2014-2015 Applicants: What school(s) do you regret applying/not applying to?

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I personally think I constructed my school list very well. However, if I were to go back and change anything, I would have dropped Vermont. From the time my secondary and letters were sent in all the way up until I withdrew 3.5 months later, they didnt even mark me as "complete". What a waste of time, effort, and money on my part. LizzyM 75
 
WedgeDawg said:
I personally think I constructed my school list very well. However, if I were to go back and change anything, I would have dropped Vermont. From the time my secondary and letters were sent in all the way up until I withdrew 3.5 months later, they didnt even mark me as "complete". What a waste of time, effort, and money on my part. LizzyM 75
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Ha I have a 75 LizzyM and am currently trying to decide whether or not to drop Vermont so that was very helpful!
 
LizzyM ~74, CA resident. I regret applying to Oregon, U Wisconsin because they don't take many OOS people. I regret applying to Brown, because the prefer their own undergrads. I regret applying to Stanford and Duke because I had no business applying there. I regret applying to Tufts because too many people apply there. And I wish I had applied to more mid-tier schools. (I haven't been accepted....on 1 waitlist).
 
Regret applying to:
Penn State
George Washington
Tufts
NYU
Pittsburgh
Brown

Wished I applied to (LizzyM too low, except for Loyola):
Hopkins
Northwestern
Loyola
Harvard
Yale

But, really no regrets because I got into the top school on the list of schools I did apply but it would have been fun to have more options. lol.
 
LizzyM 73, wish I skipped applying to all the low yield schools in philly, DC and NYC ( that location tho!). Gonna be a Dr in 4 years though so I can't complain too much. Wish I had cast a wider net as far as locations (Chicago, for example).
 
LizzyM ~73, but with very strong research and leadership backgrounds.
Regret not applying to Yale, Hopkins, Penn, WashU, Columbia, Stanford.
 
Regret applying to: Drexel (what a disaster), Dartmouth (non-traditional), Vermont ($$$), Penn State
Regret not applying to: schools in the 10-30 range. NYU, Northwestern, Sinai, Einstein, Pittsburg, Vanderbilt.....
 
I regret applying to the New Jersey schools because their low OOS acceptance rates and because I don't really like the areas any of them are in anyway. Also regret applying to Drexel because the interview day was awful and I ended up withdrawing immediately after.

I regret not applying to stronger programs like Sinai, NYU, Cornell, Pittsburgh etc because my Lizzy is competitive for them.
 
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I regret not applying to Hopkins. LizzyM is a low 70 but my dad is a med school alumnus and completed his residency there. I just felt bad trying to play the legacy card so I skipped applying there but I know someone who's stats really are almost the same as mine and he got in. Now I regret applying to Drexel and completing that rediculous secondary they had.
 
You're basically going to get a lot of replies from people that were rejected from schools, and a lot of people that wish they applied to <top 5> despite being in like the bottom 10% of accepted stats. If they actually applied they would say they wish they hadn't since it was a reach, but I digress.

I wish I hadn't applied to Georgetown and Boston university (had no compelling reason to go, and they have absurd numbers of applicants).

I also regret applying to so many UCs because again, much less predictable compared to OOS, and outside of UCSD you don't really get that "California weather" swagger. It's good, just not like what you see on TV. The CoA difference is insignificant compared to many other top schools generous aid offers.

I wish I hadn't applied to mayo, as in retrospect I wouldn't have wanted to attend even if accepted (REALLY cold + class size of 40 = eh.)

I wish I applied to more top 20s, as oddly enough I received more interviews from there (as a %) compared to below top 20.

I wish I had been accepted by Baylor.

LizzyM ~~80.

@Eppur Si Muove my grandpa on my mom's side literally has his surname (and his family did indeed donate the money) on a school I applied to but I didn't play the card. Even though I was waitlisted I'm glad I didn't since I want to get in on my own merits. You don't want to get in and then develop an intense case of imposter syndrome.
 
resiroth said:
@Eppur Si Muove my grandpa on my mom's side literally has his surname (and his family did indeed donate the money) on a school I applied to but I didn't play the card. Even though I was waitlisted I'm glad I didn't since I want to get in on my own merits. You don't want to get in and then develop an intense case of imposter syndrome.
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Well, they waitlisted you so they think you can duke it out there. Might as well play the card now if you actually care about it.

Haha, email the dean a pic of you and your grandfather.
 
Eppur Si Muove said:
I regret not applying to Hopkins. LizzyM is a low 70 but my dad is a med school alumnus and completed his residency there. I just felt bad trying to play the legacy card so I skipped applying there but I know someone who's stats really are almost the same as mine and he got in. Now I regret applying to Drexel and completing that rediculous secondary they had.
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resiroth said:
You're basically going to get a lot of replies from people that were rejected from schools, and a lot of people that wish they applied to <top 5> despite being in like the bottom 10% of accepted stats. If they actually applied they would say they wish they hadn't since it was a reach, but I digress.

I wish I hadn't applied to Georgetown and Boston university (had no compelling reason to go, and they have absurd numbers of applicants).

I also regret applying to so many UCs because again, much less predictable compared to OOS, and outside of UCSD you don't really get that "California weather" swagger. It's good, just not like what you see on TV. The CoA difference is insignificant compared to many other top schools generous aid offers.

I wish I hadn't applied to mayo, as in retrospect I wouldn't have wanted to attend even if accepted (REALLY cold + class size of 40 = eh.)

I wish I applied to more top 20s, as oddly enough I received more interviews from there (as a %) compared to below top 20.

I wish I had been accepted by Baylor.

LizzyM ~~80.

@Eppur Si Muove my grandpa on my mom's side literally has his surname (and his family did indeed donate the money) on a school I applied to but I didn't play the card. Even though I was waitlisted I'm glad I didn't since I want to get in on my own merits. You don't want to get in and then develop an intense case of imposter syndrome.
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I think the "legacy card" is highly-overrated. A friend of mine applied to a school that had received millions of dollars in donations from his parents. The result was a courtesy interview followed by a rejection. Notably, he had a 75+ LizzyM (IIRC) and actually ended up at a higher ranked school.

Be glad that you didn't play that card. There is no guarantee you would have been accepted. And, in fact, you likely ended up saving time and money by not being invited for an interview.

-Bill
 
I regret applying to Georgetown and Drexel. I discovered that both of those schools were absolutely horrendous pretty fast on interview day.
 
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Good question!
I have a 72 and I actually got an post-interview rejection and an acceptance at the top 2 and 3 ranked schools I applied to that I thought I wasn't going to get interviews to. One was Boston and the other was Cincinnati. It makes me wonder where else I may have gotten an interview had I applied to more reaches. (The top school was Michigan and I didn't get an interview which after seeing the stats of all my other medical school friends who didn't get in, feel was we,l within reason). That all being said, I don't really wish I'd have applied to many more schools because at the end of the day, Wayne State (my school) was the next best option in state in terms of establishment, clinical experience, tuition, location (I like Detroit) and research (with all due respect to OUWB and MSUCHM which are both excellent MD programs that have now proven to match well). I'd rather have paid in state tuition here than actually attend BU or Cincinnati which are schools that are more highly ranked becauss ranking does very little for me as I don't see myself pursuing only academic medicine. However, there are a few select schools I may have applied to. For example, I may have considering filling out TMSDAS or whatever it's called for a chance at getting into a Texas school with less tuition (Baylor would have been a dream, but it probably wouldn't have happened). However, it's easy to say I should have done all that now. Back in the day, I was overwhelmed enough as it was with mcat, classes, getting the app,I cations done. Also, I think the only other school I wish I'd have applied to was OSU because I was on the borderline and their tuition wasn't really that bad. I just didn't have it on my original list because I applied more conservatively I guess (rosy frank/rush/mcw, and other OOS privates).


Edit: I was 2013-14
 
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I actually also regret applying to quinnipiac.
I realized that there's no way that I'd want to go to a new school since I'm not interested in primary care. It was a bad fit and I couldn't even feign interest during the interview...


So it goes.

Oh, also drexel. Their secondary process was a nightmare. UVM was super slow as well, but I'd still have applied there since the school is good.
 
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ridethecliche said:
I actually also regret applying to quinnipiac.
I realized that there's no way that I'd want to go to a new school since I'm not interested in primary care. It was a bad fit and I couldn't even feign interest during the interview...


So it goes
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I would have felt the same way about Quinnipiac if I interviewed there (though there are some pretty amazing new MD schools). Funny thing is they're supposedly trying to get away from their "primary care image" by recruiting more applicants who are interested in ROAD specialities.
 
LadyYahya said:
For those that regret applying to Duke can you say why?
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Witness the chaos that is the 2014-2015 school specific thread.

Long story short, many people waiting to hear back post-interview entered this weird "limbo status" in late February or March. Some had been accepted via phone call, others via snail mail. Some people got rejected or waitlisted. Some people got nothing. Some of the people who heard nothing called the admissions office, and were assured that all waitlist and rejection notifications had already gone out. These people should have been accepted, right? Wrong. They got rejections a few days later.

Some people got multiple acceptance letters. A few were rejected two or even three times. Some that were rejected in early March later received notification that they were now on the waitlist. In short, they Duked it up.

--
As for my experience, I am very glad I did not apply to Duke. 😉

I wish I had applied to Vanderbilt, WashU, and possibly Penn. I applied to all of my state schools, but in hindsight, I would have removed a couple of the in-state schools with lower stats and less desirable locations from my list.

I regret applying to University of Washington and OHSU for their low out-of-state acceptance rates, and also because of OHSU's extremely long secondary and their incredibly slow communication process.

I will echo someone else's opinion that they should they should have applied to fewer UCs - except I probably would have kept the places with "worse" weather (UCSF and Davis), and eliminated Irvine and Riverside.

My LizzyM is 80, and I am an Ohio resident who went to undergrad in California.
 
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TheRhymenocerous said:
Care to share any in particular? I also have a 75 LizzyM and am trying to cull my list of "safeties."
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The system is far too complex to predict anything. That's a high LizzyM and if I were in your position, I'd apply to all in state schools you can bear attending. The ones I wouldn't apply to would be:


1. University of Illinois (tuition/high IS preference)
2. University of Colorado (tuition/ high I state preference/poor communication with office of admissions)
3. OHSU (poor communication with office of admissions/school didn't seem to be looking for candidates like me)
4. Drexel (after talking to numerous people, they said this program seemed disorganized)
5. Georgetown (after talking to numerous people, people say this program seemed miserable)
6. MUSC (literally wasted my money here, on the secondary I was asked what ties I had, and the when I called the admissions office, the lady was like where are you from, Georgia? Florida? and I was like MI and she was like, oh my goodness, what's your motivation for coming here? ..not even kidding)

The good ones though are OOS mid to lower tier privates as back ups. I got love from two with a 72 LizzyM:

1. Rosalind Franklin
2. Rush
3. MCW
4. University of Toledo (that's private right?)
5. Boston University
6. U Wisconsin (not OOS, but decent tuition)
7. OSU (not OOS, but decent tuition)
8. U of Cincinnati
9. U Miami (not great correspondence but OK tuition and seems like a solid school).


Why these? Because they all either are solid programs or have admissions officers that actually correspond well with OOS students in the sense that they send out timely updates).
 
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I am so happy that I applied to Oakland U William Beaumont. I had never heard of it before, and it was a last minute addition. It is a tremendous school, and I am very happy I applied there.

Very transparent and helpful staff, great curriculum, kind students, and generous fin aid
 
LizzyM 72, AZ resident

I decided not to finish secondaries for NYU (too much of a reach) and Georgetown ($$$, thousands of applicants, and a stupid essay format). I regret applying there and to Drexel, where I got put "on hold" after waiting weeks to get my link to the secondary. With all the crap I've heard about them, I'm not exactly sad to be rejected from Drexel.

I got an II from Ohio State despite my MCAT being a few points below their average, so I wish I had applied to more top 40 schools. Ultimately, my one regret was being complete in September, which meant I waited for my acceptance for a long time. Submit early!!
 
can someone explain the drexel hate please?
 
I regret applying to too many OOS public med schools. My state only has one public option so I was bound to apply to OOS state schools however I went with the University of ________ method (bad method) when looking up programs. I just should have applied to more that didn't have instate preferences.

I will say the couple of mid tier private schools I added late after I started using SDN were great choices. There were just so many better schools for me in terms of curriculum and personality that I just did not know existed.
 
I wish I would have applied a LITTLE more top heavy. I didn't realize how competitive I was at schools in the Top 30 and 50 so I wish I would have applied to less of those and thrown in a couple more Top 15s.

Ones I wish I would have thrown into the mix: Stanford (the bay area is gorgeous), Yale (chillest curriculum on the planet), and NYU (gives full ride scholarships and you get to live in NYC)
-In this category I would also say I wish I wouldn't have preemptively withdrawn from Mt. Sinai and I wish I would have attended my UCSD interview

Ones I didn't have in the mix and still wouldn't: Penn (bring back your office of diversity and maybe we'll talk), Duke (go Heels), and Michigan (*plays Notre Dame fight song*)

You might think sports affiliations are a dumb reason to not apply to a medical school but my soul would be dead inside if I had the duke D anywhere on my body for 4 years 🤣
 
I should have gone early decision on my dream school, given how easily I got in (I got one of the first interview spots and one of the first acceptances). I made the right choice to apply to only 8 schools (I got into 2 of them so far and I am wait-listed at a third), but even now, of the 8 I applied to, 5 of them rejected me pre-interview, while I breezed right into my dream school 🙂 Could have saved a lot of money...
 
TheRhymenocerous said:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/inclusion-and-diversity/
?
Click to expand...

Yes it's there but it's a shell of the Office for Diversity and Community Outreach which had been around since 1968 and was the oldest med diversity office in the country. It was shut down in summer 2012 (June 29th). That's why this office is a part of "Penn Medicine’s five-year strategic plan 2013-2017" - I hope they can bring it back to what it used to be. #nohate but that's why I didn't apply there.
 
I applied to two historic black schools - Howard I think and some other one that started with M.

I only applied to 6 schools because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be accepted but I got into my number one choice school - so lucky...
Score 73.
 
Fun thread idea! But like others have said it's going to be super biased based on the outcomes. My LizzyM is <70

Regret applying to: Georgetown, BU, SLU, Drexel, Temple, Tulane, Rush, Brown (too many people applying/low yield), Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Baylor (OOS and not competitive enough), Creighton (why did I do that?), Penn (added this one late after getting lucky with IIs at Columbia and Duke).

Also thinking about it I should not have applied to Nebraska, despite being accepted there, or Mizzou despite interviewing there. These locations really did not appeal to me and I knew that from the get go, but was pretty unsure about how this would go! I actually don't regret applying to Duke, but they really messed up this cycle.

I actually wish I would have applied more top heavy since 25% of my IIs were at Hail Mary schools. Maybe Yale, Penn (on time), Cornell, or Mount Sinai. I was weary of applications that used the Amp application interface since I felt that it was a fast track to the reject pile.

Good luck! I really don't think the word 'safety' applies for the majority of people (unless it is your state school). It's hard when you're in that stage to be able to guess how things will turn out, and it's tough parting with $50-$130 at a time for secondaries.
 
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I regret applying to Northwestern. It wasn't originally on my list because my stats were way under, but I'm an alum, and they sent me a letter saying that they confidently encouraged me to apply and also waived my application fee. Then they rejected me at the end of the cycle. Wasted my time (fortunately not money) writing 6 perfect essays.

Honestly, that's probably the only school I regret applying to. You never know whats going to happen, and I'm headed to a school that immediately became my first choice after interviewing there but I almost didn't apply to. Apply broadly: these are good regrets to have.
 
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