2012-2013 Stanford University Application Thread

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I could be wrong but I think the interview season here is over for this cycle.
 
Weird... I called them yesterday to ask if they'd attempted to contact me, and they hadn't. I'm pre-interview. Haven't received a rejection yet. Wonder why a rejection is taking so long...?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by leon sandcastle View Post
riding train of rejection/waitlists, you are my only hope stanford!


Same here...anyone heard anything back from the March 1st interview group, rejection/waitlist/acceptance?
 
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Interviewed March 1st, just got the phone call from Dr. Garcia!
 
That makes two of us. Got the call earlier tonight. Congratulations and best of luck to everyone else 🙂
 
tomhaverford said:
Another program which lowers debt is the Med Scholars program where they pay you about $12,000 per quarter to do research. Anyone can apply and be approved, but in doing so you forfeit your need-based grants. This lowers the average indebtedness because students from high-income families can now lower their tuition, but it also means that low and middle-income students simply do not receive as much aid as they would from other schools of medicine.

http://medscholars.stanford.edu/

Ugh, the more I read, the more depressed about the feasibility of Stanford I get. This is after about a month of being ecstatic about the prospect of attending.
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From my experience (ie having received med scholars funding), they first reduce your unsubsidized loan amount, then your subsidized loan amount, and only then do they deduct your award from your straight up grants.

Depending on your personal/family financial situation, you can get 100% tuition grant, and then get loans for your living expenses (and much of loan burden can be from interest subsidized sources). Again, this does depend on your family situation, and the financial aid office may have ideas or approaches.

Don't stress out based what you read online until you have an actual financial aid letter from Stanford and have talked to the people in the financial aid office, and this includes talking to the financial aid office at other schools you might attend, so you get a comparison. It is likely that the package they put together for you is going to be feasible as is, and you can certainly talk to them to get more details and see what parts are flexible.

Once you start, it is certainly possible to get Med Scholars money at different points for research; they basically fund 99% of applications. There are tons of options to TA, including your first quarter (although very few people do it their first quarter) for things like undergrad courses or running a weekly seminar series, etc. You don't need to have a PhD to TA some of the undergrad things, sometimes they just need someone to be the responsible individual for making sure things run smoothly in a project or lab oriented class. It is possible get a TAship to help with AV stuff during your core med classes, you're basically being paid to go to class and to help the lecturer if there are any problems. You can get a 10%+ tuition TAship for running one of the once a week lunchtime seminars, which basically entails ordering food and helping the speaker set up his/her powerpoint. Lots of things you can do. Overall though, these RA & TAships don't really cover very much in the grand scheme of things, particularly since you can't really do it while studying for boards or in your clerkships, so I definitely wouldn't factor them into your general decision making or planning. A lot of people do these type of TA positions not just for the money, but to get to schmooze with the faculty of a particular department or get more expertise in a particular area.

Anyway, congrats on being accepted. Good luck as you try to negotiate your options. I hope the financial situation is such that you can make Stanford a reality. The Match was today, so you can hopefully look forward to something like this in your future, no matter where you go to school:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=13809438#post13809438

It is really wonderful here, and I wish more people could experience it. Good luck to everyone still waiting to hear back!
 
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wangers5270 said:
i haven't checked explicitly but I vaguely recall seeing a couple post-interview rejections in this thread, but primarily waitlists. Based on the overaccepting/overfilled class problem last year, I'd imagine something hypothetically like this

Target class size- 86-90
Last year- accepted 189, matriculated 92
15 interview days with 30 people per day (10/group) --> 450 interviews
In each group, accept 4, waitlist 5, reject 1 --> 180 acceptances, 225 waitlists, 45 rejections (or closer to 270 waitlists)

Of course, this is only a guess. I imagine maybe 1-2 people will get off the waitlist this year because they'll give fewer acceptances than last year and perhaps have a spot open.

I don't see what the benefit of rejecting post-interview would be if they barely use their waitlist if at all. 225 people gunning for 1 spot = 0.8% chance. Waitlist is basically a death sentence here, so maybe rejecting/withdrawing makes life easier... :/
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Would the adcom tell you where you are on the waitlist? Is it even ranked?
 
tomhaverford said:
Worse--you cannot be a TA first year except in very special circumstances (where you would find a TAship for an undergraduate class whose subject you have a PhD in or something equivalent; and then you would be competing with PhD candidates). The TAships offered through the medical school are for 1st year classes. Understandably, you cannot TA for a class which you have not taken and for which you are currently enrolled.
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Just to clarify a few points, basically any PhD student in the sciences, particular at Stanford has full funding for tuition and living expenses stipend. Most departments/programs (there is a difference, for example Cancer Biology is a PhD granting program, but not a department) also have a TA obligation as a graduation requirement. Both because they need to people to staff the intro physics labs, etc, but also because they want people destined for academia to have some practice in teaching and working with students. However, there are tons of other TA spots that float around, and when they send out an email along the lines of "looking for a TA for X" to the biosciences grad students and med students, most of the bioscience students aren't interested, because they already have full funding and are busy with their own things.

Also, although not common, it is sometimes possible to TA a course which you have not taken and it is also possible to TA a course (or at least get a TAship type funding) for a course which you are also enrolled in. For example, a newly created course (and there are always newly created elective courses that come and go) needs someone to TA that class. Some people have even created their own seminar or elective courses and gotten to be the TA of it.

This is an extreme example, and not super relevant to your concerns (particularly because it involves an MD/PhD student), but it is the only example I can think of that has news stories written about it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=exposing-the-student-body

Keyan pushed for there to be a personalized medicine and genomics course at Stanford, and because one of the aspects was controversial (having the students in the course genotype themselves), it took a whole year to get approval, but when they created the course, he was in charge of it.

As noted, that's an extreme example, but it happens all the time on a smaller scale with other areas. For example, a second year med student initiated a course on "lifestyle medicine", got it approved with a faculty supervisor, arranged different speakers from Stanford and outside of Stanford, and of course got to be the TA of it and basically ran the course, which was just a series of interesting lecturers. This is not going to be something you would do your first quarter, but I mention it as yet another option. I'm sure similar things happen at other schools, but one benefit of the extensive resources at Stanford is that if you have a good idea you want to pursue, there is funding and support to make it happen.

As mentioned in a previous post, you can also get funding to help out in some way for a course you are taking. I once got a small TAship to run the video recording of a course I was taking (most rooms have automatic recording capabilities, it was just located away from the main medical lecture halls). For some seminars and things they need someone to order food and take attendance, and that is often a paid job.

Anyway, these are still all modest pieces of funding when looking at the overall cost of education, but if people are very motivated and need to make money while enrolled, including their first year, if they look around there are lots of options.

I also want to clarify that the MedScholars project is not necessarily "research" in the traditional sense; it's a general "scholarly" project. I am sure this has been posted many times before, probably by me, but people have also done creative projects, such as a photo essay in a developing country or making a documentary, and there is not only funding to cover some of your tuition/expenses, there is also ways to get travel funding to do projects outside of Stanford and outside of the US.
 
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Of course the real way to make money while at Stanford is to start a company. That may sound absurd to some people, but they have whole courses and parts of the university dedicated to doing just that. For example, there are project courses where you work in teams coming up with project and business proposals, and then instead of a final, they bring in VC's who will actually write checks to fund ideas they like (everyone passes if they do a project, just some can actually get funded). And it's not just VC's, the university has things like the SPARK program which gives out seed money if you have an idea you want to test and try to develop: http://sparkmed.stanford.edu

Only a fraction of students go that route, but it is something to be aware of as it is part of the Stanford culture. If you don't think you have any good ideas and don't have any knowledge of where to begin, they have things like the biodesign courses which basically team up med students, engineering grad students and business students. They teach you how to do needs assessments, brainstorm solutions, and then turn that into a business plan. This doesn't require giving up medicine and becoming an MBA or something (although you can certainly do that, they have a 1 year MBA program for med students http://med.stanford.edu/alumni/magazine/jun2011/medicine_and_business.html). For example, one of the interventional radiology fellows is co-founder of a company that makes some of the devices they now use in IR. It's unlikely a company you start or an innovation you patent will be the next Google or Facebook, but it's entirely reasonable for people to make enough to cover a sizable chunk of their educational expenses.

You don't have to be motivated by the desire to make a ton of money, but if you want to work on new innovation, it usually needs to be done through a company (for example, if you develop a new drug target in basic science lab, you need a company to fund the trials and get it into use), so if you are motivated to create new diagnostics and therapies that actually get used, there is usually some sort of entrepreneurial component.

Biomedical entrepreneurship takes a huge amount of hard work, but the tools and resources are in place if you are willing to put in the effort.

Stanford is very interested in training you to develop the medicine of the future and to have the skills and contacts to translate that into actual practice. There is definitely a sense of "50% of what we are teaching of you will be out of date by the time you finish residency and clerkship, but unfortunately we don't know which half yet". They would definitely like you to be in the group of people making part of your med school education obsolete. They do a great job teaching the core things that won't change like anatomy, basic clinical exam skills, and patient interactions, but the culture of innovation is huge.
 
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I do hope accepted applicants who get their financial aid packages from different schools, attend second looks, and then make an informed decision will come back and post (particularly if you decide not to come to Stanford), both because it will be helpful for future students in making a decision and provide contrasting views for current students to understand the experiences and opinions of their colleagues at other schools.
 
Does the portal change if you are rejected? Do they make decisions for the same pool of interviewees on the same day for sure? People from my interview day have posted accepted decisions so I'm becoming slightly anxious. :/
 
eatsalot said:
Does the portal change if you are rejected? Do they make decisions for the same pool of interviewees on the same day for sure? People from my interview day have posted accepted decisions so I'm becoming slightly anxious. :/
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ive heard that all decisions will come by snail mail, acceptances also coming by phone call
 
alamo4 said:
Of course the real way to make money while at Stanford is to start a company. ***
Biomedical entrepreneurship takes a huge amount of hard work, but the tools and resources are in place if you are willing to put in the effort.

Stanford is very interested in training you to develop the medicine of the future and to have the skills and contacts to translate that into actual practice. There is definitely a sense of "50% of what we are teaching of you will be out of date by the time you finish residency and clerkship, but unfortunately we don't know which half yet". They would definitely like you to be in the group of people making part of your med school education obsolete. They do a great job teaching things like anatomy, basic clinical exam skills, and patient interactions, but the culture of innovation is huge.
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Wow! Thanks for the insights.
 
alamo4 said:
Of course the real way to make money while at Stanford is to start a company. That may sound absurd to some people, but they have whole courses and parts of the university dedicated to doing just that. For example, there are project courses where you work in teams coming up with project and business proposals, and then instead of a final, they bring in VC's who will actually write checks to fund ideas they like (everyone passes if they do a project, just some can actually get funded). And it's not just VC's, the university has things like the SPARK program which gives out seed money if you have an idea you want to test and try to develop: http://sparkmed.stanford.edu

Only a fraction of students go that route, but it is something to be aware of as it is part of the Stanford culture. If you don't think you have any good ideas and don't have any knowledge of where to begin, they have things like the biodesign courses which basically team up med students, engineering grad students and business students. They teach you how to do needs assessments, brainstorm solutions, and then turn that into a business plan. This doesn't require giving up medicine and becoming an MBA or something (although you can certainly do that, they have a 1 year MBA program for med students http://med.stanford.edu/alumni/magazine/jun2011/medicine_and_business.html). For example, one of the interventional radiology fellows is co-founder of a company that makes some of the devices they now use in IR. It's unlikely a company you start or an innovation you patent will be the next Google or Facebook, but it's entirely reasonable for people to make enough to cover a sizable chunk of their educational expenses.

You don't have to be motivated by the desire to make a ton of money, but if you want to work on new innovation, it usually needs to be done through a company (for example, if you develop a new drug target in basic science lab, you need a company to fund the trials and get it into use), so if you are motivated to create new diagnostics and therapies that actually get used, there is usually some sort of entrepreneurial component.

Biomedical entrepreneurship takes a huge amount of hard work, but the tools and resources are in place if you are willing to put in the effort.

Stanford is very interested in training you to develop the medicine of the future and to have the skills and contacts to translate that into actual practice. There is definitely a sense of "50% of what we are teaching of you will be out of date by the time you finish residency and clerkship, but unfortunately we don't know which half yet". They would definitely like you to be in the group of people making part of your med school education obsolete. They do a great job teaching the core things that won't change like anatomy, basic clinical exam skills, and patient interactions, but the culture of innovation is huge.
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I think your comment definitely highlights one of the unique training opportunities that Stanford provides (and which I am attracted to), but I do think it's a bit misleading to state that is relevant in contributing immediately to medical debt reduction, which is what the folks in here are worried about. Money raised from VCs that would be going directly into your pocket (if any) is not substantial enough. Unless you are in the IT space, it takes years to exit in a profitable manner and less than 20% of first time entrepreneurs succeed. I think your comments informing us on the medscholars, TA, external fellowship route is what will help reduce loans in a realistic manner. Thanks for your time in talking about your time at Stanford, it's helping me towards my decision
 
alamo4 said:
Of course the real way to make money while at Stanford is to start a company. That may sound absurd to some people, but they have whole courses and parts of the university dedicated to doing just that. For example, there are project courses where you work in teams coming up with project and business proposals, and then instead of a final, they bring in VC's who will actually write checks to fund ideas they like (everyone passes if they do a project, just some can actually get funded). And it's not just VC's, the university has things like the SPARK program which gives out seed money if you have an idea you want to test and try to develop: http://sparkmed.stanford.edu

Only a fraction of students go that route, but it is something to be aware of as it is part of the Stanford culture. If you don't think you have any good ideas and don't have any knowledge of where to begin, they have things like the biodesign courses which basically team up med students, engineering grad students and business students. They teach you how to do needs assessments, brainstorm solutions, and then turn that into a business plan. This doesn't require giving up medicine and becoming an MBA or something (although you can certainly do that, they have a 1 year MBA program for med students http://med.stanford.edu/alumni/magazine/jun2011/medicine_and_business.html). For example, one of the interventional radiology fellows is co-founder of a company that makes some of the devices they now use in IR. It's unlikely a company you start or an innovation you patent will be the next Google or Facebook, but it's entirely reasonable for people to make enough to cover a sizable chunk of their educational expenses.

You don't have to be motivated by the desire to make a ton of money, but if you want to work on new innovation, it usually needs to be done through a company (for example, if you develop a new drug target in basic science lab, you need a company to fund the trials and get it into use), so if you are motivated to create new diagnostics and therapies that actually get used, there is usually some sort of entrepreneurial component.

Biomedical entrepreneurship takes a huge amount of hard work, but the tools and resources are in place if you are willing to put in the effort.

Stanford is very interested in training you to develop the medicine of the future and to have the skills and contacts to translate that into actual practice. There is definitely a sense of "50% of what we are teaching of you will be out of date by the time you finish residency and clerkship, but unfortunately we don't know which half yet". They would definitely like you to be in the group of people making part of your med school education obsolete. They do a great job teaching the core things that won't change like anatomy, basic clinical exam skills, and patient interactions, but the culture of innovation is huge.
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Thank you so much for the detailed response! I am an entrepreneur at heart and this definitely helps with the decision making process. Looking forward to seeing how financial aid works out between Stanford and my other choices.
 
Can any current students and/or Palo Alto residents comment on the pros/cons of having a car in your first two years? I know that I'll definitely need a car for the clinical years to drive to off-site rotations, but what about the first two years? Will things be a lot more convenient with a car? Generally, if I need to use a car at least once a week, I'd deem it worthwhile. How easy/difficult and cheap/expensive is parking? Basically, if having a car is feasible, would you recommend it?

Thank you in advance for your insight!
 
Alamo4, thanks for all the amazingly helpful info that you've been posting!!! You're making me very excited for the Fall!

I have a question about the Admit Weekend. The Thursday of the Admit weekend, they're holding a Diversity Celebration. Do you know anything about this? If yes, could you let us know what usually goes on during that celebration? I've already booked my ticket and hotel planning not to come that day so I wouldn't have to miss too much school, but if that celebration is worth attending, I'd definitely look into changing my ticket. Is this celebration worth attending?
 
chhotu007 said:
just got a "waitlist" letter...i'm very happy i wasn't rejected, but i've heard there isn't much movement on stanford's waitlist. i interviewed 2/15.
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So any info on the trend of applicants reactions post Stanford waitlist? withdraw, acceptance of other school application, no action, update? curious
 
iceprincess4189 said:
Can any current students and/or Palo Alto residents comment on the pros/cons of having a car in your first two years? I know that I'll definitely need a car for the clinical years to drive to off-site rotations, but what about the first two years? Will things be a lot more convenient with a car? Generally, if I need to use a car at least once a week, I'd deem it worthwhile. How easy/difficult and cheap/expensive is parking? Basically, if having a car is feasible, would you recommend it?

Thank you in advance for your insight!
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I went to Stanford undergrad and had a car on campus for a while (was recently accepted for med school here also!). As of about a year ago, a parking permit on campus was $256 for the academic year (9 months). I would probably recommend having a car just to go get groceries, run errands, and get away for a weekend or something (Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Yosemite, Half Moon Bay, Sonoma/Napa, SF is pretty easy to get to by CalTrain). The marguerite goes to the San Antonio shopping center in Mountain View (Target, Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Walmart, etc) but it takes a super long time and isn't the most reliable. There's a Trader Joe's and CVS right off campus, probably a 5-10 minute bike ride from EV and Rains, 15-20 minutes from the rest of campus, and a Safeway that's bike-able from campus but in the rainy winter, it's no fun. Stanford is kind of a bubble and it's tough to really get off campus much without a car.
 
ksouza said:
I went to Stanford undergrad and had a car on campus for a while (was recently accepted for med school here also!). As of about a year ago, a parking permit on campus was $256 for the academic year (9 months). I would probably recommend having a car just to go get groceries, run errands, and get away for a weekend or something (Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Yosemite, Half Moon Bay, Sonoma/Napa, SF is pretty easy to get to by CalTrain). The marguerite goes to the San Antonio shopping center in Mountain View (Target, Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Walmart, etc) but it takes a super long time and isn't the most reliable. There's a Trader Joe's and CVS right off campus, probably a 5-10 minute bike ride from EV and Rains, 15-20 minutes from the rest of campus, and a Safeway that's bike-able from campus but in the rainy winter, it's no fun. Stanford is kind of a bubble and it's tough to really get off campus much without a car.
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Awesome, thanks so much for your response! Do most of the graduate housing come with parking areas for which you can buy a parking permit, then?
 
iceprincess4189 said:
Awesome, thanks so much for your response! Do most of the graduate housing come with parking areas for which you can buy a parking permit, then?
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The residential parking permits are split up by general area on campus (West Campus, East Campus, and South Campus) so for each permit type, there are quite a few lots as well as some street parking. It depends a little bit where you live, but you can almost always park within a block.
 
What about Zipcars for things like running errands or getting groceries? I see Stanford has them on campus, but are they easily available / do students use them often?
 
Yeah, I'm interested in knowing this too. It seems like there are 2-4 zip cars per housing complex, but I wonder if it would be difficult to reserve them at prime hours...

For students who do decide to get a car on campus, does anyone know if there is a limit on parking permit? From staying with a host, it seemed like there might be a limit (i.e. if you have a permit near your residential building, then you can't hold another permit for a different part of the campus, most importantly near Li Ka Shing Center, etc). Could someone verify or refute that?

I'm really debating whether I would need a car during M1/M2 years. I feel like it's hard to shadow off-campus or volunteer at free clinics without a car, but I wonder if there is a way to make it work. Hopefully Second Look will clarify these few things!
 
Anonymous1604 said:
Yeah, I'm interested in knowing this too. It seems like there are 2-4 zip cars per housing complex, but I wonder if it would be difficult to reserve them at prime hours...

For students who do decide to get a car on campus, does anyone know if there is a limit on parking permit? From staying with a host, it seemed like there might be a limit (i.e. if you have a permit near your residential building, then you can't hold another permit for a different part of the campus, most importantly near Li Ka Shing Center, etc). Could someone verify or refute that?

I'm really debating whether I would need a car during M1/M2 years. I feel like it's hard to shadow off-campus or volunteer at free clinics without a car, but I wonder if there is a way to make it work. Hopefully Second Look will clarify these few things!
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I never had a zipcar account but have friends who did and it always seemed to work out alright if they planned in advance. There are quite a few zipcars on campus but I'm not sure how popular they are now.

I'm pretty sure you can only have one parking permit and there would be no need to drive to class if you lived on campus. If you live off campus, you can get a C permit and there are lots you can use all around campus but there are usually a limited number of spaces. Also, permit parking is usually enforced from 6AM-8PM Mon-Fri (some lots don't start until 8AM, and only a few are 24/7) so if it's late at night and rainy, people sometimes will drive across campus and parking isn't an issue.
 
iceprincess4189 said:
Can any current students and/or Palo Alto residents comment on the pros/cons of having a car in your first two years? I know that I'll definitely need a car for the clinical years to drive to off-site rotations, but what about the first two years? Will things be a lot more convenient with a car? Generally, if I need to use a car at least once a week, I'd deem it worthwhile. How easy/difficult and cheap/expensive is parking? Basically, if having a car is feasible, would you recommend it?

Thank you in advance for your insight!
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You don't really need a car your first two years. Many medical students start school without one. I think I mentioned in a previous post that Stanford is considered the most bike friendly campus: http://news.stanford.edu/thedish/?p=11871

There is a Trader Joe's right across from campus in a little complex called Town & Country Village with a lot of other stores and restaurants (CVS, Jamba Juice, etc.), as well as a great little convenience store near EV, where most graduate (ie not undergrad) students live (called JJ&F). There are sort of two little downtown areas in Palo Alto, University Ave and California Ave, both with lots of restaurants and activities. Cal Ave is walkable from EV, University Ave definitely bikeable, but there is also a free shuttle the Marguerite. The train station is pretty accessible, so you can get to San Francisco or San Jose to go out or to access the airport.

There is even a really nice mall right next to the med school, technically on Stanford land. If you need to go quickly pick up professional clothes or something, it is actually a quick walk from the hospital.

You can probably see all these things on Google Maps.

You are so busy with school and on/around campus activities that you actually don't really need to get off campus much at all, although some people do make an active effort to have an off campus life (go to SF a lot, like to drive to hiking spots, go out to eat in Cupertino, etc.). There are also Zip Cars all around if you want to get one to make a big Costco run or buy something at Ikea.

There are lots of different lifestyles that people have as medical students, many of which have nothing to do with owning a car their first two years. Other students rely on their cars a lot and drive everywhere. You can certainly do either.
 
An MD Hopeful said:
Alamo4, thanks for all the amazingly helpful info that you've been posting!!! You're making me very excited for the Fall!

I have a question about the Admit Weekend. The Thursday of the Admit weekend, they're holding a Diversity Celebration. Do you know anything about this? If yes, could you let us know what usually goes on during that celebration? I've already booked my ticket and hotel planning not to come that day so I wouldn't have to miss too much school, but if that celebration is worth attending, I'd definitely look into changing my ticket. Is this celebration worth attending?
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Last year it was a very nice dinner, where some different people won awards for this and there was a cool talk, but it was mostly about mingling and networking with current students representing different diversity special interest groups, meeting faculty involved in expanding diversity, finding out about different programs, etc. I can't remember there being a whole lot more than that, but I may have forgotten or maybe didn't attend the whole thing.

If med school diversity is really important to you in making your decision, then you should definitely go to talk to people and see what is going on at Stanford and if it is a good fit for you and your interests/goals/etc with medical. If you have high confidence that you are coming to Stanford, you'll be able to meet everyone (except for the students who graduate and go off to residency before you arrive) after you matriculate through various mechanisms and find out about everything.

The one major thing that might be important to establish early is to find out if you want to apply for the early admittance program, called something like "Leadership in Healthcare Disparities". It's a really cool program that the Diversity office runs, where you start the summer before regular school starts doing a project involved in addressing healthcare access and disparities. However, I think they will have some panels on that during the regular admit weekend schedule, so you can find out more about it anyway.
 
Anonymous1604 said:
For students who do decide to get a car on campus, does anyone know if there is a limit on parking permit? From staying with a host, it seemed like there might be a limit (i.e. if you have a permit near your residential building, then you can't hold another permit for a different part of the campus, most importantly near Li Ka Shing Center, etc). Could someone verify or refute that?
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Yes, if you get a residential permit, it doesn't let you go park in the A/C lots right next to the medical school, so you can't drive across campus in the morning, and then drive home at night. It does kind of suck for February, when it rains a lot, the days are short, and it's generally grey. However, the Marguerite shuttle that operates on campus is relatively frequent (in contrast to the one that goes way off campus).

Anyway, this is one of the major reasons that there are so many bikes on campus.

Anonymous1604 said:
I'm really debating whether I would need a car during M1/M2 years. I feel like it's hard to shadow off-campus or volunteer at free clinics without a car, but I wonder if there is a way to make it work. Hopefully Second Look will clarify these few things!
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The two free clinics always have car pools organized for each clinic day. For Pacific Free Clinic you even get a gas reimbursement if you go there in a carpool. It is particularly necessary because so many Stanford undergrads don't have cars.

There are also busses that run during the week between places like the VA hospitals and Stanford.
 
Anyone who interviewed 3/2 or 3/9 hear back yet?
 
any anticipated waitlist movement this year? just curious. mr. vaughn seemed pretty convinced that it would turn out like last year and there wouldn't be any. just been hanging out on the waitlist for a few months...tempted to withdraw and finalize my plans @ysm :idea:
 
yalehopeful2013 said:
any anticipated waitlist movement this year? just curious. mr. vaughn seemed pretty convinced that it would turn out like last year and there wouldn't be any. just been hanging out on the waitlist for a few months...tempted to withdraw and finalize my plans @ysm :idea:
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Wouldn't you choose YSM over Stanford anyhow? Why wait when you already know the end result?
 
alamo4 said:
You don't really need a car your first two years. Many medical students start school without one. I think I mentioned in a previous post that Stanford is considered the most bike friendly campus: http://news.stanford.edu/thedish/?p=11871

There is a Trader Joe's right across from campus in a little complex called Town & Country Village with a lot of other stores and restaurants (CVS, Jamba Juice, etc.), as well as a great little convenience store near EV, where most graduate (ie not undergrad) students live (called JJ&F). There are sort of two little downtown areas in Palo Alto, University Ave and California Ave, both with lots of restaurants and activities. Cal Ave is walkable from EV, University Ave definitely bikeable, but there is also a free shuttle the Marguerite. The train station is pretty accessible, so you can get to San Francisco or San Jose to go out or to access the airport.

There is even a really nice mall right next to the med school, technically on Stanford land. If you need to go quickly pick up professional clothes or something, it is actually a quick walk from the hospital.

You can probably see all these things on Google Maps.

You are so busy with school and on/around campus activities that you actually don't really need to get off campus much at all, although some people do make an active effort to have an off campus life (go to SF a lot, like to drive to hiking spots, go out to eat in Cupertino, etc.). There are also Zip Cars all around if you want to get one to make a big Costco run or buy something at Ikea.

There are lots of different lifestyles that people have as medical students, many of which have nothing to do with owning a car their first two years. Other students rely on their cars a lot and drive everywhere. You can certainly do either.
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thank you so much for the detailed responses!!
 
has anyone seen the schedule for re-visit? if we can't make it to the diversity dinner thursday night, what time should we plan on arriving Friday?
 
Hoping a current student (or someone else knowledgeable) can clear up the quarter system scheduling for me. As I understand it, MS1 and MS2 are 3 quarters each, MS3 is 4 quarters, and MS4 is back to 3, making for a total of 13 required quarters. And since a total of 13 quarters are required, as long as we spend the summer after MS1 doing a MedScholars project, this means we really only have to pay for 12 quarters (shaving 1 quarter off of MS4)? Is this correct?

Also, is the tuition locked-in for us, or should we expect it to rise while we're there?
 
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waffler said:
Hoping a current student (or someone else knowledgeable) can clear up the quarter system scheduling for me. As I understand it, MS1 and MS2 are 3 quarters each, MS3 is 4 quarters, and MS4 is back to 3, making for a total of 13 required quarters. And since a total of 13 quarters are required, as long as we spend the summer after MS1 doing a MedScholars project, this means we really only have to pay for 12 quarters (shaving 1 quarter off of MS4)? Is this correct?

Also, is the tuition locked-in for us, or should we expect it to rise while we're there?
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+1 i'd like to know this as well!
 
Nope I didn't. Interviewed march 2. Are you still waiting too?
 
Yep still waiting, but interviewed on the 9th. Best of luck!!
 
I heard back today - received a call from Dr. Garcia. I had started to wallow, so don't give up hope! Interviewed 3/2.
 
I'd guess that they accepted some from 03/09, but those don't happen to be reporting it here.

There's just two weeks left until 2nd visit. I wonder if they are still processing acceptance next week... it would make 2nd visit quite difficult for those accepted and coming from far away places.
 
sacma said:
I'd guess that they accepted some from 03/09, but those don't happen to be reporting it here.

There's just two weeks left until 2nd visit. I wonder if they are still processing acceptance next week... it would make 2nd visit quite difficult for those accepted and coming from far away places.
Click to expand...

🙁
 
Does anyone have or know the schedule of events for revisit weekend?
 
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