IVY League pre-med student, no interview invites

[Ismet]

Please keep the discussion on topic to the OP.

Thank you.

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[Lucca]

The fun part is how he got into HMS PhD honestly haha

Though for all we know his Mexican school may have been the Mayo of Mexico or something

...holy sh*it that would be Guacamole wouldn't it

Conclusion: he went to Guac

10/10 best post you've made on this site.

 

[nonStopstudying]

......

 

[nonStopstudying]

Also, in anybody's experience would medical school start sending out rejections soon if something was seriously wrong with my application?

Does the fact that I haven't received rejections mean I am still being considered for an interview, albeit later in the cycle? I feel like my application would have definetly been read by now, so maybe the committees are indecisive about my application.

 

[ridethecliche]

From a different thread:

Candidates fall into three general categories:
1. Interview now
2. Reject now (except for "silent rejection" schools)
3. Stratify and re-assess at intervals. This is the largest category in size. Most of these will never be interviewed but until a sufficient number of acceptances have been offered, interviews may be forthcoming as the season progresses.

 

[FFH]

i think i have a good selling point.. don't want to discuss online for fear of specifying my app too much. I think I may have had a negative letter of recommendation. can one negative lor sink the entire application?

Do you have a committee letter? If so then the committee will check for negative LOR submitted to them and as long as it isn't matter related, they tend to leave the neg letter out and use only the positive ones. I am not very certain about this though.

 

[ithd]

Agreed with above.

1. You should have a committee letter. In the possible case that the committee did not filter out the negative LORs....
2. Make an appointment with your premed advisor. He/She should have access to your LORs and be able to give you a general idea of how they are and if there are any negative statements in there. Of course this varies from school to school and how strict they are with confidentiality of the contents, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Avo Cado]

Hey nonstopstudying,

I'm sorry that you're in this position. I can imagine how frustrating it is to pour your heart and soul into your app and not get any positive feedback... something we are all afraid of happening! I'm not sure why ppl have been giving you a hard time--all of your posts (with the possible exception of the thread title) sound level-headed and humble to me.

I have applied to a broad range of medical schools including the top tier such as Harvard, Penn, Stanford, and JHU. Additionally, I have applied to less competitive schools and also my state schools.

How many of your schools are rolling vs. non-rolling admissions? I can tell you that from the top schools you listed, I heard from Stanford pretty quickly, but some of the others took a while to roll in (2-2.5 months from completion to II). I think you need to give it more time before drawing conclusions from those schools.If you applied to places like Michigan, Chicago, Vandy, it may be more concerning to have not heard back. FYI, my completion dates were mostly last week of July.

I sent in 5 LOR, and I have full faith in three of the letters since I have strong relationships with them, I have their trust, and I performed extremely well in their classes. Two of the letter writers said they would write the letters and keep it positive, but they told me that they could not give me exceptional letters because I did moderately well in their classes and they did not know me that well. Hence, I am worried that one or two of the letters may have come off as mediocre.Would that kind of situation (one or two mediocre letters) give pause to an admissions committee when sending out interview invites? Also, I was wondering if anyone had any tips to rectify this situation. (i.e. is it possible to ask for copies of the letters after they have been submitted, or I can I send solid updates with interest about the school to gain interview invites?)

Assuming you had a committee letter, I think it's unlikely that your LORs are major red flags. They might not be very compelling, and thus are putting your app in a holding pattern instead of getting it pushed to the II pile. I would suggest: 1) Contact your pre-med advising office. Try to confirm that the committee letter itself isn't problematic. 2) You could reach out to the two letter writers to determine (tactfully) if they wrote you an un-recommendation letter. You might phrase it like, "Thank you again for writing me a recommendation letter. I regret to say that my application cycle has not been going as successfully as I had hoped, and I am wondering if something in my letters is giving the admissions committees pause. I was hoping you could share with me any major weaknesses that you felt important to mention in my letter. I would really appreciate the opportunity to understand where I have room for improvement and try to address my shortcomings, so that I can strengthen my application for next cycle and ultimately be a more caring and competent doctor."

Also, in anybody's experience would medical school start sending out rejections soon if something was seriously wrong with my application?
Does the fact that I haven't received rejections mean I am still being considered for an interview, albeit later in the cycle?

Depends on which schools you applied to. Check the sdn forums to see whether people have been getting rejections from your schools. If not, this reinforces the holding pattern idea.

Also, I urge you to take a hard look at everything you have submitted. Were your secondaries well-written? Was your PS read by many different people? Did you really answer the "Why X school" questions or just copy-paste? I know I oftentimes get so attached to what I write that I fail to see thematic errors. Just food for thought.

Anyways, hope this long-winded response helps somewhat. Hang in there!

 

[lazyindy]

 

[Kochanie]

-_- I don't go to an ivy, but I feel their pain. When comparing an ivy league student to a low-tier student, ivy league should get in over ivy any day (with same stats).

 

[Catalystik]

Please don't sidetrack the thread, folks. Ismet has spoken.

 

[nonStopstudying]

Hey nonstopstudying,

I'm sorry that you're in this position. I can imagine how frustrating it is to pour your heart and soul into your app and not get any positive feedback... something we are all afraid of happening! I'm not sure why ppl have been giving you a hard time--all of your posts (with the possible exception of the thread title) sound level-headed and humble to me.

Thanks appreciate! I didn't realize typing IVY or Ivy would make a difference. Honestly, I didn't think about the capitalization when typing. I just put the title and then focused on writing the content of the post.


How many of your schools are rolling vs. non-rolling admissions? I can tell you that from the top schools you listed, I heard from Stanford pretty quickly, but some of the others took a while to roll in (2-2.5 months from completion to II). I think you need to give it more time before drawing conclusions from those schools.If you applied to places like Michigan, Chicago, Vandy, it may be more concerning to have not heard back. FYI, my completion dates were mostly last week of July.

I am not sure or how many were rolling vs. non-rolling. I didn't apply to any of the top rolling schools such as Michigan, Vanderbilt, or Chicago. However, I think many of the medical schools do review the apps as they get them, so I made it a priority to send my apps in early.

Assuming you had a committee letter, I think it's unlikely that your LORs are major red flags. They might not be very compelling, and thus are putting your app in a holding pattern instead of getting it pushed to the II pile. I would suggest: 1) Contact your pre-med advising office. Try to confirm that the committee letter itself isn't problematic. 2) You could reach out to the two letter writers to determine (tactfully) if they wrote you an un-recommendation letter. You might phrase it like, "Thank you again for writing me a recommendation letter. I regret to say that my application cycle has not been going as successfully as I had hoped, and I am wondering if something in my letters is giving the admissions committees pause. I was hoping you could share with me any major weaknesses that you felt important to mention in my letter. I would really appreciate the opportunity to understand where I have room for improvement and try to address my shortcomings, so that I can strengthen my application for next cycle and ultimately be a more caring and competent doctor."

My committee letters is not visible to me, and our advisors are pretty explicit that they will not share the LOR or the contents of them. They advise us to get letters from only people we can trust because under any circumstances they will not disclose the contents to us. Hence, my belief that something may have gone wrong with the LORs since that is the only piece of the application I do not have access to.

Depends on which schools you applied to. Check the sdn forums to see whether people have been getting rejections from your schools. If not, this reinforces the holding pattern idea.

Also, I urge you to take a hard look at everything you have submitted. Were your secondaries well-written? Was your PS read by many different people? Did you really answer the "Why X school" questions or just copy-paste? I know I oftentimes get so attached to what I write that I fail to see thematic errors. Just food for thought.

Anyways, hope this long-winded response helps somewhat. Hang in there!

 

[flowerpower123]

Hi,

So I have been pretty stressed out recently with a lack of interview invites. I am a current student a UPenn with competitive stats for admission to medical school (GPA 3.7-3.8 for science and overall) and (MCAT between 35-37). My entire application was complete in July and so far I have no interview invites yet.... right now its October, so they have had the entire two months of August and September to review my application.

I am wondering if this means there are red flags in my application, or if I am just a mediocre applicant for medical schools.

Btw... I have applied to a broad range of medical schools including the top tier such as Harvard, Penn, Stanford, and JHU. Additionally, I have applied to less competitive schools and also my state schools. I have yet to hear back from any of them.

I am getting really worried that something has gone wrong with my application.

 

[lnvictus]

How do people deduce the idea that this is OP's intention? I swear that there is a variation of this picture, or a similar text response, every time I see someone even mention that they're from an Ivy League school.

But yeah I'd wait it out. I'm in Penn too and I know some upperclassmen who have had very few responses despite having been done since early summer, so you're not alone.

 

[moop]

How do people deduce the idea that this is OP's intention? I swear that there is a variation of this picture, or a similar text response, every time I see someone even mention that they're from an Ivy League school.

But yeah I'd wait it out. I'm in Penn too and I know some upperclassmen who have had very few responses despite having been done since early summer, so you're not alone.

lol isn't it obvious why