I'll let the cat out of the bag about admissions... First of all, I am sorry to have misinformed you guys. Acceptances went out in early March last year, and they look like they'll come out in early March this year. By the way, we are soooooooo excited to have you guys. We will be starting a Facebook group soon. We all got to know each other over that, and we actually felt like we knew each other when revisit came. Further, you all know you get to meet people on the interview trail... some of those people will be there (if you interviewed at a lot of places on the Northeast. Anyway, on to my point... As I told many of you on the tour I gave you, there is variable value in your interviews. First of all, the the admissions committee is broken up into 4 subcommittees that represent geographical regions of the USA. International students are distributed by geography too (into the aforementioned subcommittees). Lastly, some schools are kind of shuffled around because we get a lot of applications from them (Berkeley is a prime example). Further, if you happend to go to "the college" (what alumni of Harvard undergrad call it), you will be divided by house (Thus, those of you in the Northeast aren't all competing against people who end up making up over 1/5 of the class). Now, as you know, two people interviewed you. It is likely that one person was on your committee and the other wasn't (but at least one was). Now that they've done their thing, they don't even have the opportunity to present you to their subcommittees... a third part who never met you does that. Then, they all scrutinize your application to hell and decide whether to send you to the main committee. Now, with only 25 people on the main committee and 100 people in subcommittees, it isn't unlikely that no one on the main committee knows you. Now, it's save to say that if you interviewed with Dr. Mayer, you have an advocate...if you impressed him. Otherwise, you likely have to rely on a complete application that has the things the committee is looking for. As we ALL realize, that can be a bit of a crapshoot. Many of my classmates only got into 1 top 10 school. That is what I call a crapshoot. Again, a huge congrats if you get in... and if you don't, it doesn't mean you weren't as "good" as the other people. It just works like that sometime. If you interviewed here, you'll definitely get in somewhere (I'm sure nearly all of you already have, congrats)... and that's the main point. I believe I can speak for the Class of 2016 (at HMS and everywhere else) when I say it is a pleasure have you all as colleagues in the field of medicine! -Cheers
