Worst admissions staff in the country.

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No kidding, oct 2001, i was a 16 year old high school student living in a developing country in a boarding school where 8 people share the same room. My biggest dream back then was to maybe visit the New York and London one day and become a scientist of some sort. I had no idea that I'll one day call US my home and on my way to become a physician who is also a scientist of some sort. It's amazing that something going on this forum 13 years ago would be still relevant.

I applied to GW 3 years ago. I had trouble getting a straight story from the admission staff whether or not I qualify to apply with a Foreign science college degree and a US master degree in liberal arts and about a semester worth of US science education. Eventually I ended up applying anyway. Wasted the money when I was deadly broke.
this time around, I checked their students' indebtedness at the time of graduation on MSAR and was completely deterred by so many ten thousands that I ran out of fingers and toes to count. They sure beat all the Real top players on this front by a solid margin!
@Jalby , Chinese has a saying 君子报仇十年不晚。meaning, a real gentleman wait for his revenge to perfect in time and ten years are not too long a wait...I think 13 years are a good time as well.

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I applied to GW 3 years ago. I had trouble getting a straight story from the admission staff whether or not I qualify to apply with a Foreign science college degree and a US master degree in liberal arts and about a semester worth of US science education. Eventually I ended up applying anyway. Wasted the money when I was deadly broke.
this time around, I checked their students' indebtedness at the time of graduation on MSAR and was completely deterred by so many ten thousands that I ran out of fingers and toes to count. They sure beat all the Real top players on this front by a solid margin!
@Jalby , Chinese has a saying 君子报仇十年不晚。meaning, a real gentleman wait for his revenge to perfect in time and ten years are not too long a wait...I think 13 years are a good time as well.
Oh, I didn't know @Jalby actually enrolled at Georgetown! Yikes.
 
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I can't believe this is still going...
Seeing it revived and enjoying its memory made my 2 hour lecture on cervical triangles slightly more tolerable this morning:sleep:
 
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Oh, I didn't know @Jalby actually enrolled at Georgetown! Yikes.
I do not believe that is an accurate statement. He went to California med school and is somewhere else now for residency
 
not the worst experience but here it goes:

I got an email from Georgetown on a Monday morning saying "Sorry, you've been rejected."

2 hours later I got an email saying "Sorry, that was an accident, you're still being considered"

Next week, same exact time on Monday I get an email saying "Sorry, you've been rejected"

:sleep:
:wow:
 
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I can't believe this is still going...

Nick, I've said many times on here I hate pre-meds. They are people who think so highly of themselves and everybody else is crap.

No matter how good a residency spot you get, no matter how high in the chain of command, even if you become chief of surgery, nobody will ever like you as long as you are believe you are better than everybody else and always feel the need to show it.
 
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Well said Jalby. I was only in middle school when you created this thread. But now I am applying to medical schools and never in my life have I felt so worthless. I know there are people who cruise through this process like a breeze. But the majority of us who also work hard, being respectable citizens, having a compassionate heart and a passion for medicine, yet still treated like we're worth nothing to them (the medical school admission offices I mean).

We paid their office good money for our application to be looked at; applications that we work so hard to put together, containing many years of labor, sweat, and blood...; things that made us who we are. Yet you are still just a number in their "lottery" system. They can pick you out, or not. They can look at you, or not. They don't care. Even if they always say:"we look at every applications in their entirety"... Biggest lie I've ever heard. It's because of people like us who love medicine that their offices are in existence, that the Deans of admissions have their big job, in their big fat chair.

We all want to go to medical school and come out to be good, compassionate, empathetic physicians to help mankind. But wait, before you can see the door of the medical school, you have to jump through an admission process that is everything BUT fair, or kind, or compassionate, or empathetic. They use those words on every one else but they are exceptions from those rules of ethics.

And there is no reason some one with a 4.0 GPA/40 MCAT and awesome ECs still has to apply to 10-20 schools to hopefully get an acceptance. That is total bs.

This whole system needs a big change
-Realizes he cannot do interview in required time slot
Yes. Checked to see if I could trade my classes or find some way to book a flight out there, but couldn't.

-Takes weeks to even call office
Got the interview offer 9/18/2001.
see the date Georgetown offers below
Called 7 days later.

-Ignores explicit instructions given by said office
Explicit instructions was schedule interview by October first and interview by October 28th. I called them Sept 25th to explain my situation (6-7 days after I received the invite) I would not say I ignored the explicit instructions. They told me to write a letter stating my problem. They gave me no deadline to write that letter. It is only when I called them on October 8th that they said that since they didn't receive my letter by the first I was rejected.

-Is surprised when he is rejected for...wait for it...not following instructions
Yes. I paid $150 for a secondary fee and deserve to be treated than more than a number. I have interviewed at 15 medical schools, 15 residencies, 13 fellowships. I have never had a single problem rescheduling an interview or anything like that and I have never heard of anybody else having that kind of problem. I've had accommodation made for 1. Flight being cancelled and me getting stuck in a different city. 2. Hurricane coming and interviewing a day before. 3. Getting an interview three weeks early because I happened to be in town for a different interview.

-???
???

-Revered as hero on SDN
I was kind of a big deal on SDN before that. I got up to the 5th highest posts for a while.

What am I missing?
1. Georgetown treated me like I was just a number and told me that they were such a great medical school that they really don't have to care if they treat applicants like ****.
2. I cussed out the dean of admission for treating me that way.
3. I happened to log onto SDN 3 days after someone else randomly bumped this thread up after being dead for 4 years.
4. Georgetown has completely changed the way it treats its applicants because of this thread (even though the admissions department is still run by the same people)
5. This thread would be starting the 6th grade right now if it was human.
 
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Well said Jalby. I was only in middle school when you created this thread. But now I am applying to medical schools and never in my life have I felt so worthless. I know there are people who cruise through this process like a breeze. But the majority of us who also work hard, being respectable citizens, having a compassionate heart and a passion for medicine, yet still treated like we're worth nothing to them (the medical school admission offices I mean).

We paid their office good money for our application to be looked at; applications that we work so hard to put together, containing many years of labor, sweat, and blood...; things that made us who we are. Yet you are still just a number in their "lottery" system. They can pick you out, or not. They can look at you, or not. They don't care. Even if they always say:"we look at every applications in their entirety"... Biggest lie I've ever heard. It's because of people like us who love medicine that their offices are in existence, that the Deans of admissions have their big job, in their big fat chair.

We all want to go to medical school and come out to be good, compassionate, empathetic physicians to help mankind. But wait, before you can see the door of the medical school, you have to jump through an admission process that is everything BUT fair, or kind, or compassionate, or empathetic. They use those words on every one else but they are exceptions from those rules of ethics.

And there is no reason some one with a 4.0 GPA/40 MCAT and awesome ECs still has to apply to 10-20 schools to hopefully get an acceptance. That is total bs.

This whole system needs a big change

You pretty much just summed up how I've been feeling for the past 2 months. I have turned my entire life around when I went to college and overcame everything to be where I am at today. On one hand, I can proudly say that I graduated as a top student at my alma mater. On the other hand, after waiting years to be at this stage of the process, I feel so worthless when I wake up to an email that says:

"We regret to inform you that we will not be interviewing you."

THAT'S IT?! I have come so far and have sacrificed so much for all of these years to get a short response like that?

Well, a lot of people like to complain but don't like to offer suggestions. I am not one of those people. There should be a policy in every medical school where a volunteer has to sit in the admission committee's meetings and writes down pro's and con's of every applicant, and those should be included in the rejection emails. It won't cost medical schools a penny seeing as how pre meds starve for volunteering opportunities anyways.
 
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I like your idea STLMako91. To be honest, this whole medical school application process needs a whole revolution in the same scale as the Industrial Revolution. There are too many things that could be fixed. I don't know it will happen unless the whole pre-med community stands up together in one voice. I know I'm dreaming.

I'm very sorry to hear about the email you received. But if it makes you feel better, at least you have only felt that way for few months. I have felt that way for the past year and a half and trust me, it is not fun. Some time I wonder why should I torture myself, and let other people who absolutely don't give a sh** about me control my life like this. There are many other good things out there to do, other careers to pursue, more good people to meet.... But the love of medicine has got the best of me.

So just hang in there. There is nothing we can do about this f**k'ed up process now.
 
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Well, I know at USC the admissions director actually read every applicant. I hated it in some ways because she let in a certain type of applicant who I didn't even think deserved to get in and tried to get them scholarships.

Georgetown, well, the dean of admissions himself told me there were a thousand people who would happily take my place.
 
Well, I know at USC the admissions director actually read every applicant. I hated it in some ways because she let in a certain type of applicant who I didn't even think deserved to get in and tried to get them scholarships.

Georgetown, well, the dean of admissions himself told me there were a thousand people who would happily take my place.
I currently have a prof. who was faculty at Georgetown when this thread was created and every lecture we have by him I think of this thread...warms my heart.
 
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Wow, this was a fun thread to read. Much respect to Jalby for keeping it going for so long. Damn.
 
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I was still wetting my pants at Oct 9th 2001.

Anyway, neat thread. I hope it doesn't get taken down as I would like to see GT's improvement over time.
 
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I just read this whole thing instead of studying for my exam in a few hours. Worth it.
 
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Well, I know at USC the admissions director actually read every applicant. I hated it in some ways because she let in a certain type of applicant who I didn't even think deserved to get in and tried to get them scholarships.

Georgetown, well, the dean of admissions himself told me there were a thousand people who would happily take my place.

What "type" of applicant is that?
 
What "type" of applicant is that?

Well, she grew up in a farm in the central cali vallet. If you grew up on a farm in the Valley and want to work in a low income community, you will get in.

The example that sticks in my mind is someone who got a 3.2 GPA at a community college over 4 years. He had been at UCLA for 2 quarters and Summer school taking the easiest classes. He had a 2.9 at UCLA. MCAT of 26. But he had a history of growing up on a family farm and wanted to go back to the small towns of central Cali to be a family medicine doctor. He got admitted and referred to the scholarship committee. She almost got him a full ride, but I was able to convince the committee to only give him a half ride.
 
You don't f- with @Jalby or there will be consequences. I'm right now wondering where I was and what I was doing on Oct 9, 2001.
I had finished my MS and was working but hadn't gone abroad or started my PhD yet. It made me laugh that some of you guys were little kids at the time; I was 26 in October 2001. :D

FWIW, I didn't apply to Georgetown either, but not because of this thread. Even if their admissions staff was the nicest, friendliest, and most accommodating in the country, I still wouldn't have applied there because they're so way overpriced. As are most coastal private schools, which is why I don't think premeds should apply to any of them if they have other (cheaper) options.
 
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I had finished my MS and was working but hadn't gone abroad or started my PhD yet. It made me laugh that some of you guys were little kids at the time; I was 26 in October 2001. :D

FWIW, I didn't apply to Georgetown either, but not because of this thread. Even if their admissions staff was the nicest, friendliest, and most accommodating in the country, I still wouldn't have applied there because they're so way overpriced. As are most coastal private schools, which is why I don't think premeds should apply to any of them if they have other (cheaper) options.
That's a good reason as well. Unlike Georgetown's law school (top 15 school I believe) and undergrad, Georgetown's med school is not really that much better. Definitely way overpriced, but expected as it is D.C., where I think everything is overpriced. lol. I just can't belive this thread is 14 years old and still running. It's old enough to start high school.
 
That's a good reason as well. Unlike Georgetown's law school (top 15 school I believe) and undergrad, Georgetown's med school is not really that much better. Definitely way overpriced, but expected as it is D.C., where I think everything is overpriced. lol. I just can't belive this thread is 14 years old and still running. It's old enough to start high school.
Concur.

GT Law (13) and UG (21) are very highly ranked. Georgetown Med is between 40-60 depending on the criterion being looked at.

On the matter of Oct 9, 2001.... I was six. I was likely eating animal crackers.
 
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Concur.

GT Law (13) and UG (21) are very highly ranked. Georgetown Med is between 40-60 depending on the criterion being looked at.
Yup. Just bc it has a great undergrad, doesn't mean jack squat in terms of the med school - another example: Dartmouth. You can bet the med school capitalizes on that name though.

Like that you used the character from the tv show Suits! That show is hilarious.
 
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Oct 9th, 2001. I was in 9th grade, probably feeling just as angsty as Jalby was, but for entirely different reasons.

I love that this thread still lives. I remember reading the whole thing 4 years ago when I was applying. Oh, the internet.
 
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Well, she grew up in a farm in the central cali vallet. If you grew up on a farm in the Valley and want to work in a low income community, you will get in.

The example that sticks in my mind is someone who got a 3.2 GPA at a community college over 4 years. He had been at UCLA for 2 quarters and Summer school taking the easiest classes. He had a 2.9 at UCLA. MCAT of 26. But he had a history of growing up on a family farm and wanted to go back to the small towns of central Cali to be a family medicine doctor. He got admitted and referred to the scholarship committee. She almost got him a full ride, but I was able to convince the committee to only give him a half ride.

Not going to lie, this pretty much confirms my outside impression of how medical schools allocate money.
 
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Well, she grew up in a farm in the central cali vallet. If you grew up on a farm in the Valley and want to work in a low income community, you will get in.

The example that sticks in my mind is someone who got a 3.2 GPA at a community college over 4 years. He had been at UCLA for 2 quarters and Summer school taking the easiest classes. He had a 2.9 at UCLA. MCAT of 26. But he had a history of growing up on a family farm and wanted to go back to the small towns of central Cali to be a family medicine doctor. He got admitted and referred to the scholarship committee. She almost got him a full ride, but I was able to convince the committee to only give him a half ride.
She'll know that she's wrong to believe non binding promise once the said student matched into Plastic Surgery helping people with serious deflated boob problems at the B-Hill...or not...haha. People who gets 26 MCAT do not usually go on to get perfect board score all of a sudden.
 
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I had finished my MS and was working but hadn't gone abroad or started my PhD yet. It made me laugh that some of you guys were little kids at the time; I was 26 in October 2001. :D

@QofQuimica--I was 27. We may have been drinking in the same bar and didn't even know it...
 
Concur.

GT Law (13) and UG (21) are very highly ranked. Georgetown Med is between 40-60 depending on the criterion being looked at.

On the matter of Oct 9, 2001.... I was six. I was likely eating animal crackers.
Holy crap, you're a babby. Or maybe I'm old, I honestly can't tell anymore.
 
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Holy crap, you're a babby. Or maybe I'm old, I honestly can't tell anymore.
Wake up call for you? For going after that sweet mid life crisis? ;)
 
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Holy crap, you're a babby. Or maybe I'm old, I honestly can't tell anymore.
It's a mixed bag. I'm the youngest in almost all of my classes (which is both good and bad I suppose? I was asked if I was a high school student auditing the course more than once...)
 
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Holy crap, you're a babby. Or maybe I'm old, I honestly can't tell anymore.
I feel the same way. We were having a conversation about South Park in PCL last block and someone commented how it came out 17 years ago. I was like man I was in 6th grade then. To which almost everyone else responded, "umm I was 5..."
 
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I feel the same way. We were having a conversation about South Park in PCL last block and someone commented how it came out 17 years ago. I was like man I was in 6th grade then. To which almost everyone else responded, "umm I was 5..."
lol, I had the same realization the other day when me and my roommate were talking about South Park. I was trying to work a TI-83 for the first time, but most of the kids in my class were still trying to figure out how to color in the lines when it came out.
 
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I was 22 when this thread was first started.
 
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@QofQuimica--I was 27. We may have been drinking in the same bar and didn't even know it...
Unlikely, since I got drunk for the first and only time while in college and have basically never touched another alcoholic drink since. Vomiting works wonders as aversion therapy in my case; even just the smell of alcohol is sometimes nauseating to me. I can't stand the smell of grilled cheese for the same reason, and that aversion is even older; I was ten when I got sick after eating a grilled cheese sandwich (so thirty years ago now :p). It probably wasn't even the grilled cheese that made me sick; I was probably motion sick from riding in the car afterward. But there's just no reasoning with the reptilian brain.
 
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Ah, such fond memories of kindergarten during the end of the Cold War. You know, they never told us why we had those "duck and cover" drills.
 
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Unlikely, since I got drunk for the first and only time while in college and have basically never touched another alcoholic drink since. Vomiting works wonders as aversion therapy in my case.

Come to think of it, I was actually pregnant with my first kid in October, 2001. However, vomiting as aversion therapy did not stop me from having two more kids after that one.
 
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No, he's a baby, he's only 19 now. Ok, maybe we all are old. Sigh.

True, but rather to be old and lived life than to die an early death. Thousands of people in their teens and early twenties die in the USA every month.
 
True, but rather to be old and lived life than to die an early death. Thousands of people in their teens and early twenties die in the USA every month.
Such pleasant things I have to look forward to.
 
I feel a need to add my story to this thread:

I first encountered this thread when I was considering attending medical school as an undergraduate student (2007? 2008?). I read the entire thing and found it completely hilarious.

My senior year, I literally flunked organic chemistry, realized I'd never be admitted to anything but DO or Caribean, and decided to choose another career path (apparently I wasn't that dedicated anyway). I ended up going to law school (where apparently bad undergraduate grades mean nothing) and earning a second advanced degree to go into academia. I (somehow) stumbled across this thread again while looking for teaching fellowship programs today and reread the entire thing. Three comments:

(a) Some of the pre-meds on the earlier pages seem like no fun at all. I'm really glad I spent three years drinking and partying with a much looser crowd, even if absolutely no one respects me just because of the piece of paper on my wall.

(b) When I discovered this thread, it was already at least six years old. I'm entering my thirties, and have lived my entire adult life since I first encountered it.

(c) Finally: there are way too many Georgetown apologists on this website "Well, they're a decent school otherwise, their law school is greaaat." No, screw those a********. Don't give them any credit. They've been consistently ranked as the worst law school in the country that any sane person would consider borrowing a dime of student loan money to attend since U.S. News started ranking law schools in 1987. 14th. No better school has ever been ranked worse, and no worse school has ever been ranked better. It is truly the mark that divides the good schools from the sh*******s. Even with my terrible undergrad GPA and complete inability to attend a US MD program, I never would have considered enrolling there.

Keep up the good fight, OP. You have a fan in the legal world.
 
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(c) Finally: there are way too many Georgetown apologists on this website "Well, they're a decent school otherwise, their law school is greaaat." No, screw those a********. Don't give them any credit. They've been consistently ranked as the worst law school in the country that any sane person would consider borrowing a dime of student loan money to attend since U.S. News started ranking law schools in 1987. 14th. No better school has ever been ranked worse, and no worse school has ever been ranked better. It is truly the mark that divides the good schools from the sh*******s. Even with my terrible undergrad GPA and complete inability to attend a US MD program, I never would have considered enrolling there.
Great point. LOLOLOLOL. Even in the law school tier ranking, where the ranking within each tier supposedly doesn't matter, Georgetown is STILL placed last: HYS/CCN/MVPB/DCNG lmao
For the uninitiated, the T14 as listed above are: Harvard, Yale, Stanford/Chicago, Columbia, NYU/Michigan, Virginia, Penn, Berkeley/Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown
 
Great point. LOLOLOLOL. Even in the law school tier ranking, where the ranking within each tier supposedly doesn't matter, Georgetown is STILL placed last: HYS/CCN/MVPB/DCNG lmao
For the uninitiated, the T14 as listed above are: Harvard, Yale, Stanford/Chicago, Columbia, NYU/Michigan, Virginia, Penn, Berkeley/Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown

You're being too charitable to GT still. The idea of the 3-4 school sub tiers in the "elite" 14 is that they're qualitatively so indistinguishable that it's essentially random chance how they're ranked against peer schools (IIRC each of Columbia, Chicago, and NYU has been ranked everywhere from 4th to 6th in the last 5-6 years; none have been ranked anywhere else for a couple of decades).

GT is the bastard stepchild of elite law schools, a tier unto itself: it's always ranked significantly worse in raw score than every other law school in the country that people feel uppity about attending. The year it tied with Vandy was the only time a non-Top 14 school has ever been ranked equivalently to any top14 school.

This is probably way too off topic, but point being, screw GT if they're going to have an attitude about their selectivity. 14th out of 150-something might sound great, but you have to remember that the ABA has allowed at least half the law schools in the country to keep accreditation when they'll quite literally let in a crash test dummy if it's capable of marking an x on a master promissory note.

OP is my hero because I have a similar story about not getting into Columbia Law and never even considered starting such an epic grudge.
 
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ayyyyyy I'm part of SDN history now
 
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Never.

Addendum to the story, that I didn't add because I didn't want anybody to find out I did this while I was still a pre-med student and applying.

Once I was told I was rejected because I hadn't written the letter (Same phone call), I asked to talk to someone higher up. Finally I got to the person who told me that I was never going to get an interview because I didn't send in the letter and there was nothing I could do about it. Once I was sure he wasn't just the secretary (I think he was the dean), I proceeded to cuss him out. It felt good.

Are you a surgeon now?

Oh wait, status says pre-vet. What?
 
Who will be the @Jalby for Duke? When for some people the limboland has lasted for more than 10 days; and when agony and frustration covered more pages during those days than this thread did in the past 14 years?
 
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Who will be the @Jalby for Duke? When for some people the limboland has lasted for more than 10 days; and when agony and frustration covered more pages during those days than this thread did in the past 14 years?

That story belongs here @FriendlyFH. The long version ;-) That way the story will live on in glorious infamy. And maybe some other stories too?
 
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Who will be the @Jalby for Duke? When for some people the limboland has lasted for more than 10 days; and when agony and frustration covered more pages during those days than this thread did in the past 14 years?
I'm trying to not take it personally. I know RDubz said he was leaving in November so I'm guessing there is some crazy turnover going there. However, if this persists, or if they somehow lost my ratings from the interview etc. and subsequently reject me on the basis of lack of evaluation, then I will expect full reimbursement of all fees associated with applying to Duke.

What I'm guessing is even if this were the case, they would never admit it. They would probably just say yeah you didn't make the cut and send me on my way.


My vote for Jalby 2.0 is @peyton91
 
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