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Here is a relevant excerpt from the UB medical FAQ:
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Why was my application rejected?.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] ** The level of competition for seats in our Class has been extremely intense for the limited spaces available. In recent years, we have received approximately 2,000 applications, interviewed 450-500 candidates, and have entered 135 new incoming students. Because of this, we are forced to reject.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] many fine applicants each year. When a candidate is rejected, the Committee simply considers others to have better overall qualifications and credentials that merits acceptance..
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The point is, there are 135 places in each class. I'm sure they love to get early decision or early assurance students, that's a spot filled by a good candidate with no other options they are seriously considering. Call that 10-20 spots filled up. Or whatever number you prefer.
The other 120 or so openings are filled by the superstars of the premed world. If you got one, congratulations! You are the very best of more than 2000 applicants to SUNY Buffalo. The fact of the matter is, though, these superstars probably also got the nod from one of the "name brand" schools, and that sort of thing is hard to resist. Unless they have a compelling reason to do otherwise (financial, family, etc.) a huge percentage of these folks will go to an Ivy league school instead.
So Buffalo wait lists a huge proportion of its interviewees. They aren't stupid, they know how many of their first choices have multiple acceptances. They chose who to interview based on who they thought they could be happy accepting, and used the interview to give people a chance to prove otherwise.
If you are following this thread, congratulations on not taking them up on this.
My guess would be 300-400 people on the waitlist by the time they finish. Seriously. Remember how many schools you applied to? So did everyone else! How embarrassing for UB if they couldn't fill their class cause their WL was too short 😱
Lots of these people will withdraw long before August for a better school or a surer thing. Expect a TON of movement when people drop down to one acceptance. Most WLers who are going to get in will then. After that, a slow but steady trickle as people 'trade up'- you'd better be close to next on the list to maintain hope at this point. They may call you right up until the first day of classes, though- so it's tough to say it's ever really a lost cause.
In previous years, I suspect they must have gone through close to 2 or 3 times the class size. They know what they are doing by this point; they wouldn't leave us all twisting on the wait list for fun.
This is my first time applying though, and these are just my speculations. But I do know that a couple of years ago, people on a thread just like this one were talking about folks from the very top of the bottom third getting in- during orientation week.
Good luck, hippies and hard chargers.
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