2015 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

[kraskadva]

I'll trade you pre-interview waiting for post-interview waiting
Congrats and good luck to everybody going on interviews though (I'm jealous, but not bitter)

I've still got mostly silence and a few out of hand rejections. 20 schools I've heard absolutely nothing from, 7 MD-PhD rejections but no word on MD, and 2 complete rejections. Hoping the next wave of IIs brings good news... and busting my arse to get a pub submitted by December.

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[researchismymiddlename]

I'll trade you pre-interview waiting for post-interview waiting
Congrats and good luck to everybody going on interviews though (I'm jealous, but not bitter)

I've still got mostly silence and a few out of hand rejections. 20 schools I've heard absolutely nothing from, 7 MD-PhD rejections but no word on MD, and 2 complete rejections. Hoping the next wave of IIs brings good news... and busting my arse to get a pub submitted by December.

The cycle is still relatively young, especially depending on when you submitted your application! I really hope you get some good news!!! You sound like someone with a great attitude!

 

[kraskadva]

The cycle is still relatively young, especially depending on when you submitted your application! I really hope you get some good news!!! You sound like someone with a great attitude!

Thanks, but I've been complete >2 months at most of them and >3 months at a third. The anxiety is building...
Trying to stay positive (no news is not bad news, right?), but it's an uphill battle some days. Classes and research on top of that isn't helping the stress levels at all, but at least I'm too busy to frantically check my online statuses everyday...

EDIT: though now that that thought has crossed my brain, I'm going to have a little ADD tangent and go do just that... BRB.

 

[kraskadva]

Nope...still nada.
*sigh* back to homework then...

 

[arainyday]

I'll trade you pre-interview waiting for post-interview waiting
Congrats and good luck to everybody going on interviews though (I'm jealous, but not bitter)

I've still got mostly silence and a few out of hand rejections. 20 schools I've heard absolutely nothing from, 7 MD-PhD rejections but no word on MD, and 2 complete rejections. Hoping the next wave of IIs brings good news... and busting my arse to get a pub submitted by December.

I've mostly heard from the DO schools I applied too, and only had the one MD interview so far. I still haven't heard anything from 12+ schools I've applied too, some of which I've been complete at for 3+ months. Most of the med students that I spoke with at my interviews were telling me that it's still early, and that many of them interviewed into March when they were applying. I'm sure you have a few interviews headed your way!

 

[kraskadva]

Here's hoping

 

[kraskadva]

And my middle name is Hope (really!) so I suppose I can't give it up yet

 

[WaterPog]

And my middle name is Dewer (yes really) so I'm having some white label in the Denver airport waiting for my flight home.

 

[ridethecliche]

Dewer got more likes than Hope.

You're all a bunch of alcy's!

 

[kraskadva]

Dewer got more likes than Hope.

You're all a bunch of alcy's!

Whatever gets you through the day

 

[BengaliBrat]

My dear friends in the same fix I am in. . .breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. (Repeat as needed.)

First interview yesterday. Interesting that the "higher up" the interviewers were (as in dean, professor, and so on), the better the interview seemed to be. Experience does count. The worst interview (I felt) was with the medical student, who seemed to condescend and sneer in a superior way, even though it has not been so long since he was in my position! He also asked me to tell him a joke, and when I couldn't (blank, blank, blank mind) appeared to judge me short of wits. I would appreciate suggestions about an appropriate joke in case this situation arises again.

His groaner: A string walks into a bar and asks for a beer. "We don't serve strings here," the bartender says. [By the way, is such a refusal legal?] So the string steps outside and ties loops himself around a few times, then messes up his hair and goes back in. The bartender regards him suspiciously. "Hey," he asks, "aren't you the string who was just in here?" The string looks offended. [I am trying to picture what an offended string might look like.] "No," he replies. "I'm a frayed knot." [This pun loses its ambiguity when it is written down, of course.]

Humorous and G-rated pleasantries earnestly solicited. . .

 

[kraskadva]

A triple pun (only slightly raunchy):

There's a guy who owns a praline shop and he's a bit OCD about keeping all the glass in his shop really clean (cases, windows, everything). He's also got a bit of a strange fetish and likes to wrap himself up in saran wrap while he cleans the glass.
One day he's indulging himself, but forgets to lock the door to the shop...
A psychiatrist is walking down the street and sees the sign for the praline shop, thinks that pralines sound like a great idea, and opens the door.

"Aha" the psychiatrist says, "I can clearly see your/you're nuts"

 

[ridethecliche]

I always go for the:

"I tried to fjord the river, but my f*cking oxen died"
or

"A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'We don't serve your kind here.' The mushroom replies, 'What? But I'm a fun-gi!'"

I would have been tempted to do the following:

-Knock knock.
Who's there.
-Go F yourself.

(Okay so that last one is something Dennis Leary would do...)

 

[BengaliBrat]

A triple pun (only slightly raunchy):

There's a guy who owns a praline shop and he's a bit OCD about keeping all the glass in his shop really clean (cases, windows, everything). He's also got a bit of a strange fetish and likes to wrap himself up in saran wrap while he cleans the glass.
One day he's indulging himself, but forgets to lock the door to the shop...
A psychiatrist is walking down the street and sees the sign for the praline shop, thinks that pralines sound like a great idea, and opens the door.

"Aha" the psychiatrist says, "I can clearly see your/you're nuts"

Laughing, but thinking I could not carry that off in an interview. . .

 

[BengaliBrat]

I always go for the:

"I tried to fjord the river, but my f*cking oxen died"
or

"A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'We don't serve your kind here.' The mushroom replies, 'What? But I'm a fun-gi!'"

I would have been tempted to do the following:

-Knock knock.
Who's there.
-Go F yourself.

(Okay so that last one is something Dennis Leary would do...)

Fun guy works (unless the interviewer is a Brit or from a former colony!) Thank you.

 

[researchismymiddlename]

Thanks, but I've been complete >2 months at most of them and >3 months at a third. The anxiety is building...
Trying to stay positive (no news is not bad news, right?), but it's an uphill battle some days. Classes and research on top of that isn't helping the stress levels at all, but at least I'm too busy to frantically check my online statuses everyday...

EDIT: though now that that thought has crossed my brain, I'm going to have a little ADD tangent and go do just that... BRB.

I empathize, I really do. The first time I applied in 2008, I waited throughout the cycle to hear all rejections, but I was expecting that since my VR score was so low that time. This cycle, I've been complete at schools for 3 months too, (almost 4 months in some cases), and waiting to hear from some of them is tough. And ditto on research = stress levels! Really hoping you get good news!!!

 

[researchismymiddlename]

My dear friends in the same fix I am in. . .breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. (Repeat as needed.)

First interview yesterday. Interesting that the "higher up" the interviewers were (as in dean, professor, and so on), the better the interview seemed to be. Experience does count. The worst interview (I felt) was with the medical student, who seemed to condescend and sneer in a superior way, even though it has not been so long since he was in my position! He also asked me to tell him a joke, and when I couldn't (blank, blank, blank mind) appeared to judge me short of wits. I would appreciate suggestions about an appropriate joke in case this situation arises again.

His groaner: A string walks into a bar and asks for a beer. "We don't serve strings here," the bartender says. [By the way, is such a refusal legal?] So the string steps outside and ties loops himself around a few times, then messes up his hair and goes back in. The bartender regards him suspiciously. "Hey," he asks, "aren't you the string who was just in here?" The string looks offended. [I am trying to picture what an offended string might look like.] "No," he replies. "I'm a frayed knot." [This pun loses its ambiguity when it is written down, of course.]

Humorous and G-rated pleasantries earnestly solicited. . .

I've got a better variation I read on SDN a while back, when I was preparing for this nervewracking and totally unexpected question in my overpreparedness, LOL

I like this joke because it is nerdy and adorkable, while being totally G-rated and easy to say, remember and understand.

Joke 1:

Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender stops them and says, "We don't serve bacteria here." The bacteria reply, "But we work here--we're staph!"

OR I have another one here, Joke 2:

A photon checks into a hotel. The coincerge asks: "Do you have any luggage?" The photon says: "No. I'm travelling light..."

 

[BengaliBrat]

I've got a better variation I read on SDN a while back, when I was preparing for this nervewracking and totally unexpected question in my overpreparedness, LOL

I like this joke because it is nerdy and adorkable, while being totally G-rated and easy to say, remember and understand.

Joke 1:

Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender stops them and says, "We don't serve bacteria here." The bacteria reply, "But we work here--we're staph!"

OR I have another one here, Joke 2:

A photon checks into a hotel. The coincerge asks: "Do you have any luggage?" The photon says: "No. I'm travelling light..."

THANKS!! I am joke-challenged. I will probably ramble through something like "So a hotel checks into a bar full of bacteria with no luggage and then one looks at the other and says, "See? Difficile!"
Actually, I usually just blurt out the punchline (if I can remember it) and then try to reconstruct what should have preceded it. . . . I like your suggestions, though! A photon checks into a hotel and then the bartender says, "Are you waving or beaming?" Right?

 

[GameOfBones]

I forgot to mention that I let one swear word (bull****) slip in my interview.
My boss nearly died when I told him.
My therapist asked if I'm intentionally sabotaging myself.
I'll let you know if I get accepted in spite of being my awesome self.
At any rate, have a laugh on (or at) me.

Good luck for good news this week, non-trads.
GO TEAM!

 

[kthxbai]

I forgot to mention that I let one swear word (bull****) slip in my interview.
My boss nearly died when I told him.
My therapist asked if I'm intentionally sabotaging myself.
I'll let you know if I get accepted in spite of being my awesome self.
At any rate, have a laugh on (or at) me.

Good luck for good news this week, non-trads.
GO TEAM!

If I were your interviewer I don't think I would have minded that word coming out to play. I've interviewed many people for jobs and I could tell you that at least in my book, if used appropriately, a sailor's vocabulary is only a strength.

 

[GameOfBones]

They say that a potty mouth is indicative of an honest nature.

Yeah, let's go with that.

To be fair, he slightly insulted my current employer and my use of BS was well placed in context, so let's hope it was a punctuation mark rather than a full bomb of a moment.

 

[ridethecliche]

So I've had 3 weeks of silence after hearing back from 4 schools. This is so weird. I figured things would trickle back from places once I started hearing from some. /Shrug.

Re: Cursing. I work with surgeons, who all curse so much it's hilarious. I'm really going to have to pay attention to what I say. I like it a lot though, as they don't mince words at all. It's refreshing.

 

[ConsultantMD]

@ridethecliche I had about 3 weeks of silence after 4 rejections in a row, but fortunately today the path changed!

Ok everyone, I think I have a working hypothesis: at this point, I am thrilled to have 5 IIs, but I've noticed that I have not received an II from a school that uses the AMP program for their online application. After looking at the AMP website, it is played off as a way for AdComs to more efficiently find the applicants they want. A lot of this is done by screening measures (numerical) so maybe that's what's tripping me up here since I have a low GPA and high MCAT. I'm wondering if this might be a helpful tip for future applicants in my situation that you try to go for schools that don't use the AMP program because maybe that makes things harder for you as a stat underdog. I'm sure there are people with counterexamples so don't torch me just yet, but it's just an empirical observation that I was curious about early on.

 

[kraskadva]

Interesting thought... Hopefully the 'holistic review' line they all spout isn't being undermined by better software.
About half-ish of the schools that haven't responded to me yet use Amp. I also have a low GPA and good MCAT, so I can't say you're wrong.
I suppose we won't know for sure until one of us makes it in and can get the insider scoop though.

 

[ConsultantMD]

Interesting thought... Hopefully the 'holistic review' line they all spout isn't being undermined by better software.
About half-ish of the schools that haven't responded to me yet use Amp. I also have a low GPA and good MCAT, so I can't say you're wrong.
I suppose we won't know for sure until one of us makes it in and can get the insider scoop though.

Right.. I just think that after looking at the demo stuff about Amp, it looks pretty numbers driven and that there's not much room for the qualitative. I've been rejected from one that uses Amp, so it's not like I have a bunch of data, but just an idea!

 

[kraskadva]

Right.. I just think that after looking at the demo stuff about Amp, it looks pretty numbers driven and that there's not much room for the qualitative. I've been rejected from one that uses Amp, so it's not like I have a bunch of data, but just an idea!

Well, however it shows up on the screen and whatever whiz-bang search functions it's got for adcoms, it still has to present all parts of your app in one form or another.
And as Goro and all the other adcoms say, most applicants are academic clones of each other, so I think we have to believe that they will still be reading through all the other interesting bits, even if the initial ranking goes a bit differently.

Not something to get fidgety about (since there's nothing to be done either way on our end) but perhaps a solid insight.

 

[gyngyn]

@ridethecliche I had about 3 weeks of silence after 4 rejections in a row, but fortunately today the path changed!

Ok everyone, I think I have a working hypothesis: at this point, I am thrilled to have 5 IIs, but I've noticed that I have not received an II from a school that uses the AMP program for their online application. After looking at the AMP website, it is played off as a way for AdComs to more efficiently find the applicants they want. A lot of this is done by screening measures (numerical) so maybe that's what's tripping me up here since I have a low GPA and high MCAT. I'm wondering if this might be a helpful tip for future applicants in my situation that you try to go for schools that don't use the AMP program because maybe that makes things harder for you as a stat underdog. I'm sure there are people with counterexamples so don't torch me just yet, but it's just an empirical observation that I was curious about early on.

Schools have had the option of a numerical screen long before proprietary software.
Modern data management actually makes it easier to stratify applicants so that screeners can focus on the non-numerical aspects of the application.

 

[kraskadva]

Schools have had the option of a numerical screen long before proprietary software.
Modern data management actually makes it easier to stratify applicants so that screeners can focus on the non-numerical aspects of the application.

Out of curiosity, are non-trads with numerical reinvention long after undergrad stratified any differently than trads with the same overall numbers in these initial screenings? Or are the reinvention aspects only taken into account later?
(Understanding of course that different schools do things differently, actual results may vary, etc.)

 

[gyngyn]

Out of curiosity, are non-trads with numerical reinvention long after undergrad stratified any differently than trads with the same overall numbers in these initial screenings? Or are the reinvention aspects only taken into account later?
(Understanding of course that different schools do things differently, actual results may vary, etc.)

Some schools have Deans ( The Dean of the medical school) that measure the quality of the Admissions Dean's "product" almost entirely by the aggregate MCAT(and gpa) of the class. Others have deans that don't pay much attention to the admissions process at all. Depending on a school's definition of success, the flexibility to interview "interesting" candidates will vary dramatically.

 

[ridethecliche]

I still have to hear back from 38 schools where I completed secondaries. I'm far from losing hope and just getting slightly impatient at this point. I just thought that once I started hearing from a few places that the others would slowly trickle in. Nada in 3 weeks is not really trickle though!

I'm back from my talk, on cloud 9 with work, and a few conversations today led me to believe that I'm going to have a bunch more of it. Bring it on!

I need to finish and submit three papers this month and then write and send an update letter to schools. Since I applied, I've given a talk at a research conference and had a 3rd author ditty accepted. If I can send in the other papers and add those in a letter then I think it makes it look like I've been hella productive (WHICH I HAVE GAIZ!).

@gyngyn, thanks for stopping in!

 

[kraskadva]

Some schools have Deans ( The Dean of the medical school) that measure the quality of the Admissions Dean's "product" almost entirely by the aggregate MCAT of the class. Others have deans that don't pay much attention to the admissions process at all. Depending on a school's definition of success, the flexibility to interview "interesting" candidates will vary dramatically.

So, it depends...
This is the kind of info that I think would be really useful in the MSAR. One can broadly infer these tendencies based on the stats ranges at a particular school, but it's still mostly guesswork when trying to put the school list together.
Ah well...

Thanks gyngyn.

 

[ridethecliche]

Also, I'm having too much fun with these ebola threads...

 

[kraskadva]

Also, I'm having too much fun with these ebola threads...

I noticed...
Why don't you try playing devil's advocate to mix it up. (It would keep me entertained ) I keep thinking of comparative examples from European smallpox epidemics and the initial wave of AIDS, but haven't had the time to jump into that fray.

 

[ridethecliche]

Or you could talk about the mongols (was it?) that catapulted plague ridden dead bodies over the walls of cities they were at war with to infect soldiers and bring them to the ground.

Just checked. It was Genghis Khan. Shocker.

 

[kraskadva]

Or you could talk about the mongols (was it?) that catapulted plague ridden dead bodies over the walls of cities they were at war with to infect soldiers and bring them to the ground.

Just checked. It was Genghis Khan. Shocker.

Meh, everybody did that in the middle ages, the Great Khan was just the trendsetter. But let's not bring bio-warfare into it. Opposite aims and would probably irritate your sparring partner into walking away.
I was thinking more about historical containment/quarantine/travel regulation topics.

 

[astrophel_]

...it looks pretty numbers driven and that there's not much room for the qualitative...

Given the mountain of applications they have to wade through, I wonder what these programs have done to "quantify" the qualitative elements of the application as well. I've heard that some schools put a fair degree of weight in the distribution of categories for ECs (which, I suppose, says more about how we see evaluate our priorities than about the activities themselves?). I wonder how schools are using text mining techniques to quantitatively analyze our personal statements, experience descriptions and secondaries.

An intriguing article from a PA education journal on these lines suggests that identifying role models is the only theme that has a positive correlation with matriculation (in PA school)—that said, this is text analysis used retrospectively; one wonders/worries how it might be used prospectively (and how future applicants might co-opt it...):
Forister JG, et al. Thematic Analysis of Personal Statements in Physician Assistant Program Admissions. J Physician Assist Educ 2011; 22(2):6-12.

 

[Zelda840]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the Amp program?

 

[kraskadva]

If this looks familiar, then you've used Amp.

It's one of the software platforms for secondaries and getting more and more common it seems.

 

[Zelda840]

I see - thanks!

 

[ridethecliche]

A break from your regularly scheduled programming:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/north...-forcing-startled-shoppers-climb-walls-160745

 

[ConsultantMD]

OMG I am in total shock right now, but after speculating that the Amp program for why I haven't received any good news from schools that use it--I got an interview at Columbia today!! Wow! I'm so grateful. No more hypothesizing!

 

[ridethecliche]

Rejected from Brown as of two minutes ago.

 

[WaterPog]

Me too.

 

[ridethecliche]

Atleast the silence is over, lol.

 

[researchismymiddlename]

OMG I am in total shock right now, but after speculating that the Amp program for why I haven't received any good news from schools that use it--I got an interview at Columbia today!! Wow! I'm so grateful. No more hypothesizing!

WOOOOT! Congratulations @ConsultantMD!!!!!!

I got rejected from Brown this morning too. I thought it was an II so I squealed when I saw the e-mail, but my face fell as I recognized the verbiage to be a rejection. So the game continues... Good luck all! It's nice to see the cycle in news mode!

 

[ridethecliche]

Yeah, Brown is a bit of a long shot since they admit so many of their own undergrads. So it goes. They had a decent letter as well.

 

[researchismymiddlename]

Yeah, Brown is a bit of a long shot since they admit so many of their own undergrads. So it goes. They had a decent letter as well.

Indeed, they did have a nice letter! Good luck, you rock

 

[ridethecliche]

Indeed, they did have a nice letter! Good luck, you rock

 

[Glycereine]

awesome comic... but why does the ruler have hands and the rock doesn't?

 

[researchismymiddlename]

I got accepted a few minutes ago! So thrilled that I can be a doctor someday! Hoping for some good news on this thread, you all deserve it with how awesome you are!