A typical Admissions Committee meeting

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I am curious about this and since I've been on SDN, I haven't seen a thread on the subject.

I could only imagine how a typical admissions committee meeting goes. This is my take on what occurs.

There are about 20 members in the meeting. They pick out an application from a candidate they interviewed, and they have 20 copies of the AMCAS and secondary so all members can read them.

After spending 5 minutes or so skimming through the application, the interviewers each present a 5 minute talk describing how the interview went, their general impressions of the candidate, and then their recommendation to either accept, waitlist, or reject. Of course after each interviewer presents the candidate, members of the committee all ask questions that may be on their mind to get to know the candidate better.

Then comments from other members of the committee may be heard regarding what they believe. Finally, the discussion ends with a vote of whether to accept, reject, or waitlist. I believe that not all 20 members will get to vote, but only a selected 5 or so have a vote. Once a majority is reached, the decision is made and they move on to the next candidate.

Now I know all this is speculation. I am curious to see what other people's opinions are on how ADCOM meetings go. Perhaps the student interviewers on SDN can provide us real insight into what occurs, or maybe people who have friends on admissions committees know more about it. Any thoughts?

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Im pretty sure they just staple all applications to the walls, then start throwing darts all over the room. Whichever applications get hit with a dart get looked at.
 
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Originally posted by cornell2004
Im pretty sure they just staple all applications to the walls, then start throwing darts all over the room. Whichever applications get hit with a dart get looked at.

That sounds about right.
 
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20 is a lot. at the schools ive heard about its 10. to get an outright acceptance it needs to be virtually unanimous. a 6-4 vote in favor of acceptance wont cut it and will most likely end up on the waitlist.

on the ones my friends are apart of...their vote is as equal in weght as the faculty vote. the interviewers either defend you if you were a good interview and they feel you are good for the school. they ask questions about the interview the repsonses you gave etc...

they go over your stats again and your amcas app and secondary etc...

discuss discuss...and vote.

for a 10 person committee...im thinking an 8-2 vote will get you in.

most of the schools ive inteviewed at have discussed in detail how their meetings go...i just cant remember the full details of them.
 
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i thought that they go through a sorting process like this:

first, they are sorted by undergraduate university: if the appicant is from an ivy league, that application gets reviewed. if the applicant is from a state school, the app is put in the bathroom for people to use as toilet paper.

second, the ivy leagues are separated by extracurricular activities: if the applicant volunteered more than 30 hours per week as an orthopaedic surgeon, specializing in pre-natal corrective surgery in Ghana, then those applications are reviewed. all the other ones are put on waitlist.

the reviewed apps get accepted, and if people don't accept those acceptances, then the waitlist pool is used.
 
Originally posted by cornell2004
Im pretty sure they just staple all applications to the walls, then start throwing darts all over the room. Whichever applications get hit with a dart get looked at.

:idea:
 
Originally posted by cornell2004
Im pretty sure they just staple all applications to the walls, then start throwing darts all over the room. Whichever applications get hit with a dart get looked at.

And then once the alcohol starts flowing....that's why so many people are waitlisted!
 
Originally posted by jlee9531
20 is a lot. at the schools ive heard about its 10. to get an outright acceptance it needs to be virtually unanimous. a 6-4 vote in favor of acceptance wont cut it and will most likely end up on the waitlist.

on the ones my friends are apart of...their vote is as equal in weght as the faculty vote. the interviewers either defend you if you were a good interview and they feel you are good for the school. they ask questions about the interview the repsonses you gave etc...

they go over your stats again and your amcas app and secondary etc...

discuss discuss...and vote.

for a 10 person committee...im thinking an 8-2 vote will get you in.

most of the schools ive inteviewed at have discussed in detail how their meetings go...i just cant remember the full details of them.
That's interesting. I guess 10 sounds about right. However, I know for some schools like Jefferson they have about 30 people getting interviewed each interview day. If all interviewers are going to be at the meeting, then that meeting might even be more than 20. I'm not sure how they do that.

Also, it is interesting to me that the vote has to be almost unanimous rather than just a majority. That means people who are accepted off the bat should get props because they managed to impress most of the ADCOM. :clap:
 
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The dartboard thing was pretty funny, and I laughed out loud at the "applications from state-school students are used as toilet paper".

I can't remember where it was, but I definitely recall hearing a dean somewhere tell us, "You really would not want to be in that room when an admissions committee meeting is going on. It can get downright nasty in there..."
 
Originally posted by coldchemist
The dartboard thing was pretty funny, and I laughed out loud at the "applications from state-school students are used as toilet paper".

I can't remember where it was, but I definitely recall hearing a dean somewhere tell us, "You really would not want to be in that room when an admissions committee meeting is going on. It can get downright nasty in there..."


:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

nice! :)
 
Originally posted by coldchemist
I can't remember where it was, but I definitely recall hearing a dean somewhere tell us, "You really would not want to be in that room when an admissions committee meeting is going on. It can get downright nasty in there..."
Nasty as in cussing at each other? I can imagine arguing but not quite getting to that level.

Thinking about it, it would be good to have an interviewer who not only likes you but presents you well. If he is charasmatic and he likes you that can only help you. It doesn't help if your interviewer is kind of quiet and has nothing to say even if he had a positive impression of you.
 
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oh and at some places that have a lot of applicants...there are more committees to break up the work load.

one school has 6 lower committees i think that make decisions. if they decide on outright acceptances then they send those to the executive committee that basically rubber stamps the acceptance, but if the lower committee vote shows a standoff...then it gets sent to the exec committee so that they can make a final ruling on the matter.
 
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At one school the commitee meets in the evening, gets some food, and breaks into groups of five. They then predetermine the vote, and vote accordingly. What I mean is, if one person is a friend or interviewer of the candidate they get to vote in favor while the impartial persons are culpable for a rejection. A vote of 5 is obviously an acceptance, a 4 is usually a wait-list and eventual acceptance, 3 wait-list no acceptance and <3 outright rejection.
 
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I always said that I would love to see a video tape of the committee discussing me. I would pay big $ for that. Maybe someone should start a business.
 
at MCO they told us the process in detail.

I forgot most of it but it went something like this. Maybe someone else can clarify.


The two people that interview you rank you 1-5 in several characteristics, and they present you at the committee meeting (which is like 15 people or so). Then they discuss your app and also rank several characteristics 1-5. Those rankings are essentially averaged, and the bottom gets rejected, the to gets accepted, and the middle gets waitlsited or accepted progressively.



At Ohio State, they have a six member commitee that meets RIGHT AFTER YOUR INTERVIEW and votes then and there. Talk about efficient.
 
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I don't know if this experience is anything like an admissions committee-- but on an editorial board for a journal I was involved in if we thought the article was really good the vote was pretty much unanimous. It was a rare article that got 5-4 or 6-3 votes. Usually it went 10-0 and occasionally 9-1 or 1-8. On second review a bunch of articles that did 9-0 in the first round went something like 2-6 in the final round.
 
Here's how it works at my school. It's Generally at night and with good food. They break into about 4-5 groups of 5 people. They get 5-8 files each group and they review the files and each person vote whether to admit, or not. Someone who get's 4 admits gets in the very next day. Everybody else get's either waitlisted or rejected. But near the end I think they review the people who are waitlisted or close, but I'm not sure on those details.
 
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They put them in a big box then roll it down the stairs and accept the applications that fall out.
 
They put all the applications in a metal drum and light it on fire. After dousing the fire, they accept all the people who's names are still legible on the application fragments (must be first and at least 1/2 of the last name to count). If that is not enough people, they accept the first people who call asking about the status of their application (cause you can't very well answer "burned to a crisp").

I know this...I've been there for "bonfire day."
 
i totally agree with the dart method. hehe.

i do know the procedure for one of the schools i interviewed at, and i'm sure many other schools adopt the same method.

for this school, the committee consists of 30 individuals, yes 30! Two of those people are your advocates, your interviewer and file reviewer. the file reviewer is the person who reviews your secondary and decides if you get an interview or not. the file reviewer and interviewer both take turns discussing you, usually only the strong points, the stuff that makes you shine. then, the discussion is open to the panel and the other people on the committee then begin asking questions to your interviewer and file reviewer, and they respond. after all this, a vote is done. each member gets a voting ballot which has several "highly agree, agree, disagree" type questions. after filling these out, they are collected and scored and assigned a number. then all these individual numbers are collected and averaged for each applicant. the committee then decides what cut-offs to use, and that's how they determine who gets accepted, waitlisted, or rejected. pretty interesting. but yeah, thats about it.

i still think this is a cover up for the dart method.
 
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Originally posted by jlee9531
oh and at some places that have a lot of applicants...there are more committees to break up the work load.

one school has 6 lower committees i think that make decisions. if they decide on outright acceptances then they send those to the executive committee that basically rubber stamps the acceptance, but if the lower committee vote shows a standoff...then it gets sent to the exec committee so that they can make a final ruling on the matter.

This is what I heard goes on, lower commitees can accept you unless there is a grid lock.
 
So what happens before they extend an interview invitation? How many people review your application? Are the reviewers members of the Adcom or other staffers? Anyone know for sure? I know for sure that I've been tossed back into the pile pre-interview at Loyola and GW and I am curious as to who's making the decision and how it's made.
 
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Originally posted by Slickness
Nasty as in cussing at each other? I can imagine arguing but not quite getting to that level.



They probably have worse AA discussions than we do.
 
Originally posted by coldchemist
I can't remember where it was, but I definitely recall hearing a dean somewhere tell us, "You really would not want to be in that room when an admissions committee meeting is going on. It can get downright nasty in there..."

This is not for a med school adcom, but for a Student-run helpline I was on. Every potential listener has to go through training and do an evaluated roleplay each week. I believe there are 8 roleplays total. So during the selection process, the 8 evaluators will discuss the candidate...and oh yea, it can get really nasty.

An evaluator that's disliked by many will probably be criticized by other evaluators, and the opinions of some evaluators (The more likable ones) definitely can weigh more than others. Some evaluators quit helping out with training when someone they like wasn't accepted to the helpline.

Each discussion for a candidate can take from 15 minutes to an hour, it's ridiculously long!

And this is not even for admission to med schools...
 
Originally posted by Jalby
Here's how it works at my school. It's Generally at night and with good food. They break into about 4-5 groups of 5 people. They get 5-8 files each group and they review the files and each person vote whether to admit, or not. Someone who get's 4 admits gets in the very next day. Everybody else get's either waitlisted or rejected. But near the end I think they review the people who are waitlisted or close, but I'm not sure on those details.

so do they end up with a ranked waitlist?
and who are the people who voted not to admit me i'd like to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it seems kind of unfair to expect 4 out of 5 people to agree about a candidate...especially when so much of this process is subjective...obviously people with a 4.0 and a 40+ will get the committee's nod.....
what i think they should do is have the people who interviewed you sit in on the committee....as a part of the five....and have it so that they interviewed all 5-8 files that they're handed...so that they have first-hand experience with all interviewees, and can more accurately compare them......
 
Originally posted by Jalby
Here's how it works at my school. It's Generally at night and with good food. They break into about 4-5 groups of 5 people. They get 5-8 files each group and they review the files and each person vote whether to admit, or not. Someone who get's 4 admits gets in the very next day. Everybody else get's either waitlisted or rejected. But near the end I think they review the people who are waitlisted or close, but I'm not sure on those details.
I don't think this is exactly the best way to go about doing things. As camstah alluded to, the person who interviewed you is not even there to help in the decision. I am assuming that they do a write-up of how the interview went which in my opinion does not compare to an actual interviewer advocating for you in the meeting.

At least in this case, it seems that the school places less emphasis on the interview.
 
Originally posted by Slickness
Nasty as in cussing at each other?


nasty as in wiping their asses with applications from state schools. :laugh: (see above)
 
Originally posted by camstah
so do they end up with a ranked waitlist?
and who are the people who voted not to admit me i'd like to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it seems kind of unfair to expect 4 out of 5 people to agree about a candidate...especially when so much of this process is subjective...obviously people with a 4.0 and a 40+ will get the committee's nod.....
what i think they should do is have the people who interviewed you sit in on the committee....as a part of the five....and have it so that they interviewed all 5-8 files that they're handed...so that they have first-hand experience with all interviewees, and can more accurately compare them......
bitter?
 
Originally posted by cornell2004
Im pretty sure they just staple all applications to the walls, then start throwing darts all over the room. Whichever applications get hit with a dart get looked at.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Originally posted by Slickness
I don't think this is exactly the best way to go about doing things. As camstah alluded to, the person who interviewed you is not even there to help in the decision. I am assuming that they do a write-up of how the interview went which in my opinion does not compare to an actual interviewer advocating for you in the meeting.

At least in this case, it seems that the school places less emphasis on the interview.

If we actually did require our interviewers to be in the meetings we would do a lot less interviews because people wouldn't be willing to put that much of a time commitment into it. Besides, you will probably still end up with a class that is 90% the same each way you do it. You still will end up with 168 people in the class, it's just that 10-15 people would be different, and that's not that bad.
 
I was on an admissions commitee years ago and the process can get complicated. I like the post about throwing darts at the applicants because sometimes it felt like that was what were were doing. OK, maybe not that bad.

At any rate, our committee was made up of 8 individuals (6 MDs for the medical center and 2 medical students). I should say that this was the make up of the final committee and not the ones that determine if a secondary will be sent or not. As a result, we had the entire application right down to the picture. Of course, there is also more than one committee because the sheer volume of applications that must be reviewed is high. We would usually get about 10-15 applications at a time and receive them about a month prior to meeting. I found that the applications were actually very well reviewed. If there is one piece of advice I can give is that everything better be consistent in the application because if there is one discrepancy, the evaluators were sure to pick it up. At first this surprised me because I figured these MDs were busy so how could they read the applications so carefully. However, after being a resident, it became clear that in a way it's similar to reviewing a chart. Certain things stand out and when something doesn't make sense, the MD can usually spot it. Anyway, I digress. The applicant would be discussed in pretty good detail. The applications that went the fastest were those that would be accepted right away and those that would be rejected right away. The ones in the middle would be the most difficult. In these situations, everything was scrutinized and the application was given a ranking. Those with high rankings would be reviewed in future sessions and rediscussed (hence the wait list). Depending on the quality of applicants in general, we would decide to accept certain applicants or reject them. This means that if we would subsequently review a bunch of top quality applicants in future sessions, then the students with lower rankings from previous sessions would be on an indefinate holding pattern or rejected.

A few things I learned along the way:
-The most random things may work in your favor. Some attendings pick up on such things as hobbies, or certain life events, or non-academic achievements and form a picture of why this candidate would be a great asset.
-Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a minimun 36 MCAT combined score to get in. I would say that many of the people in my committee just wanted to make sure that you were not a total idiot. Sure, all 12s are great and make you stand out, but if you got double digits, you probably had just as good of a chance as getting in as people with better scores.
-Everyone seems to volunteer in the hospital and after a while, the applicants just blur into one another. The best activities are the ones that are not necessarily in the hosptial. If your volunteer activities demonstrate basic human compassion, regardless of the setting, then it's probably more interesting than "I spent two summer in the ER."
-You MUST proofread. Applications get frowned upon for any mistake in grammer or spelling. There is simply no excuse for this.

Well, there are other tidbits but this post is getting a little long. Perhaps I'll post more in the future.

Good luck
 
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Interesting! Thanks for the insight.
 
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Originally posted by ruby_1
IApplications get frowned upon for any mistake in grammer or spelling. There is simply no excuse for this.
like writing "grammer" instead of the correct "grammar," for example?
 
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Excellent point, spelling was never my strong point. I guess I should amend that point and say spell check everything. Good thing I already made it through medical school admissions.
 
Ruby, thanks for the insight. I pm-ed you with some questions. :)
 
Originally posted by Jalby
If we actually did require our interviewers to be in the meetings we would do a lot less interviews because people wouldn't be willing to put that much of a time commitment into it. Besides, you will probably still end up with a class that is 90% the same each way you do it. You still will end up with 168 people in the class, it's just that 10-15 people would be different, and that's not that bad.
I see. Do most schools have this style or do most schools have your interviewers there to present you.
 
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Originally posted by Slickness
I see. Do most schools have this style or do most schools have your interviewers there to present you.

I would assume so. The people I know who interview wannabe's at other schools do have to present the interviewee, but I don't have much information on other schools meetings.
 
Originally posted by Jalby
Here's how it works at my school. It's Generally at night and with good food. They break into about 4-5 groups of 5 people. They get 5-8 files each group and they review the files and each person vote whether to admit, or not. Someone who get's 4 admits gets in the very next day. Everybody else get's either waitlisted or rejected. But near the end I think they review the people who are waitlisted or close, but I'm not sure on those details.

is there a person in charge, like the adcom chair or adm dean, to make the final decision on the applicants that get a 4 or they are just automatically accepted based on the decisions of these groups of 5. or like does the chair go around and help the different groups out. ...there must be someone in charge?

getting 4/5 sounds pretty hard!? scary...

thanks jalbs. you really are cool and nice. (i know weve said that a bunch of times now, but i have to say it again)
 
Originally posted by ruby_1

-You MUST proofread. Applications get frowned upon for any mistake in grammer or spelling. There is simply no excuse for this.

I accidentally left out the word "of" in a sentence and I have been accepted. I've even gotten a couple of interviews to CA schools. I do have a feeling, however, that the other CA schools screened me out because of it... that or my mediocre MCAT ;) Luckily, my 1st choice wasn't as harsh!! What school's adcom were you on, Ruby_1?
 
Originally posted by ruby_1
You MUST proofread. Applications get frowned upon for any mistake in grammer or spelling. There is simply no excuse for this.
Well, just like Already in debt, I've been accepted to a couple of schools and my AMCAS had a few errors in the personal statement. I think many schools realize that physicians and future physicians make little mistakes just like everyone else.
 
Slickness, didn't you get into Drexel? At my interview they outlined the process during the hour long presentation. It was towards the end so it might have been a blur LOL...

BUT, as I understood it at Drexel, interviewers (student and faculty) rate you using a sheet...my student interviewer had his right out in front of me actually. As soon as they hand this in, a THIRD person reviews your entire file, including interviewer comments. THAT person is now your designated advocater in the big meeting. They present you to the committee...where they make a decision. (they didn't say whether it was majority or how many are on the committee).

Now at Einstein, the interviewer DEFINITELY is not present. But, mine indicated he had to do a whole write up similar to another personal essay on my behalf indicating whether they should accept or reject me. This goes into my file and the committee reviews it. Since my interivewer used to be on the committee, he said that it was pretty arbitrary sometimes (which frustrated him) I guess the committee is the same group each time. He said often he felt people were rejected the following week that might have been accepted or waitlisted the week before. At any rate, that is done by majority decision...to accept. As I understood it, if your vote is not majority but close, they will revote for a wait list.

Anyway, the whole thing seems pretty random. How does one keep it from being arbitrary and with the wind of bpeople's feelings for that night...as opposed to standard. My interviewer scared me a little because, it indicated to me that if I got reviewed on a 'bad' night...I could be rejected cause someone has an attitude this week, that they didnt have last week or the week after. I think that sucks.
 
Originally posted by bullhorn
Slickness, didn't you get into Drexel? At my interview they outlined the process during the hour long presentation. It was towards the end so it might have been a blur LOL...
Yes but I really didn't remember them talking about how they went about doing things. My interview was in October.
 
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