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It's perfectly normal, if you want to disregard clear instructions and hurt your chances at an acceptance.

On a more serious note, I'm curious how adcoms here view thank you notes. If I was an interviewer, I'd delete thank you notes at best or at worst, dock them for attempting to suck up. But that's just me.
 
I had a few MMIs and I sent a thank-you to the admissions office after. I got into those schools, so it didn't hurt. Was it the thing that moved the needle though? Definitely not so keep that in mind. Sounds like this school is specifically telling you NOT to send a thank-you note. You should listen to their instructions.
 
Usually there would be so many people involved, it would be weird to send even a general thank-you and list out a set of people like you're accepting an Academy Award.

What's next? "I'd like to thank the little people on the admissions committee—Karen, you're a real one! Thanks for answering that question I asked once in August! Also, I looked up Travis on the directory, I know you coordinated the Zoom rooms, big shout-out to you!"

Like, no, actually, allow me to physically prostrate on the ground before you on-camera to show you how deferential I feel.

In general, I find them kind of performative and insincere. I started the cycle sending them, and after the third clearly AI-slop response I received (after overthinking and overworking those thank-yous trying to rack my brain for the right words for hours), I got the picture.

And it makes sense, it's very unlikely some stressed third year working 60 hours, studying, and interviewing 10 different applicants on any given week is going to truly appreciate a thank you. Much less the overworked administrator who is used to the theatrics of admissions and gets a thousand love letters a day.

I say just stop accepting them. Why make it yet another stage for this play, another surface on which to project premed insecurities everywhere?

matthew mcconaughey acceptance speech GIF
 
polymerization said:
Usually there would be so many people involved, it would be weird to send even a general thank-you and list out a set of people like you're accepting an Academy Award.

What's next? "I'd like to thank the little people on the admissions committee—Karen, you're a real one! Thanks for answering that question I asked once in August! Also, I looked up Travis on the directory, I know you coordinated the Zoom rooms, big shout-out to you!"

Like, no, actually, allow me to physically prostrate on the ground before you on-camera to show you how deferential I feel.

In general, I find them kind of performative and insincere. I started the cycle sending them, and after the third clearly AI-slop response I received (after overthinking and overworking those thank-yous trying to rack my brain for the right words for hours), I got the picture.

And it makes sense, it's very unlikely some stressed third year working 60 hours, studying, and interviewing 10 different applicants on any given week is going to truly appreciate a thank you. Much less the overworked administrator who is used to the theatrics of admissions and gets a thousand love letters a day.

I say just stop accepting them. Why make it yet another stage for this play, another surface on which to project premed insecurities everywhere?

matthew mcconaughey acceptance speech GIF
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I actually have one legit person to thank. Because of a system glitch, I didn't schedule an appointment when I thought I did and my deadline would have passed had they not double checked on me. Other than that, no one else.
 
doctorendgame said:
I actually have one legit person to thank. Because of a system glitch, I didn't schedule an appointment when I thought I did and my deadline would have passed had they not double checked on me. Other than that, no one else.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I have a feeling that when they did so, you thanked them on the spot like anyone else would. What I find super weird is that I find myself thanking my interviewer for even meeting with me at the start of the interview, then for their time at the end... now you need me to write a general thank you and upload it into a portal that I am convinced nobody ever even reads... just to signal that I "really" want to go there...? Really?

Like, hello? The tens of thousands of dollars that I have paid to be under your consideration itself implies this is not exactly a favor, it is a service.

I think you should not be a jerk. Like I said, I think it's beneficial in general to be a pleasant person and to go out of your way to be gracious. I think it crosses the line into weird when it becomes a strategic factor as opposed to a genuine token of goodwill, and I think we've definitely crossed it.

It's actually a more rudimentary version of what happened with the Match and the literal concept of preference signaling. The Sheriff of Sodium has a video about it.
 
I didn't send any thank you notes. It hasn't seemed to hurt me in any way. I did go out of my way to be extremely warm and friendly during my interviews, and thanked each person for their time and told them how nice it was to talk with them. When I thought about writing a thank you note, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say that I didn't get a chance to say during my interviews, so I just decided it was best to leave it alone. I think especially for MMIs they aren't necessary
 
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