by 1000 hrs since last year
-publication in another project***

Non-Clinical Volunteering:
-100 hours fundraising/event planning organizing for charity organization.
-60 hrs volunteer tutoring underserved population.

Clinical volunteering:
~300 hospital volunteering (200 but put the projected 300 total)
**increased from 150 hrs last year.

Shadowing:
-100hrs shadowing 3 different specialties
**increased a bit cause I added hours from virtual shadowing.

This years school list:
-complete at 90% before august. A few mid august.

Northwestern
Sinai
Michigan
Case Western
Boston U
UCSD
UCLA
Hofstra Zucker
USC
Rochester
Geisel Dartmouth
Moransi USF
TUFTS
Einstein
Jefferson
Wisconsin Mad
Carle
NYMC
Wake forest
GWU
U Illinois
Loyola
Colorado
Rosalind
Cincinnati
Western Mi
Iowa Carver
SLU
VCU
Vtech
Drexel
Quinnipiac
UVM vermont
Stony brook
Rush
MCWisconsin
SUNY Upstate
Brown
OUWB
Umass
U Maryland
West Virginia

Schools in Bold are donations, unless you're from NY or CA.
Your app is great except maybe, just maybe, the average hrs of nonclinical volunteering. Many of the other donations are service loving schools and so I think that they might be a wash.

I think that you may get some IIs this week, or in March. Be patient. It is too late to add more MD schools, but you're fine for any DO school. Make sure to read up on osteopathy and see if you can shadow a DO and/or get LOR from same.

Also, work on interview skills.

Thank you. I feel like I’ve been getting jipped for two years straight. Feels unfair.
Lose this attitude ASAP. No one, and I mean NO ONE is entitled to a seat in medical school. You earn it.

 

[Dave1980]

Your statement that logic dictates you should have more interviews now than last year has no basis. You were comparing one only one applicant yourself, to this year when you were reapplication, to an application cycle where a larger number of people have a applied, And it’s still only September. I advised to CTFO As defined in my signature

disagree.

the OP added things to their application and applied to more lower tier schools. I'm surprised they dont have more interviews than last year

 

[Dave1980]

Thank you. I feel like I’ve been getting jipped for two years straight. Feels unfair.
Lose this attitude ASAP. No one, and I mean NO ONE is entitled to a seat in medical school. You earn it.

Have you ever wondered how the word jipped is still so prevalent @Goro ?

comes from gypsies

 

[Goro]

Have you ever wondered how the word jipped is still so prevalent @Goro ?

comes from gypsies

Yes, I'm aware of that.

 

[Damson]

Didn't read the entire thread, but I second that guy's concern about your letters of rec.

You can solicit a admissions officer to give you feedback on what they see.

 

[LizzyM]

You don't get to ask about lack of interviews until after Thanksgiving. This is my Thanksgiving rule.

There may be little things that will be a turn-off to someone reading your application. For example, while I"m sure you didn't use the word in your application, the word gypped is a slur on gypsies and should not be used. Better to say cheated or swindled.

You applied to far too many reaches and applied to some of those same schools a second time around. That has certainly been a factor in why you are not getting any traction.

I think that you also need to take a hard look at why you could not convert any of your 3 interviews to offers. Do some practice interviews and get feedback before you do any more MD interviews.

 

[LizzyM]

On a lighter note. Unbelievably… I got an interview today!!!! I can’t believe it

And hence the Thanksgiving Rule is confirmed. No crying over a lack of interviews until after American Thanksgiving.

 

[Goro]

Sorry everybody. I was not aware of the origin or offensive nature of that term.


On a lighter note. Unbelievably… I got an interview today!!!! I can’t believe it
@Goro it was at one of the schools that you said was a donation. I tried to make sure all the schools I applied to were OOS friendly enough. I hope I am not coming off as combative, I just thought it was interesting.

Do ask them what your hook was; I'll be interested in hearing what they saw.

This is great news, now go read this:

• Goro's Guide to Interviews
• Goro's Guide to Interviews: The View from Behind the Curtain
• Goro's Guide to YOUR Interview Questions (2018 edition)

 

[Moosers]

Sorry everybody. I was not aware of the origin or offensive nature of that term.


On a lighter note. Unbelievably… I got an interview today!!!! I can’t believe it
@Goro it was at one of the schools that you said was a donation. I tried to make sure all the schools I applied to were OOS friendly enough. I hope I am not coming off as combative, I just thought it was interesting.

Congratulations!! I read through your entire thread and my heart goes out to you -- I'm so happy for this update!!

Here’s my stats and ECs:
-stuff with asterisk is new

515 (126 CARS is lowest), 3.6X cGPA, 3.86 sGPA, engineering major.
Work:

-Medical assistant full time (1800 hours)***completely new since last year.
-engineering jobs >2500hrs
-TA 100hrs
Research:
>2000 hrs basic science research, pub pending *increased by 1000 hrs since last year
-publication in another project***

Non-Clinical Volunteering:
-100 hours fundraising/event planning organizing for charity organization.
-60 hrs volunteer tutoring underserved population.

Clinical volunteering:
~300 hospital volunteering (200 but put the projected 300 total)
**increased from 150 hrs last year.

Shadowing:
-100hrs shadowing 3 different specialties
**increased a bit cause I added hours from virtual shadowing.

This years school list:
-complete at 90% before august. A few mid august.

Northwestern
Sinai
Michigan
Case Western
Boston U
UCSD
UCLA
Hofstra Zucker
USC
Rochester
Geisel Dartmouth
Moransi USF
TUFTS
Einstein
Jefferson
Wisconsin Mad
Carle
NYMC
Wake forest
GWU
U Illinois
Loyola
Colorado
Rosalind
Cincinnati
Western Mi
Iowa Carver
SLU
VCU
Vtech
Drexel
Quinnipiac
UVM vermont
Stony brook
Rush
MCWisconsin
SUNY Upstate
Brown
OUWB
Umass
U Maryland
West Virginia

Schools in Bold are donations, unless you're from NY or CA.
Your app is great except maybe, just maybe, the average hrs of nonclinical volunteering. Many of the other donations are service loving schools and so I think that they might be a wash.

I think that you may get some IIs this week, or in March. Be patient. It is too late to add more MD schools, but you're fine for any DO school. Make sure to read up on osteopathy and see if you can shadow a DO and/or get LOR from same.

Also, work on interview skills.

Thank you. I feel like I’ve been getting jipped for two years straight. Feels unfair.
Lose this attitude ASAP. No one, and I mean NO ONE is entitled to a seat in medical school. You earn it.

For purely selfish reasons -- so I can better understand -- I'm curious as to why you feel these schools are donations for this applicant? The reason I ask, again purely selfishly, is because a loooong time ago, @Goro generated a school list for me through the WAMC threads that included a few of the bolded schools, but @Hypothermia has an arguably stronger application than I do.

The biggest difference I see is possible differences in clinical service hours but other than that (@Hypothermia does have 1800 hours of clinical service noted, which seems above average to me), and maybe more volunteer hours overall, but curious about what makes those schools donations for this kind of application profile

 

[Goro]

Congratulations!! I read through your entire thread and my heart goes out to you -- I'm so happy for this update!!



For purely selfish reasons -- so I can better understand -- I'm curious as to why you feel these schools are donations for this applicant? The reason I ask, again purely selfishly, is because a loooong time ago, @Goro generated a school list for me through the WAMC threads that included a few of the bolded schools, but @Hypothermia has an arguably stronger application than I do.

The biggest difference I see is possible differences in clinical service hours but other than that (@Hypothermia does have 1800 hours of clinical service noted, which seems above average to me), and maybe more volunteer hours overall, but curious about what makes those schools donations for this kind of application profile

For most of the schools, my view was that the OP would be resource protected out. For a few others, their MCAT score was < the 10th %iles. And UCSD because they take few OOSers.

 

[Moosers]

For most of the schools, my view was that the OP would be resource protected out. For a few others, their MCAT score was < the 10th %iles. And UCSD because they take few OOSers.

Ah! This makes sense, and also in a roundabout way reaffirms to me that my school list was well targeted (which is largely thanks to you!!).

Cheers @Hypothermia to a fruitful cycle 😄🎉

 

[LindaAccepted]

Sorry everybody. I was not aware of the origin or offensive nature of that term.


On a lighter note. Unbelievably… I got an interview today!!!! I can’t believe it
@Goro it was at one of the schools that you said was a donation. I tried to make sure all the schools I applied to were OOS friendly enough. I hope I am not coming off as combative, I just thought it was interesting.

congrats! I was just about to share my theory, but no need.

 

[MyOdyssey]

Sorry everybody. I was not aware of the origin or offensive nature of that term.


On a lighter note. Unbelievably… I got an interview today!!!! I can’t believe it
@Goro it was at one of the schools that you said was a donation. I tried to make sure all the schools I applied to were OOS friendly enough. I hope I am not coming off as combative, I just thought it was interesting.

Good for you! Now rock your interview!