2009-2010 University of Arizona Application Thread

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Ugh. Win, lose, or draw today I'm definitely going to the batting cages. I need to hit something.
 
did we determine whether tucson is sending acceptances today or monday?

i guess we'll know if they do...
 
Can they just send out everything today and put us all out of our misery?
 
Yea, this really is stressful! When I expect at 8am, wait till 9am, then 🙁, then I find out that things will go out in the "afternoon" I just go right back to :scared:😕:xf: !

Well, still, good luck everyone!
 
I've never been more confident OR anxious on an acceptance day. Remember, this is my third year, so I've had plenty of these days. I don't even know what to think right now. It's such a strange feeling. Anybody else out there as confused as I am?
 
I'm with ya ML. It's hard to break that streak of confidence that I've been earning for 4 years, but at the same time, over the past 3months I've been getting smacked down by admissions!

It's a weird feeling. Hopefully we'll both be able to breath a sigh of relief by Monday at the latest.
:luck::xf:
 
Just got tucson acceptance!!!!!!!!!!
 
me too!!

i was so excited, i forgot to say congrats to you, MNF....huge congrats!!
 
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Congrats to you too! And to everyone else gooood luck, really sooon you guys will all get in!
 
Just got tucson acceptance!!!!!!!!!!

me too!!

i was so excited, i forgot to say congrats to you, MNF....huge congrats!!


Big time congrats guys! I'm sure others will be posting on here with their acceptances, so in advance congrats to them too!

For those accepted today (and Monday too), head over to the accepted thread and check it out. It has lots of good info (and some nonsense of course!) about both campuses. Here's the link: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=693205
 
Dang. 🙁

But, congrats to you guys! I'm glad at least some SDNers got in! 😎

Here's to Monday, or waitlist! Maybe there's hope yet! 🙄
 
Anybody out there got the courage to call and ask if this was their final pre-waitlist acceptance day?
 
I'm stuck in my office with a dead cellphone, but if someone would call them I would appreciate it too!

Just sent an email requesting more info on the release, how many seats are left (if any), and when they expect to release the waitlist.

I am more bummed than anticipated :/
 
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i received an acceptance from tucson today, too. 2 weeks doesn't seem like enough time to make such an important decision (phoenix or tucson?) but i am grateful to even be in the position that i am. i'll try to be quick so i open up a seat for one of you deserving candidates. congrats to the people who got an acceptance and good luck to those still waiting!
 
i received an acceptance from tucson today, too. 2 weeks doesn't seem like enough time to make such an important decision (phoenix or tucson?) but i am grateful to even be in the position that i am. i'll try to be quick so i open up a seat for one of you deserving candidates. congrats to the people who got an acceptance and good luck to those still waiting!

Congrats! The two weeks thing does suck, but at least it sucks in a good way. If you haven't already, check out the accepted thread because there is information about both campuses on there.
 
Congrats! The two weeks thing does suck, but at least it sucks in a good way. If you haven't already, check out the accepted thread because there is information about both campuses on there.

i went through every post on that acceptance thread, thanks for starting it. i'm meeting with some of the current students to get a better idea about both campuses to see what the best fit is for me. i will be sure to let you know, irk, if we're gonna be classmates or "rivals" 🙂
 
Got home and called Tucson because I didn't want to wait. I was told that today WAS the last cycle before the waitlist. She said the waitlist has no confirmed date of release, but they were aiming for the first week of March. And, she said if you make the waitlist that you will be ranked and you will be notified of your rank and how many people are on the waitlist in total.

So, I guess :xf: for one of the, what, 10? seats in phoenix?
 
YES!!!! Recieved my Tucson acceptance today! Now when all my friends and relatives ask for the quintillionth time, "Have you been accepted yet?" I can answer "Hell, yeah!" and start doing backflips.
 
Got home and called Tucson because I didn't want to wait. I was told that today WAS the last cycle before the waitlist. She said the waitlist has no confirmed date of release, but they were aiming for the first week of March. And, she said if you make the waitlist that you will be ranked and you will be notified of your rank and how many people are on the waitlist in total.

So, I guess :xf: for one of the, what, 10? seats in phoenix?

This is very bad news
 
Congrats to everyone who got accepted!

Phoenix on Monday!

And for those who haven't been accepted yet... just remember that I was accepted pretty late off the waitlist and I'm the smartest person I know. Don't get down just yet... unless your idea of 'getting down' involves celebrating your anticipation for waitlist announcements and final phx campus acceptances.
 
Congrats to everyone who got accepted!

Phoenix on Monday!

And for those who haven't been accepted yet... just remember that I was accepted pretty late off the waitlist and I'm the smartest person I know. Don't get down just yet... unless your idea of 'getting down' involves celebrating your anticipation for waitlist announcements and final phx campus acceptances.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Hahaha, that's funny, Mad 😛
 
I'll say it is. Can anyone confirm that today was the last cycle before the waitlist? I was under the impression that the first week of March was the last cycle.

Congrats to those who are in!
 
Yea, I called them and got the word directly from admissions.
 
A very warm congratulations to those who got in, and for those still waiting, chin up 🙂 our good friend madevans is proof that life doesn't end with the waitlist. :luck::xf:
 
Thanks ehandber. I hope you're in the top 40 of the WL - I hope I am too!
 
Thanks very much! But, don't forget that they still will have a few seats to give out before the actual wait list comes out.

Since Phoenix chooses the same students as Tucson about 70% of the time, I'd guess that about 20-30 people are double-booked on the campuses. So, after monday comes around there should be those additional seats opening up within 2 weeks.

THEN the wait list, and thanks! I hope we all are what makes up the top 10 on the WL.

It'd be a dream-come-true if Phoenix would just accept me already! 😀

COME ON PHOENIX+ME+MONDAY! (And, of course, all of you guys too!)
 
So Phoenix has had 4 acceptance days, (12/4, 12/18, 1/15, 2/5). Since they back-fill their slots, and have stated that they send out 15% of their seats at a time, their final acceptance offers on Monday will amount to 40% of 48 seats, or 19.2 seats. So let's say if 20 people get good news on Monday, one of them could be me right?

I know at least a couple of people personally, beyond those here on SDN, who got accepted to Phoenix first or who were never accepted to Tucson at all, and that is not counting the waitlist. So even though they like to say that their acceptances match up a lot, there is still plenty of Phoenix hope for people like me who get absolutely no love from Tucson, right? I guess it's the old Cubs fan in me, but I'm always looking for some excuse to have hope. Somebody out there, please tell me I'm not crazy...😕
 
Nice! I didn't notice that - I'm catching up with the news. If I were a betting man, I'd say you're in on Monday!
 
Thanks, I sure hope so!

Another obtuse reason for me to have hope for Monday: I have a friend I have known about 7 years. We kinda have this weird thing where our paths keep crossing somehow. We met at UofA, then we both spent time in Brazil and happened to run into each other down there. Then, we married girls who used to be roomates and wound up living in the same apartment complex for about a year. He got into Phoenix on the 2/5 acceptance cycle, and unless he heard from them today, has not yet gotten in to Tucson. (Note that someone can easily be in Phoenix's top 28 and not be in Tucson's top 110) When my wife heard he had gotten in, she told me that she was sure that was where I was gonna wind up going.

And now, I will beat a horse for no reason whatsoever:

:beat:

Oh, and by the way: Nobody should ever go to the Cheesecake Factory when they are feeling sorry for themselves for not getting into medical school. 5 hours after a 12 oz burger, a mammoth slice of peanut butter cheesecake, and a $75 tab (for the two of us) I still feel sick.
 
So what's the word on WL notifications in March? March 1st? March 5th? And if I understand correctly, there should be several acceptances sent out the same day b/c of the students accepted by both campuses - right? Thanks!
 
I feel you guys! I haven't been posting, but checking SDN a ton! Hoping for Monday or waitlist... thanks for all your posts--been encouraging to hear from other people waiting. It's too bad we can't just fast-forward time until we hear... it's hard to focus on much else right now! Anybody know how many people were on the Tucson waitlist last year?
 
I'm not sure how many people are usually on the waitlist, but Ann did tell me that last year 55 people from came off it, and the year before 65 people came off. Let's hope that, at the very least, we're in the top 40 or so of the WL! I'd really hate to be just above that. Not knowing for another few months would probably kill me.
 
Yea, I'm with ya! I really don't want to be waiting for another few months. But, I finally just decided that Friday's release was a good sign that I should start preparing for another application cycle. I've started my volunteering up again and I am going to get myself back into lab, and probably break out the old MCAT books.

Actually, what do you guys think? 31, but I have scored much higher on the practice tests from the AAMC. I was just burned out. Think getting myself up to a 35 is worth it, or should I just focus on other stuff? (3.7 AMCAS Cumu, 3.95 AMCAS Science)
 
Actually, what do you guys think? 31, but I have scored much higher on the practice tests from the AAMC. I was just burned out. Think getting myself up to a 35 is worth it, or should I just focus on other stuff? (3.7 AMCAS Cumu, 3.95 AMCAS Science)

31, as long as its balanced and not extremely lopsided (15VR, 13BS, 4PS or something) should be fine for an in-state school like U of A, whose average MCAT for the class of 2013 was 29.98. Now that may become more competitive now that OOSers are being accepted, but you're definitely not hurting terribly or anything, especially when you take into account your ridiculously high Science GPA. Would it be worth it to retake it? Probably depends on how good a test taker you are and how much re-studying you'd have to do. I know that I sure as heck forgot like everything I crammed for that test almost the day after I was done taking it, so if you are in the same boat and it would be a huge amount of work to get back up to speed then you might just let sleeping dogs lie. You definitely don't want to take the risk of getting a lower score the second time, but that's something only you can judge for yourself. I'd say there's never enough ECs in the world so I'd buff up on those if I were you over taking the exam again.
 
We met at UofA, then we both spent time in Brazil and happened to run into each other down there.

What part of Brazil? I actually lived in Santa Catarina for a couple of years; I spent some time in Floripa.
 
Actually, what do you guys think? 31, but I have scored much higher on the practice tests from the AAMC. I was just burned out. Think getting myself up to a 35 is worth it, or should I just focus on other stuff? (3.7 AMCAS Cumu, 3.95 AMCAS Science)

I wouldn't bother with the MCAT. You got above a 30, which is in my mind good enough for you to get in many medical schools. Now, is a 31 going to make schools give you an interview on that alone? Of course not, but it won't get you rejected from most schools either. With a 31 and a GPA that is great like yours, I would suggest focusing on other stuff. Did you apply early this year? If not, do that. Have you gotten medical experience other than volunteering? If not, try to find a physician to shadow (I hated volunteering at the hospital, but loved shadowing and I think it showed big time in my app and interviews). Is your personal statement the best it could possibly be? Maybe have some people who will give you an honest, critical review of it, and not people who a) don't know what a good personal statement should have or b) don't want to hurt your feelings. Maybe take a look at how you entered your activities in AMCAS. Did you make them as interesting and detailed as possible to show adcoms what you did and more importantly what you got out of them? This to me is one of the most overlooked aspects of the application. Personally, I think people are tired from entering in all of their grades and writing their personal statement that they just say something like "volunteered in the ER at local hospital." Everyone can get something different out of every experience, so let them know what you got out of yours! The EC's are going to tell them more about who you are than any other part of your application, so be detailed.

Those are just a few ideas of things that could be tweaked in order to help next time if need be, that don't require you to spend months studying for an exam that you will have to wait another month to get the results of, which may or may not help very much anyways. It doesn't matter though, because you're gunna get in this year!
 
I'm with ehandbar, I'm taking the lack of news on Friday as a bad sign. Sucks too... I know Mathlink, at least, is feeling the mental effects as I am.

Does anybody remember the old baseball movie Major League? Well Charlie Sheen plays an out of control pitcher named Ricky Vaughn and as a joke someone put a pink ticket in is locker to make him think he was cut. He went right into the managers office, threw a chair, hucked a baseball at the wall and said, "I may be sh** now, but I'll catch on somewhere, and everytime I play against you I'm going to shove it up your fu****g a**!!!"

I'm starting to know how he feels... Here's to my name being on the waitlist with as low a number as is needed.

Good luck everyone in my shoes, I know how you feel.
 
Thanks everyone for the support and thought sharing. It has been said on here dozens of times, but I'll reiterate that it is wonderful to see others express their joy of acceptance or optimism of holding on for the spots that are left. Really makes me pull for you all as well as myself. I can't wait for this fall when we're all in and can meet each other as classmates!

I was told that today WAS the last cycle before the waitlist. She said the waitlist has no confirmed date of release, but they were aiming for the first week of March.

As for yesterday and Monday being the last cycles before waitlist, does anyone know if that truly means all acceptances will have been given out (not including acceptance turndowns)? I was under the impression (from my interviews) that they were going to give out 15% every two weeks until March as they have been, and then in March release all the remaining seats and the waitlist order on the same day. Was this anyone else's understanding? If so, there should only be around 75% of seats gone, thus leaving many more for release on the March waitlist day.

I am sure I am just trying to overuse an optimistic perspective on this:xf:, but if anyone thinks they heard it explained like this as well, please chime on in.
 
Phoenix was always my first choice any way. I guess getting non-accepted yesterday by Tucson mostly just hurt because the odds are technically better I'd get in there, but I've spent the last 28 hours or so convincing myself that's not necessarily the case.

I just got off the phone with the friend I mentioned earlier who got a Phoenix invite a couple of weeks ago. He's not plugged into SDN like I am, so he didn't even know Tucson sent out the rest of their invites yesterday. Obviously, he didn't get accepted to Tucson. Phoenix and Tucson seem to have noticeably different preferences at times, I guess. He is not the only person I know that got a non-waitlist acceptance from Phoenix without ever getting in to Tucson. And I'm sure many of you on here know a few like that.

So let's say in all, Phoenix has sent out 40 invites so far (with only 28 of those so far accepted or currently being held), and Tucson has sent 140 (accounting for the invites that were declined in favor of Phoenix or another school). My friend is in Phoenix's top 40, but was never in Tucson's top 140. MadEvans was at least in Phoenix's top 70 or so, but not in Tucson's top 200. Weird things happen. We shouldn't resign ourselves to being on a waitlist yet; any one of us could get a Phoenix acceptance on Monday, (but hopefully all of us 🙂) relatively independently of our Tucson status.

And to answer Meducated's questions: Last year, on the same day as the alternate list/rejections, they sent out a number of acceptances accounting for those seats that had been vacated between the last acceptance day and the alternate list day. There have been four acceptance days from each campus, and the assumption is that Tucson, like Phoenix, has been releasing 15% of their seats at a time. Tucson does not back-fill their slots immediately like Phoenix, so they likely sent something closer to 50% of their total seats yesterday, assuming they send out 15% of their seats at a time like Phoenix. We know that Phoenix, since they do back-fill their slots immediately, has 40% of their seats remaining to be sent out on Monday. I like to round up to 20 just to give myself and the rest of us a little more hope.
 
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Thanks for the advice guys. I guess I will also ask UA if I don't get accepted, exactly why not? Then I will have more of a basis of what I need to work on.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I guess I will also ask UA if I don't get accepted, exactly why not? Then I will have more of a basis of what I need to work on.

That's a great idea... that was actually what my advisor recommended.

However, considering that if you were to reapply (which probably won't be necessary since there is still time), there are only a few months left before you would be resubmitting your application. It would be pretty difficult to do anything meaningful in those few months to make a dramatic improvement. In all honesty, retaking the MCAT would be the best option, but, as others have pointed out, your score is solid and getting back up to "fighting shape" might prove difficult.

According to Kaplan, people that reapply get accepted to a medical school 39% of the time and according to U of A, 30% of their acceptances are given to people applying for the second time.

I know three people that had a 3.9 or higher GPA, scored in the 30's on their MCATs, Flinn scholar/president of clubs, great EC's, etc.; they didn't get an acceptance on their first try. None of them took the MCAT again but they all re-applied, 2 of them go/went to UofA and one of them is now going to Creighton. So, if the worst was to happen, and you didn't get an acceptance this year, know that many excellent candidates have walked that route and are currently in medical school or practicing medicine. I think it is important to note that all three of these people continued to do things on their "year off" (i.e. research, being a TA, etc.) even if they couldn't include it in their application. I think that is important because interviewers will ask what you are doing now.

Anyways, I thought I would post my thoughts because 3 weeks ago I was in your exact same position. Stay strong! Reacting to success is easy, it is what you do in the face of adversity that defines who you are. Good luck and I hope to see you post some good news in the coming months!
 
Thanks for the supportive words everybody! And, by any chance is that friend at creighton named George?

Hopefully I will be extra excited tomorrow!
 
Thanks for the supportive words everybody! And, by any chance is that friend at creighton named George?

Hopefully I will be extra excited tomorrow!

Ha, yeah, you know him? I met him through a mutual friend and we were both scribes in the ER.
 
He was my Ochem TA. He is one of my go-to stories about how i simply DO NOT understand how it is that medical schools choose applicants. His application was about as perfect as they come.
 
Yea, I'm with ya! I really don't want to be waiting for another few months. But, I finally just decided that Friday's release was a good sign that I should start preparing for another application cycle. I've started my volunteering up again and I am going to get myself back into lab, and probably break out the old MCAT books.

Actually, what do you guys think? 31, but I have scored much higher on the practice tests from the AAMC. I was just burned out. Think getting myself up to a 35 is worth it, or should I just focus on other stuff? (3.7 AMCAS Cumu, 3.95 AMCAS Science)

I hear ya. I was rejected from Tucson a while ago and I am desperately hoping to hear something from Phoenix tomorrow. But, I too am breaking out the old MCAT books and trying to find some more different clinical ECs. If you think you can do better on the MCAT, then why not try? I am terrified to retake it again because I am afraid to do worse. I also did much better on the practice tests than on the actual exam, but my score and my GPA are not as high as yours. Maybe wait until the cycle is over and ask some feedback from the admissions office to see what they'd recommend you need to do to improve your chances of getting in.
 
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