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Have there been any pre-interview rejections? I think I'm giving up on Stony Brook 🙁🙁
2009-2010 Stony Brook Application Thread
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i looked at last years thread and saw that some waited a few weeks and some waited up to 10 weeks. so, it varies.
Got an email from my interviewer last week with congratulations and reasons why Stony Brook is so great and why I should go there lol. That was really nice of him.
I'm probably not going to end up going here after all and now there's one more reason to feel bad about it.
I'm probably not going to end up going here after all and now there's one more reason to feel bad about it.
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When did you interview?
11/3
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11/12 here. 🙁
we'll be okay, my fellow CUNY bro.
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...You've put me in an awkward position, my friend.
Anyway, first available interview dates were February, unfortunately. And also just throwing some CUNY love on this thread. Also, anyone else tired of going to interviews and having your school pronounced as "Coo-nie" City College/Brooklyn/Hunter/whatever?
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...You've put me in an awkward position, my friend.
Anyway, first available interview dates were February, unfortunately. And also just throwing some CUNY love on this thread. Also, anyone else tired of going to interviews and having your school pronounced as "Coo-nie" City College/Brooklyn/Hunter/whatever?
I never got that. Which kooni you at?
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Hunter, represent! Home of the worst pre-med adviser on the face of the planet. Yeah, I said it.
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You're in good hands on this site.
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so i have extensive ties to this school. Ya'll think that will help me get in?
i volunteered for stony brook university hospital last summer and this winter.
worked for stony brook hospital last summer (did research for them)
did non-pay research for a stony psych professor summer 2007
live 10 minutes from the university
have a parent who works for the university (not a prof though)
I just mention this because... it is known that having a relative who is a faculty member will help you get in. I have EVERYTHING but that that could tie me to the university, lol. Will this list of stuff help me get in? Should I be SURE to drop all of these tidbits in the interview?
i volunteered for stony brook university hospital last summer and this winter.
worked for stony brook hospital last summer (did research for them)
did non-pay research for a stony psych professor summer 2007
live 10 minutes from the university
have a parent who works for the university (not a prof though)
I just mention this because... it is known that having a relative who is a faculty member will help you get in. I have EVERYTHING but that that could tie me to the university, lol. Will this list of stuff help me get in? Should I be SURE to drop all of these tidbits in the interview?
if you can integrate some of these facts into your interview it may help you show interest in the school. other than that, if you don't have connections with someone who can pull strings, I don't know how much it can help.
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lolz i was looking for 'o dude, it was so get you in'
But still, schools want people that are interested, and likely to do their residency there and practice in the area.... would this help me in that regard?
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I think you just answered your own question.
Interviewed 11/20. Waitlisted. I blame my horrible student interviewer.
When can I expect to hear back? I have other acceptances, including 2 other SUNYs, so if I don't hear back with a financial aid package by May 1st I will have to withdraw.
Just called back - the earliest she said I can hear back is 3rd week of May. I'm surprised because I thought some people withdraw even before then. She also wouldn't tell me where I fell on the WL.
I guess there's pretty much 0 chance of me going to SB then.
Remember its overnight express for acceptance, emails for WL, snail mail for rejection. So yes I got an email.
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waitlisted today. Interviewed 11/20
Does it make much of a difference if I withdraw from the wait list now or later? I'm not taking someone's waitlist spot am I?
no but a better question is, if you are going to withdraw anyways why wait until may when the waitlist moves? If you come off the waitlist you will still withdraw so who cares? Unless you plan to attend if you get off the WL thne just withdraw now.
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Has anyone sent an update letter/fall grades to Stony Brook?
Guess I thought I was just leaving my options open. I do want to talk to some mentors before I pull myself off the list. If the match list at SB is so much better for competitive residencies than Buffalo or Upstate, it may be worth it for me to stay on the Wait List and then pull out of another school during the summer to go to SB.
Aside from that, does anyone know how the Wait List works? If they offer me a spot in June, how long would they give me to think about it? Would I have to make a decision without getting a financial aid package as well? Not that I expect a scholarship after being Wait listed, but I would be worried that they wouldn't give me enough loans to cover the expenses.
i could be mistaken, but if you do get offered a spot in june you can still apply for financial aid and whatnot, but chances are that they won't have much money to offer you at that point. as for taking out loans, it shouldn't be a problem since it's not the school itself that gives you loans. you borrow either from a private lender or the government.
You can apply for financial aid even if WL at any school come january. And you should if you plan to attend the school. If you think you may want to go to this school, dont withdraw, its not going to be a huge deal either way its just kind to withdraw if you have no want to attend. You should have a few weeks if you come off the WL to be accepted, its been that way at the schools ive interviewed at. As far as loans go dont worry about that, you will have enough to cover tuition and living expenses at w/e school you attend.
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Sounds to me like you should absolutely stay on the list. After all the application work and time you've put in, there's no reason to make a rash decision to pull yourself off the list. And, if you truly do think SB is your top choice, you should send them a letter of intent, and be sure to fill out your financial aid paperwork in jan/feb (as the other poster said). Then, if you do get pulled of the waitlist, they will be able to tell you ASAP what your package looks like and you can make a fully informed decision. Also, if you're mostly considering NY-state schools, it wouldn't be too too much trouble to pull up stakes at Buffalo or Upstate and come to Long Island kind of last minute. Good luck!
I have decided to hold my place on the WaitList until I can determine more clearly if SB might be my number one choice or not (which I plan on trying to figure out in March/April when I get my decisions and fin-aid packages back from all schools and go to second looks at the ones who accepted me).
However, I was wondering if I should write a letter to the admin committee explaining about my student interviewer and I am hoping to get some feedback from the SDN community on this idea.
On the day of the interview, I felt that the student who interviewed me did not like me from the moment he met me. My MS2 interviewer and I are very different people, as he is highly involved with his family and the URM community both at SB and in general. I am more involved with research and not super close to my family. During the interview, I felt that they way he asked me questions and responded to my answers was almost guaranteed to make me fail. For example, he asked me what my top priorities would be when I was a med student. I responded 1) my schoolwork 2) helping the community and 3) relaxing and enjoying my hobbies. His response was "Your family isn't one of your priorities?" which he said in a judgmental way. After the interview, he ran into one of his friends in the elevator and said to her "This is the person I'm interviewing today...Think she'll get in". I felt that this comment was somewhat inappropriate. And it did slightly turn me off to the school, although I am sure that most students at SB are nicer than this guy was to me.
So in short, I had a very bad interview. I considered requesting a second interview but I figured 1) Maybe the student was only acting tough and would give me a fair evaluation 2) A slightly negative evaluation on his part wouldn't cost me the acceptance - after all there are 2 interviews and other factors involved in the committee's decision 3) I thought requesting another interview is usually only for if people have a mental breakdown or something during their interview 4) Asking for another interviewer might reflect negatively on me to the committee 5) I only have so many vacation days from my job. Now that I have been WL-ed I see perhaps I should have requested this.
I was wondering if you think I should speak to the admissions committee about this, because if my interviewer tends to have this kind of prejudicial attitude towards many applicants he probably should not be interviewing at all. I don't expect this letter to help me get off the WL but if I do decide to stay on the WL throughout the summer, I am hoping that reporting my interviewer won't hurt my chances further.
interviewed on 12/3, had a very good student interviewer who also happened to be one of the star students in the school (she has appeared on TV). not so good when interviewed by a public health prof (Goodman) ... had nothing interesting to talk about and for some reason i went off tangent a lot...
keeping by fingers crossed for the next couple of weeks... hopefully 2010 starts well with an acceptance from stony! 😀
keeping by fingers crossed for the next couple of weeks... hopefully 2010 starts well with an acceptance from stony! 😀
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this is a bit old but wanted to correct a few misconceptions stated here:
while it's probably common to interview at all 4 SUNYs if you are a new yorker (as i did) it's probably pretty rare to be accepted to all four.
there is also no difference in tuition between the SUNYs. they all have the same exact tuition for in state which is set by NY state. so there would be no financial incentive to pick one SUNY over another unless you get some sort of merit aid which is highly unlikely anyway
while it's probably common to interview at all 4 SUNYs if you are a new yorker (as i did) it's probably pretty rare to be accepted to all four.
there is also no difference in tuition between the SUNYs. they all have the same exact tuition for in state which is set by NY state. so there would be no financial incentive to pick one SUNY over another unless you get some sort of merit aid which is highly unlikely anyway
It seemed to me the tuition was different - but that is probably because it included the cost of living stuff. Downstate was quoted to 26K and Buffalo to 18K for example. And the cost of living difference does make sense, since a rent of $400/month vs $900/month adds up to about 6K a year. I don't know if a difference of about 20K over 4 years is significant in the long run although it very well may be for some people.
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The tuition to each of the four schools is $22.8k per year for in-state. Since you mentioned Buffalo here it is on their website saying that it is $22.8k: http://src.buffalo.edu/financialaid/medcost.shtml
You might have been confused by the fact that NY state increased the med school tuition from ~18k last year to ~22.8k this year because of the recession and the broken state budget.
You are right though that living expenses can differ pretty greatly between the upstate schools (Upstate and Buffalo) and the Downstate schools (Downstate and Stony Brook). Rent in Syracuse can be as low as $350/month but at SB you really can't find anything decent for less than ~$650/month. However it seemed to me that the downstate schools are more highly regarded downstate (in and around NYC) than the upstate schools, also it comes down to where you want to spend the next four years.
I seem to remember seeing the 18K number on a piece of paper in my interview folder given to me at the interview at one of the SUNYs. I hope that doesn't mean a bunch of people got outdated info.
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yea that's definitely outdated info!
for the sake of completeness here's upstate and downstate showing $22.8k:
http://sls.downstate.edu/bursar/tuition_fees.html (scroll down a bit)
http://www.upstate.edu/com/tuition.php
and SB is definitely $22.8k ...so yea, absolutely no tuition difference between the four SUNYs and i would be wary of the school that gave you the old information in your packet (i hope it's not SB!)
qft, tuition hike is effective this year, i believe...only a ~20% hike, no big deal
does anyone know if admissions will be making decisions this week, or are they off?
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they are most likely off this week so don't expect anything. however next week is fair game....last year they definitely met the first week of january
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Yeah - I think most return January 4th.
I double-checked the interview folders from all SUNYs.
SB, Upstate, and Downstate all state the correct price of 22.8K in their interview folder. I did not see a page outlining the tuition in my Buffalo folder, so I figure the old number is something I remember when looking at their website several months ago.
Aside from that, I found this old article (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/no-index/about-ama/7566.shtml) in which it states that the SUNYs raised their tuition mid-year and enforced a retroactive raise. It's hard to believe that since this article was published in 2002 SUNY medical tuition has more than doubled. I wonder what the tuition will be in 4 years...almost the same as a private university?
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rest assured, private universities will increase their tuition as well, so public universities will still be cheaper. it's pretty sickening to see how much they have raised the cost of med school in the past 10 years...
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Interviewing tomorrow.
This is my top choice.
I am at the point where i just no longer know what medical schools want to see. I see all these stellar applicants on here getting WL'ed by places like stony and downstate.....
So I'm in a situation where, essentially, I am about to enter into a contest that will pretty much determine whether I am accepted or not. Problem is, I do not know how to win this contest. I no longer know what is considered a win in interview world. I do not know what the adcom wants to see.
lol.
but seriously. anything in partic stony looks for? Do the emphasis social skills? scientific emphasis? personality? uniqueness?
dayum. this ish drives me crazy.....
lolz
This is my top choice.
I am at the point where i just no longer know what medical schools want to see. I see all these stellar applicants on here getting WL'ed by places like stony and downstate.....
So I'm in a situation where, essentially, I am about to enter into a contest that will pretty much determine whether I am accepted or not. Problem is, I do not know how to win this contest. I no longer know what is considered a win in interview world. I do not know what the adcom wants to see.
lol.
but seriously. anything in partic stony looks for? Do the emphasis social skills? scientific emphasis? personality? uniqueness?
dayum. this ish drives me crazy.....
lolz
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