2012-2013 Stanford University Application Thread

BU Medical Sciences
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senortacos said:
Is anyone here interviewing next week? If so, have you gotten the confirmation email with your group number and all that stuff? I'm scheduled for Friday the 11th, and I'm just a wee bit paranoid that my email got spammed or lost, since I remember them saying we would get the email ~2 weeks before our date.
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I'd ask them. I'm interviewing on the same day and I got an email.
 
senortacos said:
I'm flying SFO, but I think San Jose and Oakland work too.
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I wouldn't fly into Oakland. It's a bit further and there's pretty easy public transportation from SFO and SJC (San Jose) to the Stanford area (if you were maybe contemplating public transport). In terms of pure distance, SJC is definitely the closest airport to Stanford.
 
chupu said:
I wouldn't fly into Oakland. It's a bit further and there's pretty easy public transportation from SFO and SJC (San Jose) to the Stanford area (if you were maybe contemplating public transport). In terms of pure distance, SJC is definitely the closest airport to Stanford.
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Agreed. I live vaguely in this area. SFO or SJC are the better options. Only go Oakland if you have to.
 
I've been practicing some sample MMI questions (a lot of the Canadian medical schools have sample questions online) to prepare for my Stanford interview, and here is one I found:

"Joe is a pizza delivery worker. The pizza shop he works for has a 30 minutes or less delivery guarantee or else the customer does not have to pay. On Joe's most recent delivery, he spots a woman bleeding on the street. There is no one else around and the woman seems to be unable to move by herself. However, Joe knows that if he returns empty handed again, he will be fired from this job he most desperately needs. What do you think Joe should do? Justify your solution in terms of practicality and ethical considerations."

What a way to put an applicant in the spot! God forbid you answer, "Joe, leave the woman, save yourself!"
 
minwoo123 said:
I've been practicing some sample MMI questions (a lot of the Canadian medical schools have sample questions online) to prepare for my Stanford interview, and here is one I found:

"Joe is a pizza delivery worker. The pizza shop he works for has a 30 minutes or less delivery guarantee or else the customer does not have to pay. On Joe's most recent delivery, he spots a woman bleeding on the street. There is no one else around and the woman seems to be unable to move by herself. However, Joe knows that if he returns empty handed again, he will be fired from this job he most desperately needs. What do you think Joe should do? Justify your solution in terms of practicality and ethical considerations."

What a way to put an applicant in the spot! God forbid you answer, "Joe, leave the woman, save yourself!"
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A reasonable answer could include Joe calling his boss and telling him what's going on while still helping the person. The whole point of MMI is to acknowledge ALL aspects of the scenario and then devise the "best" possible solution that *you* can come up with and substantiate it with reasons why you chose that course of action.

In short: don't make it harder than it is.. come up with a reasonable answer and justify why. It seems people like to make these things out to be black and white responses when they were never intended as such.

MMI is meant to demonstrate your thinking processes.
 
minwoo123 said:
I've been practicing some sample MMI questions (a lot of the Canadian medical schools have sample questions online) to prepare for my Stanford interview, and here is one I found:

"Joe is a pizza delivery worker. The pizza shop he works for has a 30 minutes or less delivery guarantee or else the customer does not have to pay. On Joe’s most recent delivery, he spots a woman bleeding on the street. There is no one else around and the woman seems to be unable to move by herself. However, Joe knows that if he returns empty handed again, he will be fired from this job he most desperately needs. What do you think Joe should do? Justify your solution in terms of practicality and ethical considerations."

What a way to put an applicant in the spot! God forbid you answer, "Joe, leave the woman, save yourself!"
Click to expand...

Help the woman, bite the bullet and pay for the pizza yourself. I'm sure the woman would be more than happy to pay you back for the pizza after you save her life. Also you get a pizza out of it.
 
I don't have any specific updates to send and don't want to pester admissions, but I'm getting antsy to hear something. My stats are great, just applied a little late (completed secondaries mid Sept) Anyone had any luck sending letters of continued interested, or think it would even get my files looked at any sooner?
 
minwoo123 said:
I've been practicing some sample MMI questions (a lot of the Canadian medical schools have sample questions online) to prepare for my Stanford interview, and here is one I found:

"Joe is a pizza delivery worker. The pizza shop he works for has a 30 minutes or less delivery guarantee or else the customer does not have to pay. On Joe’s most recent delivery, he spots a woman bleeding on the street. There is no one else around and the woman seems to be unable to move by herself. However, Joe knows that if he returns empty handed again, he will be fired from this job he most desperately needs. What do you think Joe should do? Justify your solution in terms of practicality and ethical considerations."

What a way to put an applicant in the spot! God forbid you answer, "Joe, leave the woman, save yourself!"
Click to expand...

The correct answer is:

Use the pizza to stop the bleeding.

Trust me on this one guys.
 
I think the answer is to sell the pizza to the woman and when she agrees to pay, help her out.
 
minwoo123 said:
I've been practicing some sample MMI questions (a lot of the Canadian medical schools have sample questions online) to prepare for my Stanford interview, and here is one I found:

"Joe is a pizza delivery worker. The pizza shop he works for has a 30 minutes or less delivery guarantee or else the customer does not have to pay. On Joe's most recent delivery, he spots a woman bleeding on the street. There is no one else around and the woman seems to be unable to move by herself. However, Joe knows that if he returns empty handed again, he will be fired from this job he most desperately needs. What do you think Joe should do? Justify your solution in terms of practicality and ethical considerations."

What a way to put an applicant in the spot! God forbid you answer, "Joe, leave the woman, save yourself!"
Click to expand...

Or while she's on the ground, he could take the money from her purse to pay for the pizza and for an additional good samaritan fee, and then call 911 to get her, and then deliver the pizza to the customer and get money off that too.

It's a win-win-win situation.
 
ElCapone said:
Or while she's on the ground, he could take the money from her purse to pay for the pizza and for an additional good samaritan fee, and then call 911 to get her, and then deliver the pizza to the customer and get money off that too.

It's a win-win-win situation.
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That end part might come off greedy

And since we are applying to be doctors...you should call 911 and THEN take the money while they're on their way. And feed her piza to keep her alive.
 
Any ideas how to add new rec letters after getting an interview invite to Stanford? Should we be emailing them in or having our recommenders email them or what?
 
bear09 said:
Any ideas how to add new rec letters after getting an interview invite to Stanford? Should we be emailing them in or having our recommenders email them or what?
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They will go over that at the post-interview briefing. Stanford doesn't want updates prior to you actually attending the interview.
 
CrossCurrent said:
They will go over that at the post-interview briefing. Stanford doesn't want updates prior to you actually attending the interview.
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Does that include normal updates? I called earlier and they said to email updates to the mdadmissions email address.. but did they explicitly tell you guys they didn't want ANY updates pre-interview?
 
So their website says that updates are OK once you receive an invitation for an interview, but during the debriefing meeting we were told that it was only now that we interviewed it was OK to send in updates...make of that what you will. If you called them and they said it was fine go for it...
 
bear09 said:
Any ideas how to add new rec letters after getting an interview invite to Stanford? Should we be emailing them in or having our recommenders email them or what?
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They do go over what to do with additional LORs in the debriefing after the interview. Mr. Greg Vaughn gives everyone a card with his email address at that time. Have your recommender email the LOR to him. You should definitely not be the one emailing the LOR to Mr. Vaughn since the Adcom wants the letters to be confidential.

In terms of sending updates after receiving an interview invite, I'm not really sure if it matters if it is before or after the interview. They didn't tell us anything about that. But I'm sure either way would be fine as long as the Adcom committee has the update letter when they are meeting to make decisions on your interview group.
 
Does anyone know generally how soon after interview the decisions will come out from now on? I forgot about applications during the winter break, but now that the holidays are over I'm starting to obsess over it again haha.
 
obviouslyteal said:
Ugh, disgusting.

But moving on... I was pretty scared of the Stanford interview (petrified actually) until I had my first MMI recently. Now I'm feeling much better since that interview was pretty fun and enjoyable, or as fun as a few minutes that possibly decide the course of your future can be, haha.

So I feel a bit better now, but really, how stressful do they try and make this MMI? For some reason it just sounds much more intimidating, but I'm not sure if that's actually the case or they just make it sound that way. Reading through this thread I still can't really get a feel for how stressful/awful/not so much this MMI is. Without disclosing too much of course, can somebody comment on this?

Thanks!!
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I had an MMI at Davis, I also feel better about MMI's but also also am wondering if Stanford's will be more medicine-oriented. I.E., if I did well at Davis should I be able to do just as well without much prep at Stanford or do I need to review ethics, etc, etc, before-hand?

So, yeah, same question as above. My Interview is next month, btw.
 
premed2000 said:
Completed mid-sept. haven't heard anything from them. What happened to all the waves of rejections?!? Anyone think they are still sending out II's?
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Complete Nov 15th (Deadline) and received an II on jan 7th. There's still hope.
 
Yatress said:
Complete Nov 15th (Deadline) and received an II on jan 7th. There's still hope.
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Mind if I ask your stats? I was complete October 28th and haven't heard back. Since they have already reviewed applications close to the deadline, I wonder if that means that I am out.

Does Stanford only snail mail rejections or do they also do e-mails? (I kind of prefer knowing immediately instead of cringing whenever I bring in the mail)
 
I interviewed in mid-December and received a call from Dr. Garcia tonight!!! It was epic. Going to call the MSTP admissions committee tomorrow to check in on my status with them.
 
Can a current student clarify Stanford's financial aid policies?

How can a low-income student (a student that comes from an economically disadvantaged background) possibly attend Stanford without incurring a ridiculously high amount of loans?

I see that the COA for the first and second year of Stanford (three quarters) is about 74000 and that the COA for the third year (four quarters) is 97000. The maximum grant that Stanford awards being 11,000 per quarter, for the first two years, does that mean that a low income student would have to take out 74000-33000=41000 in loans!? And then for the third year, 97000-44000=53000 in loans!?

Compared to the financial aid policies of its peers (like Harvard, which has a unit loan and then everything else is paid for with grants for those with 0 dollar expected parent contribution), Stanford seems impossible to afford for a low income student as of right now...
 
Backflip72 said:
I interviewed in mid-December and received a call from Dr. Garcia tonight!!! It was epic. Going to call the MSTP admissions committee tomorrow to check in on my status with them.
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ahhhh congrats, me too!!! interviewed 12/13. literally could not stop shaking for a good 20 minutes after Dean Garcia called. my #1 dream school- i'm going!!! perhaps one of the best phone calls i've ever received!!!

to everyone else- good luck! i look forward to seeing you there come august 🙂

to other people who've been accepted- what are we supposed to do afterwards? i didn't catch anything after Dean Garcia said "remember the call we told you you'd get if you get an acceptance? well this is that call." was too happy/ saying thank you over and over again to pay attention... are we supposed to get mail? any verification that i didn't just dream that would be nice haha.
 
iceprincess4189 said:
ahhhh congrats, me too!!! interviewed 12/13. literally could not stop shaking for a good 20 minutes after Dean Garcia called. my #1 dream school- i'm going!!! perhaps one of the best phone calls i've ever received!!!

to everyone else- good luck! i look forward to seeing you there come august 🙂

to other people who've been accepted- what are we supposed to do afterwards? i didn't catch anything after Dean Garcia said "remember the call we told you you'd get if you get an acceptance? well this is that call." was too happy/ saying thank you over and over again to pay attention... are we supposed to get mail? any verification that i didn't just dream that would be nice haha.
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Congrats Backflip72 and Iceprincess4189! 🙂 I hope more of our fellow SDNers heard good news yesterday!

In a few days, you'll get a large white package in the mail. One of the forms in there is a Statement of Acceptance form; you have to fill out and mail that form to Stanford's Admissions Office (the address is somewhere in the packet, can't remember where right now). They recommend doing that within a week of receiving the packet. You can send that form even if you are still holding acceptances at other schools. Later on, if you decide to matriculate there (which it sounds like you have, iceprincess!), after turning down other schools that have accepted you, we have to fill out and mail another form (Statement of Intention to Matriculate) along with a $100 deposit; that has to reach them by May 15.

The packet has lots of other information as well, about creating a student ID, some info about financial aid/FAFSA, etc.
 
minwoo123 said:
Can a current student clarify Stanford's financial aid policies?

How can a low-income student (a student that comes from an economically disadvantaged background) possibly attend Stanford without incurring a ridiculously high amount of loans?

I see that the COA for the first and second year of Stanford (three quarters) is about 74000 and that the COA for the third year (four quarters) is 97000. The maximum grant that Stanford awards being 11,000 per quarter, for the first two years, does that mean that a low income student would have to take out 74000-33000=41000 in loans!? And then for the third year, 97000-44000=53000 in loans!?

Compared to the financial aid policies of its peers (like Harvard, which has a unit loan and then everything else is paid for with grants for those with 0 dollar expected parent contribution), Stanford seems impossible to afford for a low income student as of right now...
Click to expand...

Basically they hook you up with fantastic financial aid. If you look up exit stats, Stanford students leave with one of the lowest debt levels of any med school. It is complex and personalized to every student, but they address this much better once a student is accepted and they crunch the numbers and do their magic in the financial aid office.

Almost everyone gets TAing money, and MedScholars research money after they start, as well, which can be quite generous. That money goes first to reducing the loan burden if you have loans (instead of reducing your direct financial aid).

The upper middle class income bracket has the most squeeze, as parents who make a decent amount of money, but are not super rich will get a decent sized bill, but I guess they factor in things like the number of other siblings in school, etc.

Many people find Stanford to be cheaper in practice than a state school.
 
iceprincess4189 said:
ahhhh congrats, me too!!! interviewed 12/13. literally could not stop shaking for a good 20 minutes after Dean Garcia called. my #1 dream school- i'm going!!! perhaps one of the best phone calls i've ever received!!!

to everyone else- good luck! i look forward to seeing you there come august 🙂

to other people who've been accepted- what are we supposed to do afterwards? i didn't catch anything after Dean Garcia said "remember the call we told you you'd get if you get an acceptance? well this is that call." was too happy/ saying thank you over and over again to pay attention... are we supposed to get mail? any verification that i didn't just dream that would be nice haha.
Click to expand...

Congrats! If you are sure you want to come here (and it is awesome), you can directly send in your intent to matriculate, with your deposit when you get your packet. I think it was a yellow form my year. You can also email admissions directly as well if you are 100% sure you will matriculate. It is easier for them to know early as they go through interviewing other people, but you still need to send in the forms in your packet with your deposit. I don't think they even cash the checks, they just keep them until you enroll, and then destroy them.
 
minwoo123 said:
Can a current student clarify Stanford's financial aid policies?

How can a low-income student (a student that comes from an economically disadvantaged background) possibly attend Stanford without incurring a ridiculously high amount of loans?

I see that the COA for the first and second year of Stanford (three quarters) is about 74000 and that the COA for the third year (four quarters) is 97000. The maximum grant that Stanford awards being 11,000 per quarter, for the first two years, does that mean that a low income student would have to take out 74000-33000=41000 in loans!? And then for the third year, 97000-44000=53000 in loans!?

Compared to the financial aid policies of its peers (like Harvard, which has a unit loan and then everything else is paid for with grants for those with 0 dollar expected parent contribution), Stanford seems impossible to afford for a low income student as of right now...
Click to expand...

alamo4 said:
Basically they hook you up with fantastic financial aid. If you look up exit stats, Stanford students leave with one of the lowest debt levels of any med school. It is complex and personalized to every student, but they address this much better once a student is accepted and they crunch the numbers and do their magic in the financial aid office.

Almost everyone gets TAing money, and MedScholars research money after they start, as well, which can be quite generous. That money goes first to reducing the loan burden if you have loans (instead of reducing your direct financial aid).

The upper middle class income bracket has the most squeeze, as parents who make a decent amount of money, but are not super rich will get a decent sized bill, but I guess they factor in things like the number of other siblings in school, etc.

Many people find Stanford to be cheaper in practice than a state school.
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I have been wondering about this too. How are you able to TA classes if you are just starting school and I believe that I saw MedScholars is only about $5000 per quarter for 20 hours of work. Is 20 hours a lot of time to sacrifice for research?
 
first time posting here- I'm so nervous! did anyone else from 12/13 interview get a call yesterday/today? Wonder if there is still hope, or if I should brace myself for the letter this weekend...
 
Member 1944 said:
Mind if I ask your stats? I was complete October 28th and haven't heard back. Since they have already reviewed applications close to the deadline, I wonder if that means that I am out.

GPA: 3.8-4.0; MCAT 30-32, Tons of research (Bench-work and clinical) and volunteering. Also I'm a URM.
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Or is Stanford pretty much done with the interviewing process...?
 
tonguetalker said:
I have been wondering about this too. How are you able to TA classes if you are just starting school and I believe that I saw MedScholars is only about $5000 per quarter for 20 hours of work. Is 20 hours a lot of time to sacrifice for research?
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You can TA undergrad classes, and some people do, although you are right, most people do not TA until year two.

And the research is not like a job with a time clock, you work more in the early part of the quarter, or work a lot over break.
 
Are you able to receive scholarship support for TAing and research simultaneously?
 
Is there a thread and/or Facebook group for accepted students? I tried to find one, but haven't had luck with either...
 
alamo4 said:
You can TA undergrad classes, and some people do, although you are right, most people do not TA until year two.

And the research is not like a job with a time clock, you work more in the early part of the quarter, or work a lot over break.
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So does that mean that the only real opportunity to reduce the debt is during year two? That doesnt seem like a significant reduction compared to the high cost of the other three years.
 
do most people have a car on campus? what are the pros/cons to having or not having a car? thank you in advance!
 
iceprincess4189 said:
do most people have a car on campus? what are the pros/cons to having or not having a car? thank you in advance!
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The students I talked to said that having a car is helpful since the public transportation in Palo Alto isn't very reliable. You'd probably get to see the surrounding area a lot easier and travel around the Bay Area when you have some time off. If you plan on cooking, grocery shopping would be less of a hassle. I'd imagine cons to be (1) cost, (2) buying a parking space, and (3) misc maintenance that comes up every once in a while.
 
iceprincess4189 said:
do most people have a car on campus? what are the pros/cons to having or not having a car? thank you in advance!
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jp89 said:
The students I talked to said that having a car is helpful since the public transportation in Palo Alto isn't very reliable. You'd probably get to see the surrounding area a lot easier and travel around the Bay Area when you have some time off. If you plan on cooking, grocery shopping would be less of a hassle. I'd imagine cons to be (1) cost, (2) buying a parking space, and (3) misc maintenance that comes up every once in a while.
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But is it possible to do the clinical years without a car? Are there any sites off campus where students do clinical rotations?
 
An MD Hopeful said:
But is it possible to do the clinical years without a car? Are there any sites off campus where students do clinical rotations?
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You could rent a car or do zip car or something just for those periods. Lots of students do fine the first two years without cars. However, the clerkships at SCVMC are far from campus.
 
iceprincess4189 said:
do most people have a car on campus? what are the pros/cons to having or not having a car? thank you in advance!
Click to expand...

They work very hard to reduce the need to have a car on campus. If you live off campus, they even pay you not to buy a parking permit and give tons of services, just look up the Stanford PTS site and the Commute Club.

The only con is money, and that you won't really be able to park near the academic buildings if you live on campus anyway.

Zip cars are all over the place, and people use then for day trips, going to Ikea or Safeway, etc. However, it is not like you will have a ton of time to go cruising around.
 
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tonguetalker said:
So does that mean that the only real opportunity to reduce the debt is during year two? That doesnt seem like a significant reduction compared to the high cost of the other three years.
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No, you can get research funding early on.

Some people even come to campus the summer before for research or the health leadership program and start getting paid for stuff then. Although, that is only a few.

The only thing I can say is to wait until you meet with the financial aid office and go through all the details. Med School is expensive, but they can help a lot, and the education and access to expertise and resources at Stanford is outstanding. It is an investment, worth every penny.
 
Does anyone know if they are open to requests to be placed in MMI Group 1 or 2 in order to finish earlier and catch a flight? I have fairly limited flight time options
 
Wouldn't 5 days be less time than 5 business days to begin with? Just saying
 
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