I'll try to catch up with a few things on here...
well in my world WL=rejection
That's really not a good way to look at it. A lot of people end up getting in off the waitlist. Its not a rejection, it's just extending the purgatory of uncertainty. Much better.
😀 Seriously though, waitlist and rejection are wildly different in what they mean form the school's perspective. Most OOS students that end up in the class and a decent number of IS students are from the original waitlist so don't equate that with rejection by any means.
Make disappointment your friend.
Rejection is a letter, the other two are packets.
Seems like the 15th is pushing it... But that probably won't stop me from waiting for the mailman like a dog haha
Formerly true, but UAMS is not consistent in how they mail things from year to year. A few years back it was that way, and a couple years farther back the envelopes were even color coded. Most recently they have done all large envelopes for their decision notifications, but the rejection ones were much thinner than the waitlist or acceptance ones since they were only a sheet of paper compared to the others that were packets. I didn't ask what they were planning on doing this year, but keep in mind that envelope size or color has been changed from year to year so just open the thing and find out rather than worrying about what it will look like when you open the mailbox.
What Bamfu said - Honors/Pass/Fail now for first and second year. Third year is letter grades. Fourth year switches back to Honors/Pass/Fail - I think that decision was based on the fact that everyone is taking electives fourth year and not everyone will be taking the same things.
There have been recent changes to the grading system. 1st and 2nd year
are now Pass/Fail/Honors, 3rd year
will remain ABCDF, 4th year
will remain Pass/Fail. There is no Honors in 4th year. The only change to the grading system is the first two years and this change was made in response to the fact that a lot of medical schools have moved in this direction and having a numerical GPA for the first two years has become a competitive disadvantage in the residency application process. Letter grades are helpful to residency programs for the 3rd year to see your relative strengths and weaknesses specialty wise, but the letter grades from M1 and M2 year really tell them nothing that Step 1 doesn't. UAMS admin has noticed that even applicants with strong Step 1 scores could be brought down in competitiveness by average GPAs and since a lot of other programs have gone to the Pass/Fail/Honors system it just made since to switch. 4th year is and always has been predominantly elective rotations and has never had Honors, but 4th year is not a year you worry about grades anyway since those are too late in the process to have an impact on your residency search. (In other words, you'll work hard at the beginning of 4th year but don't worry about the rest of it, it'll be a good experience.)
Good luck to all, I know receiving the letters soon is stressful but I wish you the best.
-Matt
