2013-2014 University of Massachusetts Application Thread

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GoPelicans said:
Sooo I interviewed months ago and still haven't heard anything... I'm at least finding solidarity that others are in the same position. For current students reading this thread, were any of you accepted after waiting 3+ months?
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I'm at 5 months! It has to be any time now, right?!
 
umass2017 said:
Hi there! I'm a second-year and I'm happy to answer your questions. I posted for last year's applicants, too, so you may want to check out my previous posts for more info.
1) The Pass/Fail curriculum is unranked for both FOM1 and FOM2. You will find out the median, SD, and mean for each block exam in your second year (can't remember if we got that first year) so you at least have a sense of where you are in comparison to the rest of the class, but students are not ranked against each other.
2) There are tons of research opportunities even if you have no research experience. The CTRP is kind of intense; if you're interested in it, please try to get in touch with a current student in the pathway so you can learn more about it. The Capstone requirement does not apply to students in CTRP because CTRP students are required to complete a Senior Scholars project, which is similar but not the same.
3) Capstone can be WHATEVER you want, literally. There are so many different projects people are doing, it's totally up to you. If you want to do research, you can do research.
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Thanks for the detailed response!

More questions (Sorry there are so many!)
1. Do most UMASS students take notes during lecture? If so, what methods are common (annotating printed PDFs, stylus on an IPAD, etc.)?

2. Do many first year students try to shadow physicians in the various specialties? Is this something that UMASS physicians are happy to allow?

3. What are the common study habits of UMASS students (I am sure it can vary widely). Average number of hours per week studying and in lecture?

4. Can you recall the Step 1 average?
 
crook.rook said:
Thanks for the detailed response!

More questions (Sorry there are so many!)
1. Do most UMASS students take notes during lecture? If so, what methods are common (annotating printed PDFs, stylus on an IPAD, etc.)?

2. Do many first year students try to shadow physicians in the various specialties? Is this something that UMASS physicians are happy to allow?

3. What are the common study habits of UMASS students (I am sure it can vary widely). Average number of hours per week studying and in lecture?

4. Can you recall the Step 1 average?
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1. It's hard to say how many people take notes during lecture - some lecturers have great notes in their ppts and so taking notes as you listen is not a big deal, some lecturers just have lots of pictures and few words so you have to scramble to take notes. Some people online shop in lecture. Some people don't go to lecture, and listen double speed later on. It really depends on your style. Some do the tablet thing, most just take notes on their laptops in OneNote or on pdfs. Everyone is required to have a laptop.

2. Lots of people shadow and it's a breeze to shadow pretty much any specialty you can image. Some of the interest groups set up formal sessions (emergency medicine has ED and Worcester EMS shadowing, ob/gyn has gyn oncology shadowing, etc). Every house also have specialty mentors whose job is to help you if you are interested in their specialty. You can contact your house dermatologist or gen. surgeon or whatever to set something up. Lecturers are another good source - many offer open invitations to shadow them. Super easy! And the nice thing about UMass is we're the only students here and pretty much everyone is happy to show us what they do (especially they pathologists - I think they get lonely...)

3. You're never going to get a straight answer on studying - super variable. I can tell you I study way more than I did in undergrad - maybe a couple hours on a typical week night and I do weekend power session 6-8 hours (usually one day or the other). Before exams - different story, you study til you can't study any more. Some people study way more (and make me feel like a slacker), and some people study way less (and make me feel stupid because they are geniuses)

4. Average Step 1 score... not off the top of my head. It was good though, above the national average, and on an upward trend over the past two years after the curriculum change - I'll dig around and see if I can find that presentation they showed us
 
crook.rook said:
Thanks for the detailed response!

More questions (Sorry there are so many!)
1. Do most UMASS students take notes during lecture? If so, what methods are common (annotating printed PDFs, stylus on an IPAD, etc.)?

2. Do many first year students try to shadow physicians in the various specialties? Is this something that UMASS physicians are happy to allow?

3. What are the common study habits of UMASS students (I am sure it can vary widely). Average number of hours per week studying and in lecture?

4. Can you recall the Step 1 average?
Click to expand...
I'll just quickly add to what my classmate said above (MYSTERY CLASSMATE, who are yooouuu????)

1: yep. notes on PDFs, notes in Word, notes on notebook paper, notes on iPad, whatever floats your boat. a lot of us tried a lot of different things in the first 6 months and settled for what worked best for us.

2. yep! shadowing is great. you don't have as much time to do it as you'd like, but it's easy-peasy to arrange. i got to shadow some really amazing things. you'll get lots of time in your Longitudinal Preceptor Program over your first 1.5 years to actually interview & examine outpatients, and then in the second year you also get to go interview & examine inpatients so you'll have some experience under your belt before 3rd year. there are also 6 free clinics (i think?) and you can volunteer at those to interview, examine, etc. those are much more fun than shadowing, i think, but you can at least get exposed to lots of different things and ways of practicing by shadowing.

3. study habits vary widely, as the other poster said. now in the end of 2nd year, i'd say about 1/3-1/2 of my class attends lecture regularly and the rest watch lectures on video at home/in the library. i usually go to every lecture and study very little until the week before an exam when i'll study for 2-3 hours/night until the 2 free days before when i study non-stop from waking to sleeping. i'm a bad example! you probably shouldn't start this way. but the trick of med school is figuring out exactly how much you need to do to pass, so....

4. I believe last year the Step 1 average was 233. Hopefully this year it'll be 260! Haha. *fingers crossed*
 
MedWonk said:
I wonder if I'll get some love tomorrow. Or at least someone else here. Just no rejection would be nice.
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I hope there is a big round of acceptances today. And then someone can create a Class of 2018 Facebook group, and we can start getting to know our future classmates!
 
crook.rook said:
I hope there is a big round of acceptances today. And then someone can create a Class of 2018 Facebook group, and we can start getting to know our future classmates!
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I like where this is going. Today is the day.
 
crook.rook said:
I hope there is a big round of acceptances today. And then someone can create a Class of 2018 Facebook group, and we can start getting to know our future classmates!
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If only... can't say I'm hopeful. But it would be a nice surprise!
 
Evidence Based said:
If only... can't say I'm hopeful. But it would be a nice surprise!
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I think you might be right...ahhh! I know they had another round of interviews yesterday, so maybe they don't meet during the week of interviews?
 
food2 said:
I think you might be right...ahhh! I know they had another round of interviews yesterday, so maybe they don't meet during the week of interviews?
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-_- That seems like every week! lol

Do you guys think that because of the MMI format they interviewed more candidates this year? I'm just curious.. MMI makes things really efficient for evaluating candidates so it's not out of the realm. The silence is slowly killing me.. I just check this thread obsessively hoping SOMEONE has heard back haha.

Also how receptive are they to update letters/Letters of interest?
 
hplssrmantcxox said:
-_- That seems like every week! lol

Do you guys think that because of the MMI format they interviewed more candidates this year? I'm just curious.. MMI makes things really efficient for evaluating candidates so it's not out of the realm. The silence is slowly killing me.. I just check this thread obsessively hoping SOMEONE has heard back haha.

Also how receptive are they to update letters/Letters of interest?
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I don't know that they necessarily interviewed MORE candidates, but I think they did mention (maybe someone can back me up on this...I might just be rationalizing) that because it's a new interview format this year, it may take a bit longer to get decisions back to everyone because they want to see how people do with MMI.
 
hplssrmantcxox said:
-_- That seems like every week! lol

Do you guys think that because of the MMI format they interviewed more candidates this year? I'm just curious.. MMI makes things really efficient for evaluating candidates so it's not out of the realm. The silence is slowly killing me.. I just check this thread obsessively hoping SOMEONE has heard back haha.

Also how receptive are they to update letters/Letters of interest?
Click to expand...

Hmm I didn't think of that. I interviewed last year and this year. I will say (though I'm not 100% as it was a while ago) that there were maybe 10 people in my group last year, with another group coming in the afternoon. This year I felt like the room we gathered in in the morning had at least 20 and there was still other groups to come later that day. Unless they are only interviewing one day a week this year it would seem (purely anecdotadly) that they are interviewing more people but who can say for sure. Either way this timeline seems just as consistent as past years so far, so I guess we just hang on for the ride and hope for the best!
 
Duff84 said:
Hmm I didn't think of that. I interviewed last year and this year. I will say (though I'm not 100% as it was a while ago) that there were maybe 10 people in my group last year, with another group coming in the afternoon. This year I felt like the room we gathered in in the morning had at least 20 and there was still other groups to come later that day. Unless they are only interviewing one day a week this year it would seem (purely anecdotadly) that they are interviewing more people but who can say for sure. Either way this timeline seems just as consistent as past years so far, so I guess we just hang on for the ride and hope for the best!
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Generally schools that do MMI hold fewer interview days just because of the logistical issue of getting 8 interviewers to gather in the same place at the same time for an hour. I imagine they are interviewing relatively the same number of ppl as previous years, but just on fewer days this year.
 
Duff84 said:
Hmm I didn't think of that. I interviewed last year and this year. I will say (though I'm not 100% as it was a while ago) that there were maybe 10 people in my group last year, with another group coming in the afternoon. This year I felt like the room we gathered in in the morning had at least 20 and there was still other groups to come later that day. Unless they are only interviewing one day a week this year it would seem (purely anecdotadly) that they are interviewing more people but who can say for sure. Either way this timeline seems just as consistent as past years so far, so I guess we just hang on for the ride and hope for the best!
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There were two rooms of 16 kids each when I interviewed (one room was MD/PhD candidates, the other was the MD only interview room) and I'm pretty sure they also had another interview day the day before mine... Oy. Maybe they did interview more people...
 
GoPelicans has a point though, it can't be easy for them to organize all the staff it takes to make the day run so smoothly for multiple days per week, multiple weeks per month. So it could all even out in the end. In any case it's out of our control and it's hard waiting but as long as I know my application is given its fair share, that's all I can ask for...
 
hplssrmantcxox said:
There were two rooms of 16 kids each when I interviewed (one room was MD/PhD candidates, the other was the MD only interview room) and I'm pretty sure they also had another interview day the day before mine... Oy. Maybe they did interview more people...
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I would bet the day before was the first day of the MD/PhD interviews. Those are usually 2 days of interviews from what I hear
 
Did anyone else who interviewed on 1/23 hear back from UMass yet? I know some people have heard as early as 2 weeks after their interview, so I just want to know if any one has been lucky from my interview round yet...
 
dochm said:
Did anyone else who interviewed on 1/23 hear back from UMass yet? I know some people have heard as early as 2 weeks after their interview, so I just want to know if any one has been lucky from my interview round yet...
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I interviewed on 1/23 and heard back on 1/31. Sorry you're still waiting - Hope you get some good news soon!
 
Anyone interviewing next Tuesday?? Also, does anyone know what the typical interview day is like? Tour first? Then MMIs? Trying to get an idea of what to expect... I'm so nervous and excited! eeeeek!
 
letmein222 said:
Anyone interviewing next Tuesday?? Also, does anyone know what the typical interview day is like? Tour first? Then MMIs? Trying to get an idea of what to expect... I'm so nervous and excited! eeeeek!
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I'm interviewing next Tuesday. I don't know the setup for the entire day but when I called to find out how late it will go, I was told that I'm doing the 2nd round of MMI. Maybe someone who has already done their interview can give us more info.
 
On my day there were three groups. I was in the third group, and I believe I had to be there ~11am. I checked in, was given a packet and a few forms to sign, and then we had lunch and presentations. Next we had a student tour, followed by sitting in on a lecture. We didn't actually start the MMI until almost 4 I think.
 
dochm said:
Did anyone else who interviewed on 1/23 hear back from UMass yet? I know some people have heard as early as 2 weeks after their interview, so I just want to know if any one has been lucky from my interview round yet...
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I interviewed Dec. 5 and no word, my friend interviewed October 9 and no word.... It's gonna be a very long time for us. Sigh
 
crazze2000 said:
I'm interviewing next Tuesday. I don't know the setup for the entire day but when I called to find out how late it will go, I was told that I'm doing the 2nd round of MMI. Maybe someone who has already done their interview can give us more info.
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Sorry I was in the first group but I can tell you about my day: arrived by 9am, quick intro/orientation to the MMI. Then we jumped right into the MMI portion, then lunch which included presentations about curriculum, financial aid, and student life, then a quick tour and I was done by early afternoon (2'ish maybe?) I think the second group was with us too so arrive 9am, it was just that they had the tour portion first, then lunch, then MMI? Maybe someone who was in one of those groups will jump in but I think that is how it went. I know first group did not get to sit in on lecture.
 
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surely said:
GAHHH! Received II on 12/17, interviewed on 1/23, accepted today!! This... this has to be a mistake!

Future applicants, if you don't hear from UMass for months after submitting, it apparently doesn't mean they aren't interested in you. I didn't get my II until 12/17 and still had an 8-day turn-around for my acceptance post-interview. Wow.
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Congratulations! If interviewed on 1/23, then we must have been in the same group or at least crossed each other at lunch! congratulations!
 
hplssrmantcxox said:
I interviewed Dec. 5 and no word, my friend interviewed October 9 and no word.... It's gonna be a very long time for us. Sigh
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I have a friend who interviewed on 10/9 as well and no word for him either...and his stats are exceptional
 
AxiomaticTruth said:
So what does silence mean? I had an interview with UMass all the way in September but still have not heard back. Sent in numerous update letters and letters of intent setting UMass as my #1 school, but still nothing. I mean I would understand if they sent most of their acceptances later this year, but it seems like many of us are getting acceptances in the typical ~1 month post-interview. Is this a silent rejection?
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Like i say to my other waiting friends...you are not rejected until you are rejected. so keep those fingers crossed!
 
surely said:
GAHHH! Received II on 12/17, interviewed on 1/23, accepted today!! This... this has to be a mistake!

Future applicants, if you don't hear from UMass for months after submitting, it apparently doesn't mean they aren't interested in you. I didn't get my II until 12/17 and still had an 8-day turn-around for my acceptance post-interview. Wow.
Click to expand...

So happy and jealous at the same time! Congrats! Hopefully i can say the same...soon
 
I found the day really enjoyable and one of the best thought out interview days.
The financial aid presentation was concise and they took time to explain the MMI.

The MMI proctors were mostly fantastic and seemed to be a well thought out, eclectic mix
 
I hope my endless steam of questions to current students don't become bothersome!

How useful will a home office will be? Typically, I am a solitary studier so I want to have the option of my own, quite place to retreat to. I was thinking about getting a large monitor to plug my laptop into for the never-ending hours of powerpoints, a comfortable chair, noise canceling head phones, etc.

Any other suggestions on what else would be useful to purchase before school starts? I know there are a few threads out there that cover this, but I'm more interested in the perspective of UMASS students. Many thanks!
 
Hi guys, I heard on the grapevine that they have been sending a few acceptances each week for the past several weeks. The initial class should be full by the end of April, and then waitlists/rejections come out (like in previous years). Wishing you all the best.
 
Bruits said:
Hi guys, I heard on the grapevine that they have been sending a few acceptances each week for the past several weeks. The initial class should be full by the end of April, and then waitlists/rejections come out (like in previous years). Wishing you all the best.
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Thanks for the info! Past several weeks, as in past 15 or past 5? 😛
 
Guys, keep the faith! I interviewed at UMass in late October in my application year and did not hear back from them until early March. The admissions committee here is slow and methodical. Also, as a state school, they cannot over-accept like some other schools do because the class size is capped. More acceptances will go out as students commit to other school (...although why they'd be crazy enough to do that, I don't know!). Not hearing anything is not a silent rejection!
 
crook.rook said:
I hope my endless steam of questions to current students don't become bothersome!

How useful will a home office will be? Typically, I am a solitary studier so I want to have the option of my own, quite place to retreat to. I was thinking about getting a large monitor to plug my laptop into for the never-ending hours of powerpoints, a comfortable chair, noise canceling head phones, etc.

Any other suggestions on what else would be useful to purchase before school starts? I know there are a few threads out there that cover this, but I'm more interested in the perspective of UMASS students. Many thanks!
Click to expand...


It's really up to you! Some people set up nice home study spaces. I find that I can't study at home because I get distracted... like right now haha... so I head into school. There is PLENTY of study space around the school. Conference rooms, learning community rooms, big open rooms in the library, study carrels in the library, the gym... you just have to figure out what works for you.

As a general rule: Don't buy too much before medical school. Whatever school you end up going to will let you know what you need in terms of supplies. For books and the like, you can often get free or reduced price copies from MS2-4 or the library! Also, for you folks on a budget, once you get your UMass email accounts, come April there will be hundred of emails from 4th years selling the contents of their apartments and libraries as they get ready to move for residency. You can pick up furniture, kitchen stuff, baby supplies, books, you name it, for very reasonable prices!
 
Bruits said:
Hi guys, I heard on the grapevine that they have been sending a few acceptances each week for the past several weeks. The initial class should be full by the end of April, and then waitlists/rejections come out (like in previous years). Wishing you all the best.
Click to expand...

Do you know how many spots have been given out? Like, have they filled only a quarter and are sending out a huge batch in March? Or is it more like they've steadily been giving them out and they're at 75% full (so if you interviewed earlier then you've been passed over)?
 
How I feel after opening up my inbox today
YouGetNothing.jpg
 
McMeowerson said:
Do you know how many spots have been given out? Like, have they filled only a quarter and are sending out a huge batch in March? Or is it more like they've steadily been giving them out and they're at 75% full (so if you interviewed earlier then you've been passed over)?
Click to expand...

IDK any hard numbers, but I got the feeling that more than half of the initial acceptances have gone out at this point. The silence in this thread is a little weird, but maybe those people with acceptances are just not posting on SDN.
 
Congratulations to the recently accepted!!! I look forward to meeting you all in August.

Someone should step up and create a facebook group for the class of 2018 🙂 (I'm facebook illiterate for the most part)
 
I think I'm going to sign off of SDN for the rest of the cycle. Checking this thread constantly is just causing stress and doesn't help... Good luck everyone!
 
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