Hi,
So my application cycle has not been very successful so far (a couple waitlists, no acceptances) so I guess it's time to think about reapplying. I do believe that I can make a much stronger application, since family problems caused significant delay and poor quality of my first submissions, and I've gotten more experience by scribing during my gap year.
I have the following questions:
1. How do medical schools look upon re-applicants? Should I avoid reapplying to the same schools? For example, I could potentially change my residency from FL to NY, and apply to NY state schools instead of the FL state schools I already applied to.
2. What about schools for which I submitted a primary application, but not a secondary? Does that change anything, and do they still consider me to be a re-applicant to their school?
Thanks in advance.
To give good input we need to know what your stats were and where all you applied. If your stats were good and your list was bad and late, it might be as simple as apply broadly and on time next cycle and youll be fine. Likewise there are different degree of stats; 3.6/31 isnt hte same thing as 3.9/37 even if both are competitive to some schools.
But if the school list and stats arent a primary issue then here is what to consider
1) Contact the schools that rejected/waitlisted post interview to see if they can give you an feedback. If the interviewing is suspect, there's a primary issue to fix. If there was a bigger issue than that such as lack of clinical experience, medicore secondaries etc, there is also good input
2) Look at how your application will have changed from this cycle from the last. If all you are adding is scribing experience from the pervious cycle where you werent good enough, I'm skeptical thatll make enough of a difference. But I would still try given they are your state programs.
3) Any discussion about "best states" for med school admission centers around this table
https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstablea5.pdf
For all of Florida's state programs, the state only matriculate 20% of their IS applicants in Florida which is a rather low number. In turn, sure there are plenty of schools but there are also way too many Fl IS applicants for those spots. New York is at 27% which is solid but not spetacular.
If your sole goal is to move to a state that's better for residency purposes there are better options than New York. In terms of what is close to you consider South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. I have no idea about AL or MS residency requirements but I know SC and LA tend to be on the more leinant side. The question is how will those state programs look at someone who went their whole life not living there then only moved there for a year or two before applying? Some state programs this works fine; some dont look upon it as favorably. I have no experience with South Carolina and Louisiana to say how the state programs there will look at someone doing something like this.
If in fact you applied broadly and your stats are in the "not fantastic but good enough" category like a 3.6/31 applicant might be ,I would give consideration to sitting out next cycle and putting more than a year of improvement into your app before reapplying because in some ways yes the standards are higher for a reapplicant. You ahve to show real noteworthy improvement and often that means acheiving a standard higher than many first time applicants dont have to achieve. Identify the weaknesses in your app and seek to address them; if you dont apply until Summer 2017 that's 1.5 years to fix your app which is plenty of time.
