Med School Admissions Process = Load of Crap

PHECT said:

Arrighty... After the undergrad admissions process, I thought to myself "this is a load of crap." It seemed as if if you happened to play tuba, and Joe University needed a tuba player, you were in." That was the logic behind the process.

After applying to med school and listening to other peoples stories, I've realized that this admissions process is the exact same thing. I kinda thought that there would be a better way to judge people. I got a buddy who did pretty well on da CAT, has a solid GPA at an Ivy and he got shafted by a lot of schools. I myself got into a pretty good school, but my supposed state school, that everyone told me was a "safety" gave me the boot.

SO, note to all those who apply in the future. APPLY EVERYWHERE because there ain't a such thing as "no shot."

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Sounds like the tuba playing paid off.

Yeah it was probably the tuba playing that did it for you.

It's funny that you bring up the music thing.

I heard a guy that used to be on the admissions committee at UCLA say that one year while he was there they decided that they wanted to put together a band and so chose people that played instruments until they have a full band.

MEG@COOL said:

Yeah it was probably the tuba playing that did it for you.

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Wow, I think I'm gonna take up the tuba.

/Seriously

MB in SD said:

It's funny that you bring up the music thing.

I heard a guy that used to be on the admissions committee at UCLA say that one year while he was there they decided that they wanted to put together a band and so chose people that played instruments until they have a full band.

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One guy in the class of 2009 played the bag pipes professionally. Another guy dressed up as a clown for parties to get extra crash as an undergrad.

Really sitting here discussing the "after action" report of so and so who didn't get into here and there despite these stats is pointless. For all we know, the person said something that was interpreted the wrong way during interviews and that was what did them in. Or not a good writer in terms of their PS. Way to may variables to be concerned about.

Although the admissions method is not perfect, its is far far FAR more superior than if so and so school needs a "tuba" player. Those guys that I mentioned not only did some unique things, but were also amazingly smart. I believe one of them got a 100% on their general pathology exam. My research professor taught the class, and said this is the first time he's seen that happen in 15 years. So these guys had a lot to offer, based upon their application package. Not because the school needed to fill up a specific slot in their class (or band )

MB in SD said:

It's funny that you bring up the music thing.

I heard a guy that used to be on the admissions committee at UCLA say that one year while he was there they decided that they wanted to put together a band and so chose people that played instruments until they have a full band.

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I thought every school did that.

Here's how med school acceptance works: You need to have very good scores (GPA/MCAT), very good activities / volunteering, very good LORs, very good secondary applications, and very good interviews. If you blow any one of these at a specific school, you're probably done there. The reason is that 200 other people made no mistakes in any area and there's only about 120-150 openings. And even if you do everything well, someone else may do it better. That's why you should apply to 15+ schools: because there's a random factor. For example, if you interview poorly at one school or the interviewer simply doesn't like you (or isn't impressed), then you're done at that school. So interviewing at multiple schools helps you get over the "personality" hurdle, statistically.

gary5 said:

Here's how med school acceptance works: You need to have very good scores (GPA/MCAT), very good activities / volunteering, very good LORs, very good secondary applications, and very good interviews. If you blow any one of these at a specific school, you're probably done there. The reason is that 200 other people made no mistakes in any area and there's only about 120-150 openings. And even if you do everything well, someone else may do it better. That's why you should apply to 15+ schools: because there's a random factor. For example, if you interview poorly at one school or the interviewer simply doesn't like you (or isn't impressed), then you're done at that school. So interviewing at multiple schools helps you get over the "personality" hurdle, statistically.

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very well summarized.

You should copy and paste this into any other thread where people complain that it's all "crap shoot."

I would love to see a dark comedy about medical school admissions....

gary5 said:

Here's how med school acceptance works: You need to have very good scores (GPA/MCAT), very good activities / volunteering, very good LORs, very good secondary applications, and very good interviews. If you blow any one of these at a specific school, you're probably done there. The reason is that 200 other people made no mistakes in any area and there's only about 120-150 openings. And even if you do everything well, someone else may do it better. That's why you should apply to 15+ schools: because there's a random factor. For example, if you interview poorly at one school or the interviewer simply doesn't like you (or isn't impressed), then you're done at that school. So interviewing at multiple schools helps you get over the "personality" hurdle, statistically.

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disagree--thats why there are objective measures that separate the men from the boys. gpa and even more so mcat should take priority. if american business made decisions based on a random factor this country would be in shambles. get some actuaries in adcoms, thats what needed. hey, i really like that actuary idea. theres no such thing as 200 people being equal. there is always something that can be used to distinguish between them.

PHECT said:

Arrighty... After the undergrad admissions process, I thought to myself "this is a load of crap." It seemed as if if you happened to play tuba, and Joe University needed a tuba player, you were in." That was the logic behind the process.

After applying to med school and listening to other peoples stories, I've realized that this admissions process is the exact same thing. I kinda thought that there would be a better way to judge people. I got a buddy who did pretty well on da CAT, has a solid GPA at an Ivy and he got shafted by a lot of schools. I myself got into a pretty good school, but my supposed state school, that everyone told me was a "safety" gave me the boot.

SO, note to all those who apply in the future. APPLY EVERYWHERE because there ain't a such thing as "no shot."

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You are wrong. Yea, applying to medical schools is definately a subjective process, but that doesn't mean that things as insignificant as playing tuba, attending an ivy league, or good grades ENSURES your acceptance. The subjective things that weigh into the process are used to decifer wether or not your are a sincere appliant, or if you are just going through the motions.

Shredder said:

disagree--thats why there are objective measures that separate the men from the boys. gpa and even more so mcat should take priority. if american business made decisions based on a random factor this country would be in shambles. get some actuaries in adcoms, thats what needed. hey, i really like that actuary idea. theres no such thing as 200 people being equal. there is always something that can be used to distinguish between them.

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Haha. I thought about being an actuary for a couple of nanoseconds. While it would provide a more quantitative analysis of admissions, I doubt that every med school could afford the salaries of an actuarial squad.

yeah you seem like you would be good at it. pretty cool career, or so it seems from the outside. it wasnt until fairly recently that i even knew what an actuary was, as its not obvious from the name. they probably could afford it since the actuaries would do such an efficient job instead of, oh, all of 8 months

Shredder said:

disagree--thats why there are objective measures that separate the men from the boys. gpa and even more so mcat should take priority. if american business made decisions based on a random factor this country would be in shambles. get some actuaries in adcoms, thats what needed. hey, i really like that actuary idea. theres no such thing as 200 people being equal. there is always something that can be used to distinguish between them.

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From what you said, it's evident that you're disagreeing with the system, not what gary5 has said. Hate the game, not the playa'.

Dakota said:

I tend to think objective measures produce better results than the subjective so long as the correlations are known and have been studied.

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well stated, however theres a problem: once correlations become known, ppl rush to fulfill them and things go awry. for example volunteering at some point in the past prolly did correlate well with being a good doc or premed, but once that became known everyone flocked to it and its value as a criterion plummeted. so if the criteria are too easily fulfilled like tuba playing or cave exploring they are useless. its easier to quantify things like standardized tests. the only way to rank things like volunteering is by subjective essays or discussions of how meaningful they were (easily faked by a crafty writer or actor), or by number of hours which could be easily amassed by the overzealous--though not necessarily qualified--premed.

now it can also be said that people rush to do well on the MCAT, but its different...not everyone can do well on that, it has a built in and highly objective (or so i hope) method of differentiation, unlike outlandish criteria. i hope what i said wasnt too convoluted, i think this is a very interesting discussion though.

disclaimer: no hating gary5. this day must be happy too.

addendum: some say that due to prep courses, the value of even standardized tests is dropping. valid claim, bogus claim? what to use as criteria then? IQ? also they could afford a crew of actuaries--it wouldnt be a yearlong assignment for them like an inefficient adcom; they could be paid at an hourly rate. and actuaries dont rake in 250k/year to the best of my knowledge, at least not that ive heard. i like the actuarial adcom idea, maybe ill post it sometime, perhaps med business. measure students based on one overriding goal--financial returns to the school.

it boils down to this: see premeds as prospective investments, nothing more and nothing fancy. ah, the trump factor comes into play yet again.

Is that Tucker Carlson, and if so are you fuc*ing kidding me?

Shredder said:

theres no such thing as 200 people being equal. there is always something that can be used to distinguish between them.

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This is supposed to be the purpose of an interview...

Guys, do you think that if I played the tuba, I wouldn't have gotten rejected? Is that what was missing in my application?

gary5 said:

That's why you should apply to 15+ schools: because there's a random factor. For example, if you interview poorly at one school or the interviewer simply doesn't like you (or isn't impressed), then you're done at that school. So interviewing at multiple schools helps you get over the "personality" hurdle, statistically.

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I disagree with this part. There's quite a difference between applying to 15 schools and getting interviews at 15 schools. Most people who apply to this many schools will drop between 1/3rd and 1/2 of the schools once they receive an interview invite from a single school. People frequently apply to a lot of schools because they're worried they won't hear back from any - once they do, they drop most of the schools they apply to, since they weren't interested in those schools to begin with.

Don't apply to 15 schools because you think that's what everyone else is doing. Apply to 5, to 10, 20, whatever - but above all, don't waste time and money applying to schools you wouldn't go to if you got into (or even interviews from) any other school on your list.

PHECT said:

BUT, unfortunately, the med school admissions process has stripped away this benevolence and worthwhile causality and turned volunteering into a "rite." I don't think that the admissions process seeks out those who are sincere volunteers. Instead, the masses accurately assume they have to volunteer to get into medical school and carte blanche sign their names up to volunteer at something they have no interest in.

This creates another problem: what about those of us who have to work during our summers? Once volunteerism becomes obligatory, only those who have had the luxury to spend summers or after class time volunteering and not working are deemed 'acceptable' candidates. Doesn't that make the sway the "acceptable" or "interviewable" pool of applicants towards a limited subset of fortunate applicants who didn't have to work?

Problem. I don't have a solution.

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The adcom does seek those who are sincere volunteers. The length of time (months/years) that a person sticks with a cause is often more important than the number of hours per week or the total number of hours, e.g. I'd rather see 2 hours per week for 2 academic years than 60 hours per week for 2 weeks.

Almost everyone can carve 2 hours per week out of a busy schedule to volunteer in your local community, even if you have to work.

It is also possible to get comparable experience as an employee as one would get as a volunteeer. I, for one, will give someone who worked as a nursing assistant in a nursing home as much credit as someone who volunteered with the elderly, maybe more for the nurse's aide, because it is very hard, often unpleasant work.

PHECT said:

If you operate this way, then you are assuming that you WILL get interviews at those schools that you are sincerely interested in. That is a giant assumption to make. Schools have different selectivity criterion and the reason why I started this thread was that some of those criterion seem to be as capricious as "tuba playing."

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No I'm not. I'm simply stating that you shouldn't apply to a school you have no interest in attending. There's a difference between applying to high, match, and low schools, and applying to every school within a three-state radius with no regard for interest. You aren't really more likely to get interviews if you apply to ten schools you picked out of a hat than if you applied to 10 schools you'd absolutely go to if accepted at any of them.

PHECT said:

BUT, unfortunately, the med school admissions process has stripped away this benevolence and worthwhile causality and turned volunteering into a "rite." I don't think that the admissions process seeks out those who are sincere volunteers. Instead, the masses accurately assume they have to volunteer to get into medical school and carte blanche sign their names up to volunteer at something they have no interest in.

This creates another problem: what about those of us who have to work during our summers? Once volunteerism becomes obligatory, only those who have had the luxury to spend summers or after class time volunteering and not working are deemed 'acceptable' candidates. Doesn't that make the sway the "acceptable" or "interviewable" pool of applicants towards a limited subset of fortunate applicants who didn't have to work?

Problem. I don't have a solution.

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I agree that there must be some way to distinguish between prospective matriculants. While the MCAT is somewhat useful in testing ability to logically come up with correct answers using a basic knowledge base under pressure and time restrictions, it doesn't test compassion, interest or passion. (All important qualities for future Dr.'s to have IMHO.)

That said, I also agree that volunteering used to be a measure of this. Now it is expected-- and applicants know this. Hence, it is less objective and accurate a measure than in the past.

Your question/statement above about what happens when some of us have to work for the summers (and during the year), at the expense of volunteering, applies to me personally. Will we be at a disadvantage because we could not do the standard and expected volunteer EC's? Maybe to some extent, but for what it is worth, I got in with almost NO volunteering. The jobs I held both showed my compassion and interest in the medical field and paid enough that I could continue to go to school. I got in. While it may have limited my chances at Harvard or Mayo, (so did not studying as much as I should have for the MCAT) I think it is still possible for people with a background like mine to go to med school. I give most people on admissions committees credit for looking at what you have done, and with any reasonable explanation, seeing why you have done it. Heck, maybe it even gave me a slight advantage since they were able to see what I can do when I have more responsibility than just getting good grades, while Mom and Dad payed for everything else.

Just my 2 cents, for what its worth.

drhouse said:

Is that Tucker Carlson, and if so are you fuc*ing kidding me?

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Yes, and Yes.

I've had to work around thirty hours per week throughout college. It seems that at every interview at a top school, I'm surrounded by kids who have tons of research experience and enough volunteer work to make Mother Theresa look bad... Will the adcoms overlook my lacking in those areas because financially I was compelled to work? Maybe, but they haven't seemed to so far... The process is unfair, but I'm not sure that there is a better way to do it, and I think calling it a load of crap is a little extreme- So, I'm just hoping for the best...

PHECT said:

You are right... I don't think this limits you from getting into medical school per se (I'm in the same boat as you). However, it limits your competitiveness when applying to those top schools (ironically most often the schools that tout their diversity)....

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Perhaps so. I guess I will never know since I am in now and do not plan on reappyling. Maybe one of the reasons (other than low MCAT) that I did not really want to apply at many of the "top-notch" schools was that I didn't want to be around a bunch of people who weren't very accepting of someone coming from a middle class, working background. I know this sounds closed minded. Maybe I am just falling into believing the stereotypes. I just would rather find a supportive environment where everyone wants to learn and help one another, than a place where everyone has some special talent and all they want to talk about is x, y, or z and compare you to themselves so they can feel superior. Not my cup of tea.

Shredder said:

addendum: some say that due to prep courses, the value of even standardized tests is dropping. valid claim, bogus claim? what to use as criteria then? IQ? also they could afford a crew of actuaries--it wouldnt be a yearlong assignment for them like an inefficient adcom; they could be paid at an hourly rate. and actuaries dont rake in 250k/year to the best of my knowledge, at least not that ive heard. i like the actuarial adcom idea, maybe ill post it sometime, perhaps med business. measure students based on one overriding goal--financial returns to the school.

it boils down to this: see premeds as prospective investments, nothing more and nothing fancy. ah, the trump factor comes into play yet again.

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Actuaries have from what I can tell one of the closest things to a meritocracy. Basically they have tests of increasing difficulty and with every test you pass you are expected to make more. I think I read there are 7 exams and you can most likely pass the first two with a math degree and prep.

While they don't make 250k a year they do make 60-80k base from what I last saw. The greatest cost would be in the initial development of the software, research etc.

PHECT said:

As for you giving credit to the person that worked, from my experience (I worked a job like this), its not favored by the adcom....

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Just to clarify, the person who you are responding to here is an adcom member...so it's favored by at least one adcom

ND2005 said:

Just to clarify, the person who you are responding to here is an adcom member...so it's favored by at least one adcom

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If only the majority felt that way...

A very good case could be made that the interviewing part is pointless. The results are so arbitrary. I think if an actuary ran some numbers it would turn out that interviewing does nothing to select for the traits it's designed to select for.

It might make sense to switch to a system more like PhD interviewing, where the selection is done almost entirely based on the apps. The interviews are a check that someone isn't a complete freak or misrepresented themselves in the app. So schools might interview many fewer and admit 90%.

j8131 said:

A very good case could be made that the interviewing part is pointless. The results are so arbitrary. I think if an actuary ran some numbers it would turn out that interviewing does nothing to select for the traits it's designed to select for.

It might make sense to switch to a system more like PhD interviewing, where the selection is done almost entirely based on the apps. The interviews are a check that someone isn't a complete freak or misrepresented themselves in the app. So schools might interview many fewer and admit 90%.

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I totally agree with this point. How can an interviewer fairly assess the character of a candidate, who is often very nervous, in a 30 min interview? Also it seems like there is so much room for bias in the interview, either good (if you and your interviewer have a great deal in common) or bad (if you just don't "click"). If anything, I think requiring additional LORs from university faculty, and then giving LORs more weight, would be a preferable way to assess the more subjective qualities of an applicant's character.

Lorrayne said:

I totally agree with this point. How can an interviewer fairly assess the character of a candidate, who is often very nervous, in a 30 min interview? Also it seems like there is so much room for bias in the interview, either good (if you and your interviewer have a great deal in common) or bad (if you just don't "click"). If anything, I think requiring additional LORs from university faculty, and then giving LORs more weight, would be a preferable way to assess the more subjective qualities of an applicant's character.

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LORs aren't a very good way of assessing the subjective qualities IMO. Every single person's LORs will be positive outlining the good grade they got, their work effort, etc. They are all positive and I am sure rehash the same stuff that has been said in others LORs. Unless you have a truly unique situation which will shine through in your PS too, LORs seem to be a wash.

j8131 said:

A very good case could be made that the interviewing part is pointless. The results are so arbitrary. I think if an actuary ran some numbers it would turn out that interviewing does nothing to select for the traits it's designed to select for.

It might make sense to switch to a system more like PhD interviewing, where the selection is done almost entirely based on the apps. The interviews are a check that someone isn't a complete freak or misrepresented themselves in the app. So schools might interview many fewer and admit 90%.

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agreed. ive stated before that many law and business schools do not conduct interviews or make them voluntary. people can make all sorts of arguments about how "oh but medicine is different" but come on. well go ahead and make them if you want to, theyre refutable. med schools interview far too many candidates and then use some magical method to screen out between 2/3-3/4 of them for rejection. maybe the interviewer didnt like their hair or voice. great criteria. i dont understand how some people say as interview advice "just be yourself and dont act like a freak and you will be fine". does that leave up to 75% of interviewees as freaks who somehow made it this far unnoticed, only to be ferreted out in a 30 min talk about some random topic which may bear no relation to medicine?

nothing will change in med school admissions until there is serious competition or accountability. its just like microsoft--now google is supposed to be rising up. where is the google for AAMC? DO and Carib schools would not quite fit that bill.

actuary seems to be comparable to accounting careerwise. and yeah LORs are somewhat bogus too--the only way they would be of any worth is if every single person hates you and youre unable to produce enough, and that would never happen. i think a random sampling of LORs would be interesting, like not self selected

Wikipedia said:

A large meta-analysis (Hunter and Hunter, 1984) which pooled validity results across many studies encompassing thousands of workers (32,124 for cognitive ability), reports that the validity of cognitive ability for entry-level jobs is 0.54, larger than any other measure including job tryout (0.44), experience (0.18), interview (0.14), age (−0.01), education (0.10), and biographical inventory (0.37).

Because higher test validity allows more accurate prediction of job performance, companies have a strong incentive to use cognitive ability tests to select and promote employees. IQ thus has high practical validity in economic terms. The utility of using one measure over another is proportional to the difference in their validities, all else equal. This is one economic reason why companies use job interviews (validity 0.14) rather than randomly selecting employees (validity 0.0).

However, legal barriers, most prominently the 1971 United States Supreme Court decision Griggs v. Duke Power Co., have prevented American employers from directly using cognitive ability tests to select employees, despite the tests' high validity. This is largely based on that cognitive ability scores in selection adversely affects some minority groups, due to that different groups have different mean scores on tests of cognitive ability. However, cognitive ability tests are still used in some organizations. The U.S. military uses the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT), as higher scores correlate with significant increases in effectiveness of both individual soldiers and units,[8] [9] and Microsoft is known for using non-illegal tests that correlate with IQ tests as part of the interview process, weighing the results even more than experience in many cases.[10] [11]

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Lorrayne said:

How can an interviewer fairly assess the character of a candidate, who is often very nervous, in a 30 min interview?

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It's tough to generalize, but the interviews are often just a way of screeing out major red flags that won't appear on paper.

As a PGY-1 it has been most interesting to view the residency application process from the "other side of the fence." I was not intimately involved in the process this year, but I did take participate in some applicant tours/lunches. The program director summed it up nicely when she said "If you get an interview we know you have the brain power to succeed. The only real question to be answered is if we think we'd like to work with you day in and day out for the next four years." It's a highly imperfect process, but to date no one has invented a better one.

We had one guy interview who spent all morning being a jackass to the interviewers, essentially demanding that the program be sold to him. I reckon he thought he was God's gift to medicine. Even the residents who went to lunch with him were like "screw this toolshed." Somebody might have clued him in, because during the afternoon interviews he was much more conciliatory. Regardless of his sudden change of heart, he won't be getting ranked.

And so, in the end, unless you happen to interview with someone who really steps up to bat for you in committee (which is an epic crapshoot), that part of the process is only something that can hurt you.

Pretty messed up, eh?

This graduating med student who was doing residency interviews told me that he thought interviews are there just to weed out psychos, nothing more. This is for RESIDENCIES though. They probably interview far less people for a few spots.

Personally I think interviews play a huge role in the admissions process. Most people like myself can't stand out with stuff on paper (since every interviewee has good MCAT, GPA, ECs) so I see it as my time to try to make myself different from the rest and try to make an impression on the interviewer. But even then, it's up to the admissions committee to make the decision so yea, the whole process depends on LUCK. Hopefully majority of the adcom will like you.

Havarti666 said:

It's tough to generalize, but the interviews are often just a way of screeing out major red flags that won't appear on paper.

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If the interview were really used like this, then I would have less of a problem with it. But at many schools, it counts much more. In fact, at some schools, the interview becomes the sole determinant of admission after the pre-interview screen. I do believe you could use it to screen out arrogant jackasses and people who don't know what they're talking about. Beyond that, I dunno.

Med school interviews are done pretty haphazardly. I would bet that for most people, the biggest factor is simply who you interview with. Some people will like who you are, others won't. Of course there are a few people on both tails for whom it doesn't matter, but those are the exception. Some studies would be illuminating.

As far as no one having invented a better system, well, I'm not so sure. i think the PhD system may be better. Or may be no interview at all.

By the way, bschools are possibly open to the same criticism. But on the other hand, 1) the interview process is more systematic, 2) the business world is essentially about interviewing and being able to sell yourself to many, rather than just a few, people.

A final point: interviewing allows personal biases to creep in. Do we want doctors selected by attractiveness, for example? Believe me, it matters.

BrettBatchelor said:

LORs aren't a very good way of assessing the subjective qualities IMO. Every single person's LORs will be positive outlining the good grade they got, their work effort, etc. They are all positive and I am sure rehash the same stuff that has been said in others LORs.

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Yes and no. I read a ton of LOR's during grad school, and have since written a couple. There is significant variation in their level of detail and enthusiasm, and it does add (or detract) something.

j8131 said:

A very good case could be made that the interviewing part is pointless. The results are so arbitrary. I think if an actuary ran some numbers it would turn out that interviewing does nothing to select for the traits it's designed to select for.

It might make sense to switch to a system more like PhD interviewing, where the selection is done almost entirely based on the apps. The interviews are a check that someone isn't a complete freak or misrepresented themselves in the app. So schools might interview many fewer and admit 90%.

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You are speculating -- it's equally possible that those with high interviewing scores are really the precise folks the med schools really want, and the schools are getting distracting by the numerical stats. There are enough Steve Jobs types in the world that are good because of their personal skills, not their technical skills, and there is certainly value to having folks with both in any industry. If the folks in charge of medicine wanted doctors who were just high numerical stats and science degrees, it would be easy enough to implement that. The fact that the profession has moved far away from that point with little resistance and no evidence (I've seen) of drop off in quality suggests the new model has at least equal value.
As for giving credence to some actuarial analysis, I'm not so sure from the discussion that you know what an actuary does. I've worked with a few, and they tend to crunch numbers for insurance companies and the like, to estimate risk and turn it into a dollar figure -- not so much to turn subjective things like an impressions of an interview into objective ones. An important but tedious job.
A big part of an interview is "hitting it off" with the person you are interviewing with, and that involves people skills which are not tied to a formulaic approach. It is not at all arbitrary, as a great interviewer will always come off great, and a poor one always poor. Not random - it is based on a learnable and practicable skill. And not tied to pure verbal answers -- At the extreme, you could say the exact same words in two interviews and yet have one be good and one bad. The key is practice, and reading your audience. And it's a great skill to have when you have to deal with people as a professional, so there's validity in seeking out this skill by schools.

Havarti666 said:

It's tough to generalize, but the interviews are often just a way of screeing out major red flags that won't appear on paper.

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This sounds nice, and at some schools or with some candidates it may be the case.

But look at schools like Georgetown, GWU, WashU, and Vanderbilt -- they bring in over 1000 interviewees a year. Since they ultimately admit only ~200 of those, they are obviously using interviews as more than just a red flad screen.

j8131 said:

Med school interviews are done pretty haphazardly.

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I won't disagree with you there, but it's a tough business to parse out thousands of qualified applicants. Fortunately, the arbitrary nature of the admissions game is well known, so one just has to play along and take care of the checklist of items that will get you admitted:

- GPA
- MCAT
- Adequate volunteer work
- Adequate clinical exposure
- Adequate ECs
- Decent PS
- Positive LORs
- Postitive interview
- Casting a wide net in terms of schools

Each of these is like a bodily organ. They're all important to some extent, and your application will likely die if you remove any of them. Sure it's crap, but if you just suck it up and do your best and play along you get in somewhere. Next thing you know the whole process is just a vague, bad memory.

ND2005 said:

This sounds nice, and at some schools or with some candidates it may be the case.

But look at schools like Georgetown, GWU, WashU, and Vanderbilt -- they bring in over 1000 interviewees a year. Since they ultimately admit only ~200 of those, they are obviously using interviews as more than just a red flad screen.

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Yes, and a number of schools even indicate that they treat everyone that reaches the interview level as equal -- making it the only thing that counts once you reach that level. Other places give it disproportionately heavy weight. I know quite a few folks with borderline interview caliber stats who got right in off interviews while folks with higher numerical stats ended up waitlisted.

ND2005 said:

This sounds nice, and at some schools or with some candidates it may be the case.

But look at schools like Georgetown, GWU, WashU, and Vanderbilt -- they bring in over 1000 interviewees a year. Since they ultimately admit only ~200 of those, they are obviously using interviews as more than just a red flad screen.

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My residency program interviewed over 40 people for 5 spots, so the proportions aren't all that different. Larger residency programs likewise deal with many more applicants. In 2004 UIC's internal medicine program, for instance, got 2,356 applications and interviewed 330. I would wager that at most places your ranking is largely determined before you ever step foot on campus for an interview. A wonderful interview might help your cause somewhat, but a horrible one will certainly kill it.