2012-2013 Hofstra University Application Thread

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parks said:
ACCEPTED!!! got the email this morning at 8:22 :D
Interviewed 11/16!!
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congrats!

parks said:
Aw thank you! I actually don't have the most amazing stats..3.45cgpa and 36mcat. My gpa is def low for MD schools. So I feel like this means Hofstra is looking at the whole picture even in these early acceptances.my interview went really really well so everything counts!!! Good luck to everyone :)
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Yeah Hofstra is kinda interesting. Compared to other schools with roughly the same LizzyM score, Hofstra has a lower GPA and higher MCAT average. They seem to be more forgiving of grades if you demonstrate that you can handle the academic rigors of med school. I agree though that they are looking for a particular fit and the interview plays a big role. Congrats again!
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Is it now safe to assume that if we interviewed on or before 11/16 and we didn't get an acceptance this morning we will be playing the lovely waiting game for 3 more months?
 
drscholls said:
Is it now safe to assume that if we interviewed on or before 11/16 and we didn't get an acceptance this morning we will be playing the lovely waiting game for 3 more months?
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Probably? Idk I've found it's unsafe to make any assumptions during this process lol
 
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What sort of stats does Hofstra have so far in terms of acceptance? I'm really interested in this school.
 
pencap said:
What sort of stats does Hofstra have so far in terms of acceptance? I'm really interested in this school.
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I think their averages from previous classes so far are 3.6 and 33.
 
I stalked last years thread and based on what I gathered if you've already interviewed at Hofstra and haven't heard back you are either rejected or wait listed.
 
New schools tend to be more lenient on GPA, but you gotta have a high MCAT or something else special.
 
SourD21 said:
I stalked last years thread and based on what I gathered if you've already interviewed at Hofstra and haven't heard back you are either rejected or wait listed.
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This was echoed during the interview too. Can anyone comment on their statements regarding tons of movement from their waitlist. Is this just a way of placating the masses, or do we still have a reasonable shot?
 
myactualname said:
This was echoed during the interview too. Can anyone comment on their statements regarding tons of movement from their waitlist. Is this just a way of placating the masses, or do we still have a reasonable shot?
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They say there's a lot of movement because as a new school, they can't overdraft who they accept, meaning they'll only accept a few students at a time and never go over their cap of 60. Since some of the 60 they give acceptances to won't end up going to Hofstra, there is likely to be a lot pulled from the waitlist. In theory, there would be more movement in Hofstra's waitlist than in other schools where many more students are accepted over the matriculation cap since schools that have been established already have a clear idea how many people will not take the acceptance they are offered.

As far as I know, no official numbers have been given as to how many acceptances have come from the waitlist in the past.
 
myactualname said:
This was echoed during the interview too. Can anyone comment on their statements regarding tons of movement from their waitlist. Is this just a way of placating the masses, or do we still have a reasonable shot?
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Just to elaborate a bit a typical school of Hofstra's caliber have about half of it's accepted students deciding to matriculate. These schools calculate this accordingly and will extend almost double the acceptances then they expect to have in their class. If they get a few extra students matriculating it's no big deal to them. Therefore only a small fraction of their matriculating class ends up coming off the waitlist. Hofstra being a new school doesn't want to take the risk of having an extra 10 students or so deciding to matriculate so they are only going to have 80 acceptances out at a time for 80 final slots. since only about half will accept that means another 80 people will come off the waitlist (40 of which will accept) which will be half of the class- a huge percentage- simply put if you don't get accepted right away it simply means you not in their top half of students they want no biggie unless you were counting on a merit scholarship which is highly unlikely to get anyway :)
 
sec81 said:
They say there's a lot of movement because as a new school, they can't overdraft who they accept, meaning they'll only accept a few students at a time and never go over their cap of 60. Since some of the 60 they give acceptances to won't end up going to Hofstra, there is likely to be a lot pulled from the waitlist. In theory, there would be more movement in Hofstra's waitlist than in other schools where many more students are accepted over the matriculation cap since schools that have been established already have a clear idea how many people will not take the acceptance they are offered.

As far as I know, no official numbers have been given as to how many acceptances have come from the waitlist in the past.
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mickysup said:
Just to elaborate a bit a typical school of Hofstra's caliber have about half of it's accepted students deciding to matriculate. These schools calculate this accordingly and will extend almost double the acceptances then they expect to have in their class. If they get a few extra students matriculating it's no big deal to them. Therefore only a small fraction of their matriculating class ends up coming off the waitlist. Hofstra being a new school doesn't want to take the risk of having an extra 10 students or so deciding to matriculate so they are only going to have 80 acceptances out at a time for 80 final slots. since only about half will accept that means another 80 people will come off the waitlist (40 of which will accept) which will be half of the class- a huge percentage- simply put if you don't get accepted right away it simply means you not in their top half of students they want no biggie unless you were counting on a merit scholarship which is highly unlikely to get anyway :)
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Thank you guys (or gals)! Definitely still hopeful I'll have a shot; loved the interview day. :xf:
 
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parks said:
Congratulations!!!
Any current Hofstra students... Can you comment on second look weekend? What was yours like?
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I actually didn't attend our revisit weekend because I got in off the waitlist just after it happened, but I was there for the MS1s' revisit weekend last year for almost the entire thing.

Revisit weekend will be April 13-14 this year. Saturday is more of a "social" day while Sunday is more of a "business" day. Because the class sizes are on the small side the school has always thought it important to facilitate accepted students bonding with their (potential) future classmates. So Saturday will consist of a group trip to the Islanders hockey game at Nassau Colisseum (right across the street from the SOM) with some MS1s and MS2s followed by a barbecue back at the SOM. Sunday is a full day of information-sessions, but probably not like any others you have been to. The schedule includes a student panel of current MS1s/MS2s, a structure lab exercise, and a suturing tutorial at BioSkills (a facility that has fresh-frozen specimens that is used by doctors from around the northeast US to train). I was able to do a suturing class at Bioskills with the surgery interest group; it's pretty awesome.

tl;dr if you can make revisit weekend and have any interest in the school, you should definitely come, because if nothing else it will be a lot of fun and pretty unique. For those of you who are already decided on coming, it's still a good idea to come because it's also a great place to meet potential roommates if you don't plan on living on campus (I assume most of you are not).
 
Also, I'll clarify about the whole waitlist issue. Because we are a new school, we become fully accredited when we graduate our first class (my class, the MS2s). According to LCME guidelines we lose our preliminary accreditation if we accept more than 10% over what we have planned and cleared with them. That means for your class, 88 students is the absolute maximum we can accept. That being said, the school prefers to stick to their exact number (80). Case in point, for these reasons the admissions process is very slow and you can expect that a good percentage of the class will be drawn from the waitlist, although the absolute number of waitlisted acceptances may not be significantly larger being that the class size is smaller than is typical (to be honest I don't know).
 
medstud2015 said:
I actually didn't attend our revisit weekend because I got in off the waitlist just after it happened, but I was there for the MS1s' revisit weekend last year for almost the entire thing.

Revisit weekend will be April 13-14 this year. Saturday is more of a "social" day while Sunday is more of a "business" day. Because the class sizes are on the small side the school has always thought it important to facilitate accepted students bonding with their (potential) future classmates. So Saturday will consist of a group trip to the Islanders hockey game at Nassau Colisseum (right across the street from the SOM) with some MS1s and MS2s followed by a barbecue back at the SOM. Sunday is a full day of information-sessions, but probably not like any others you have been to. The schedule includes a student panel of current MS1s/MS2s, a structure lab exercise, and a suturing tutorial at BioSkills (a facility that has fresh-frozen specimens that is used by doctors from around the northeast US to train). I was able to do a suturing class at Bioskills with the surgery interest group; it's pretty awesome.

tl;dr if you can make revisit weekend and have any interest in the school, you should definitely come, because if nothing else it will be a lot of fun and pretty unique. For those of you who are already decided on coming, it's still a good idea to come because it's also a great place to meet potential roommates if you don't plan on living on campus (I assume most of you are not).
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Do you know if it's possible to attend only one day or miss a portion of the activities on revisit weekend? Also, how does housing work out during revisit weekend?
 
medstud2015 said:
Also, I'll clarify about the whole waitlist issue. Because we are a new school, we become fully accredited when we graduate our first class (my class, the MS2s). According to LCME guidelines we lose our preliminary accreditation if we accept more than 10% over what we have planned and cleared with them. That means for your class, 88 students is the absolute maximum we can accept. That being said, the school prefers to stick to their exact number (80). Case in point, for these reasons the admissions process is very slow and you can expect that a good percentage of the class will be drawn from the waitlist, although the absolute number of waitlisted acceptances may not be significantly larger being that the class size is smaller than is typical (to be honest I don't know).
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Oh wow, I had no idea about that. Thanks for sharing!
 
drd714 said:
Oh wow, I had no idea about that. Thanks for sharing!
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Interviewed today! Yeah they told us that in there last classes atleast 50% came from the wait list. They said that an acceptance will come a couple weeks after interview, or wait list/ rejections will come march
 
Anyone get the password expiry email? You can tell I'm getting neurotic at this point.
 
I got it too. Wonder what it's for. (Too bad it's the weekend so we can't ask the admissions office, haha.)
 
I was half asleep when I saw I had an email from Hofstra and I jumped out of bed bc I thought it was a decision email -______-
 
I was rejected here and I got the email -_-


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Are all of us that received this email post interview and no decision?
 
drscholls said:
Are all of us that received this email post interview and no decision?
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I think this was an automatic email sent from the software that they are using for their portal. I don't think it has any bearing on whether a decision has been made and what not. I'm sure they will clear this all up on Monday.
 
For what it's worth, I was accepted here and did not receive that e-mail.

On another note, I did receive an e-mail from them about second look weekend. But when I follow that link, I can't find anywhere on the website where I can sign up for it. Anyone able to register or having the same problem?
 
fizzio said:
For what it's worth, I was accepted here and did not receive that e-mail.

On another note, I did receive an e-mail from them about second look weekend. But when I follow that link, I can't find anywhere on the website where I can sign up for it. Anyone able to register or having the same problem?
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This is probably too late and you've probably already registered successfully but I called them on Friday with the same problem and Joanne told me they would resolved it within an hour. They did and I registered and I'm sure you did too. See you in a few months!!

Question for CURRENT HOFSTRA STUDENTS: I am very impressed by the curriculum and feel like it fits my learning style well. It's also very similar to Case Western's curriculum so although it is new and unique, it is certainly not untested or without precedent. However even with all the info presented at my interview, I am still a bit unclear about parts of it. For example, on the sample week schedule of MS1s that interviewees received, there are blocks of time designated Self Study that takes up a good portion of the week (every afternoon except for ICE once a week) What do you actually do during that time? There are also large/medium/small group sessions for PEARLS in addition to the PEARLS Case sessions as well as group time for ICE. What happens during this time? Just trying to find out as much as possible about how learning takes place at Hofstra. What is a typical week schedule look like during preclinical years? Thanks!!
 
nabilesmail said:
Interviewed today! Yeah they told us that in there last classes atleast 50% came from the wait list. They said that an acceptance will come a couple weeks after interview, or wait list/ rejections will come march
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Did they really say acceptances will come out a couple weeks after the interview? I thought I heard Joanne say any decisions will come out in March... I guess I really zoned out after the interview... :oops:
 
parks said:
Question for CURRENT HOFSTRA STUDENTS: I am very impressed by the curriculum and feel like it fits my learning style well. It's also very similar to Case Western's curriculum so although it is new and unique, it is certainly not untested or without precedent. However even with all the info presented at my interview, I am still a bit unclear about parts of it. For example, on the sample week schedule of MS1s that interviewees received, there are blocks of time designated Self Study that takes up a good portion of the week (every afternoon except for ICE once a week) What do you actually do during that time? There are also large/medium/small group sessions for PEARLS in addition to the PEARLS Case sessions as well as group time for ICE. What happens during this time? Just trying to find out as much as possible about how learning takes place at Hofstra. What is a typical week schedule look like during preclinical years? Thanks!!
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Hi there! I am a current MS1 at Hofstra and I have to say I love it here.

As far as the schedule question. On mondays wednesdays and fridays you have PEARLS from 8-10. These are small groups and you work through cases. Then from 10-12 you usually have 2 essentially lectures (even though technically they don't call them that). The self study time is just that. It is free time. You can use it to do your reading for the next day, to meet with faculty, to study, or to watch TV and take a nap. After noon on most days you are free. ICE is time you have scheduled to be with your ICE preceptor in his or her office. This is usually either Monday Tuesday or Wednesday from 1PM - 5, but its really up to what you and your preceptor decide. For us Thursdays are our structure days. We usually in the structure lab the majority of time between 8-12 although sometimes part of that time is used outside the lab learning ultrasound or physical diagnosis, or last week it was to practice simulated laparoscopy. Tuesdays are our free days. We have R&R which is essentially a faculty run review session of the last weeks material, and it is an optional session. Hopefully that helps! Let me know if you have any more questions!

I also apologize for spelling and grammar, I'm writing this on my phone as I'm on the LIRR back from NYC.

And finally congratulations on your acceptance! Hofstra really is a fantastic school.
 
Just curious, but the dean mentioned that stats only get you to the interview point and a "41 mcat wont help after that". But somehow I don't see this as true. How would a new school have an average matriculant MCAT of 33 without cherry picking for high stats applicants?
 
Hi everyone. At my interview day, my interviewer said that I should contact the dean if I was still very interested in the program after interviewing. (I am [very interested]! I think it would be perfect for me.) Unfortunately, I'm not sure which dean he meant - Dr. Smith, Dr. Battinelli, or Dr. Woldenberg? I'm leaning towards Dr. Woldenberg. (For reference: http://medicine.hofstra.edu/about/leadership/index.html.) What do you think?

Also, one of the admissions people told us that letters of interest wouldn't make a difference if we sent them prior to getting a decision, and that they would only be useful if we were waitlisted. So I'm wondering if I should even contact the dean (whichever one) at all at this point, or wait to see if I'm waitlisted. But I also don't want to not contact the dean now in case that leads the committee to infer that I'm not that interested! The interviewer who told me to do this is on the core admissions committee. Do you think that I misunderstood him?

Has this come up for anyone else?
 
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@somefun - No contradiction, I only plan to send one email to a dean (no separate letter of interest, at least not pre-waitlist). I'm just hesitant to do it since the admissions person specifically said that post-interview pre-waitlist letters of interest won't do anything. But I don't know if this email would fall into that category.

My questions are: a. Should I email a dean now (as suggested by my interviewer)? and b. Which dean?
 
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Meryl said:
@somefun - No contradiction, I only plan to send one email to a dean (no separate letter of interest, at least not pre-waitlist). I'm just hesitant to do it since the admissions person specifically said that post-interview pre-waitlist letters of interest won't do anything. But I don't know if this email would fall into that category.

My questions are: a. Should I email a dean now (as suggested by my interviewer)? and b. Which dean?
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Send thank you notes to your interviewers expressing your interest. That way the people who will argue for you will know your interest. The letter to the dean that expresses your interest is exactly what they don't want you to send unless your waitlisted because it's a waste of time for them to read it if they're going to reject you anyway. Bottom line is send thank yous, and do not send anything else until waitlisted.
 
Meryl said:
@somefun - No contradiction, I only plan to send one email to a dean (no separate letter of interest, at least not pre-waitlist). I'm just hesitant to do it since the admissions person specifically said that post-interview pre-waitlist letters of interest won't do anything. But I don't know if this email would fall into that category.

My questions are: a. Should I email a dean now (as suggested by my interviewer)? and b. Which dean?
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+1. Admissions lady told me that LOIs will mean nothing until you have been notified of a waitlist decison. She told me that it'll matter in around march and april when those decisons come out
 
anguisette said:
Do you know if it's possible to attend only one day or miss a portion of the activities on revisit weekend? Also, how does housing work out during revisit weekend?
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Happy to answer a few more things that have come up:

1. It is not uncommon for students to miss the Saturday festivities and attend only the Sunday info sessions/tours/panels/etc. But that's not very fun :)

2. Most students stay at a hotel right next to the Nassau Coliseum (admissions will give you specific details on how to book) that is ~2 minutes from campus. This year admissions is placing a bunch of revisit weekenders with MS1/MS2 students (unfortunately I live at home :thumbdown: so I won't be hosting anyone) but that is first-come first-served so if this is what you want you had better get on the horn.

3. High MCAT score/GPA/etc. will never hurt you. That being said, realize that those sort of things probably factor pretty significantly into who gets an interview, since ~800 interviews are given out of >5000 applicants. My admittedly limited knowledge of the admissions process is that once you interview, your interview becomes THE most important factor. This is in probably in part a byproduct of the fact that our Dean was formerly the residency director for Mt. Sinai, and according to him, the interview and personal recommendations from faculty are paramount for residency directors.

4. DON'T SEND LETTERS OF INTENT. Really. Don't send them to any school until you are put on the waitlist. Then wait ~ a week so that your reminder to them that you are there comes at a time when they need to be reminded that you are there. This is both general advice for applying to medical school, as well as specific advice as I have had ~3 separate conversations with admissions about how nothing bothers them more than early letters of intent. That being said, I sent in a letter of intent relatively soon AFTER I was waitlisted, and here I am :rolleyes:
 
medstud2015 said:
4. DON'T SEND LETTERS OF INTENT. Really. Don't send them to any school until you are put on the waitlist. Then wait ~ a week so that your reminder to them that you are there comes at a time when they need to be reminded that you are there. This is both general advice for applying to medical school, as well as specific advice as I have had ~3 separate conversations with admissions about how nothing bothers them more than early letters of intent. That being said, I sent in a letter of intent relatively soon AFTER I was waitlisted, and here I am :rolleyes:
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Thanks for the advice, medstud.

I have a general question about letters. Personally, I would never send a letter of intent (expressing my you-are-my-one-and-only feelings about a school) until I was 200% certain I wanted to attend that school and that school only. On the other hand, I don't see why sending additional letters of interest/update letters could hurt.

How do you all feel about post-interview letters of INTEREST? You know, the letters that talk about personal updates but also include content expressing your continued interest in the school?

It seems like SDNers have strong feelings about letters of intent, as do I. But I'd love to hear your takes on letters of interest/update letters post interview.

Thanks!
 
dicer said:
Did they really say acceptances will come out a couple weeks after the interview? I thought I heard Joanne say any decisions will come out in March... I guess I really zoned out after the interview... :oops:
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When I interviewed (mid nov) they said acceptances were rolling, so it could be anywhere from 2-3 weeks or even as late as July (for waitlist acceptances). Waitlist/rejections are reported in March, though, so if you haven't gotten an acceptance by then, you'll at least have some sort of status update.
 
Have any MD/PhD applicants heard back post-interview? Thanks!
 
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